The Dragon Issue 10: October 1977

Going up to 36 pages long, this includes a full boardgame with it, as they hinted at earlier. We'll see several more of those over the years. Such a shame I'm reading in  .pdf and can't make proper use of it. Oh well.  We also see another development. In an attempt to stem the cries of canonwankers, they're going to clearly mark which new articles are "official" and which are optional variants. Will, it work? It wasn't around by the time I started reading, so it can't have lasted too long. I'll let you know when it stops.

Also in this issue:

Orgies, inc: Changing the rules to make the game more S&Sish, characters using this variant gain experience by blowing their money instead of earning it. Wait a minute. Didn't I see this rule in Iron Heroes recently, where it was hailed a a rather good idea. And do we not also know that mike mearls is still partial to a little OD&D. Not that I'm implying anything, oh no. There are fewer truly original ideas than you would think. Includes some rather NSFW artwork by Dave Trampier. Someones certainly willing to push the family friendly line most of this stuff sticks too.

Designing for unique wilderness encounters: More random tables full of stuff to let you build areas quickly when out of ideas. System free, and so still useful today. It'd be cool to design a world using only the tables in these issues.

Random Monsters: Another set of tables, literally allowing you to build a monter by rolling on them to determine its appearance and stats. Handy (as they say) when dealing with players who already know all the monsters in the books, and have strategies for how to best fight them all worked out. Dontcha just hate that.

Let there be a method to your madness: The worldbuilding continues with this essay on how to create logical dungeons by working from principles such as who built it, why, and what resources they had. This is madness! It'll never catch on!

Snit Smashing! A fun little game of hunting and reproducing, leading on from the floating in timeless space comic.

An article on why males should be stronger than females in D&D, because of things like weight, height and differences in build, along with "realistic" tables for the determination of these factors. As I don't want to annoy the PC among you, I shall say no more apart from to mention that this is another thing which would spawn an analogue much later on, with the height influencing weight multiplication method used in 3rd edition.

Gaining a new experience level: This starts off as a serious article about making gaining a level an ordeal in itself (as people were wont to do back then with training house rules), and then turns into a joke, as the requirements grow ever more ludicrous and arbitrary, ending up with the great pink elephants granting the character his new level while he lies in a drunken stupor. Read as satire, this is a great article, and amongst the jokes are some sound mechanical suggestions, such as allowing magic-users to forget spells that are no longer useful so they can learn new lower lever ones that do have use at higher level, and make the most of their spells known limit. Which as we know, became an invaluable ability for sorcerers in 3.5.

The tactics of diplomacy in Stellar Conquest: Advice on how to play a game where you can't communicate directly and indicate lack of hostility, as well as general tactical advice for the game such as exploration and supply lines. Pretty standard stuff, really.

Wormy and fineous fingers continue.

This has quite a fun issue. There have been several cool new developments, with a higher than usual level of ideas that will be reused in the future, and a proper sense of history is starting to grow.

The Dragon Issue 11: December 1977

38 pages. The board game fun continues in this issue, with snit smashing getting a sequel. Even more importantly, we get the first rumblings about AD&D, with the monster manual coming soon, and lots of resulting promotion for it. (odd that the monster book should be released before the players and DM's books. Still, I guess all the monsters were compatible with OD&D rules. ) On top of that, we have the first official D&D novel coming soon, by Andre Norton! (excuse me while I have a fanboy moment here) of all people. On top of that, they have new staff, and thanks to that, and their still increasing sales, dragon will be going monthly very shortly. That was quick. Just 3 years to go from quarterly to the monthly schedule most of us remember. Now the only way up is in the page count.

In this issue:

View from the telescope: Gary blasts people trying to copy their work, or produce material compatible with D&D without permission. (a bit rich when you consider the hassle they had with hobbits and cthulhu) Quality control must be maintained! We do not produce shoddy rushed work just to make a quick buck! (yeah, I know. How long was the publishing gap between the 3 AD&D corebooks? ) AD&D will be a massive improvement over the previous edition of the game! I think most of you are familiar with the flow of high Gygaxese by now, so I'll stop here before we die laughing. On the other side of the page an advert for Judges Guild Officially Approved D&D compatible licenced products. See, we're not monsters. You can do business with us.

Brawling! As ever they make it far more complicated than armed combat, for far less benefit unless you are specifically intending not to kill. Which I guess is important sometimes, particularly when low level characters are so fragile. Given the way the D&D hit point system worked at that time, capturing and imprisoning people would be virtually impossible unless you used magic, or they surrendered. And some people want more options.

Defending against the OGRE: Tactical advice for the boardgame of the same name. Can't really comment on this one.

The Play's the thing: A little article encouraging people to think up backgrounds and personalities for their characters. Along with the worldbuilding stuff in the last issue, it seems that D&D is starting to seriously move beyond its wargaming roots and involve actually viewing characters as roles rather than just pieces to explore, fight, level up and die with. Betcha we'll be seeing a roleplayers vs rollplayers quip within a few issues.  

