Pretty cool cover, right? There's more inside, in a 12-page section dedicated to the work of Tim Hildebrandt.
Of course there's more than just my Hildebrandt in this issue ... let's check it out.
First up is a new ad by Ral Partha, this time featuring their new line-up of Adventurers miniatures. I got curious this time and decided to look up Ral Partha's address - 5938 Carthage Ct, Cincinnati OH.
It came up with this impressive ediface:
I'll show off a few more old RPG addresses in this post if I get a chance.
Now that we've looked at Ral Partha's old digs, let's get to the fun of complaining readers, in this case William G. Welsh, on the archer class in last issue:
"Second — “Kobolds, goblins, dwarves, gnomes and halflings cannot become archers.” In the last chapter of the third book of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, there are no less than three incidents where the effectiveness of hobbit archers is demonstrated. Also, refer to the AD&D Monster Manual, p. 50, under halflings, under special attacks, note “+3 with bow or sling.”
This stuff kills me. The answer from the editor was:
"None of the ideas presented in articles in DRAGON magazine are official rule changes or additions, unless the article specifically says so (and there haven’t been very many of those). The people who write articles that we publish aren’t trying to get everyone to play the way they do, and we certainly don’t hold that opinion ourselves. As is the case with many of the game rules themselves, the articles in DRAGON magazine are suggestions, ideas and alternatives."
It amazes me when that has to be said, but if comment sections on the internet have done anything, it's to prove that things like that still need to be said. Could various school systems around the globe please spend a few minutes explaining to people what "opinion" means?
The meat and drink of this issue, other than the special art section, is about tournaments. No, not knights trying to poke each other with lances and Robin Hood splitting an arrow, but D&D tournaments. If I'm honest ... I have no interest at all in them, but I'll try to give them a quick review.
The first article discusses fairness in scoring tournaments, giving a long list of actions that should go into scoring points, and explaining that DMs need to make sure players know how they'll be scored. Sounds logical to me.
The next bit discusses improving on the Slave Pits tournament adventure, followed by Mentzer's reply that "It isn't that easy". I can remember getting the Slave Pits module as a kid (I guess about 4 years after this issue was published) and being confused about the whole tournament concept - how you didn't use the full map, and scored things. As a kid, I wasn't sure if I was supposed to care about this stuff or not.
Strangely enough, the article complaining about the adventure is really complaining about the size of the teams in the AD&D Open, specifically that nine-person teams are too large. Mentzer explains the problem - not enough Dungeon Masters at the tournaments. Can't argue with that.
Dig this:
Old Horny indeed. Let's hope those horns on his head were the source of his nickname. And here, keeping with the theme of this post, is Dragontooth Miniatures old location:
Or is it? A Hilton? I'm thinking perhaps the old building was torn down and replaced. That, or Conrad Hilton had a secret hobby.
The next few articles are a bit too timely to make sense to talk about here - GenCon is growing, , GenCon East fills the Origins 'hole' (I'm sure that's not as filthy as it sounds) and there are nine ways to win the painting contest at GenCon.
Okay, enough of that convention stuff. Next up: Samurai!
This is an interesting take on the character class. The editor's note mentions that the author, Anthony Salva, holds a first degree black belt in Hapkido. The class that follows is heavily influenced by this, and it's really a bit more like an alternate monk than the samurai most people would expect.
That said, it's a pretty groovy class. It's tough to make it in - you need Str 15, Dex 17 and Int 15 to qualify, but the class is open to gnomes, halflings, elves, half-elves and humans.
This version of the samurai cannot use armor, but his AC improved by 1 per 4 levels. They can use two-handed swords, short swords, bows and staffs, and a samurai of 4th level or higher can obtain his "personal weapons", which are sacred to him. It mentions the weapons of honor - "Katana, Wakizashi and Nunchakos" are described later in the article.
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| Apparently Dragon Magazine got there first. Source |
This class would probably be a blast to play, especially as a gnome. I've often thought that the monk would make a pretty good "cartoon hero" class, and this version of the samurai has me thinking of Samurai Champloo and other anime samurai. If anyone has experience with this class, please drop a note down below and let us know how it went.
Brief pause for the birthplace of Traveller
Merle Rasmussen now brings us a nice Top Secret article about special ammunition - armor-piercing, dumdum, gyrojet, duplex, etc. Lots of stats (and I mean lots with a capital "L"), but probably useful info for other games as well.
Karl Horak has an article called "Getting a world into shape", which gets into different shapes for campaign worlds, as in cylinders, polygons, etc.If you want a campaign world in the shape of a 20-sided die, this is the article for you.
Giants in the Earth in this issue presents some Poul Anderson characters - Holder Carlsen (14th level paladin) and Hugi (5th level gnome fighter). The art by Roger Raupp is great:
He's always fantastic with knights and warriors. The article also has stats for T. J. Morgan's Ellide (6th level fighter)
G. Arthur Rahman has an article on historical names - Anglo-Saxon, Byzantine, etc. Very useful then, less so now with the resources of the internet at one's disposal.
