Dragon Issue 47: March 1981

part 1/2

80 pages Once again, the D&D setting takes several steps forward this issue, with both planar and torillian stuff featured within. We also get another complete game, plenty of different topics covered. Oh, and a particularly blatant bit of cheesecake on the front cover. You might want to put some chaps on luv. Those scales'll chafe your legs something fierce if you ride at any speed. And you don't want to back up onto those spines.

In this issue:

Dragon rumbles: The editing stuff from issues 43 & 45 gets another followup, with bit of mock bickering between Robert Plamodon and Kim Mohan about Kim's savage editing job. Highly amusing and rather meta stuff. He does have a point though, that by doing things like this, Kim is setting himself up as a frontline performer who everyone reading knows about in his own right, rather than just a backstage worker who helps the writers shine brighter. (did I ever tell you you're my heeeero. Oh god, another song stuck in my head.)  Still, If it gets him a better paid job and more chicks at cons, I guess it's a good strategy.

Out on a limb: A letter expressing outrage at the Gm who doesn't let his players buy the magazine, telling him to go kiss an otyugh.
A letter praising Gary for encouraging people to play monsters intelligently.
A letter complaining about several flaws in some recent reviews.
A letter encouraging the retirement of high level characters so you can start again with something new.
Another letter complaining about GM's running horrifically overpowered games in their area, encouraging people to boycott games like that.
A letter complaining about the Top Secret stats of various fictional characters in issue 44, quibbling about perceived inaccuracies. Yawn.
A reply from the author of said article to the quibbling on it from last issue. Whch is amusing.
And a letter defending the Professor Ludlow Module from the roasting it recieved a couple of months ago, saying it was a nice change of pace from standard gaming, and a good roleplaying challenge.  

Take the AD&D exam: A big questionaire on the AD&D rules, to see how good your mastery of their finer details is. Which of course involves some stupid and somewhat subjective questions, as many of the puzzles have more than one solution. FWIW, I got 43 out of 50. Which isn't bad, particularly as I don't own AD&D 1st ed, and was working off my memory of BECMI and 2nd edition.

Elemental ideas for elemental adventuring: Like GitE last month, they've decided to accept stuff from freelancers on the nature of the planes. Which hey, means dilution of concept. Lets hope they keep editorial control over this stuff, otherwise there's going to be lots of articles that have inconsistencies with one another. The first article seems to promote a slightly more hostile view of the elemental planes than Len's, making them all innately harmful to creatures from the prime material and each other, and being far more restrictive on elemental spells from elsewhere. It does, however, include some cool ideas on the nature of the native flora and fauna of the planes, and how they will interact with adventurers. The second article doesn't actually have much to do with planar travel, but is actually about the probablity of finding someone with astral scanning and the time taken, given the size of the area scanned. Which involves some mildly complex mathematical formulae. Neither are particularly brilliant, overall.  

Creatures from elsewhere: The extraplanar theme continues with a load of new monsters. Wirchler are from gehenna, look like mouths with arms coming out their sides, and have a nasty no save power that's an instawin against anyone who can hear. Take them out hard and fast, or you'll watch your characters slowly die, and even if they're rescued, their ability scores'll be permanently reduced.
Aruchai are from Limbo, and have a lot in common with chaos beasts, but are way way cooler, having an awesome plot hook that makes being killed by one both better and far worse than just dying, while not taking the characters out of play they way being undeadified would. These guys are worth the whole magazine.
The Pheonix is .... You know what it is. Bloody immortal mary-sue bird with the favor of the gods. Virtually impossible to kill, and if you do, you get tortured by the gods, then geased to go back in time and make sure you don't kill it after all. Thankfully they got rid of that bit in the 2nd ed MM entry.
Again, you ought to know what the furies are. They live in tartarus, and torture people who pissed off the olympian gods. They're pretty powerful too, so careful when you mess with them.
Mapmakers are surprisingly adorable. Reptilian creatures from pandemonum, they have a fetish for maps, and their whole existance revolves around making and obtaining them. Which means they can be useful for trading with, but also might nick your stuff showing the way out if you aren't careful. And they are from pandemonium, so chances are the maps they make are oddly designed and filled with elaborations that may not be strictly accurate. Another really cool creature that I wish had made it into future books.
Flard are from nirvana, and exist only to answer questions. Ahh, the omniscient monolith, such an overused archetype.
Sugo were originally created by jubilex, but rebelled and now live in acheron, and show that the conception of this plane still hadn't reach its current state, still being much closer to it's original greek source. Essentially malevolent flumphs, they live in marshy areas, and try and eat passers by. Meh.

Bazaar of the Bizarre: The planar theme continues here. The flute of dismissing gets rid of summoned gribleys, which can be pretty darn usefull.
The staff of ethereal action allows you to hit ethereal creatures, and use Blink as well for some reason. Good for getting rid of those pesky phase spiders.
Horeseshoes of hades turn a normal mount into a Nightmare. Which is not a good thing, unless you have some means of subduing the nasty bugger quickly.
Syrar's silver sword (another Ed Greenwood mage gets a namecheck.) is another weapon for dealing with those pesky creatures who lurk on co-existant planes and attack you while you can't hit them back. Because everyone hates them, don't they. All in all, this has been a well above average set of items.

Leomunds tiny hut: Len takes a closer look at thief abilities, and their proper application. Thieves should be able to make traps as well as disarm them, sneaking into place is a good way to make maps, so when the full party comes in, they can have more effective plans on how to clear place out. The rest of the stuff isn't very useful, but those two cool bits make up for it.

Giants in the earth: Two women from greek myth get the twinktastic treatment this issue. Camilla from the Aeneid, and Medea from Jason & the argonauts. Although they do both have several abilities at average or below, so I guess opening this series up to the floor has helped a little.

QuoteThe Pheonix is .... You know what it is. Bloody immortal mary-sue bird with the favor of the gods. Virtually impossible to kill, and if you do, you get tortured by the gods, then geased to go back in time and make sure you don't kill it after all.

Players: "..."
GM: "What?"
Players: "If we go back in time and save it, do we still get xp for having killed it?"

Dragon Issue 47: March 1981

part 2/2

The merry month of mirtul? The Forgotten Realms gets it's first proper named mention as Ed Greenwood talks about the calendar in his own game. He also talks about tailoring the setting in general to be more suitable for creating opportunity for adventures, by making the weather more extreme than on earth, with periods of rapid growth, technological/magical advancement and prosperity, regularly interrupted by freezing winters that cut off any large scale communication or travel for several months a year, and frequent (not so) natural disasters that kill off entire towns or even civilisations, leaving plenty of ruins to investigate. Looks like something close to points of light was part of the Realm's original design. So much for that being a new idea. Now this is a very interesting article, both in its own right and from a historical point of view. And it shows that despite becoming a full setting later, FR had a considerably longer history in the pages of the magazine than dragonlance did. We'll be seeing considerably more on this in the future.

The rasmussen files: Multiclass characters and their titles and positions in a group. Get levels in all 4 roles, and you can become an Administrator, and start setting missions for other groups. As this offers advice on how to design and run a team of characters as a proper team, this is another article that feels fairly familiar in light of recent events.

Crimefighters: A complete game by David Cook, this is based upon pulp comics and novels, with a particular emphasis on detective stuff. A rather fast and loose system, as you would expect given the theme and space available, with some big rules holes. But still, it's more suited to being bent to various situations than Ringside and Food Fight. At 21 pages, counting the introductory adventure, this is another pretty cool special feature, taking up more than a quarter of the magazine. I suspect we may see a few complaints about this, but I have to applaud them for pushing the envelope again.

The pulps - Paper heroes: Bryce Knorr defends the often shallow and two dimensional characterization in pulp magazines. They may have been mass produced, primarily commercial products, that imitated one another quite a lot, but they still managed to produce lots of cool stuff along the way. And there are substantial cultural parallels betwen the 1930's, and the start of the 80's. Which may explain Indiana Jones' success. A bit of an anticlimax after the last article.

Sage advice: Can paladins associate with neutral goods? (yes, they have good in the description, don't they, ya twit)
How does the range of stuff in inches translate to real distances (1 inch = 10 foot inside or 10 yards outside. But spell areas of effect should stay the same inside or out.)
Is everything in the monster manual a monster, and therefore you can't use speak to animals on it. (No. But giant versions of animals don't count as normal. )
Do PC gnomes get the poison resistance mentioned in the MM? (yes)
I don't understand how shields interact with the armor/to hit table (headdesk headdesk headdesk. How do these people remember to breathe?!)
Can PC's be grey elves or drow? (if your DM allows it. )
Is torture ok for chaotic good characters? (No. If you've got a good reason, (such as if they killed the pheonix :rolleyes: damn deities and their double standards) you might get away with it once or twice, but doing so with any regularity will stop you being good pretty damn quick. )

Reviews: The tendency to put more emphasis on each individual review continues. Robots! is a game of resource management and combat set in the post-apocalyptic wasteland of earth, and gets a pretty positive review.
Fast attack boats is a game of er, the 1973 arab-israli naval war, and gets a rather less positive review, with the reviewer critisizing it's dull counters and small play field.
Starfire gets a new edition, which builds nicely on the previous one.
Across the bright face and mission on mithril are a paired set of traveller adventures, set in the spinward marches. One is a planet based trek, while the other is a scout ship based mission. Which gives you a nice set of choices for directions to take your game in.
Research station gamma is another traveller supplement. (they did seem to be releasing quite a lot of them at this point) It's basically a location based module, as was common in this era. Of course, a space station is somewhat different from a dungeon, but I'm sure the overall experience won't be that different.