Seal of the Imperium: More Tekumel Q&A by Professor Barker. Mostly setting stuff this time round, clearing things up and expanding on stuff in the books, rather than rules niggles.

From the sorcerers scroll: More teasers on the upcoming AD&D products. The monster manual, and a big outdoor map by Brian Blume. Also notable is an offhand comment about Chivalry and Sorcery, as D&D's closest rival yet. So we know thats out now. Ends by asking the readers to rate what they want more of in order of importance.

Sea magic: More Fafhrd stuff by fritz lieber. Our barbarian learns to shoot bows around corners, despite having recently lost a hand. Truly he is pretty badass. Meanwhile the Grey mouser has acquired a whole ship full of followers. Definitely has the feel of a high level later story, and makes me wish I had the intervening stories. Which is a good thing from the writers perspective, isn't it.

Quarterstaff fighting rules: Another completely disconnected fighting subsystem is introduced. And promptly ignored. Also featuring incredibly twinked out stats for robin hood and his men, who all have all physical attributes at 15 or above. Yeah, not very impressed with this one.

More Wormy and Fineous Fingers.

A review of the Rankin-Bass cartoon of The Hobbit. A very scathing one. Good to see that people realised just how crap those cartoons were even back then. Shame that didn't stop them from producing crap cartoons all through the 80's and making huge amounts of money doing so. Oh well.At least we have a pretty good movie version of LotR now, hopefully with the hobbit to come.

Snits Revenge! A second boardgame continues the story of the timeless space setting. A whole new game, plus errata for the first one.

All in all, this has been a pretty good issue. A few duff articles, but the combination of good ones, and the extensive amount of teasers for the future has made it feel pretty significant in general. This is the first time most of the players at the time would have heard of AD&D, and we know how well that one worked out. Which is nice.

The Dragon Issue 12: February 1978

Another year, another reason for celebration, as Dragon finally gets 2nd class mailing approval. Another step away from being a hobby towards becoming a smoothly running industrial machine (well, as close as you get where artists are involved ) This also gives us a chance to see the proper figures due to the business requirements. Still nowhere near the numbers that they would attain in its heyday, but still more than equal to most RPG supplements these days. Oh well. Times be hard for poor game designer. Old man row 'cross the river each day. The same number that seemed good on the way up can feel oh so small on the way down. Or something.

Also in this issue:

They shoot hirelings, don't they: A tale of player's cruelty to the NPC's under their control, and general evil imaginations. The kind of thing that would spawn an epic thread these days, because loads of people can tell a story like this. And people always want to hear drama and gossip. So fun all round.

A new look at illusionists:  Yet more buffs and rules clarifications for this class. I can see why specialist wizards of so many stripes were introduced in later editions, the magic user always got loads of attention and cool toys.

The Persian Mythos and the lovecraft mythos (oh yes, you know how this story ends) get writeups, (including stats for the gods, so you can kill them, as we are, after all, kickin it old skool style. ) Fairly short entries, (tiny by modern standards) that remind us how rules light D&D was back then.

Some thoughts on the speed of a lightning bolt: Another bait and switch, as this actually has to do with the optional action speed and round segment rules, and how much of an advantage they give wizards, due to their lack of armor to slow them down. As a result, if you use them wizards are even more likely to be able to waste their enemies before they can react. As if they needed any more advantages after the first couple of levels.

Ship's Cargo: Does exactly what it says on the tin. If you have players of a piratical disposition, you'll need to determine randomly what treasure the ships they raid contain. This helps you do that.

The druids: Druids weren't bloody sacrificers of men, that was merely a vile roman slander. They were doctors, philosophers and teachers. Ahh, the joys of neopaganism. Really, given the scarcity and bias of records from that time, can we ever know for sure what they were really like. Most of it's just literary invention and deeply tiresome.

An excerpt from the first ever D&D novel, Quag Keep by Andre Norton. Hews surprisingly closely to the spirit of the game (particularly that of the actual plays by Gary and co that I've read. Andre has definitely done her research and tried to emulate the feel of those games), unlike many later D&D novels. Of course, that spirit is somewhat whimsical and has strong character as playing piece metagameing elements, but that doesn't detract from the entertainment. I wonder how hard it would be to get a copy of this book now. It's probably long out of print.

Wormy and fineous fingers continue to develop their respective plots.

The fantasy trip!: The ancestor of what would become GURPS starts here. Also, their back page is no longer filled with a placeholder saying this space for sale, or ads from TSR themselves. That is a definite step up in terms of looking professional.

Another mixed bag of good and bad, important and inconsequential here. They're still trying lots of new things, to see what works. And quite a bit of it is. Which is nice for us.

The Dragon Issue 13: April 1978

The announcement of monthly printing has finally caught up with them. From here on in, the years will seem to go by a lot slower, especially as the page count ramps up as well. This is also the first proper april fools issue, starting up the tradition of filking that would become a regular feature of these. In addition to the increase in publishing rate, they are also moving to bigger offices, as the company in general expands. So its still a meteoric rise then. Which is nice.

