Dragon Issue 111: July 1986
part 1/4
108 pages. Another month, and they continue their drive to regroup and reorganize their staff. Roger Moore has left the Ares section to become the head editor at Dungeon magazine. Meanwhile, they are encouraging their artists to make more money by reprinting cover art as posters. More money for the same amount of work. Hopefully this will mean they'll be amenable to reprinting the art in later D&D books
In this issue:
Letters: A letter asking if dust of appearance disrupts a displacer beast's displacement. The answer is a very definite yes.
A letter about sexism. Two actually. The first involves the barbarian cleric and if women can become one, due to it's exclusive use of masculine pronouns. The other is from a female reader who would prefer more equal opportunity cheesecake. Ahh, the perennial sexism problem. Still a long way to go to equality. Any time now we'll be getting another women in gaming article. Ho hum.
The forum: David M Axler has a bunch of quibbles about the weather article from issue 108. Everyone's an expert. It's almost as bad as the stats for gods arguments.
Andy Price talks about talks about the nature of magic. If the gods are really infinitely powerful, granting spells should be no problem for them, regardless of where in the universe they are. I think that's where the flaw in your logic is. You have read the current god rules for D&D.
Jaldhar Uyas thinks that locals aren't all yokels was a dumb and unsubtle article. There are better ways to encourage investment in the world than making every third NPC 15th level. Is that a strawman I see here? You exaggerate the position of your opponent.
Scott Paul Maykrantz thinks UA sucks and will not be buying it or allowing stuff from it in his games. From everything he's seen, the new additions are a bunch of crap. Take that, T$R! Charming.
Good stuff, for a spell: Hmm. Magical items that allow you to spontaneously convert your memorized spells into spell energy, which when channeled through the item, produces some other spell. What a novel idea. This is an exceedingly prescient article, presenting a whole different way of balancing your characters capabilities by making sure their items are linked to their own powers, rather than working constantly, a fixed number of times a day, or running out after a while. As a direct ancestor of both 3e cleric's spontaneous conversion, and weapons of legend, this is definitely one for the files. As the writer himself says, this idea is like inventing the wheel, once you've done it, you can apply it to all sorts of situations, and are amazed no-one thought of it before. And so design technology takes another step towards the present day. A pretty damn good way to start the issue.
Welcome to Malachi: They get hinted at occasionally, but you don't get to see inside them as often as I'd like. Other people's campaigns are a ripe source of articles, as they can be much more specific and take a definite stand on topics that a generic article is likely to end up sitting on the fence over. But only Ed has managed to go from articles sent in independently to a fully detailed published campaign world, and he's a massive outlier. Well it's a tricky route to take. Let me tell you about my campaign world is only one step up from let me tell you about my character. It takes a special kind of storyteller to keep tales like that interesting for long.
Anyway, this is an example of what you can do to a city when spellcasters are common, and fully integrated into the infrastructure of the world. Clerics take the lead, revolutionizing health and living standards, while magic-users provide all kinds of expensive (but hopefully long-lasting) luxury items. Spell component vendors make a tidy profit selling to both, and adventurers can make good money by offloading all those monster pieces to them. This is the kind of conceptualizing I am strongly in favour of, interlocking the rules and setting to create a world that runs off it's own internal logic, and develops and reacts accordingly. The writer has developed this place through several years of actual play, and has lots more data on it to send to the magazine if it's readers are interested. (hint hint) This is a pretty nice article, full of fun ideas and tips for you to steal and adapt to your own game. This is the kind of thing I'd definitely like to see more of in the magazine.
DUNGEON™. Adventures: Roger Moore talks about his new job, being the head editor of Dungeon magazine. A definite step up from running the Ares section. And what he wants from you guys who are thinking of sending in submissions. D&D modules only, no more than 16 pages, send a proposal first, typewriting and SASE essential, you must surrender all rights to us, we pay flat fees not royalties, absolutely NO greyhawk stuff will be considered (because Gary owns that, and we're currently in backstage wrangling with him, but we mustn't mention that) and tons of other regulations to wade through. The kind of deal that frankly, I wouldn't sign with an 11 foot pole unless it had the potential of making me millions, and in that case I'd be engaging in hardball negotiations to improve it. (plus if I could produce a legible signature writing with an 11 foot pole, I'd be using my amazing dexterity to other ends) Oh well, that was standard back then, and all I can do is try to avoid falling into the same trap. And I suppose money from any source is better than no money. You've gotta love the job to do it, because you're never getting rich from it. Man, I wonder why I bother sometimes. Sorry about the cynicism. Just another reminder that the underside of the creative process is an ugly business. Best just to enjoy the flowers produced instead of sniffing the manure it comes from.