Figuratively speaking: A new column covering miniatures to replace the fantasysmiths workshop, with more emphasis on reviews, and less on customisation. Unfortunately, the bad contrast on the scanning makes most of  the photos virtually illegible, which sucks. This month, we get some stuff from Martian metals, a whole load of arthurian models, some dungeon walls, and an evil wizard carried on a litter. Afraid I can't really comment more than that. Hopefully they'll move to colour soon, so I can get decent looks in.

Simulation corner: More on the history of SPI. This focusses on the managerial changes they went through in the past year, and the changes in direction that resulted from that. As in previous articles, they try their best to put a positive spin on everything. Yes, they've cut the number of products they're making in half, but they intend to develop and playtest each one more thoroughly. Whatever you say. I'll be here in pessimist land, because I know you haven't survived to the present day. It's just a question of when you go under. And I won't spoil myself on that just yet.

Squad leader: The 1945 scenarios continue on from last issue, as the russians rape and pillage berlin. Pull out the stops and invoke a whole bunch of special rules, because this is gonna be an epic one. Yet it still fits on half a page. Which is nice for the editors when they need a little something to complete the issue.

The electric eye: This month, they focus on sports video games. Real time joystick controlled games, and strategic simulations both get examined, and several specific examples and companies get mentioned. Not my personal cup of tea, but still quite a well written article. I don't have a problem with this.

Pinsom and jasmine continue to develop. Wormy returns after quite a bit with a fantasy sequence thing unconnected to the main storyline.

A particularly cool back cover this month from Martian Metals, a mini's company, disguised as a newspaper cover. I am quite amused.

This one's pretty good, although not in the articles I was expecting. Funny that, the ones I most enjoyed were the ones they didn't hype so much. Likes and dislikes are subjective things, and obviously I'm not entirely in tune with Kim's mind. But would you want that, anyway? Probably not. If I didn't have my own opinions, this would be a duller series.

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;305149Players: "..."
GM: "What?"
Players: "If we go back in time and save it, do we still get xp for having killed it?"

The you who killed it keep the XP, the you from the new timeline prime never killed it, so they never got the XP. If whatever method of travelling back in time you found doesn't allow for return trips, things are about to get a little awkward.

Dragon Issue 48: April 1981

part 1/2

96 pages. Another april, another load of comic stuff in issue 48+1/2. Phil foglio does another tremendously entertaining cover piece. Meanwhile, the serious special topic this issue is underwater adventuring. But it only has three articles on it. You'd think they could have kept the adventure from number 46 for later, as it would have fit in better here. I guess long term planning is tricky when you've got to make pagecount for a deadline every month. We also see more signs of kim's growing dominance in the editing department, as Jake starts deferring to him, even if it is in jest. Verrry interesting.

In this issue:

Out on a limb: We start with a letter of generalised praise, with particular emphasis on the value for money of getting a whole module, plus loads of other stuff in each issue, especially when compared to the cost of most of the modules currently out there.
A letter criticising the fact that the scale in the Dungeon design kit is not the same as the 1 inch = 10 foot scale that most of the miniatures and game rules use, hurting it's compatibility.
A letter by someone bemoaning the over $400 they've spend on gaming over only 6 months. And that's even before the supplement treadmill became standard. Silly person. You need more willpower.
A letter offering a balanced view on the power gaming debate, saying that there's nothing inherently wrong with high level characters, but they ought to work up to it properly, otherwise they won't be able to use their powers to full efficiency, or have well rounded personalities to match. And in his experience, maturity has surprisingly little correlation with age.

Watery words to the wise: Lots of cool stuff on running coastal and underwater campaigns, and the challenges and opportunities that these present. 3d combat, a fun but tricky business. But for those monsters used to it, land combat would seem horribly constricting tactically, previously easy obstacles becoming insurmountable problems. Which is why sahuguin haven't scoured every coastal village clean. A pretty cool article, well deserving of being this months lead-in one, that reminds you that you don't have to go to other planes to have a very different adventuring experience.  

Dragons bestiary continues the underwater theme, with the water horse, (arthurian stickybacked breed) Golden ammonite (no relation to gold dragons, I hope) and sea demons, which aren't actualy demons, just intelligent malevolent giant octopi. No spectacular standout monsters here.

Bazaar of the Bizarre also provides lots of water focused items as well, with 5 boring weapons with extra pluses against some water creature or other, the necklace of air breathing (don't put this on if you can already breathe air, because death by drowning often offends.) and the periapt of protection against vampiric Ixitachital (now how often are you going to encounter one of those) Oh and spongestone, which adds quite a few quirks to the real world item. A decidedly low interest article this time round, given the amount of recycled adaptions in it compared to actual ideas.

Issue 48+1/2

Dragon mumbles: Our joke articles begin with some incomprehensible gibberish from the editor. Some of it I can translate, but some of it is just stupid for stupids sake. Meh.

Out in limbo: 4 comedy letters. There are no saving throws in school. And someone's found the wand of orcus and would like to return it to its proper owner. Yeah, that'll go well.

Red dragon blues: The filking returns. Please don't sue us, Johnny Cash.

A class that really counts: The accountant. Be very afraid. Thankfully, the rules for it aren't complete, or indeed entirely legitimate, so your players can't ask to play one. Which means you can relax, sorta.

Real life: A minigame. I think the rules for this just about hold together. But you don't want to play it, because it's a very depressing game indeed. Everyone loses. Its just a matter of how long you can keep playing for. Guess that makes it a pretty accurate emulation then.

Saturday morning monsters: Bugs bunny and daffy duck, Popeye, Rocky and bullwinkle, and dudley do-right. Just about statistically legitimate, you still don't want to use these guys in your game unless you want your players to hate you forever. Because they're bigger pains in the ass to defeat than the denebian slime devil.

The various Dragon comics crossover in puntacular fashion.

The druid and the DM: Back to the serious stuff. This discusses the various abilities of druids, and how they can be applied. It also trys to dispel misconceptions. Druids are not all misanthropes, in fact, with their high charisma and powers useful to everyday life they can be quite politically powerful. And there are plenty of molds and oozes and other creatures in dungeons that stop them from being useless down there. It also includes some optional rules and abilities, that amazingly enough, spice things up without making the class more overpowered. Which makes it a pretty good article, overall.

The druid and the dungeon: More druid stuff, this concentrates on how to optimize them for dungeoneering. Make sure you pack plenty of mistletoe, and pick up some hirelings and befriended animals, because you'll need all the help you can get. Work as part of a well oiled team that can cover your weaknesses, and you should be fine, after all, you have a decent weapon selection, attack rolls and hit points, plus quite a few spells that are still applicable down there. You're hardly a sitting duck. (unless you choose to shapechange into one) And they haven't even realized  how effective a swiss army knife shapechanging is, even when you don't have feats, and therefore have to stick strictly to mundane animals. Useless in dungeons, I think not.

Dragon Issue 48: April 1981

part 2/2

Up on a soapbox: Two rants under this ageis this issue.
When choosing a DM, be choosy considers the problem of finding a fun game to play in. How do you spot a good GM before you start playing, and so avoid wasting time with a crap or creepy group. This article gives you lots of good hints that are still relevant today, and can also be pretty easily turned round for when a GM is assessing prospective players. Not even vague wishy washy ones either, but some tight quantifiable guidelines. So I like it quite a lot, and have added it to my list of thing I intend to use next time it comes up.  
What is gaming's role in life continues the morality in fantasy debate. And is dull. After the cool of the last one, this is rather a letdown. I shall say no more.

Minarian Legends: The Mercenary ships of minaria. Pirates, privateers, and navies, plus the obligatory named character in charge of them, the Bilge Rat. Good guy, bad guy, not really either guy? You ought to know the formula of these entries by now.

The floating island mission: This month's module is a second Top Secret one. Can you thwart the evil plans of the mysterious Dr Yes? You'd better be considerably above starting ability to do so. (see, vagueness like this this is why D&D is so much more friendly for casual GM's. The level system makes it easy to create pregenerated adventures for characters of different power levels, with an easy gauge. Which means you can continue to use modules beyond the starting level) The underwater fun continues, as you'll have to do some diving to infiltrate the island. And then you get to face Bruce Nee, Chuck Morris, and "Sweetbeam" Leotard, the good doctor's amusingly named henchmen. And I think that's enough spoilers for now. A pretty decent adventure overall.