In this issue:

How heavy is my Giant: This is pretty self explanatory, as they do lots of maths to determine how heavy a giant of a particular size should be, and how much they should be able to lift. Relys on the laws of physics not being the same as here, as people of over 10 foot or so would need some serious structural redesign and reinforcement to stand upright without breaking their backs with the strain. Includes lots of weights for various materials, for those of you inclined to build a creature out of gold or something (as wizards will)

Tolkien in D&D: Yeah, D&D is heavily influenced by tolkien. No, that is not it's only influence, we like other stuff as well. Yes, we know some things are different from their source, it is a game after all. Now please stop sending us tedious knit-picking (sic) letters. Please?! Anyone listening? Bueller? Yeah. internet forums haven't changed people at all, they've just given them a new avenue to express themselves.

The bionic supplement: Yeah. Thiiss iiiss the seventiiiiieees! More toys for metamorphosis alpha. Has both advantages and problems, obviously.

Demon generation: Another treat for those DM's who's players have memorised the entire monster manual already. Can create some obscenely powerful creatures, particularly if you take the safety checks off. Still, you need them that powerful to challenge the players.

The japanese mythos: Another pantheon detailed for you to worship or kill, as your players choose. As japan has a larger selection of kami who operate on a near human scale, there are a greater number of gods here that are on a reasonably defeatable scale than average. Nothing too surprising here.

The filks page: Lets not go there, shall we. I may have filked before, I may do so again. But it still makes me squirm to see popular songs so abused

Errata for Warlord: Another game I don't remember, I'm afraid.

The winner of the stat that monster competition from issue 8, plus a new competition. This time you need to work from a description, rather than a picture.

Fiction: The stolen sacrifice. A third Niall story from Gardner F Fox, and we go increasingly epic in it. At the end of it, he manages to overthrow a kingdom and become a general. Is this a happy ending, or will the story continue? We shall see.

Fineous fingers and wormy continue.

Notes from a semi-sucessfull D&D player: A whole range of tricks for players, such as the now ubiquitous continual light on an object so you can carry it one, and the enormous usefulness of polymorph, plant growth and permanency spells. Tactical solutions are generally more effective than straight attacks, and this is particularly true back then before they nerfed most of the buff and utility spells. Lets face it, when the GM is against you, you need to use every trick you have to survive.

An ok issue, not as interesting as the last couple, but not bad. I guess it is significant because it starts the monthly circulation and the april fools thing, but it still feels like business as usual.  Which I suppose is testament to the hard work of the writers and editors.

Quote from: (un)reason;294221Some discussions on language in D&D. Does feel very dated, and suffers somewhat from the humans are the only race with different languages problem.

Quote from: (un)reason;297086Tactical solutions are generally more effective than straight attacks, and this is particularly true back then before they nerfed most of the buff and utility spells.

I was reading the article on languages the other day and I suddenly realized something important beyond the Were-St. Bernard and talking walls. The example at the end is of a group of PCs who ran into a overwhelming number of Morlocks and were faced with a probable TPK - until the "Caveman Cleric of great Charisma" (I love that line for some reason!) realized she could communicate in Cavish with the Morlocks enough to parley safe passage for the party's stash of wine. Which ties in with the point from the second article thusly-

That encounter wasn't "balanced" for the party's level in any way. No "suitable CR". If the party had just fought straight-out, they would have been slaughtered, and I'm sure the local terrain would have mattered only minimally. Point is, they got past it. Without DM fudging. Now, maybe if they hadn't had the Cleric with them, they would have had a harder time - but they didn't have to rely entirely on combat to get them through.

Quote from: Pere Ubu;297101I was reading the article on languages the other day and I suddenly realized something important beyond the Were-St. Bernard and talking walls. The example at the end is of a group of PCs who ran into a overwhelming number of Morlocks and were faced with a probable TPK - until the "Caveman Cleric of great Charisma" (I love that line for some reason!) realized she could communicate in Cavish with the Morlocks enough to parley safe passage for the party's stash of wine. Which ties in with the point from the second article thusly-

That encounter wasn't "balanced" for the party's level in any way. No "suitable CR". If the party had just fought straight-out, they would have been slaughtered, and I'm sure the local terrain would have mattered only minimally. Point is, they got past it. Without DM fudging. Now, maybe if they hadn't had the Cleric with them, they would have had a harder time - but they didn't have to rely entirely on combat to get them through.

Interesting thought. This probably ties in with the general greater prevailance of random encounters. When you often wind up facing creatures substantially more or less powerful than you, and don't have the luxury of knowing they're being tailored to your level, it makes you more likely to try and negotiate before attacking.

The Dragon Issue 14: May 1978

36 pages. Quite a bit of sci-fi stuff in this one, both in articles and in adverts. If anything, it seems like Sci-fi held a bigger market share in gaming then than it does now. (on the other hand, modern setting games were virtually nonexistant, so I guess they had to push something out the way) We also get to see the start of one of the classic bits of gaming lingo. Keep reading to find out what I'm on about.

