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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 4493732" data-attributes="member: 27780">The Dragon Issue 29: September 1979part 1/256 pages. This issue marks the arrival of Kim Mohan, who's role is listed simply as staff. Keep an eye on the boy, because he's going to go a long way soon. There's also plenty of other less significant new staff. Their influence will be felt soon. Interesting times indeed. In this issue: Of the Gods: Thoughts on creating your own pantheon for your games. As is common in this era it includes random tables for generating your own deities when inspiration runs dry, plus a sample pantheon. A well thought out and written article that nevertheless feels a bit tacky and mechanical. If you can't come up with a decent set of gods without recourse to tables, what hope for the rest of your setting? Source of the nile flow charts: A play aid that pretty much tells me how to play the game. Which obviously means it's a good one that does its job well. I quite approve of this. A ounce of preparation is worth a ton of paint: Lotsa tips on how to properly set up and paint miniatures so they'll make good gaming tools. Another article that is well enough explained to be useful to a complete beginner. Is this the start of a new degree of accessabilty in the magazine? Half ogres as an official D&D race, by Gary himself. They have very restricted options, being pretty much forced into THOG SMASH! by their ability range. He also talks about the idea of allowing other various halfbreeds, and the problems that this would cause to game balance. Another bit of evidence why 3rd edition was not to his taste, the proliferation of racial templates is precisely the opposite of what he espouses here. You know, if you bow to pressure and allow this, then people are going to just keep on pushing. You've got to be firmer with all those twinks and monsterphiles. Human supremacy 4eva! <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=";)" /> Curses: An article on the proper use of these lovely little implements of magical vengance, as well as their removal. Be ironic, tailor them to the curser and the crime, and let people pervert the letter of them to get around them or profit from them. Yeah, I like this kind of thinking. It brings an element of mythology into the game that may require some thought to handle, but makes the game deeper than just another hack and slash dungeon. Out on a limb: Lots of varied commentary on the last few issues. Quite a bit of it concerns Gary's recent controversial statements. The column is finally picking up, thanks to the increased readership and threats of being shut down. Pretty soon they'll be able to pick and choose which letters to include and which to ignore. Giants in the earth: This month the characters given disgustingly twinked stats are Roger Zelazny's Shadowjack, and Jack Vance's Iucounu. You know my opinion of this by now, so I shall refrain from further grumbling on this topic unless things change in some way. Rewarding heroism in D&D: Our first attempt at proper narrative reinforcement, a set of optional rules giving the characters benefits for behaving in a properly heroic manner. Which is nice, and another article that is historically significant for introducing that kind of thinking to the game. Shame it would take so long to become common though. Inns and Taverns: A little article on the setup of historical inns and taverns. Neither brilliant or particularly bad, this is just one of those articles that helps fill space in an expanding magazine like this. Air war - North vietnam: A load of new scenarios for the game based upon that common thread. A short but sweet article that looks like it does what it says on the tin. Smaller than man sized weapons: Another little article that does what it says it does. The setup they use here is somewhat more complex than the 3rd ed version, with individual alterations for every weapon for two different smaller sizes. Oh, for standardisation. The sleep war: An SCA actual play, this shows that politics there can be easily as ludicrous as in real life. Much fun in cold and muddy fields was had.</blockquote>

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