Best line in Kask's editorial this time ...
"In the past year, we have met and overcome all obstacles in our path save one: the U.S. Post Offal."
The more things change ...
First article is Dragon Magic by Michael Benveniste. This is in the D&D Variant series (God, I love seeing that in an official TSR publication).
"The magic used by dragons is tempered by their nature. Dragons
are creatures of rock and wind, having little use for plants and water.
They feel little need for offensive spells, believing that their own body
and deadly breath fulfill this need."
What follows is a spell list for dragons, and this idea: All dragons have a secret name they will reveal to nobody, under no circumstances. A legend lore or wish reveals a clue, but not the name, nor does commune or similar spells. A limited wish just confirms or denies a guess. Speaking the dragon's name dispels all of his spells, and allows the speaker to demand one - just one - service from that dragon. Nice concept for driving a game: "We can't get to the top of the Godmountain without the help of the Dragon of Peaks, and to do that we need to learn its true name."
The spell list has all sorts of new dragon spells, including 1st level - Breath Charm, Charm Avians, Evaluate Item, Locate Lair, Magic Pointer, Werelight; 2nd level - See Other Planes, Wall of Gloom, Weave Barrier, Weight Control (boy, could you make money selling this one, as long as no phen phen is involved); 3rd level - Binding Spell, Hold Mammal, Mesh, Negate Enchantment I, Revelation, Servant Summoning I, Water to Wine, Wood to Sand; 4th level - Attack Other Planes, Rock to Sand, Seek, Turn Magic, Work Weather. There are some great, evocative names in there, and the more I read, the more I liked the idea. One sample ...
"Water to Wine: A dragon loves good wine. This spell allows the dragon
to convert any water (including salt or tainted) to wine
valued even by Elves. Amount: 20 gallons per age class."
Up next are a couple more D&D Variants. First, we have Pits by Richard Morenoff. It's a pretty neat set of random tables to determine the contents or type of a pit. One possibility is a "citizen", which consists of the following: Pipeweed grower, shipbuilder, hatmaker, beer merchant, sculptor, fisherman, locksmith, tool merchant, weapon merchant, teacher, loan shark and trapper. Old D&D means that 1 in 1000 pits found in a dungeon holds a pipeweed grower.
N. Robin Crossby of Australia next presents Random Events Table for Settlements and/or Settled Areas. This one is based on the current season (word to the wise, Spring and Winter are safer than Summer and Autumn). There can never be enough tables like this.
James Ward is up next with Monty and the German High Command, another expose of the gaming goings-on within TSR in 1978. The accompanying illustration brings me joy ...
This one involves some WW2 Germans facing off against orcs, storm giants, manticores, an EHP (if you don't know, you need to study your D&D history a little more closely), a warlock, heroes and superheroes, and trolls, all in an attempt to take a castle.
Jim Ward also presents some thoughts on Wandering Monsters, providing a list of Fourth Level wandering monsters. Takes me back to the game's origin as a, well, game.
Jeff Swycaffer now presents Notes From Another Barely Successful D&D Player, a follow-up to Ward's article in issue II/7. He tells of playing a "Maladroit", who can't cast spells, fight for a damn, pick locks or lead men. Instead, he lies like a rug. Some good ideas here - worth a read.
Jerome Arkenberg writes The Gospel of Benwa (is he referring to ... hmmm) in Dragon Mirth, in which he extoles the Benwanite Heresy, that holds that all the problems in the world are due to the struggle between the Gods of Law and Chaos, and that only victory by the Gods of Neutrality can end misery on earth.
Gygax's From the Sorcerer's Scroll covers D&D Ground Area and Spell Area Scale. Herein, he claims the confusion of 1" = 10 feet indoors and 1" = 10 yards outdoors will be cleared up in ADVANCED DUNGEON & DRAGONS. He explains how this originally came to pass - namely that the original scale was 1" = 10 yards in CHAINMAIL, and that the 1/3 scale was devised by Arneson when he turned the tunneling and mining rules of CHAINMAIL into the dungeon rules of what would become DUNGEONS & DRAGONS. He also explains here that one turn = one scale minute in CHAINMAIL, but that for dungeon movement it was altered to one turn = ten minutes, since mapping and and exploring in an underground dungeon is slow work. The key here is that area of effect is always 1" = 10 feet, even outdoors. So, there you go.
David Tillery is next with Weather in the Wilderness. This always seems to be such an obvious thing to do, but it has rarely paid off for me in a game. I usually just roll for inclement weather conditions when there's to be an outdoor fight, to make the fight more interesting. Tillery has a pretty solid system, it seems - reminds me of the World of Greyhawk system.
Next, we have an ad announcing "TWO IMPORTANT NEW RELEASES FROM TSR", those releases being GAMMA WORLD (love the original font) and the AD&D Player's Handbook.
Next, we have Stellar Conquest: Examining Movement Tactics by Edward C. Cooper. Since I don't know the game, I won't go into it much, but I did enjoy the art:
Not enough space ships have giant pincers, in my opinion.
Next we have some fiction by L. Sprague deCamp - The Green Magician.
"In that suspended gray mists began to whirl around them, Harold moment when the Shea realized that, although the pattern was perfectly clear, the details often didn’t work out right.
It was all very well to realize that, as Doc Chalmers once said, “The world we live in is composed of impressions received through the senses, and if the senses can be attuned to receive a different series of impressions, we should infallibly find ourselves living in another of the infinite number of possible worlds.” It was a scientific and personal triumph to have proved that, by the use of the sorites of symbolic logic, the gap to one of those possible worlds could be bridged."
Funny - I just read this bit recently.
Next up ... Fineous Fingers runs away from Grond the Anti-Paladin.
After that, a full page pic of Wormy counting his gold over a backgammon board.
The next article is Random Encounters for BOOT HILL, by Michael E. Crane. This should be useful for folks who play Old West games. It includes such things as mounted bandits, homesteaders in wagons, unarmed clergy, soldiers, indians, etc.
And so ends the June 1978 issue of The Dragon!
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You know what? I think that explanation of inches and turns only made it even more confusing.
ReplyDeleteThen my work here is done.
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