In this issue:

We get to see the actual stats from the winners of the Name that monster competition. This is of course interesting because people have inferred quite different stats and backstories from the same picture. The amount of setting stuff in the entries is rather higher than that of official D&D monsters at the time. Really folks, you're being shown up by amateurs. You need to step up your game.

Space Marines commentary and Errata by the designer. Rather a lot of it. Another case where I don't feel qualified to comment, other than to say that this looks like one rules heavy game.

Nomad gods: The second boardgame set in Glorantha is now out. (this is still pre Runequest, remember) The themes and characters that would become important in Heroquest, much later, are still evident here. Greg is already showing plenty of ability as a game designer. This is another thread of history I will comment upon with interest.

A review of the boardgame Cosmic encounter. A pretty favourable one. But then, self selection means most of the reviews here will be fairly positive. The frequency with which they talk about boardgames at this time reminds you just how much computer games have edged out boardgames and other more bulky forms of entertainment now. Tempus fugit, and all that.

Robots as players in Metamorphosis Alpha: Another article that does exactly what is says on the tin, opening up a new player type, and corresponding playstyle, due to their different abilities. Uses one of the earliest point buy systems to create their stats, rather than the random generation more common in this era, which is nice. I don't think this is the very first instance of point buy character creation, but it'd be funny if it was.

Fiction: An interview with a rust monster. A tale of adventurers being rather stupid, as is not uncommon. You don't mess with the rust monster, even if that rust monster is a polymorphed adventurer.

Gary Gygax explaining what the difference and relationship between the new (john holmes edition) basic set and AD&D is, and how they relate to OD&D, as well as why they chose to do it this way. He says that he intends to keep the original version in print as well. (yeah, how long is that going to last) At this point, it's pretty obvious that after getting through the 3 levels in the basic set, you need to go on to AD&D. The days when BECMI would make BD&D become its own branch of the game with slightly different advancement styles and tropes are still in the future.

Monty HAUL!: That old chessnut of the joke campaign where the characters are obscenely overpowered and the DM is incredibly generous with rewards gets its slang name here. This is the ultimate wargame of ultimate destiny, featuring the norse gods, a battalion of platinum dragons, T-rex's and martians. Much fun was had by all, and many game rules were broken.

Hastur is the KING OF AIR!! Another entertainingly pedantic letter by a viewer who thinks that something in a previous issue was innacurate, in this case the lovecraft mythos stuff from a couple of issues ago. The great old ones should be more powerfull, so powerfull no mortal can touch them! Yeah, whatever you say mate. Now calm down, put the pen down and walk away. Its only a game.

Yet another expansion for metamorphosis alpha. Was it really that popular back then, or was jim ward just a one-man creative pimp-house arsenal for his game?

Wormy and Fineous Fingers continue.

Lycanthropy, the progress of the disease: How infected characters manage to gain control of themselves after the change, what abilities they lose (mostly spellcasting ability), and how PC's advance. Also includes stuff on the social ramifications of becoming a werecreature. As this is long before Ravenloft, horror is not on the agenda. Lycanthropes in standard D&D at this time seem to be fairly easy to identify, even in human form, and quite family oriented.  How things have changed. Still quite an entertaining article, and it makes more sense of early mystara stuff.

Quite a good issue, overall. We've seen both a decent amount of new things that would be used again later, and generally amusing stuff.

Great thread. Keep it up!

The Dragon Issue 15: June 1978

36 pages. Dragons 2nd birthday. We start with another burst of bitching at the post office. As ever their reliability is seriously random. Always the case, and probably always will be the case. What are you to do. This also starts the period in which their page count starts expanding consistently, as opposed to just for the occasional special issue. I'll keep track of this, and as soon as I have reliable data for the whole run I intend to do a graph, so we can get a proper visual image of the rise and fall of the magazine.

In this issue:

The start of another tradition, although I don't think they know it yet, that of having Dragon related articles on every birthday issue. This time, its a set of new spells for dragons, to supplement their spell lists and increase their versatility. Surprisingly few of them would go into general use, and get converted to later editions, and so these still feel fresh and idiosyncratic. Which means they're ideal for screwing your players over with.

Pits! You never know what you might find at the bottom of them. And if the DM doesn't know either, he can roll on this random table. Just leave the loan sharks IN the pit please.

Random events table for settlements: Something that would become important later on, in the domain management system in the Companion set. Like PC's, settlements need to face adversity on a regular basis to keep things from getting dull. Unfortunately, they didn't think ahead enough to include mechanical ramifications for these disasters, but the domain management stuff was a bit vague and heavily fiated anyway. We can do so much better nowadays.

Monty haul and the German high command: The tales of insane twinkery and crossover madness continue. Epic lulz are had by all, and the legendary meme continues to spread through the gaming populace.

More stuff on wandering monsters, how to decide on them, and how they should react to the players.

Notes from another barely successful D&D player. This one has a lot of elements of using mundane techniques to simulate magical abilities, and other such trickery. A good reminder that often the best way to win in those days was to avoid rolling the dice at all costs. And creative thinking is more interesting than straight-up fights in any game. So this is still valuable advice for anyone who's GM will accept solutions based upon real world physics.

