Man in the Funny Hat
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I feel confident in stating categorically that WotC did not exist in 1975. I think you mean TSR.Glyfair said:
Strategic Review/Dragon Reviews - Revisited
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Glyfair
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The Strategic Review No. 6 (Actually Vol. II. Issue #1)
February '76
16 pages
February '76
16 pages
Contents
In the Cauldron (Tim Kask)
Wargaming World
The Meaning of Law and Chaos in Dungeons & Dragons and Their Relationships to Good and Evil (Gary Gygax)
Triumphs & Tragedies
The Quest for the Vermillion Volume
DunDraCon I: Update
An Introduction to Fight in the Skies (Mike Carr)
War of Wizards Update (John W. Berry)
Mapping the Dungeons
War of the Wizards Solitaire (Richard L. Mataka)
Statistics Regarding Classes: (Additions) - Bard (Doug Schwegman)
Mightly Magic Miscellany (D. Schwegman)
Boot Hill Experimental Rule (Brian Blume)
Dwarves & Clerics in Dungeon! (Gary Gygax)
New Game, New Strategy (Dennis O'Leary)
Sage Advice (Theronius)
Strategists Club
[D]hq[/D]
The cover for this issue ties into the new TSR game, Fight in the Skies. Tim Kask points out that TSR is partially in their new Shop "The Dungeon." He also mentions that TSR has reached an agreement with Mini-Figs, Ltd. to produce a line of D&D figures. Because of this they are working on a set of D&D tabletop rules for figures. Also, they reached an agreement with Old Guard for EPT figures.
Our first D&D article is a hefty one. Gary mentions they get a lot of questions on alignment, and how many believe that "lawful" and "good" are the same and "chaotic" and "evil" are the same. If he had D&D to do all over again he would differentiate the four categories (and he will in AD&D). Gary lists a number of words in increasing order of magnitude that describes the 4 categories. At the highest level he has Law=Order, Chaos=Anarchy, Good=Pure and Evil=Corrupt. It's also worth noting that Gary feels that most of humanity is lawful and close to the line of good/evil. With proper leadership they are LG, and very few are chaotic and even fewer CE.
This also has the first charts of the alignments. The second chart places various D&D creatures and characters on the chart closest to where Gary feels they should be. Of interest is that he lists "Platinum Dragons" as being the furthest to CG and "Chromatic Dragons" for LE. Liches also appear both in LE & LG (although very close to the "true neutral" square).
"The Quest for the Vermillion Volume" is the first fiction to appear in SR. Rob Kuntz writes a semi-humorous piece with such names as Drystaff and Lamhand. On the same page the "DunDraCon Update" mentions that Fritz Leiber helped a friend construct and populate a palace and dungeon that contains treasures and traps from his stories.
We also have the first appearance of the Bard. The author mentions that his inspiration for it was the norse skald, the celtic bard and the southern European minstril. This version of the bard was very straightforward and perhaps a bit too powerful. They get MU spells, have charm and lore special abilities and have the abilities of a thief of half his level. To tie into this, the "Mighty Magic Miscellany" introduces to classic bardic harps.
We also get the first "Sage Advice" column, written by "Theronius' (presumbably Terry Kuntz). Here we get corrections to Greyhawk with Flesh Golem stats, Homunculus, Rod of Resurrection, Gem of Seeing and Gauntlets of Dexterity corrections.
No monsters in this isssue. We do see the appearance of the "Character Archaic," a character record, encounter record, NPC records and more. It's usable for both D&D and EPT, for only $3 (about $10 today).
The D&D content is pretty low this issue. However, what we have is very key. We get the first "Sage Advice" column (which is more errata than questions), Gary introducing what will become the standard D&D alignment system, and the first of many variations on the bard. Given that the bard would change with every full edition, it's still a class that hasn't found its "sweet spot."
