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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Glyfair" data-source="post: 3004278" data-attributes="member: 53">Dragon #25  May 1979 <img src="http://paizo.com/image/product/magazine_issue/dragon/25/cover_180.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />In his "Dragon Rumbles" editorial, Tim Kask laments the lack of letters for the Dragon.  They cancelled the letter column once because of a lack of letters, revived it and still weren't getting letters.  That must be pretty hard to believe with the amount of discussion and controversy that went on in that column, but in those days it was the case."A Part of Gamma World Revisited" has Jim Ward giving more details on the excellent Cryptic Alliances that were part of the world.  In fact, this is one of the most interesting parts of the game.  Although he wasn't covered much beyond this, Blern had the mystique that the Lord of Blades has in Eberron today (in fact, he's the being on the cover of the issue).Jim was pretty busy in those days, and has another article "Judging and You!"  It's actually a general tips and tricks for being a gamemaster, but it focuses a bit on Gamma World and mentions a few thing specific to the world (admittedly, to mostly say it's not that much different from D&D)."The Tug of the Machine" is a piece of fiction, but it's so brief, it's not much more than an interlude.The science fiction theme is broken with "The Armada Disasters," a historical article about the Spanish Armadas.Our "From the Sorcerer's Scroll" column this issue has Gary covering "The Proper Place of Social Class in D&D."  Essentially, he defends D&D not having a set social system (such as Empire of the Petal Throne or En Garde) stating that D&D doesn't have a set campaign milieu.  He feels that it doesn't because that's the perogative of the DM.One interesting bit he points out:  "D&D is a fantastic medieval game system. This does not mean that it is medieval in the European sense, although a campaign milieu based loosely upon mythical feudal Europe is not precluded."  As a quick aside, he points out that the DMG is finally done, and gives credit to all that worked on it.Next we have the aforementioned "Out on the Limb" letters column.  The first letter refers to Bakshi Lord of the Rings movie (which was reviewed in an earlier issue) and basically trashes it.   The next letter is a rebuttal of a review of Alpha Omega, defending the game.  Finally, there is a letter trashing a convention "sponsored by TSR" as being poorly run.  As it turns out, they only supplied prizes, and had nothing to do with the convention.Tim seems right on the money about the poor selection of letters.  Still, we know this will change.We have Part III of the "Armies of the Renaissance" column, covering the Condotiere and the Papacy.  Another historical article seemingly from Little Wars."Would the Real Orc Step Forward?" deals with a proliferation of orc miniatures of various sizes and design paradigms.  The author goes through various miniature companies orc figures (a cornocopia of miniatures companies) and suggests what sort of orcs their miniatures would be good for, or recommends something else (Ogres, kobolds, etc)."The Traveller Navy WAants To Join You:  New Service Opportunities for Navy Characters" is another Traveller variant article.  The Mercenary supplement added a more robust character generation system for Marines & army, but left the Navy out.  This article attempts to rectify that.  I believe the next Traveller supplement would deal with that (High Guard, IIRC).Gary Jacquet, one of the designers of Gamma World, gives us an alternate artifact use chart in "Gamma World Artifact Use Chart" (how appropriate).  It is less random that the original chart, and allows some player choice in the process.We also have a Gamma World map of the U.S. with locations listed, and cryptic alliance locations covering two pages.Jim Ward gives us a bit of Gamma World fiction with "An Alien in a Strange Land."  This focuses on the arch-evil Blern, which I mentioned earlier in this review."Excerpt from an Interview with an Iron Golem" is another fictional humerous piece that was common in those days.  I believe this was considered good enough to be reprinted in the first "Best of the Dragon" compilation."War of Flowers" is another historical, wargame oriented piece.  It is immediately followed by "Xochiyaoyotl:  Rules for Pre-Hispanic Mexican Warfare."For the comics focus, earlier in the issue we had one of Tom Wham's "Westfinster Wargaming Society" one-panel strips.  In Fineous Fingers, Fred & Charly try to escape from the wizards llab while Fineous plays chess with Mergatroid.  "Varieties of Vampires" covers about 15 varieties of vampires from mythology.  Also, Bob Bledsoe briefly covers selecting a pantheon in "To Select a Mythos" (managing to pimp his own Judges Guild products in the process).Finally, we have another historical wargame oriented article in "Arms and Armor of the Conquistadores"  This is notable for full color photographs of actual arms.This issue has the clear focus on Gamma World.  While I never played the game very much, I do remember being attracted by the mythology of the world.  I think if that had been explored more, I might have been more attracted to the setting and game  We also see a large number of historical articles.  While these occasionally saw print in The Dragon, at this point Little Wars seems to have had much of their content migrating to TD.</blockquote>

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