The gospel of benwa: A joke story of the creation of the world, how it came to be, and how it was divided into law and chaos. Feels veeery dated, I'm afraid.

D&D ground and spell scale area: Some stuff from Gary on why they used different scales of movement for indoor and outdoor stuff, how to reconcile them with miniatures, and spell effects, and the proper size of miniatures to mesh with the inches scale used. Rather dry stuff, with a distinct air of high gygaxese to it, but informative in revealing some implicit assumptions about the game. Particularly interesting is the fact that despite being adapted from a miniatures game, they used them very little in the first two years of the original group, before it was published. So though miniatures and their sale were intimately connected with the first few years of D&D as a published game, and would be so again, there had already been a certain amount of ebb and flow in that area.

Weather in the wilderness: More random tables full of stuff that can be ported to any game with earthlike weather. If you can't be bothered to think up weather to suit the plot, and your players care, just roll here.

Examining movement tactics in Stellar Conquest. Mobility, proper exploration, outmaneuvering your opponent in combat. All the usual things that should be common sense in any wargame. Another unremarkable article.

Fiction: The green magician by L. Sprague deCamp. Another proper author who was a big influence on the game gets a story published in Dragon. A fairly entertaining time-travel story, this time involving interfering in the legend of Cuchulainn. Too be continued.

Fineous fingers is illegible this issue, while wormy is just filler art. This isn't very good.

More random encounters, this time for boot hill.

Another fairly average issue, with good articles, bad articles and dull articles. As it's an anniversary issue, it feels like they've tried to get some big guns in, but the overall effect is just more business as usual. I'm starting to get a bit fed up with all these random tables. Still, quite a bit of that stuff is still usable now, this issue is still useful as a resource, and I've got another hint into D&D's early history, so it's not exactly a waste.

The Dragon Issue 16: July 1978

40 pages

Once again, the editor tries to remind people it's just a game, and their readers shouldn't take roleplaying so seriously. Don't confuse fantasy with reality, don't throw tantrums when your character dies, don't try and assign some deep cosmic meaning to everything we write. All things that you would suppose are common sense. But there's always a few who don't listen, and those are the ones sending poorly written vitriolic letters to the magazine. It's no job for the sensitive, being an artist No wonder they have such a high turnover. Your biggest fans become your worst enemies. In the blink of an eye they're saying you've sold out or lost it, and bitching as if they'd been personally betrayed by you.

In this issue:

More arguments about the cthulhu mythos' stats and fluff, as some people draw upon various authors, while others are lovecraft purists, and the details in stories contradict one-another. Another argument that could go on forever if the editors didn't step in and stop it. And they are noticeably more partisan than most forum moderators in doing so, as they have only limited space, and a personal connection to many of the columnists. Another way in which the internet is a vast improvement, despite its flaws.

The Sumerian pantheon. (ishtar, nergal, etc.) Another deity list. Most notable in that it introduces Tiamat, who would go on to become a D&D regular, and develop into a character quite different from her source mythology; and scorpion men, who would be a staple mystara monster.

Ninjas! Our first new class in well over a year. Some people might have been complaining about class bloat already, but others will always want more, no matter how much they get. This one is very very badly designed indeed. Both overpowered, overcomplicated and stupidly specific in a lot of ways, they specifically say it should be used for NPC's only. (particularly if players are getting overconfident, another case of Gm/player antagonistic assumptions) I think I just won't bother using it at all, thank you very much.

The adventures of the monty haul crew continue: This time Monty gets to GM, and the players have to marshall all their overpowered characters to survive. Also notable because it features the first mention of Drow in dragon magazine, some time before their first iconic adventure and subsequent fame.

Why magic-users and clerics cannot use swords: A typical old skool solution. It's because of a magical curse apprentices have to accept before they can be trained. Which is about as workable as the scribe monopoly on copying magical spells, and its not surprising it never made it into common use.

Realism vs game logic.........: A rather longwinded rant by Gary on a whole number of topics, including spell point systems, people demanding realism in fantasy games, (particularly realistic magic) people trying to coattail on D&D's success by producing unauthorised supplements, critical hits, special weapon expertise powers, spell point systems, people who resent them for making money off their creativity, and people who are incapable of accepting that they are wrong, even when presented with concrete evidence against them. Yeah, thats a lot of vitriol. Public relations were not his speciality. Since a lot of the things that he railed against here made their way into 3rd edition, I can see why he ended up dissatisfied with it. This definitely qualifies as a classic rant.

More metamorphosis alpha expansions and charts, this time focusing on using mutant animals as PC's.

Runequest! King arthurs knights! We're really cooking with classic chaosium products now. Which means BRP, and all the mechanical design advances that come with it. Another important part of RPG history starts here.

The conclusion to the green magician. Once again, the heroes wind up making history happen the way it did. Bit of a lazy way of making a plot, really. Still, I suppose it educates people who can't be bothered to read the originals.

Fineous fingers and wormy are particularly amusing this issue.

