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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 4464042" data-attributes="member: 27780">The Dragon Issue 11: December 197738 pages. The board game fun continues in this issue, with snit smashing getting a sequel. Even more importantly, we get the first rumblings about AD&D, with the monster manual coming soon, and lots of resulting promotion for it. (odd that the monster book should be released before the players and DM's books. Still, I guess all the monsters were compatible with OD&D rules. ) On top of that, we have the first official D&D novel coming soon, by Andre Norton! (excuse me while I have a fanboy moment here) of all people. On top of that, they have new staff, and thanks to that, and their still increasing sales, dragon will be going monthly very shortly. That was quick. Just 3 years to go from quarterly to the monthly schedule most of us remember. Now the only way up is in the page count. In this issue: View from the telescope: Gary blasts people trying to copy their work, or produce material compatible with D&D without permission. (a bit rich when you consider the hassle they had with hobbits and cthulhu) Quality control must be maintained! We do not produce shoddy rushed work just to make a quick buck! (yeah, I know. How long was the publishing gap between the 3 AD&D corebooks? <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> ) AD&D will be a massive improvement over the previous edition of the game! I think most of you are familiar with the flow of high Gygaxese by now, so I'll stop here before we die laughing. On the other side of the page an advert for Judges Guild Officially Approved D&D compatible licenced products. See, we're not monsters. You can do business with us. Brawling! As ever they make it far more complicated than armed combat, for far less benefit unless you are specifically intending not to kill. Which I guess is important sometimes, particularly when low level characters are so fragile. Given the way the D&D hit point system worked at that time, capturing and imprisoning people would be virtually impossible unless you used magic, or they surrendered. And some people want more options. Defending against the OGRE: Tactical advice for the boardgame of the same name. Can't really comment on this one. The Play's the thing: A little article encouraging people to think up backgrounds and personalities for their characters. Along with the worldbuilding stuff in the last issue, it seems that D&D is starting to seriously move beyond its wargaming roots and involve actually viewing characters as roles rather than just pieces to explore, fight, level up and die with. Betcha we'll be seeing a roleplayers vs rollplayers quip within a few issues.  Seal of the Imperium: More Tekumel Q&A by Professor Barker. Mostly setting stuff this time round, clearing things up and expanding on stuff in the books, rather than rules niggles. From the sorcerers scroll: More teasers on the upcoming AD&D products. The monster manual, and a big outdoor map by Brian Blume. Also notable is an offhand comment about Chivalry and Sorcery, as D&D's closest rival yet. So we know thats out now. Ends by asking the readers to rate what they want more of in order of importance. Sea magic: More Fafhrd stuff by fritz lieber. Our barbarian learns to shoot bows around corners, despite having recently lost a hand. Truly he is pretty badass. Meanwhile the Grey mouser has acquired a whole ship full of followers. Definitely has the feel of a high level later story, and makes me wish I had the intervening stories. Which is a good thing from the writers perspective, isn't it. Quarterstaff fighting rules: Another completely disconnected fighting subsystem is introduced. And promptly ignored. Also featuring incredibly twinked out stats for robin hood and his men, who all have all physical attributes at 15 or above. Yeah, not very impressed with this one. More Wormy and Fineous Fingers. A review of the Rankin-Bass cartoon of The Hobbit. A very scathing one. Good to see that people realised just how crap those cartoons were even back then. Shame that didn't stop them from producing crap cartoons all through the 80's and making huge amounts of money doing so. Oh well.At least we have a pretty good movie version of LotR now, hopefully with the hobbit to come. Snits Revenge! A second boardgame continues the story of the timeless space setting. A whole new game, plus errata for the first one. All in all, this has been a pretty good issue. A few duff articles, but the combination of good ones, and the extensive amount of teasers for the future has made it feel pretty significant in general. This is the first time most of the players at the time would have heard of AD&D, and we know how well that one worked out. Which is nice.</blockquote>

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