Carrying a heavy load? Mules. The benefits and drawbacks to bringing an extra loadbearer such as this into the dungeon with you. Encumbrance is a bitch, and there's always something extra you wish you'd brought. But the more you have, the more it costs, the more you're slowed down, and the more you have to lose if things go wrong. Really, It'd be better to get yourself a bag of holding as soon as possible. Then you can laugh and stroll past all the low level adventurers struggling with their mules. Also introduces Black Bart to us, who I vaguely remember, so I think we'll see him again in the future.

Giants in the earth: This month's statistical impossibilities by the D&D rules as written are Ursula le guins Sparrowhawk, and Andrew Offut's Tiana Highrider.

Sage advice: Can a dual classed character switch back and advance in a previous class if they have high enough stats? (no)
Can clerics and paladins heal themselves (yes)
Do spellcasters get XP for casting spells. (only if they actually accomplish something with that casting)
Can a neutral good bard backstab (if it's in a good cause, just like any thief.)
Does power word kill destroy the bodies of the creatures it kills? (Entirely up to you. But yeah, it does kill in a way that prevents ressurection. Ahahahahaha)
Can magic resistance negate magic weapon's plusses? (no)

Instant adventures: Random plothooks, random plothooks. We can always do with more random plothooks. Spin the wheel, roll the dice, and lets see what fate'll throw at the players tonight.

Leomund's tiny hut: Once again, Len pushes at redesigning the system, this time looking at balance in encounter design and treasure awards. Which again turns into 7 pages of complicated math that have some good ideas that would be refined and used again in later editions, but are currently way too clunky. I really ought to give him more credit for doing this stuff, so the rest of us don't have too anymore.

Figuratively speaking reviews 21 mini's in 2 pages, which means there isn't much detail on each one. Once again, the picture shading is too bad for me to make my own judgments. Which is a shame.

GenCon South: A review of the con's new franchise. (with gencon east to follow in july) Not as big as the main one, this still had a quite extensive and exciting tournament schedule, headed up by the Champions of DM's, Frank Mentzer, and administered by the TRS-80 computer program they've been talking about in recent issues. Seems pretty positive, and they intend to do it again next year. Soon there'll be gencon's everywhere.

New orders for Russian Campaign: The wargame gets the Historically Accurate treatment in this article, with the author claiming the revised figures he's giving are the real ones from the official documents. Maybe, but will this make the game more fun to play, or unbalance it further in favour of the RL winners? I couldn't say, having never seen the game. As ever, clarification on matters like this would be welcomed.

Adding airpower options: More Russian Campaign stuff, this optional rule increases the randomness of the amount of airpower each side has. Again, I can't comment on if that would improve the game or not.

Want to influence who wins the Origins awards this year? Fill in and send in this form!

Reviews: Asteroid is a quick game of saving the earth from an approaching, well, you know. (I don't wanna close my eyes, I don't wanna fall asleep) Individual games may be short, but the amount of customisability in both character and adversary design should keep replays interesting for a while.
Titan is a fantasy wargame, that may be cheaply produced, but contains a sophistication in rules design that is better than many games produced on a far bigger budget.
Space fighters is a game of star warsesque dogfights, albeit with the serial numbers filed off. Like the film, the games action style is strongly reminicent of WWII dogfight games. It also seems to please the reviewer. Frankly, I would prefer my reviews more critical. It's more fun to read, and gives me more to comment on.

Pinsom, wormy, jasmine and fineous are all here. Quite the turnout. I guess they needed all the artists for the crossover issue.

Who's bright idea was it to put the ad on the back page upside down? They've been doing that quite frequently, but I never got round to mentioning it. Were they that way on the original mags, or is this scanning wierdness?

The upward slope in overall quality continues again. Kim's stronger hand on the editing process seems to be resulting in a better overall quality of articles. How long is it before he takes over again?

Dragon Issue 49: May 1981

part 1/2

96 pages. Speak of the devil. (I wasn't looking ahead when I wrote last issue's postscript, honest) This issue is the one where Gary steps down as publisher of the magazine. Jake Jaquet moves up to fill his place, while Kim Mohan becomes editor in chief. Which mean's Gary's taking his hands off the reins of the company and going off to LA to negotiate with ghastly executives, and the D&D cartoon will be along soon, if my memory serves me correctly. Oh god. I look forward to seeing how that's treated in the magazine. (particularly in light of the roasting they gave bakshi's LotR) :eek: Should be amusing.

In this issue:

Dragon Rumbles: Oohh. Looks like their readership is now exceeding 150,000. Quite a growth from their humble beginnings. But they still aren't immune to delays. Nor are they ignoring the competition. It's a big responsibility, running a magazine of this size. Lets hope Kim and co are up to it.

Out on a limb: A letter with some quite substantial (and quite well substantiated) complaints directed at Len Lakofa's Archer article from issue 45. They counter with the same old canard, that it's all optional, D&D is not realistic, and D&D halflings are not LotR hobbits. Doesn't come off very well this time Kim.
A letter from someone writing a book on miniatures painting, asking for ideas and opinions to help him develop it further. I wonder if anything'll come of this.
A letter praising the magazine's recent increases in quality, and also in accesability to newcomers. The hobby needs new blood to expand, which means it needs to be easy for new people to pick up gaming. Which means keeping the number of articles using impenetrable gamespeak and discussing tedious rules minutinae down.
A letter complaining at the size of many recent articles, wondering why they don't break them up into smaller parts over several issues. They'd get more complaints if they did it that way, trust me. Plus lots of other commentary.
A letter praising them for publishing top secret modules, and asking people to send in more articles for it, as he likes the game, and knows it's quite popular in his area. As they've said before, they can't publish what they don't get.

In the interest of fairness: An article about arbitrary and bad GM decisions in tournament play, and how more needs to be done to prevent it. Cue lots of stuff about establishing standards, and objective scoring systems for acts that are easily adjudicated, as well as establishing what behaviour should lead to instant disqualification and ejection from the tournament.  Not that even the strictest rules'll prevent a bad GM from making it a crap experience. But you've gotta be seen to be doing something. Once again, the serious problems with the tournament playstyle are thrown into sharp relief, as the compromises needed to make it work strike directly at the unique strengths of tabletop roleplaying as an entertainment form, openended storytelling and story creation where everyone wins as long as they have fun. This sucks.

The slave pits revisited: More thoughts on the A series, and tournament modules in general. The author reccomends that in future years they design the modules for smaller groups of players, as that reduces the difficulties in social dynamics, allowing groups of people who already know each other to join as a team and avoid the odds that your team will have some random asshat put in it who ruins things for everyone else. It then goes into a load of mathematics and logicistical discussion, proving that this would work better than the current system. Which is also tedious.

It isn't that easy: Frank Mentzer rebutts the previous article. Training up DM's to the standard needed to apply all your would be rules is not an easy task. Plus, it's hard to predict how many you'll need, particularly with the speed the hobby is expanding at. If you want to help with this, apply to become a GM at the next con you go too. We can always use the help. Ahh, reality, always getting in the way of our best laid plans.

God, that's a lot of cons coming up this year. Bigger and more frequent, the upswing in their popularity continues. Competitions, seminars, tournaments, famous people talking, exclusive stuff, they've got it all.

The samurai: Yes folks, its a second attempt at this class, (honestly. Three witch classes, two alchemist and samurai ones. Can't people come up with something more original) This bears little relation to the OA samurai, being an unarmoured fighter as comfortable with unarmed fighting as with katana, and getting stealth,  supernatural illusion powers and psionic ability. Like druids, they have an overarching organization with a limited number of top level characters, so you'll need to fight your former master to get there. Really, they're more monk/ninja variants than fighter ones. But if you can get over that naming disconnect, in terms of rules they are fairly solid, and not too overpowered. (at least, compared to cavaliers, rangers, druids, and the other upper tier classes; they'll still make fighters look like the one trick ponies they are) I wouldn't say no to a player using them if I was running an old skool game.

The rasmussen files: Lots of nasty little new rules this month, mostly revolving around gun fire and its unfortunate concequences. One of those ones that includes lots of random tables to determine just what unpleasant side effects result from your hit location. Which isn't very cinematic, but can be amusingly gruesome, as rolemaster afficionados know. Still, 'tis the kind of thing I would rather not incorporate into my games.

Getting a world into shape: Now this is a fun one. Karl Horak talks about choosing a shape for your world as a whole, be it spherical like earth, an endless flat map, or some kind of more interesting shape, (such as any of the polyhedrons that we use for dice ) and then goes into detail on how to create maps that accommodate these odd geometries. Includes a neat little cut-out that can be used to make your world. Cool stuff. And yet all the canon D&D worlds apart from Ravenloft fell into the bog-standard spherical planet model (although Mystara had it's hollow interior, which added a neat spin to things) What happened? :shakes head: Bloody design by committee. We want weirdness. We want weirdness.

