Miniatures

Dragon by Dragon – November 1979 (31)

/ jstater / 6 Comments

November 1979

The Iran Hostage Crisis

Morning Edition premiers on NPR

The last cargo of phosphate shipped from Banaba Island

Obviously, they were troubled times for the world.

But take heart, gentle reader, for the game wizards blessed our eyeballs and brains with The Dragon #31.

I’m going to start doing these reviews a little different (since they take about 3 or 4 hours otherwise), and focus on the Top 10 Cool Things in each issue. They might be articles, they might be ads.

COOL THING NUMBER ONE: RAL PARTHA

Click for the larger version. Those are some pretty slick landsknechts (and such). I love the idea of the Thirty Years War as a campaign setting (even wrote about it), and these would make great miniatures for it.

Side note – when I looked up those colorful plastic robots on Amazon that I showed in my Manbot Warriors post, I found a few other great sets that I remember from my childhood. Now I want to write a little mini-game for all of them – cowboys and indians, plastic army men, Romans, plastic knights, firemen, etc. Just need to get the rules for Manbots right, and then I can expand.

COOL THING NUMBER TWO: JOHN ERIC HOLMES

If you love the old game, you probably love (or at least like) Mr. Holmes. This issue has an excerpt from a novel he was writing called Trollshead. Here’s the first paragraph:

“The campfire cast flickering shadows into the surrounding trees and across the face of the lean man squatting opposite. He wore an iron cap with a leather lining which cast a shadow over his thick brows. A ragged scar ran from the comer of his left eye down the cheek to vanish in the folds of a woolen tunic at his neck. A tough customer, Boinger thought to himself.”

Boinger? Well, I don’t know if the novel was ever finished – couldn’t find it on Amazon.com. Here’s another taste:

“’I think we can take them,’ said the halfling confidently. ‘Four half-orcs, old scar face, and that damned troll.'”

I like that halfling’s moxie. He doesn’t look so confident in the accompanying art by Chris Holmes.

Bonus – Later in the issue they cover the 5th annual Strategists Club Banquet and Awards, which features a picture of Tim Kask talking with the Holmes family, son Chris, wife Sig-Linda and John-Eric himself.

Sometimes, I miss the 1970’s. But only sometimes, and only a little.

COOL THING NUMBER THREE: STRAIGHT TALK

In his article on using jungles in D&D, Tim Kask says it like it is:

“Traditional accounts of the jungle, from Bomba the Jungle Boy to Jungle Jim to Tarzan, have always depicted the jungle as a place of peril—but there has always been justification for jungle adventures. We’ll leave aside the philanthropic wanderings of Livingstone and Schweitzer and look at jungles from a more typical D&D viewpoint: greed.”

The article is pretty long, and covers jungles in Asia, Africa and South America. A few takeaways:

1 – He notes that any rules for wilderness exploration will do, but he likes Source of the Nile. This reminds me of the use of Outdoor Survival in old D&D games. Does this happen much anymore? Using another game to fill in the gaps. I’ve read so much about Source of the Nile in these old Dragons that I kinda want to buy the game. Doesn’t appear to be in print anymore, so I guess I need to look around.

2 – Rain forest plant growth is so quick that a trail blazed through it disappears in a few days (I’d go 1d4+1 days, personally).

3 – “With the restrictions placed on poison within D&D and AD&D, the DM may wish to eliminate some or all of the natural poisons found in the jungle.”Sorry jungle, but you’re just to poisonous for the rules as written. We’re going to have to make some changes.

4 – “The Jivaro, known for their practice of shrinking heads, are so surrounded by myth and misinformation that it is hard to distinguish fact from fancy without serious study. It can be safely stated that they were fierce and deadly foes.”

5 – “In the tropical rain forest jungles, the humidity never falls below 85 or 90 percent. This high moisture rots and mildews cloth and leather, unless they are assiduously treated to prevent it All metals will oxidize; armor will rust and swords and daggers will lose their edges. The humidity affects people by lowering resistance as a result of overworking the sweat glands, thereby causing wounds to heal at a greatly retarded rate, if at all.” So, rules wise – maybe force item saving throws once a week if things are not cared for, and reduce non-magical healing to 2 hit points (or hit points per level) every three days.

6 – Typical weapons of jungle cultures are blowguns (with poison darts), spear, club, throwing knives (treat as hand axes, maybe), assegai (treat as short swords).

7 – Kask writes a whole bit on how the presence of a 25th level magic-user might affect a local jungle. It includes using stone shape to make a hill into a fortified abode, permanently charming a panther and permanently enlarging it to use as a guard beast, attracting a spider monkey with find familiar, and then impressing the locals with his magic and being worshiped by them as a jungle god. The tribe that follows him flourishes, he starts experimenting with the local flora and fauna, and then the last experiment goes to far – instant ruined jungle city for adventurers to loot. I like the ways this guy thinks!

