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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 5422515" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dragon Magazine Issue 218: June 1995part 1/8124 pages. Birthday number 19 here. And for the first time in over 10 years, they forget to advertise that on the cover. Either they're starting to feel the budget cuts, or they no longer want to boast about how old they are. Still, the quality of the cover is pretty much unchanged, with a rather epic dracolich coming round for an attack on a castle. Let's see if the contents can match up to that.  In this issue:Letters: The primary topic this month is the critical hit teaser article. This is one of those rules that generates a lot of controversy, and so it proves this time around. One is just plain against their current implementation, while the other two are just unclear on the finer points of the rules. In any case, it's pretty obvious that this is user base splitting stuff. A few people'll be driven away, others simply won't buy it, and if there's a mixed opinion within a gaming group, there'll be a lot of debate on whether to adopt the new rules or not. Oh boy. Here we go. Another rather negative signpost in retrospect. A letter saying that the M:tG craze seems to have died down in their area. Maybe so, but that just means it's levelling off. It still has a long and highly profitable life ahead of it. And a request for Chaosium's address. Call of Cthulhu is still a fairly popular game amongst Dragon readers, for some reason. Editorial: The last editor said goodbye last issue. No surprise that the new one says hello this time. And straight away, they're talking about giving things a major shake-up. Things can't go on the way they are. But at the same time, if you change things the wrong way, you'll only make them worse. They're very aware that at the moment they're looking a little dinosaurish, and don't want to die. Which is a perfectly valid fear really, since it will actually come to pass in the near future. So this is an editorial that shows they're entirely aware of the trouble they're about to get themselves into. What a way to start off a birthday. First quest: Whoa. Ed Greenwood gives us his first gaming experiences this month. And it's an absolute doozy. The tale of how he was shaped into an awesome dungeon master by a girl from university who then died of cancer reads as almost too perfect to be true narratively. Exactly how much artistic licence he made in recounting this tale is something I'm very curious about. Still, it would explain why he became so driven to create as much as possible in the time he has. Being exposed to the fragility of life at a young age can have that kind of effect on people. So this is both genuinely tearjerking in a way most of these stories are not, and quite informative. There are some quite serious issues behind him ending up the person he did, and they could probably be explored in more depth than this. Question is, does he really want that, or would he prefer to stay behind the scenes and let his creations do the talking? Hmm. Anyone got any links to further interviews where he actually talks about his own life seriously? Birthright!. Here we go with the last big setting of the 2e era. Ready, Steady, Rule!</blockquote>

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