Giants in the Earth: This month's characters without a single below average stat between them are Poul Anderson's Holger Carlsen (now there's a character you'd think could be converted to D&D without any rules breaking, but no. :sighs heavily:) and Hugi, and T.J. Morgan's Ellide.

Historical names make for better games: Glenn Rahman takes time out from his Divine Right writings to offer a big load of historical names from various cultures, to aid you in naming your characters. Just pick an appropriate culture and roll d20, if you're short of ideas. Much mehness.

Monster Mixing: Adapting D&D monsters to chivalry & sorcery. 23 classic monsters get conversion, including the full range of idiosyncratic fungi, slimes and oozes that were popular back then. Plus two new monsters, the mind thorns, and lemex, get stats for both systems. Pretty decent, as it also goes into some interesting discussion on fitting the monsters together into an ecology, including food chains (umber hulks like to eat ankhegs) Once again we see how other systems were ahead of D&D in quite a few ways. But it'll catch up with a vengance eventually, with the ecology of articles. Come on, any issue now.

This month, instead of a module, we have an extensive interview of painter Tim Hildebrandt. With lots of color photos and pics of him and his his creations. Which makes a nice change. Having produced illustrations for both lord of the rings and star wars, he's in a pretty enviable position. Still, he had to pay his dues with 16 hour a day work stints for readers digest, and other crappy jobs. And no matter how big you get, you still have to deal with executive meddling and media stupidity. Another good example of just how hard being a professional artist is, and how mad you'd have to be to do it if you didn't enjoy it. And these are the lucky ones. A bit depressing, isn't it.

Dragon Issue 49: May 1981

part 2/2

Dragon's bestiary: The Nogra. Didn't we already have this in a previous issue. I'm gonna have to start keeping an index so I can quickly check questions like this. :Sigh: More bloody work. (quite a bit of checking later) No, I must be premembering things, or I've seen this guy elsewhere in mythology, only exactly where has slipped my concious mind. Anyway, tis a creepy felinoid that is constantly enveloped in darkness. Quite possibly a distant relative of the displacer beast, as they have a similar appearance and schtick.

Leomunds tiny hut: What was I just saying about too much recycling? Len takes another shot at the alchemist. Not that they're badly done, like the other recent classes, they have definitely improved on their previous versions in the design stakes. They're still poor cousins to the wizard though. Frankly, the frequency with which they come up baffles me.

Legendaria. A new magazine devoted to a specific FRP campaign? Yeah, that'll last long.

Best Wishes: Another attempt at keeping Wishes from completely breaking the game. The author introduces the Ten Principles of wishing, that are his vision of what even wishes should no be able to do. Oh, nerfers, nerfers nerfers. Bored now. Make them go away.

Wishing makes it so: A short story by Roger Moore. If you had a wish in real life, would you wish you were your character? If you did, would that character notice the difference afterwards? Uh, yeah. I guess you end up better off than the D&D character who wished they were god and found themself the Dungeon master in this world. Not much more to this one. I guess it follows up the last one ok.

Travel & threads for Dragonquest: A short article expanding on Dragonquest, introducing overland travel rules, and adding some extra bits of clothing to the equipment list. Well, I guess D&D didn't add that until the expert set, so why should other rpg's put it in the corebook? One of those short articles that does what it does with a minimum of fuss, and a little humour in the process. (mm, chainmail bikinis. How much should one cost.)

Simulation corner: This month they tackle the tricky question of if it is preferable for a writer to be a freelancer, or fully employed by a particular company. The usual question of assured income or freedom to write for who you chose. They seem to think that things are on the up for freelancers, but it's still hardly a certain thing. Well the hobby is expanding, so that means talent is wanted and the number of companies you have to choose from is increasing. But still, don't ever think it'll be easy. It never will be.

Squad leader: This months scenario is the russian siege of budapest. 17.01.1945. They do seem to be concentrating on WW2, don't they. Was that an explicit part of the game as written, or is it just this authors area of expertise?

Minarian Legends: Glenn turns the spotlight on the magical order, the eaters of wisdom. With aspects of wizards, priests and martial artists, they're a pretty versatile bunch. And as educators of nobles from many countries, they have their fingers in many political pies. Like everyone else in the setting, they've made mistakes and had setbacks, but come through them. But the big question is, can they survive the actual play. Only you can answer that one.

The electric eye: A rather dry article this month, as they give us the code for programing a D&D combat sequence into the computer, allowing you to keep track of everyone's actions right down to the segment, in two different types of code. I didn't enjoy this when Len was doing it, and its not much more interesting here now computers involved, save as an intellectual exercise to prove they can do it.

Oi. Don't disguise your adverts as comics! You had me fooled there for a minute, Jeff & Ernies Dungeon Hobby Shop.

Up on a soapbox: Now this is classic topic. Ed Greenwood floats the idea that players don''t need to know the rules of the game, and in some ways it can be advantageous for the roleplaying aspect if they don't, as they are more likely to play a character concept, rather than fitting the concept around a min-maxed optimized build based more around rules quirks than literary concepts. Which can work, and make for a fun game, as I know from experience. But how can you be sure the GM isn't cheating on his end if you don't know the rules. What's to stop it from turning into freeform? What if you enjoy the tactical side of things, and feel out of control without access to it it. I predict some heated rebuttals to this from the gamist crowd. Which is exactly what this column should be doing, provoking debate and making you think.

Figuratively Speaking: This month, they concentrate on minis that work as PC classes. Wizards, fighters, thieves, even bards and druids, plus generic hirelings to carry your crap. But clerics get no love. ( and neither do mules. (Damn sheep stealing all the good guys away with their pretty eyes and pert fluffy swaying backsides( er, I think I'll stop now, I'm creeping myself out here (plus, way too many nesting brackets)))) That's no good, is it? How are you going to have a complete party (for long) without a healer? You'll have to improvise something.

Reviews: The hammer of Thor is an exceedingly crunchy card game, that is almost more fun to read than it is to play. Too many shiny bits can get in the way, not make things better.
Assault on leningrad is one of those wargames that concentrates on doing one single battle and nothing else. But it is not a particularly good emulation of even that, and would need some reworking to accurately simulate the supply lines and armoured vehicles that were important in that scenario.
World Campaigns is a play by mail game. As with all play by mail games it has a turn rate measured in weeks, so you've got to do lots of planning ahead and stuff in one go. But it's GM gets lots of praise, for being friendly, fair, and willing to talk about the rationale behind the game, as well as tinker with it to improve it.
Wohrom is a game of battle for the throne in a mythical land. While high quality, it is rather expensive $50? Wouldn't that be equivilant to more than $200 nowadays, and the translation of the rules from the original italian is not the greatest.
They really need to standardize the review format. Each of the reviews was done by a different person, and it really did show this time, to the point of being jarring.

Dragonmirth is present, and gets some colour stuff as well.

Whats new? This is! Phil Foglio finally gets his own regular comic strip, having been pretty popular for quite some time. And it is rather silly. I suppose the two newer ones have both been more serious, so they feel the need to introduce another lighter one to redress the balance. Is authorial self-insertion really the way to go? And who is Dixie based off? Does it matter? How long before they start teasing about doing a sex in D&D strip? How long before they actually follow through on that promise.

Wormy and Fineous Fingers are also here. Jasmine and Pinsom are not, having been unceremoniously cancelled mid-storyline without notice. Not that most people'll realize they're gone for good for a few months, as they don't even mention their absence. What brought that decision on? Were they unpopular, did the artists do something wrong, did they quit in response to having their characters used by J.D in the crossover last issue without permission, did Kim decide to throw his new weight around with some arbitrary sackings? Anyone have any idea at all? Well, I guess 5 different comic strips in the same magazine would be pushing it a bit, wouldn't it. Maybe sometime, when it's a bit bigger.

As often seems to be the case, oddly enough, its the issues with significant changes in staff that feel most similar to their recent precursors, as they don't get to stamp their own personality on the running process until they really know the ropes. This is also one of those issues that was really hard to finish, with some really dull bits in it I struggled to find anything to say about. But any job like this is at least 90% perspiration, so I persevered. And if common wisdom is to be believed, things are about to get even better soon, now kim's officially in charge. Lets see if thats true.

Quote from: (un)reason;306055As often seems to be the case, oddly enough, its the issues with significant changes in staff that feel most similar to their recent precursors, as they don't get to stamp their own personality on the running process until they really know the ropes.

I don't know about Dragon in this period, but in magazines generally, they often have articles written up about six months in advance. Only the editorial and credits get written a couple of weeks before it's all sent to the printers. So with new staff, it can be some months before anything they write gets into print.