COOL THING NUMBER FOUR: WHAT THE?

Lou Zocchi had a ventriloquist act. ‘Nuff said.

COOL THING NUMBER FIVE: MINI-GAMES

The rules aren’t in this issue, just an add, but this sounds cool:

Also makes we want to write a game for these guys:

And, surprise surprise – it’s on BoardgameGeek.com.

Check it out

COOL THING NUMBER SIX: LOU SCHEIMER AS A MUSE

From Kenneth W. Burke’s article “Will Jason Destroy The Dragonship? Stay Tuned …”

“The following Alpha Omega variant has been derived from the “Victory of Star Command’ episode of the Jason of Star Command television mini-series. To play it, you need one or two Alpha Omega games.”

You might be asking yourself, “What is Jason of Star Command?”

Now you’re asking yourself, “Why, God? Why?”

James Doohan was a regular in other episodes – God bless him.

COOL THING NUMBER SEVEN: RANDOM TABLES

Here’s a new table for STELLAR CONQUEST that just has to be useful to somebody:

I don’t know what MA stands for, but I think it has something to do with movement.

COOL THING NUMBER EIGHT: SIZE CHARTS

In the Fantasysmith article they ask “How tall is a giant?” What I liked in the article was the two drawings comparing fantasy folk:

Elves dressed up as Peter Pan is so outside the mainstream now, that I think it rocks on toast.

Check out the giants:

You’ll perhaps note that it looks as though the storm giant has just finished beating the crap out of the rest of them.

COOL THING NUMBER EIGHT: JAPANESE ARMOR

Michael Kluever comes across with an article about the armor of the Far East. The article covers the armor of China, Tibet, Korea, Mongolia, and Japan. All text, but it does a nice job of covering the basics. Here are the basics:

China: Padded, ring, scale and brigandine (studded leather); mail and plate rarely utilized; paper armor was used in the Tang Period, especially in Southern China – 10 to 15 thicknesses was adequate to stop an arrow or musket ball. Shields were often the only form of protection for foot soldiers; rhino hide was prized for making shields.

Mongolia: Horse armor (barding) of leather scales

Korea: Like the Chinese, but lower quality materials and the helms were black laquered

Tibet: Lacquered hide armor in red and black, with engravings, in the form of a long coat – awesome. Barding was leather.

Japan: Lamellar armor (banded mail in AD&D, more or less), with small hand shields (Te-date)

COOL THING NUMBER NINE: OLD SCHOOL PLAYERS

From Jean Wells’ “Sage Advice” column:

“Question: We have a group of players here who insist that they can ride on a mule in a 10-foot-wide and 10-foot-high corridor and shoot arrows from longbows. Now, there are two characters who say they ride side by side and do this over the objections of the rest of the party members. I think this is wrong. Am I right?”

Right or wrong, I like the cut of those players’ collective jibs. I solemnly swear that I am going to commission this as a piece of art this weekend.

Also – Jean Wells was trying to write an article about female gamers and they put in this ad:

COOL THING NUMBER TEN: THE JUNGLE HYDRA

You have to love this monster from an unknown author – not a hydra in the “guarding the Golden Fleece” since, but more in the giant version of the microscopic hydra sense. It’s called the Ukuyatangi, and it looks like a blob with tentacles. It sits on a stump in the jungle and spreads the tentacles into the rank undergrowth to blend in. Due to the camouflage, there is a 90% chance for adventurers walking through the area to touch a tentacle, which then makes a free grapple attack. The monster consumes one man-sized creature a day, and regurgitates indigestible bits, which litter its clearing. After it’s full, it just constricts people to death and leaves them to rot. Reptilian in nature, the monster is susceptible to cold, going dormant when under 50-degrees F (or 10-degrees C).

Ukuyatangi: HD 7 to 9; AC 5; MV 1/4″, ATK 2 tentacles per target, up to 4 per round (2d4 + constrict); Special – swallow whole; SZ Large (6-10′ tall, tentacles 20-40′ long)

SPECIAL BONUS COOL: WORMY

Dragon by Dragon – October 1979 (30)

/ jstater / 5 Comments

We’re baking here in Vegas , so perhaps a nice magazine from the fall of 1979 will put me into a cooler mindset.

I know – The Dragon #30! That’s the ticket!

But, of course, October isn’t about being cool. It’s about being horrified. ’79 was a good time for that, and not just because of the Carter administration. ’79 was The Amityville Horror, Alien, Phantasm, The Brood, Nosferatu the Vampyre, Dracula … and I never saw any of them. Frankly, not a horror movie fan. Let’s get to the magazine.

