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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 4453517" data-attributes="member: 27780">The Dragon issue 2: August 1976 Another step upwards in production values takes place here, a full color cover, and the first internal color art as well. Along with that, the confidence of the editorial staff seems to be growing. They've found a basic formula, and now they're refining it. Quite a few of the regular features are still missing, but they're putting more articles that span multiple issues in now, with the expectation that people are buying multiple successive issues to get the full story. Which means those bugbears Continuity and Metaplot begin their slow growth into the monsters that would entwine their tentacles around and inside the 90's, violating so many peoples play experiences, here. In this issue. A formal arena fighting system for monks. Essentially an entirely different system of combat based around selecting a sequence of fighting moves (6 in a row, which reminds me of burning wheels scripted combat.) and then consulting a table which makes certain moves effective or useless against other ones, rock paper scissors stylee, and seeing how each sequence turns out. This is basically its own self contained minigame, and looks like it could be quite fun, as it involves far less luck than regular D&D combat, but more ability to second guess your opponent, and is a lot more tactical. I'd definitely like to try it sometime.The second installment of The Gnome Cache and the conclusion of the Search for the Forbidden Chamber. The contrast between these two stories is quite striking, when looked at in succession and shows that people were already playing the game with very different tones. Hints for dungeon construction, with a particular emphasis on traps and tricks. Adventurers should never trust magic items in old-school games. You never know when one of them is going to explode or curse you with something embaressing. Fiction: Shadow of a demon by Gardner F Fox. Some very old skool (and rather mysogynistic) swords and sorcery, with some wonderfully florid prose. A real guilty pleasure to read. Their habit of continuing articles several pages becomes really irritating when reading in .pdf, howeverSome stuff on Queztalcoatal and aztec culture. Completely systemless, and rather dry. Remorhaz! With classic Erol Otus artwork!  Another iconic weird D&D monster gets its start here. Finally, a new class that never caught on. The alchemist. That perennial problem of being too dependent on downtime and components makes them ill suited to adventuring (although someone really could do something that does for alchemists what indiana jones did for archeology, as seeking out rare formulae and components is a very adventurable process) and so that is quite understandable. More Dirt.A weapons specialisation and two weapon fighting system. Oh yes, another optional rule granting additional powers with no drawbacks. Not that it really balances fighters in comparison to all the amazing things spellcasters can do at high levels. But we've got to give the fighter players some choice to keep them from getting bored. Otherwise we'd lose our meat shields, and that would be no good now, would 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=";)" /> .An advert for Gods, Demigods and Heroes, billed as "The Last D&D Supplement!?!" (Ahahahahaha!!!!! ahem) Already feel like your're scraping the bottom of the barrel folks? Fear not. You will scrape many a barrel more before your time is up. Lots of good fiction in this one, but the rules stuff isn't as well integrated as in previous issues. Still not a lot of actual setting, just whatever is nececary for the adventure.</blockquote>

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