Most magazines also have a list of topics for articles which they have a two-year cycle for. That's because few people read a single magazine for more than two years, so nobdoy will complain... except years later when they're ploughing through them all on CD

Dragon Issue 50: June 1981

part 1/2

80 pages. Welcome to a landmark issue, in more ways than one. Both their 50th issue, and their 5th birthday, this means it's time to do a little looking back. My, hasn't the time just flown by. They also have another slew of dragon related articles, as is their habit, and most of the usual suspects show their faces.

In this issue:

Out on a limb: A letter criticizing them for not offering enough material useful to D&D players in issue 46. They also want more wilderness and urban adventures.
Another letter asking for reprints. Which they deny. Even with the massive increase in readership, the logistics involved in reprints make it still not profitable. Just go buy the best ofs instead.
A letter telling a story of another monty haul DM. They aren't going away.
A letter complaining that recent centerpieces have sometimes been off center, so you can't remove them from the magazine cleanly. They apologize, give us permission to photocopy those pages, so you don't have to ruin your magazine to extract them, and promise to do better in the future. How nice of them.
Another letter complaining about how expensive gaming can become.
A letter criticizing the Top secret Module Dr Yes from issue 48. Oh well, can't please everyone.  

We also get a nice birthday piccie and get to see the story behind its creation.

Self defense for dragons: Ha ha! This is an article that'll have quite a substantial impact on next edition's dragons. Wing buffets! Kicks! Tail lashes! Scaling damage based upon size. Watch out adventurers, the namesake of the system just got a hell of a lot more badass.

True dragons: Lew Pulsipher also believes dragons as presented in the rules are insufficiently mysterious, magical and badass, and has his own suggestions on how to beef them up and give them more variety. Polymorphing, supernatural terror aura, magic resistance, invisibility detection, again, all suggestions that got incorporated into the next editions dragons. Plus several that didn't, such as anti-magic breath, truenames and custom spell lists. Reminds me of arcana evolved in the way it posits a single race of dragons, each of which has individual powers, rather than dozens of subraces that could never maintain viable breeding populations in an ecology. Again, I quite like most of this.

Hatching is only the beginning: Want to raise a baby dragon? This gives you lots of help, by giving the probabilities that various things will happen, based on how you treat the little nipper. Teach it how to fly and wash itself properly when its young, or it'll have bad habits in those areas for the rest of its life. And watch out, because if you treat it badly, it'll turn on you pretty quickly. Without the inherent sociability of humans, they aren't the kind of creature to put up with abusive relationships. Obviously, using this puts in quite a bit of implied setting and ecology, but I guess you have to make decisions on matters like that. Still, another high quality article, that can be adapted to later editions without too much problem.

The kzinti: They got into the Star trek cartoon. Now Larry Niven's misogynistic alien felines make their way into the D&D multiverse (as usual, a wizard did it.) They go into a lot of detail on their social structure and ecology (because as prime predators, they need quite an infrastructure to support them. If worst come to worst, they can just butcher their troll slaves and eat them repeatedly and let them regenerate.) A well written article, although it does come a little close to mary-sueing its subject as badasses.  Still, they did end up losing to humans in the original stories, and he doesn't forget why. You'll just have to make sure the PC's work hard so they don't get outshone by the antagonists.

Bazaar of the Bizarre: Only one item this month. However, it is an exceedingly powerful item, with a long and interesting history and set of powers. Barlithian's Magical Mirror. Like many artifacts, though, it'll often be more trouble than it's worth to own, with all manner of strange creatures coming to look at their reflections in it. Maybe it would be best to sell it on. After all, there'll be no shortage of creatures willing to pay ridiculous prices for it, not know what they're getting themselves into.

The 'zines: A big load of fanzines get reviewed this month. Which is intriguing. Nice to see them acknowledging the other people trying to get into their field. I wonder if this'll become a regular feature. Like the computer game reviews, they use a system where each magazine gets marks out of 10 in 4 different fields, allowing you to make a better value judgement than just reading the descriptions.
Abyss is a short AD&D focussed zine with a tendency to go into arcane and complex subjects that they can't really do justice to in the time they have. Still, that does mean they're enthusiastic and knowledgeable about the subjects. But when you get too geeky, its hard to get mass appeal.
Alarums and Excursions is the top amateur press association zine, with a circulation of around 500, and regular monthly issues. Obviously pretty well produced, its main flaw is a tendency towards smugness and back-patting commentary between the regular writers. To cover their costs, they charge the writers to get their stuff published in it. Which does suck a little, but thats working in the amateur world for you.
The beholder is a D&D zine that is good on campaign building, but lacks exceptional standout articles.
The lords of chaos has lots of cool ideas from enthusiastic writers, but most of it is from peoples home campaigns, and may not be that adaptable to your game.
Morningstar is from australia, and is consistent and reliable, but not exceptional.
Pandemonium is a magazine based in new york, with lots of communication between industry insiders in it that will probably be impenetrable to an outsider looking in.
Quick quincy Gazette (a rather silly name) is largely written and run by its editor. While short, it packs lots of little tidbits within to snack upon and put in your campaign.
The stormlord is a small magazine that probably isn't quite worth its cost.
Trollcrusher is a british magazine that is organized as a series of columns, largely written independently by its various writers.
The wild hunt is a debate focussed magazine, doing the kind of thing that would be handled by forums nowadays in terms of critical scrutiny of products and ideas. Which means it may be a bit highbrow for the average reader.
Zeppelin has been around even longer than Dragon itself (1974). Made in canada, it covers a wide range of stuff in both wargaming and roleplaying, and is fairly professionally produced.

Don't look! Its A...: Lew Pulsipher gets another article published this month, this time on the intricacies of adjudicating gaze attacks. The principle of firghting them while not looking directly at them is an old one, as old as the idea of monsters with gaze attacks itself. So he creates a fairly simple formula that determines the odds of accidentally looking at at their face when trying to fight them based on ability scores, level, distance, equipment, etc. In this case it's a d20, roll under one. Most of it seems pretty reasonable, although I'd put more emphasis on level and less on dexterity. But thats the kind of tedious quibbling I sneer at in the letters page, so I won't dwell on that.

Dragon Issue 50: June 1981

part 2/2

The glyphs of Cerilon: Another regular writer gets another article published. Larry DiTillio  expands on the list of effects available to glyphs of warding. This also includes quite a bit of implied setting, as he also gives them flavourful names and pictures of what the various glyphs look like. As is often the case, it's better to go for the more inventive effects than the straight damaging ones, as they are substantially more dangerous overall, plus the players reactions will be more amusing than if it were just a bit of burning they can heal no trouble. (disintegrate all paper items on in their possession. Muahahahaha. Now you have no map of the way out, and no spellbook. Shrunken to 6 inches tall. Random teleportation. Memory loss.) They'd never allow much of this stuff in more recent editions. Oh well, nothing's stopping me from playing older ones save finding a group of players. I know there's still plenty of people around who enjoy this stuff, especially when their players can learn it as well.

Thieves do it in the shadows? Someone's using that joke in an actual advert?! Man, that is such a cheap shot. My eyes, they are rolling.

The Chapel of Silence: This month's module is only 8 pages long, a bit of a letdown after the more epic recent features. Designed for low level characters, it's the kind of 1-3 session dungeon you can drop pretty much anywhere. They forgot to clear out the railroady tournament intro that forces the players into the plot, and there are are several horrible no save effects, and monsters which a party of the suggested level won't be able to beat by straight combat, instead having to use the items found earlier on in the adventure cleverly to have a decent chance. So another frustrating dungeon that you have to really work at to survive and solve then, because they wanted a big chunk of the people attempting it to fail outright. It also has several awkwardly written bits that leave it unclear as to what the author actually intended for certain sections. So all in all, it is not a very good module, for either the players or the DM. I think you can safely skip this.

Minarian legends: Gobins! Even these guys get a balanced account in Minaria. Yes, they do eat people from other races. But they also love their children, and have a fascinating cultural and economic setup (which includes democratic elections in a world still largely governed by heriditary monarchies.) And really given the things humans eat if we have the chance, are we actually any better? Another high quality article full of setting ideas to steal.

The ups and downs of riding high: Flying mounts! One of the things that really changes the overall tone of a campaign, moving it from the mundane towards the awesome. Of course, there are quite substantial logistical issues in obtaining and caring for a flying mount, and that's what this article is here to help with. Intelligent vs nonintelligent mounts. One big mount for everyone or smaller ones for each person, good or evil, each has their own advantages and disadvantages, and optimal ways of caring for them. A solid, but not exceptional article that seems pretty well thought out.

