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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 4503776" data-attributes="member: 27780">The Dragon Issue 33: January 1980part 1/264 pages. Hello again everybody. Welcome to the 80's, where everything is bigger and better. The glory days of D&D.The only decade in which dragon was published continously, with no interruptions. The smallest issue in this decade is equal to the largest issue of the last decade. More color, more developments, more writers, more setting stuff, more roleplaying, more changes. In other words, it's going to take a lot longer to get through this decade than it did the 70's. And the 90's may take longer still, as despite a few interruptions, the average page counts were considerably higher, so there was probably more actual material released then. But lets not get too far ahead of myself. Gotta keep my eye on the part of the race I'm running at the moment, or I'll stumble and fall. In this issue: Dragon Rumbles: Tim takes the time to acknowledge the things all the new staff have done for the running of the magazine. Particular Kudos is given to Jake, who has pretty much taken over as editor, and they intend to formally alter peoples job titles accordingly soon. They also let us know that they intend the size and price increases to be permanent, as it is more economical for them to run things this way.   How long will it be before the next price increase? We shall see.Out on a limb: A letter from the submitter of an article, complaining that the editing job that they did on it made it not entirely sensical. A letter from Ed Greenwood complaining about spelling errors, and also asking about white dwarf and lifelong subscriptions. And a request for a picture of gary, which they provide, but in rather cryptic fashion, with heavy shadowing. All rather interesting stuff that reveals more to me about their current modus operandi. Also on this page is their 2nd class mailing thingy, with the circulation numbers for last year, but unfortunately the scanning resolution makes that illegible. Anyone able to fill in the numbers for us? Paradise for painterly people: Talk on how to paint large numbers of miniatures in a short amount of time, while retaining decent quality, instead of the painstaking methods employed by most people. Which is Veeery iiiiinteresting. There's usually a quicker and easier way of doing things, if you're willing to swallow your pride, and its nice to see trade secrets revealed. Fiction: The eyes of Mavis Deval, by Gardner Fox. The fifth Niall story. Niall smartens up a little, but not enough to escape being dragged into the plot against his better judgement. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, and him to get bitten for being a demon's pawn, but it has yet to happen. Still, who can say what the future holds. (well anyone, if it's also the past, but I don't want to spoil myself) A cau for NPC's: Adding an additional stat, caution, to your NPC's to determine how likely they are to act impulsively. Also notable for including a libido table, for quick determination of your success in seduction. Yeah, this article is pretty funny, but perhaps not something you want to incorporate into a serious game. From the sorcerers scroll: Gary talks about the development of the D&D magic system, and its further refinement in AD&D, and the sources he drew from in creating it. This includes much talk on the separation of components, and the logistical tricks that spells missing one or more allow. Still a far cry from the days of regular metamagic though. The third installment of Frederick MacKnights tales of the creation of Lankhmar. This time, it's mostly full of conversion notes between the editions of the boardgame, which is a bit dull really. Leomunds tiny hut: Len gives his house rules and clarifications on lots of D&D spells. Most of them are common sense and/or nerfs, many of which would be adopted in later editions. Particularly notable, though is where he failed. Magic missile. Apparently Len and Gary have a quite substantial disagreement over the appropriateness of a spell with no save or to hit roll, even if it isn't that damaging. Which is interesting to know. More evidence in support that D&D really needed a from the ground up revision to make character classes remotely balanced. Oooh. An advert for Adventures in Fantasy, Dave Arnesons own new roleplaying game. This is a very interesting development. Would someone care to fill us in on how this came about, and in what ways it differed from D&D?</blockquote>

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