Game balance: Jim ward presents a different face to it, reminding us that characters can be obscenely powerful and the game remain fun, as long as they are up against challenges commensurate with their abilities. It is after all, a game, and if you make it too much of a grind, it ceases to be fun. Which is a nice contrast with gygaxian antagonistic GM'ing.

Quite an entertaining issue. We see a lot more of the personalities behind the game, and their interactions and differences than usual. A reminder that this is just a bunch of people who had a cool idea, and were now watching it blow up around them and trying to ride the wave, not always perfectly. They still have quite a lot to learn. And so do we. Maybe some day, I'll wanna settle down. Untill that day, I'll just keep movin' on. (cue banjo solo. )

The Dragon Issue 17: August 1978

40 pages. They maintain their increased size despite not being a special issue, which means they have lots of articles in this one. Despite this, they don't feel they are getting enough good ones, and exhort their readers to send more stuff in. After all, to expand, you need more material. The printing presses are a never sated monster. A feeling I'm starting to know all too well.

In this issue:

Vampires in the dungeon: Yeah, vampires have a whole range of cool powers. So play them smart. Make the characters suffer, hitting and running from cracks in the floor, constantly watched and harassed by vermin, never knowing if some of their number are charmed and will turn on the others at a crucial point, etc etc. Now isn't that much more fun than I roll to hit, roll for damage, he rolls for hit and damage, back and forth until someone dies. And if you kill them all, you can make them roll up new characters, and have them face their old ones, now among the ranks of the undead. Isn't that nice.

Jousting in D&D: Another little independent subsystem based upon an attack and defense type matrix. Not too bad a one, and it helps in fighting without killing each other, which would otherwise be very likely in D&D.

Review: Dragonlord. A pretty favourable review of the wargame, with an extensive explanation of how to play it.

Faceless men & clockwork monsters: A an actual play of a D&D/metamorphosis alpha crossover run by Gary. Lengthy and quite gonzo, with a pretty happy ending, as the adventurers find their technological opponents have no defense against their magic, and wind up becoming heroes in short order.

A wizard with a difference: A set of variant specialist wizard types. Not particularly balanced, I'm afraid. Interesting though, as instead of restricting the more powerful spells by level, they can pick any spell on their list at any level, but the more powerful the spell is, the harder it becomes to cast them. An approach which would be adapted to 2nd ed AD&D psionics, and become standard in some other games, such as the Buffy RPG. Definitely an interesting new bit of design technology, even if you should be cautious about allowing players to play one.

The AD&D players handbook! The second part of the trinity is now with us. Soon the new game will be complete.

Sights and sounds in D&D: More random tables, this time for adding visual flavour to your dungeons. Another sign that they're starting to pay more attention to the setting, even if it's expressed in a different way to modern games.

Another set of joke monsters: unkillable joke annoyance, the munchkin; plus scholars and crs'tchen. My eyes, oh how they are rolling.

The monk and bard in Dungeon!: An expansion for the boardgame. Does exactly what it says on the tin.

Tesseracts: Building hypercubic and other non-euclidian dungeons, making Escher proud, and mapmakers very confused, while maintaining internal consistency in your areas. Yeah, this is cool stuff, particularly to someone mathematically inclined like me. Its a fantasy game. Of course you should make the laws of physics suffer.

Another article full of tactical advice for OGRE: Detailed breakdowns of how to use each unit make this a pretty good one.

Boredom and the average D&D dungeon: Another sign of their growing attention to setting, they advise you to do things like themed dungeons full of monsters and items derived from particular cultures and creature types, to stop it from getting samey. Ok, so its hardly an "ecology of", but it's definitely further advancement in that direction.

A short history of admanite (sic) Yes, its the even more uber than mithril metal, yet to be spelled the way it will in later years. Has a generic backstory of how it was discovered that you can drop into your game. Ahh, power creep, how easy it is to recognise thee in retrospect.

Angels in D&D: Bears little relation to what would become D&D's angel analogues, the devas, apart from having pretty much the spells you would expect from bibilical angels. Encourages you to treat them with the respect they deserve, not just as another monster. Not the most scintillating or original of articles. Still, good to see they're not avoiding christian themes outright. (I look forward to seeing the BADD controversy as reflected through the eyes of the magazine)

Natural armor for monsters in Monsters! Monsters!  Another miscellaneous expansion that mostly adds extra power to the creatures involved. Ho hum.

Fineous fingers and Wormy continue their respective plots.

Review: Warp war. Another review that reads more like an advert. They really do need to get hold of some more analytical reviewers. This is definitely an area that needs improvement.

Another issue that among the dross, has quite a bit of really good stuff, and shows definite pointers for the direction that D&D would go in the future, and the setting/rules tropes that would come to define it. Overall, quite a good issue.

The Dragon Issue 18: September 1978

36 pages. Despite being smaller than the previous couple, this is a very full issue, with more articles than any previous issue. This fits in with the general feeling that the roleplaying industry is growing rapidly, with talk about the size of origins and the things that happened there.