Up on a soapbox: One of those articles that attempts to define the proper way a GM should run their game. This particular soapboxer seems to fall on the firm side of things, encouraging making a ruling and sticking to it, ignoring all further complaints from the players, letting the dice fall as they may, so people know that their life is always on the line, but the GM isn't cheating to make it easier or harder than it should be, and making sure that digression and messing around while the game is on is kept to a minimum. Oh, and don't run games way into the night. Tired players and GM's get cranky and make mistakes. One of those articles that generally seems reasonable, but every now and then throws up something that makes me go man what, and reminds me that the fashion for what is commonly considered good GM'ing has changed quite a bit since then, particularly as regards frequency of character death and use of preprepared modules. They may be starting to build familiar settings, but we're still very much in old skool territory in many ways.

Figuratively speaking only gets a single page this month. And once again, the scanning leaves me unable to really get a good picture of the models. You could definitely have done a better job of this, WotC.

Reviews: The fury of the norsemen is a fun little boardgame of rape and pillaging. Slightly stacked in the favour of the viking players, but you'd expect that, wouldn't you.
The morrow project is another post-apocalyptic game where you play cryogenically frozen soldiers trying to reclaim an earth full of mutants and shit. Technically a roleplaying game, it seems more oriented towards tactical combat situations than character development, with a heavy emphasis on realistic weaponry. Still, if you want a less zany post apoc game than gamma world, this could do the job. After all, roleplaying  is more a matter of a good group than system.

Dragons bestiary: Giant vampire frogs! Adapted from an article in OMNI magazine. And definitely not written by PETA girl. Man, these things are pains in the ass. One of those monsters which grabs onto you, meaning any attacks against it have a good chance of hitting the victim instead. And there are few things more annoying than being accidentally killed by another PC. One of those monsters designed to annoy players as much as they are to fight characters.

Simulation Corner: More talk on the cold hard economics of being a professional game designer, this time from the perspective of a company owner. The need for starting capital to get the first games designed and advertised, the question of mail order vs retail distribution, and the respective benefits and drawbacks of each. ( a question that is being seriously revisited in the modern day, as the internet makes direct ordering a far more viable option. ) The problem of offering too many discounts and freebies and undercutting your profits. All stuff that is relevant for virtually any business in any field. Just because this is a labour of love, don't get the idea that working in gaming won't be bloody hard work.

The electric eye: More on choosing your computer properly. Computers are changing rapidly, and dropping in price, even though virtually everything else is going up, so you might want to hold off on buying one until the market is a little more stable (but don't keep doing it, or you'll be waiting 30 years at least ) Look out for hidden costs, and don't buy  any old books about computers, because they'll be useless. Once again we are reminded how much things have changed in this area. But other things are still the same, such as the tricks people try to sell you things.

Dragonmirth is here, and really rather amusing. What's new has a failure of artwork, and resorts to the old tricks Dirt used, turning out the lights, and recycling pictures. Fineous fingers gets King Kong in to help him flush out those halflings. And Wormy reveals the secret of how he got his treasure hoard. And it's a doozy of a revelation that'll be important for the rest of the run. Feel the meta.

I think they've just about pulled off making this a proper celebratory issue. A combination of looking back, bringing in familiar faces, and trying new things. There are still a few dull articles, but I suspect that'll be the case for the rest of the run, as they're too big and diverse now for every article to please everyone.

Dragon Issue 51: July 1981

part 1/2

100 pages. Shouldn't you have done the beefing of the page count last issue? Oh well. Better late than never. This issue is a second traveller special, with 7 articles devoted to it. (which has absolutely no connection to the fact that The Space Gamer's most recent issue was also a traveler special, honest. We're not taking bribes from GDW and Marc Miller either) Plus another wonderfully weird game from Tom Wham. Lots of other returning things this issue. The band is all together, and they're playing some pretty tight grooves. So lets let them rock.

In this issue:

The D&D computer labyrinth game from mattel now available in all good toy stores. Batteries not included. Pieces not edible. Please do not introduce my little pony crossovers to the game.

Out on a limb: Len rebutts the letter in issue 49 attacking his archer class. It turns out he's a longbow fanboi and crossbow h8er, which is why he doesn't give halflings a bonus as archers.
Two letters, (plus plenty more that weren't printed) criticizing the samurai article from issue 49. Why am I not surprised. Yeah, they weren't what you would expect to go under that name, are they. Which Kim does acknowledge. But they stand by it in terms of quality and playability.
A letter from the designer of fury of the norsemen comments on last issues review (man, they really are speeding up their turnaround time) of his game. And he also takes the time to give us some errata. How nice of him.
Two letters commenting on the AD&D exam from issue 46.
And finally, a letter requesting that they go back to giving modules separate page numberings, so they can be removed without the magazine looking messy. Yeah, I'd prefer that as well.

Make your own aliens: yay. Yet more random generation tables. What a wonderful and original idea [/sarcasm] Still like regular character generation in traveller, half the fun is seeing what you end up with and trying to make sense of it. And playing a three armed, two headed, parthenogenic creature with ultraviolet vision, eyes on its hands, ears on its legs, sonar, perfect memory, and a fetching red and yellow scale pattern could be pretty fun, in the right kind of game. But watch out for those damn speciesists. Its not always easy being green.

Plotting a course for choosy players: Part of the idiosyncratic fun of traveller was its lifepath system. But some people would prefer more choice over their character development. This system doesn't eliminate the randomness, but does give you the ability to sway the crucial dice rolls at times. The odds of getting everything you want are still stacked against you though, just like real life. Lots of dull tables in here.

New ideas for old ships: Sometimes you can't afford to buy exactly the ship you want, so you get what you can and then jury rig it to your needs. Sometimes a pre-owned ship'll come with some of these modifications. Roll on these tables if you want to add a little unpredictability to your second hand purchases. Yes, more random tables. It is Traveller. What were you expecting, chicken marengo? A nice shower and a jog before brunch at a little restaraunt I know? No, you'll have random tables, and you'll like it.

In defense of computers: Man traveller computers really do look anachronistic these days. And it looks like even back in the day, people were picking holes in what their reasonable capabilities should be. And this article tries to defend this. And does a reasonable job, given what they knew at the time. In hindsight though, this is pretty laughable. Reality has simply moved on too much.

Planet parameters: Guidelines for determining a planets approximate gravity, mass, rotational period, size, etc, based on real world figures. Of course, you are free to deviate from that if it would make things more interesting, as planets are hardly homogenous. But at least this'll give you a solid grounding in real world physics to work from.

Masers and cameras: Stats for a couple of new pieces of equipment that you may find useful in combat and reconnaissance. I think they're starting to struggle a bit and are just putting any old submission they can get to fill out the page count.  

The miller milk bottle: Ookay. We've reached the final article in the traveller section at last . And it looks like they're really reaching to think of things to put in there. This final article covers the many uses of the humble milk bottle, for some reason. (Yeah, I'm baffled too) Almost as many as those douglas adams found for the towel. So remember to bring one with you, mmkay. It could save your life.

The winged folk: Oh man. Now here's a classic example of a mary sue race if ever there was one. The winged folk, also known as Al karak elam, long lived prettyboys and girls with minimum attributes of 12 or higher in every single ability score, pretty good level limits for the era, and lots of general niftyness without many drawbacks. Any DM who lets their players play one deserves everything they get. Thank god wingfic has ruined my ability to ever take stuff like this seriously again.

Leomund's tiny hut: This month, len gives us rules for playing 0th level characters, and the training they need to go through to reach 1st level. In multiple stages, covering every special ability, each of which requires months of training. For when playing 1st level characters trudging through the mud and facing goblins in dank little moldy caves isn't disempowering enough for you. A far cry from the later BD&D approach (as soon as an 0th level hireling earns an experience point, they get to choose a class straight away) I don't disapprove of this as much as I thought I would, as it is pretty well done. But I still wouldn't want to play in a game that includes this stuff for more than a one-shot. 1st level characters are more than weak enough for my tastes.

The worshippers of Ratar: A Runequest article about the aforementioned god. A somewhat secretive cult of magic, they seem designed as antagonists, as the default setup has them infiltrating the government of a city and taking it over covertly. Yes, it might be an old chessnut, but thats because its a good one. Mechanically it seems reasonable, as far as I can tell.

Dragon Issue 51: July 1981

part 2/2

A new breed of bug: A new unit for Metagaming's Chitin, the wargame of competing bug hives. The low hacker, designed to increase the role of stealth, defense and reconnaissance. Another article that seems reasonable enough from what I can tell without knowing the precise details of the rules.

It's not easy being good: Ahh, paladins. One of the most problematic classes in the game. Unless the GM and player are on the same page when it comes to what behaviour constitutes lawful good, there will be problems. Because being stripped of your powers when you don't feel you deserve it sucks. That and its a hard line between don't be stupid and foolhardy, and you must spend your existence promoting law and good and smiting evil wherever it may be found. Roger Moore's opinion on this subject is that moral relativism does not have a place in D&D, drugs and casual sex are not lawful good behaviour, full stop, as they can have unfortunate concequences that gets in the way of being ready to go out and do good at all times; and the paladins code should be pretty strictly enforced. (and so should the anti-paladins, by the way. One act of genuine generosity, selflessness or compassion, and you're out. ) If they look like they're about to stray, heavy handed hints from the GM should be used to make sure they realize their god disapproves. And if they go through with it, sometimes they'll just be smitten and killed outright on top of losing their powers. Which isn't very nice, is it.

