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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 4452380" data-attributes="member: 27780">The Dragon issue 1: June 1976So here we are. The prelude is over, the warming up has finished, It's time to begin running this marathon in earnest. At 32 pages and $1.50, they expand yet again. Some terrible color choices here. Pale yellow-green text on bright pinky-orange background does not make for legible teaser text. While the art is better than the  last SR issue, there is still extensive amounts of white space on the cover, and the dragon looks somewhat cartoonish. But then again, I seem to remember seeing early 80's books with similar art, so I suspect that style will be with us for quite a while. It opens with an editorial spelling out their new intentions - to cease being a house organ (which of course they did successfully for over 20 years before WotC swallowed them up again) but instead to cover the whole roleplaying scene. Rates for articles and artwork coming next issue. Another massive historical change is the need for stamped self addressed envelopes. In this era of ubiquitous computers and quick easy copying, we forget that only a few decades ago, you had to make every copy of an amateur work yourself, and often people would send off their only copy to places. In this issue:  Fafhrd and the grey mouser give their idiosyncratic opinion on roleplaying and the idea of other people playing in their world. A classic of the "pretend that characters are real in another dimension, and the author is merely writing down their stories" trope that would be used by many D&D authors in the future. Dirt comic continues.Converting the battle of the 5 armies from the hobbit to chainmail. A decidedly arcane method of determining odds of success at a general task based on your attribute. Yeah, I can see why this one never caught on, compared to the simple roll d20 under attribute, possibly with modifiers, that most of us used. Putting superscience into D&D: No real discussion of logistics or the cool issues that could arise from this here. Essentially just an excuse for jim ward to give us a load of  *cough*magic*cough technological devices with a vague backstory about atlanteans. Hey, its a trick that'll work three decades later in Mage. Don't knock it. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> Some discussions on language in D&D. Does feel very dated, and suffers somewhat from the humans are the only race with different languages problem. Features a cleric who was granted the ability to speak Were-St-Bernard, but who has never actually met a Were-St-Bernard to speak it too, which says it all really. Fiction: The search for the forbidden chamber by Jake Jaquet. The trope of wizards with metaawareness continues in this silly little tale, featuring a recyclosarus, and whole load of other references and in-jokes. A 4 page spread of tournament rules for Gen-con 9 by Len Lakofka. Bullettes! Another monster that barely changed at all throughout editions, Cause what's not to love about a shark that can burrow through the ground with its fin out and then leap out and rip you to shreds. Plus it doesn't have any mechanical kinks that need nerfing, just straightforward combat skills. Hints on mapping wilderness areas. Another thing that seems to have reduced in focus in recent years, but is still good advice that is still valid now. An expansion for illusionists by Peter Aronson, bringing them up to 14th level and 7th level spells. Introduces those lovely annoyances color spray, phantasmal killer and dispel exhaustion, among others. Now you know who to blame. Expansions for Royal armies of the hyperborean age, and Dungeon! Pimping for "Classic warfare", "Citadel", and "White bear and Red Moon". Fiction: The Gnome Cache by Garrison Ernst. The first piece of fiction set in Oerth, and immediately I learn some stuff about it I never knew before. Ends on a too be continued, and I'm already interested in seeing what happens next, how Greyhawk developed while it was still young and vital. An attempt to convert LOTR elves to D&D. Sylvan elves are common and magically nerfed, sindar are equal to standard D&D elves, while Noldor are twinked out. As you may gather, there is no attempt at balance at all. The number of adverts continues to increase, but more welcomingly, the amount of fiction has as well. With the use of articles by freelancers, the tone definitely feels a lot more diverse. There is a quite substantial quotient of silliness, and it's obvious that many readers found the tropes of the day as lampoonable as we do. The days when things like the ecology of monsters and realistic ramifications of spells on society would become discussed are still some time away.</blockquote>

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