Jon Mattson's article "Monster mixing - AD&D creatures adapted to a C&S campaign" show that Dragon was not yet the house organ for TSR that it would become (though it always had more outside content than White Dwarf once it became GW's house organ). While the article is quite useful for players of Chivalry & Sorcery, it also has an interesting piece at the end - a flowchart of AD&D monster predation:
And now you know.
Up next in the magazine is the section on Tim Hildebrandt's art. I'd post some images (aside from the cover above), but a Google search (or clicking on the artist's name up above) will do you more good these days. Take a look - I think you'll like what you see. I will post this quote from the interview with the artist:
“One thing leads to another thing leads to another thing and you start growing and growing. Things keep expanding, and the more I do myself, the more I see that there is to learn.”
Lots of wisdom in those words.
The Dragon's Bestiary in this issue features the Loren Kruse's Nogra ("a small creature with long, sharp claws which somewhat resembles a hairless lynx"). The basic stats for Blood & Treasure are below:
Nogra, Small Magical Beast: HD 2, AC 15, ATK 1 bite (1d4), MV 20', SV F12 R11 W15, INT Low, AL Neutral (N), XP 200 (CL 3), Special-Body secretes a substance which absorbs all light (including into the infrared and ultraviolet spectrums), liquid is also a contact poison (save or blinded for 2d4 rounds), light sensitivity
Leonard Lakofka has a new class for this issue (which hopefully doesn't do halflings wrong) called the Alchemist. Another old Dragon classic. It seems like such an obvious class for D&D, but it's tricky. My version was essentially Dr. Jekyll, to give it a twist and make more than a guy who isn't remotely as useful as a magic-user. Lakofka's is, in fact, not an adventurer.
Lakofka's alchemist has to have Str 9, Int 10, Wis 6, Dex 9, Con 14 and Cha 16 to qualify, and they must be human, elf or half-elf, with only the humans hitting the highest levels. They only earn XP by "plying their trade", not adventuring. They can make pottery, blow glass, identify potions, manufacture poisons and manufacture magic potions. It's a useful class, and could be adjusted to be an adventurer, but as a non-adventuring NPC I'm not sure why one needs to go to the trouble of having levels. It seems like a "novice-veteran-master" approach would work just as well, or even just "the alchemist can do what the DM to needs her do" concept. That being said, Lakofka always puts a lot of work into these things, and his alchemist is no different and thus is worth the read.
Gary Snyder now gets into the weeds on the issue of wishes and how to adjudicate them. This brings up a great point about fantasy gaming and gamers. I'll often be watching some tv show or movie and think, "That ploit element would never work in a game - the players would kill that guy in a heartbeat / or they would never touch that statue, 'cause statues are always trouble in a dungeon." The idea of wishes probably seemed so simple when the game was first written, and then creative players got ahold of the concept and made DM heads explode. Snyder gives ten rules to keep wishes in check which have largely been adopted into the game.
Paul Montgomery Crabaugh has an artcle about travel and clothing in DragonQuest.
If you need a time keeper program in BASIC, Mark Herro has you covered in this month's The Electric Eye. Blast from the past to see those IF ... THEN statements and GOTO commands. I learned on a VIC-20, which is actually still sitting in my closet.
Side note - I love this Grenadier miniature ...
Great sculpt
Side note II - A bit of Wormy
And now on to White Dwarf 25, the June/July 1981 issue. I'll keep this one brief, and just cover the bases:
Lewis Pulsipher has the third part of the Introduction to D&D series, covering spellcasters. Great art in this one.
Trevor Graver has Optional Skill Acquisition for Travellers. This one ditches the random tables (which are pretty cool) for a skill point system. Control vs. Chaos, the eternal struggle in game design.
Roger Musson has a nice article on The Interesting Dungeon - worth the read.
Tony Chamberlain & Paul Skidmore have an interesting "clerical AD&D skirmish for a large number of players" called Lower Canon Court. This is another one that would probably be fun to play with a big group on Google+.
This issue has some clever magic items - the bowl of everlasting porridge, the bell of watchfulness - a notion on determining handedness in games by Lew Pulsipher (left-handed males 8%, females 4%), and Roger E. Moore has a bit on fake torture items.
Andy Slack has Vacc Suits in Traveller.
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| Dream Demon! |
Lewis Pulsipher's second article this issue is on "What Makes a Good AD&D Character Class". I would answer - people want to play it and it doesn't screw up the game. This is pretty much what he says, focusing especially on the class not being overpowering. His example of an overpowering class makes me actually want to create it - The Guardian class he posits can listen at doors, use x-ray vision, become ethereal and has a psionic boomerang defense that kills some mind flayers. I dig it.
And that's that ... except for one more thing ...
Games Workshop's location back in 1981 ... or close to it. Hard to make out the address.
Have fun on the internet!
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