Thou shalt play this way: The paladin pontification continues. Robert Bezold is rather more constructive in his approach to defining what paladins should and shouldn't do, setting out a sample paladins code in the form of the ten commandments. Yes, it may be  another cliche, but drawing on the christian tradition is easy to relate to, even for those of us who don't subscribe to it, simply because of familiarity via exposure. You want to invent a whole pantheon of religions and their customs that have nothing in common with real world ones, be my guest.

Search for the emperor's treasure: Tom Wham presents this months centerpiece, a somewhat comical fantasy boardgame. Will you return the emperors treasure to him, or keep it for yourself? Where could it be hidden? etc etc. Once again he's come up with the goods. If only he'd managed to come up with them a month earlier, so we could have a proper birthday game instead of a half-assed railroady module.

A part of the game: A piece of fiction by Darren Schweitzer. Never trust the things you see in desert oases. Even if the illusion doesn't fade straight away, you never know what horrible stuff might really be behind the pretty image. A nicely dark little story I thoroughly enjoyed.

Con season is coming up, so we get lots of stuff on what's happening and when.

Figuratively speaking is back to two pages this issue. To go with the theme, they're concentrating on sci-fi appropriate mini's such as spaceships and soldiers.

The electric eye: Wouldya like ta take a survey? It'll help us know what to put in future issues. Aw, go on, goon goan gowan Go ON!

The world of beysycx? I don't remember that one. Looks like another advert for a D&D compatible 3rd party product. Anyone got any info on this?

The rasmussen files: Lots of new courses and a few new traits this month. Although do you really want to be colour-blind, deaf, know what your blood group is, etc? I think those definitely fall under the category of unnecessary crunch. Having to spend months of downtime learning new things does rather get in the way of adventuring. Did len and merle work together at some point, as they seem to be of similar minds on the matter of additional crunch.

Dragon's bestiary: Two rather unimaginatively named monsters this issue. Darkdwellers are basically smart trolls with the special mining powers of dwarves who ride carnivorous dinosaurs into battle. Whether that is awesomely metal or deeply cheesy and unimaginative is for you to decide. Pirahna bats are another D&D hybrid monster in classic format, and do exactly what you would expect given their component creatures, fly around, swarm you and strip all the flesh from your body. What a lovely way to go. Lets hope they don't learn how to hide in shadows and develop a communal hive mind.

Minarian legends: A story of the fairies of minaria, the Golglio favre and Ta-botann, and how schardenzar, a half-fae, became another great hero and sorcerer. Full of classic tropes such as the stolen fairy bride who leaves her husband if he violates a particular commandment, and enemies who lose their power if prevented from touching the element they are bonded with, this is another strong addition to the mythology of Divine Right.

Reviews: The sci-fi theme continues in this section, with lots of traveller focussed stuff. Triplanetary is a board game of interplanetary conflict, with a exceedingly good system for handling the way space travel works in a form that is realistic, but not too complicated to make a fun game, and can handle a wide range of scenarios, including plenty of scope for player designed ones.
Traders and gunboats is another traveller supplement (the 7th official one, man, marc could really churn them out back in the day) focussing upon more starships, and the things they get up to as they explore the universe.
Ley sector is a judges guild supplement for Traveller detailing an area of space and the planets and creatures within. Which like any module, is pretty usefull for when the players want to go somewhere you haven't detailed yourself yet.
Fenris and Tethys are two starship plans by FASA, also intended for use with Traveller. Looks like lots of companies were producing supplements for the game. They have detailed ship plans and sample NPC's running them, so they can also be dropped into your game to fight, buy or negotiate with easily enough.

Whats new is starting to get into its stride. Fineous racks up the tension another notch. Wormy gets spectacularly extraplanar. The rest of dragonmirth trundles onwards.

An issue that has considerably more for other systems than D&D, and makes me wonder how long they keep that policy up for. They still had lots of non D&D stuff when I started reading, which means they're likely to keep this policy for at least the rest of the 80's. Which is pleasing. While I might not know all the systems, concentrating on one game and nothing else for years would get rather dull. Variety is the spice of life and all that.

Dragon Issue 52: August 1981

part 1/2

84 pages. This month, clerics get the spotlight upon them. And I'm guessing they'll be running through the other classes in the near future, as its the kind of topic that's always good to fill out a load of articles with every few years, like women in gaming.

In this issue.

A Dungeons & Dragons adventure. Oh god, I remember seeing these adverts being mocked. A jackalwere! Don't look in it's eyes or you'll sleep forever! So this is when they start. I get the impression that we'll be seeing more in this series in the near future. Honestly, this is preaching to the choir. You do not need to run these adverts in this magazine. Concentrate more on TV and stuff, getting it out there.

Out on a limb: A letter criticizing issue 49 for putting a big interview in the middle, rather than more modules. You ain't gonna be happy with this months issue either then.
Another letter criticizing issue 49, this time for focussing too much on convention stuff.
A letter praising the interview from issue 49, and asking for more. Because they do so love presenting contrasting viewpoints.
A letter from someone who worked his characters up to high level the hard way, and resents being lumped in with the monty haul crowd, or being asked to retire their character. They also object to making deities untouchably powerful, particularly considering the number of real world myths where a mortal manages to somehow get the better of a god. It makes for better stories when gods aren't untouchable, as comparing greek and norse myth to the bible demonstrates.
A letter from someone who wants articles to be less DM focussed, and more useful to the players. After all, they make up a far bigger proportion of people roleplaying.

The role of the cleric: Or, Verily, Archbishop Turpin kicketh righteous posterior. Why should D&D clerics not behave likewise? Know they not the tales of heroic priests to draw from? Or those of adventurous shamen who outsmarted the spirits and monsters bedeviling their lands. It is most demeaning to see the glorious servants of gods treated as mere medics and second string fighters or wizards. Be we weak? Be we restricted to pseudochristian dogma? I say thee NAY! We will have respect as befits our station. We will smite those who oppose us. We will not rest until it is proven that clerics are deserving of a place in adventuring parties to a degree matching any fighter or thief. Did I mention the massive hard-on for Archbishop Turpin, by the way? As usual, the themed section comes out with its biggest gun first. And quite an impressive ...... weapon it is too. Ok, you can put it away now. No, Really. Put it away. I don't care how much epic poetry you read me, I don't swing that way. Thank you.

This land is my land: Hmm. This is very interesting. Should the power of a cleric be influenced by the amount of power his deity has in an area? Quite possibly. But probably not quite to the extent this article posits, as it'd mainly benefit stay at home clerics and hinder adventuring ones. Which would not be useful or fun from a PC's point of view. This kind of thing is ok when you're going extraplanar, at which point things should be epic, weird and stacked against you, but not for normal adventures.

The sense of sacrifices: Even good gods like receiving gifts. (including sacrifices of sentient beings it seems, as long as they're of an alignment opposed to the deities. That's a little dubious. Another example of the double standards applied to the morals of  deities.) If you give them something special, they might do so in return, granting a miracle above and beyond the usual spells. Don't take it for granted though, and don't give them the wrong stuff. You are their servant, they are not yours. A bit of a filler article, really.

Sage advice is back again, after 3 months off, and is joining in on the cleric theme. Exactly who is responsible for answering the questions is no longer clear, however.
How many spells should starting clerics know and where do they learn them from (clerics can automatically access any spell on their list that they are of a high enough level to cast, unless they piss off their god. )
If you attack a monster you turned, can it fight back? (yes)
Can a cleric appeal again in a day if their god does not grant their request the first time (yes, but it's not a good idea. Do not take your deities generosity for granted for a smiting often offends. )
How much area is covered in darkness by the reverse of the light spells (the same as for the normal version)
How long does the paralyzation caused by a glyph of warding last (Godammnit. Did the writer for get to put a duration for this stuff again? We recommend 1-6 turns)
Can good clerics cast cause wounds and evil ones cast cure (yes, on both counts)
Do morally neutral clerics turn or command undead? (Depends on the deity. Use your common sense. )
Since elves and half-orcs have no souls, does that mean they are immune to the reversed forms of the raising spells which kill you instantly (No. One form of a reversible effect not applying does not mean the other does not as well. Quite the opposite in fact, in most cases.)
What happens when you attempt to resurrect an undead creature? (it'll work if it has a body present to raise and died within your time limit, but you need to touch it, and suffer the concequences of doing so before the spell takes effect. Depending on how it became undead, it may still be pissed off at you once raised, or of dubious sanity if it was undead for quite a while.)
If a spawning undead under your control creates a spawn, is that spawn also automatically under your control (No. Beware the chain of command, because it can get out of control very easily as you add more links to it. )
What level does a cleric have to be to become a saint (becoming a saint is a level independent process that is entirely up to the GM's adjudication. We don't want to give rules for everything. )

Basic D&D points of view: John Holmes and Tom Moldvay talk about the new basic set, (yay!) and how it has improved on both OD&D, and the first edition of the basic set. Making it clearer for people who've never roleplayed before, and don't have someone else to explain the game to them is of paramount importance. The plethora of random tables and advice on how to use them make it easy for both players and DM's to start playing quickly, with no experience of the game. The new module, the keep on the borderlands, is a massive improvement on the previous one. But the dice still suck. Horrible little blue things with no marking of the numbers to make them easier to read. And beware the d4. You don't want to tread on that baby. Very interesting because it reveals that John, like so many people grappled with infravision and alignments, what exactly they mean, and how they should be applied. If even he had problems, then maybe the new edition's designers were right in stripping these right back. Still, they didn't seem to stop this edition becoming the biggest selling one ever, and I certainly had no problems understanding the concepts at the age of 8, so they must have been doing a lot more right than they did wrong.