In this issue:

Lots of talk about the Origins convention that year, including a list of the awards winners, apologising for the drunken mess the designers caused, and a rundown of the Avalon Hill vs SPI staff softball game. Lots of interesting historical detail here.

Traveller! The strategy of survival: Another classic game gets its first mention in Dragon. As many of you know, in classic traveler you could die in the process of character creation. This article gives you a good run through the generation of a lifepath for a sample character, to whet your appetite for the game.  Yeah, this is another big step up for character depth. By making it integral to the chargen process, they make it easy to build characters with depth to their personalities and attachment to the setting around them, and encourage you to do the same with NPC's and the world around.

A review for traveller as well: Between the two, we get a good idea of what the game is like, how the rules work, and the kind of game you play with it. And for a brand new game like this, good publicity in its early months is important to its success.

More reviews: The emerald tablet, Imperium, Pelic Quest (our first computer game review, which I guess is appropriate to the issue.) , and Cosmic Encounter. More sci-fi stuff of various kinds, which are also pretty favourably received by the reviewer.

Insanity! Another weird save based off your ability scores rather than your class & level. As usual, this can be both a real nuisance to players, and an endless source of perverse fun. Unfortunately, the list of insanities isn't that big, and lacks both distinctive quirky insanities, and politically incorrect "insanities" that could make this a classic article. A wasted opportunity.

A load of new spells. Most of these are probably Sllllliiiiightly overpowered, and none of them made it into general use in future books. Most notable for the introduction of metamagic spells, which alter the parameters of other spells cast immediately after them. Not sure if future instances of metamagic draw from this or developed it independently, since they were worded quite differently. But I guess this is still a significant article, since it shows the beginning of people treating spells as combinable and customisable building blocks rather than just discrete effects, which would eventually result in spell construction systems like Mage, instead of endless spell lists.

Magic governed by laws of theory: Once again we see two related articles put next to each other. We see lots of real world magical principles such as sympathy & contagion, and the balance of the universe talked about. More thoughts on how to build an internally consistent world with reasons behind what happens on it working the way it does.

How to design a town in boot hill: More thoughts on building a logical setting for your game. Yep. I guess that world-building has well and truly arrived now, and its just a matter of refining the idea.

The chamber of the godgame: Ahh, the old impossible choice. Sacrifice one of the adventurers lives to solve the puzzle and escape. Maybe they won't really die. Maybe the right choice is find your way around the puzzle.  Maybe its on the level, and you're screwed. Yeah, the PC's'll hate you if you use variants on this one repeatedly.

Notes on the design of Gamma world. Yet more thoughts on how to design a map and its inhabitants, as well as their relationships to one-another, resources, and so forth. Another so-so article, but it reinforces that this issue is very much about settings.

Birth tables for boot hill: See above, only for a different topic. Yet more random tables for determining background stuff like social class and job.

Crossover rules for transporting D&D characters to MA, and vice versa. We could have done with this last issue, along with the actual play. You'll still have to wing it quite a bit though, as there are now far too many fiddly bits in both games for a 1 page article to cover.

Monk weapons & monk vs monk combat: Yes, its another badly integrated subsystem.

Effective use of poison: We see the first use of alphabetical identification of poison types with various effects. Which of course is a lot more preferable than save or instant death. Another thing that would be expanded upon and go on to be a staple of 2nd ed AD&D.

Wormy and Fineous fingers continue. A little cartoon takes the piss out of the D&D level titles.

The childhood and youth of the grey mouser: Yet another significant article by a prroper author, this gives a good idea of the not exactly kid-friendly childhood of lankhmars famous rogue.

Random tables for determining the ego and greed of NPC's in D&D, and the effect this has upon their cost and reliability. Another tool for the GM in a hurry.

The super snit revue: A load of entertaining looking new pieces for the snit games. Nice to see them continuing support for this, given its controversial reception.

After reading this issue, I feel a little overloaded. So many significant articles, overlapping and supporting one-another. I'll definitely be rereading this one. Catering to a wide set of games, while maintaining a consistent theme for the issue, this is what a good Dragon issue should be like.

The Dragon Issue 19: October 1978

36 pages. The price goes up to $2.00. Which is vaguely sucky, but thats economics for you. Convention season continues, with Gen Con. Gen con turned out to be less impressive than origins this year. Still, it also expanded quite a bit, and also had to face up to the logistical problems in feeding and accommodating that many people. I suppose that's another drawback of being an expanding hobby. It's interesting to note that the term "hack and slash gaming" hasn't been invented yet, with the editor using "hack and chop" instead. The stereotypes of gamer play might be pretty similar to modern day, but the vocabulary and in jokes to describe them still haven't built up properly yet.

In this issue:

The battle for Snurre's hall: Mentioned last issue, this is the actual play for the Origins tournament that would be developed into the GDQ adventures. As has been hinted, this relied heavily on tactical thinking for survival, as giants are rather powerful, while maintaining the kill everything ethos.