Leomund's tiny hut: This month, we get lots of stuff for greyhawk, with Gary's official seal of approval. Random tables for determining birthplace and languages spoken are more interesting than they first appear, as they also give secondary details such as the most common alignments in these various countries, and the appearances of people from various regions. This is important, because it reveals that the humans of oerth have ethnic groupings not found on earth. (brown skinned redheads, gold and bright yellow (as opposed to RL oriental colouring) skinned people, coppery and bronzed tones, amber coloured eyes.) Which is something I rather approve of, as it's an easy way to make the world more fantastic without having to alter things stats. I wonder if they'll remember to portray them like that in future art?

The undercover job guide: A little Top Secret article expanding on good jobs for undercover agents to get, and how much you can expect to get paid for them given your skill level in the appropriate abilities. Obviously, this stuff is well out of date now, due to inflation, but it seems like a good time saver if you want to add a little more depth to your character without doing all the research yourself.

Dragon Issue 52: August 1981

part 2/2

Another artist profile is this months centrefold. Boris Vallejo. And he is...... certainly under no illusions as to the level of his abilities and achievements. Once again we see that attaining fame isn't just about talent, but also a willingness to both work your ass off, and not being ashamed to negotiate prices and sell yourself successfully. And yet like many workaholics, he still sees himself as lazy, and has not forgotten his insecurities from when he was poor and skinny. Which as ever, is pretty interesting to me.

Giants in the earth: This month's munchkins are shakespeare's Prospero, Ariel, and Caliban (who is represented as a half-orc. Hmm. What does that remind me of?) and Greek Myth's Circe.

Cavern of the sub-train: Oooh. Looks like we have a second big feature this month. This is a gamma world module, another case of taking a perfectly ordinary 20th century invention and making it into a mysterious adventure for the mutants of the future to deal with. A pretty short scenario that can be used as a throwaway, or expanded into a whole series of adventures as the characters explore the underground tunnels and find things lurking beneath in various places.

Dragon's bestiary: This months monsters are the rhaumbusun, rocky lizards with a paralyzing gaze, possibly related to basilisks, and pelins, which are essentially organic zeppelins, and therefore inherently utterly awesome, especially once you factor in the ecological stuff which tries to put a logical slant on how such a creature could exist (ha). Any player with any imagination would want to capture a baby one and train it. Another creature I'd really like to put in a game.

The history of siege warfare: A system free historical article (is it just me, or have they been doing less of those lately?)

Following the request for a bounty hunter, they have been inundated by submissions. So they present us with three of the best of them (immediately catching them up with alchemists, samurai and witches in number of versions ) so you can choose which one(s) to allow into your game. Number 1 is probably somewhat overpowered, with powers drawn from the assassin, thief and ranger lists at pretty good levels. Only the fact that it is limited to 13th level, and the highest one is restricted to a single master bounty hunter that you have to kill to take the job of, druid stylee, keeps it from getting too out of hand. Number 2 is basically a ranger plus a bit and minus a bit, which is mainly useful if you want to skip the supernatural powers, fluff and restrictions of the standard ranger, and just play an outdoors huntery type. Number 3 is probably my favourite, as it has the greatest number of unique abilities, rather than just recycling preexisting powers in a new combination, and has more focus on the social sleuthing and subdual side of their job than the other two. All are pretty well written, and I'd probably allow them in my game, apart possibly from the 1st one if I wanted a more serious game. (there can be only one style classes have their place, and that is not for when I'm trying to be realistic. )

Up on a soapbox: Another Lew Pulsipher article, as he talks about the problem of fixing mistakes in your game, particularly when it comes to rulings that have proved to be bad for the game, and magical items and abilities that have unbalanced a character relative to the rest of the group. How do you keep this from spoiling the game, and sort out the problem without creating resentment in the player who got the shiny overpowered toys?  He reccomends admitting you made a mistake, and not trying to fix a metagame issue by in game vendettas. Open talking about problems is the way to solve them.
Also on the soapbox this month is Tom Armstrong, giving us another reminder that players will read the rulebooks, even the ones they aren't supposed to, so you shouldn't hesitate to create new monsters and items, or alter existing ones. Never let the rules lawyers take over your game, and turn it into a mere tactical exercise. As ever, they probably put the better article first.

Minarian legends: The southern city-states get their day in the sun. Defined by a cycle of conquest, spoiled offspring, descent into decadence, and subsequent fall, the deserts and savannas offer their own distinctive spin on the dramas of fantasy history. Can they secure a lasting place on the world stage, for a change. The answer, as ever, is in your hands.

Simulation corner: They start an extended series on game design this month, talking about the process you go through to get from that first idea to a finished product. Mostly a checklist of common sense stuff that is applicable to nearly any creative project, this is the kind of thing that is really rather helpful, and often gets forgot about. Creating virtually anything is going to involve more perspiration than inspiration, and while you might not be able to control the inspiration part, you can definitely set things up so you accomplish more for your effort with good organizational thinking.

Figuratively speaking: Lots of big minis (oh, the irony) this month. Giants, huge birds with riders, an ogre, a spider, a beholder, a dragon, and a castle. The pics are actually legible this time as well, which is nice.

The dragon's augury: As they're seriously starting to split the reviews up into various categories now, I guess I shall have to start calling this by its given name, to prevent confusion.  
BRP gets its first release as a generic system, separate from Runequest. In only 16 pages, it gives a complete basic system, plus (and here's the important part) it presents it in a clear, friendly fashion designed to get complete newcomers to roleplaying going quickly, with examples, and advice on how to find more players and other peripheral stuff. Another great example of how much lower the bar for entry to the hobby was then. It's no wonder far more people were trying it without any help from current gamers at that point.
Timewarp is a sci-fi wargame who's primary distinctive point is a strong attempt to model the time dilation fast sub-light travel results in. With turns 5 years long, it does cover quite an impressive scope in that respect, modeling wars that cover generations with different participants aging at different rates. But unfortunately, apart from that one gimmick, it's not that a great a system, and has limited replay value.
Dungeon tiles do exactly what you'd expect, provides an easy to assemble set of underground geography for your minis to inhabit, for those of you like to keep precise track of where everyone is.

Off the shelf: Another new feature that looks like it's going to be a regular. Fiction books are now given a separate section to be reviewed in from the RPG's, boardgames and suchlike. Which is a nice development.
Dream park is a Larry Niven and Steven Barnes' take on virtual reality games, and therefore has a lot of relevance to roleplayers. Just how far can the line between fantasy and reality be blurred, and how far is a company willing to take these things when large amounts of money is involved.
Dragonslayer, by Wayland Drew manages to add considerably more depth to the characters than the movie did.
Sunfall, by C.J Cherryh is a strong selection of short stories set in the decline of the earth, as resources are exhausted and the sun slowly dies. Which may be a bit depressing, but hey.
Horseclans Odyssey, by Robert Adams, is another postapocalyptic future novel, that is  part of a larger series, with lots of well done technical detail and strong characterization (at which point the reviewer takes a snipe at Lin Carter) that leaves the reviewer consistently entertained and wondering what happens next.

Dragonmirth is here, and joining in with the clerical theme. What's new and Wormy are also here. We see our first mention of the long to be delayed sex in D&D issue. (next month, we promise.) Meanwhile, in Wormy, we get a hilarious demonstration of just how stupid goblins are, and how seductive the lure of wargaming is. How much must this strip have shaped peoples conception of the various D&D races at the time.

Well, it looks like D&D is back in the majority with a vengance. But they're still putting in plenty of stuff for lovers of other systems as well. And with sex in D&D and Off the Shelf, we get to see two more things that will be significant right down the rest of the run start. Another busy month that took quite a lot of effort to get all the way through. But I think it was worth it. Not long now until D&D really goes critical, now the red box set is unleashed on the market.