An advert for the previously mentioned Giant modules. Were these the first TSR module adventures ever? It's certainly an epic way to start off the concept, even if the individual modules are only 16 pages long. Oh well, like everything else good, there would be plenty of mediocre imitations to follow.

How many ettins is a fire giant worth: Yet another perspective on the epic module series, this time focussing on the scoring aspect of competitive tournament gaming. So much for there's no winners and losers as long as everyone has fun. We also see the beginning of the regulations to ensure consistent GM'ing in tournament play that would go on to stifle the RPGA in future years. Still, at this point, its obvious they are needed, as con games are quite a different experience to regular campaigns.

Player personalities: After that burst of new epic articles, we go back to the old trope of what kind of players have you got? Not a very good one, as it tries to distill everything down to 8 archtypes, without the nuance to make this model properly all-inclusive.

"Treasures" for gamma world: Another random roll table, largely comprised of modern stuff that would seem rare, valuable and strange in a postapocalyptic setting. A good reminder that a big chunk of modern electronic commodities such as CD's, mobile phones, laptops, etc hadn't been invented back then. Ahh, retro-futurism. How strange you can seem.

More of the history of gamma world, both in and out of game. Another article that does about what you'd expect.

The lowdown on wishes: You give PC's ultimate power, they will abuse it, or at least use it in a way that the GM considers detrimental to the overall fun of the game. So having put wishes into the game, people immediately set out to put limitations and risks on them. You really ought to think these things over before you put them in the game, so you don't have to nerf them later.

Planning creative treasurers: More common sense setting development, such as giving creatures treasures that they can actually use, and are appropriate to their nature. It seems elementary today, yet you'd be surprised how often this advice isn't used.

The mythos of Australia: Yet another expansion for G:DG&H. I suppose its one of those things that are easy to do, and is always in demand, so they'll keep making them until they run out of real world mythologies to cover. Since they haven't invented splatbooks yet, so they need something else to fill the pages.

Systematic Magic: A second attempt to divide spells up according to theme and effects. Not the same set that specialist wizards would later be divided into, although since it's working from first principles, there are some similarities, and they make the same mistake that 3.0 psionics would later, by assigning different prime requisites to different fields. Overall, this particular article is a failed experiment, since it was never taken up, and is notable largely as a curiosity of history and parallel evolution in the way that trilobites are.

The fastest guns that never lived part III: More TV gunslingers for boot hill. As with anything of this type, the law of diminishing returns sets in, and these guys are considerably less famous than the ones in the first article. Keep this up, and you'll be scraping the bottom of the barrel in no time.

A review of gamma world: Most notable for digressing into an extensive rant against the kind of people who think that magic and technology should remain separate in literature, citing Arthur C Clarke, and lots of other examples to show that the line between advanced technology and magic in books is a very tenuous one, particularly in terms of their position in the plot. He does like the game, by the way, and intends to incorporate its ideas extensively into other RPG's. An all the more entertaining review for its slightly unprofessional tone.

Spell determination for hostile magic-users: Spellcasters shouldn't just unleash their highest level damaging spells one after another in a fight. They ought to mix high and low level ones, and damaging and utility ones intelligently. After all, if they blow their wad straight away, they might be caught with their pants down in a later encounter that day. (its pleasing that the idea of the 15 minute workday then rest doesn't seem to have occurred to anyone yet) It makes things much more fun if each enemy uses different tactics. And if you have to resort to randomising this every once in a while, so be it.

Determining the location of treasure: Another random table for when you don't want another boring treasure chest in the middle of the room, and are out of ideas.

Fiction: Footsteps in the sky. A supernatural coming of age story in which everyone in the protagonists family has better special powers than him, and his attempts to prove himself regardless.  You've probably read something like it before, and its pretty meh.

Fineous fingers and Wormy are both particularly climactic this issue.

A fairly good issue. Going to the recent conventions and getting a visceral sense of how the hobby is expanding, and how many fans they have seems to have infused the writing staff with a greater level of excitement than usual. This really carries through: despite a few duff articles, their confidence has once again increased, as they produce work that would be remembered well 30 years later. How long before that turns into arrogance and hubris, which is somewhat less likeable to read about? We shall have to see.

Quote from: (un)reason;298192Spell determination for hostile magic-users: Spellcasters shouldn't just unleash their highest level damaging spells one after another in a fight. They ought to mix high and low level ones, and damaging and utility ones intelligently. After all, if they blow their wad straight away, they might be caught with their pants down in a later encounter that day. (its pleasing that the idea of the 15 minute workday then rest doesn't seem to have occurred to anyone yet) It makes things much more fun if each enemy uses different tactics. And if you have to resort to randomising this every once in a while, so be it.

This seems like a really good idea to me. Strange that they didn't pick it up.

Quote from: (un)reason;297818Tesseracts: Building hypercubic and other non-euclidian dungeons, making Escher proud, and mapmakers very confused, while maintaining internal consistency in your areas. Yeah, this is cool stuff, particularly to someone mathematically inclined like me. Its a fantasy game. Of course you should make the laws of physics suffer.

I realize that I'm late in saying this, but I just want to mention how much I love this idea.