First – the cover. What a great cover. I love covers with lots of little details, lots of things to get the brain ticking.

Dig this from the opening of Kask’s editorial:

“As I am writing this (11 Sep), DUNGEONS & DRAGONS is getting the publicity that we used to just dream about, back when we were freezing in Gary’s basement in the beginning. If we had our ‘druthers’, it would not have happened in such a fashion. By now, as you read this, I hope the mystery surrounding the disappearance of James Egbert has been happily resolved. Whatever the circumstances of the incident, it has been a nightmare for his parents and family, as well as for TSR Hobbies, Inc. It has been speculated that James was involved in some sort of D&D game that went beyond the realm of pencil and paper roleplaying, and may have mutated into something tragic. D&D was seized upon as a possible connection to the disappearance, for a variety of reasons. First, James was an avid player. Indeed, I have met him at past conventions,
and he used to subscribe to TD.”

And so it begins. In case you don’t know, James Dallas Egbert III was a student at … well, you can read about it at Wikipedia. This may have made D&D more famous, but it also started the backlash against it by morons everywhere dedicated to ruining innocent fun. Worst of all, it led to the TV movie Mazes & Monsters, starring a young Tom Hanks. Not all the Money Pit in the world can make up for that.

The Game’s the Thing … and I Used to Think GenCon Stood for General Confusion
by Kim Mohan

You might recognize Mohan’s name. He was a the new kid at TSR when he wrote this review of GenCon XII. In short – he liked it.

Where the Orcs Are
by Steve Brown

This article features a bitchin’ miniature diorama by Steve Brown. He wanted to enter it into the miniatures contest at GenCon XII, but it didn’t fit into any categories. Nevertheless, it was awesome, and had to get some love, so …

I’m going to assume the picture in the article doesn’t do it justice. Actually, there are a dozen photos, and the underground orc castle looks incredible. Brown says it took him a year to do the thing, and it carried a price tag of $4000 at the con (which would be about $13,000 in todays dollars, proving that the geek community has never been all that swift with their time and money … thank God).

Leomund’s Tiny Hut: Good Evening
by Lenard Lakofka

This was the first of the Leomund’s Tiny Hut’s, which were usually interesting articles that covered all sorts of gaming topics. This one, appropriately enough, is about vampires. It digs into the AD&D vampire, going in depth on its abilities and answering questions gamers might have had about the monster. For example:

1) Once the vampire’s hit points are calculated (it has 8+3 HD), they do not vary – i.e. you do not re-roll hit points when it regenerates in its coffin. Back in the day, there was an idea that adventurer’s re-rolled their hit points for each adventure (an idea I actually kind of like – to represent when people are super on their game, and when they aren’t).

2) Vampires don’t want too many lesser vampires under their control – really no more than 4. It sounds like the vampire wants to make sure there are plenty of living people to feed on, so he has to take care. Like a shepherd and his flock. And lesser vampires don’t create more lesser vampires.

3) Here’s one that got me: “The Vampire’s existence on the Negative Material Plane …” Wow – dig the idea. Maybe it was widespread. A negative material plane, duplicate of our own in some ways – but probably a nightmarish version – inhabited by the undead who also have an existence in the positive material plane. Neat. And what a great place to set an epic adventure!

4) It takes 1-4 segments for a vampire to transform (a segment is a second, for those not steeped in the timekeeping of AD&D), but only 4 if the vampire is surprised. After one segment to adjust, it can be mobile. When a combat round was predicated on segment-by-segment actions, this would be valuable information.

5) It still takes a magic weapon to damage a vampire in bat form.

6) A vampire in gaseous form “scattered to the four winds” can reform in 1-100 segments (i.e. less than 2 minutes). Also – DM’s should pre-set a hit point total at which a vampire will go gaseous.

He also gives some ideas about how to properly dispose of vampires, the spells they are immune to, details on regeneration, “lesser” vampires, summoning and charming, etc. It reminds me of the “Ecology of …” articles they used to do.

Observer’s Report: ORIGINS: Chaos With a Happy Ending
by Fantasysmith

To begin with, a note:

“This OBSERVER’S REPORT is written by the same person that does FANTASYSMITH’S NOTEBOOK. He prefers to do both under the pseudonym FANTASYSMITH, for reasons that he has made clear to us, and which we will honor.”

I think I just realized that Fantasysmith was, in actuality, Richard Nixon! I have no proof yet, but I’m launching a new Kickstarter to raise $1 million to help me get to the truth.

And now, I have to quote the first line of the article:

“Fluid sugar draws bees, fluid filth draws flies, and fluid situations attract the chaotic. This last was the case at ORIGINS ’79.”

Sheer poetry.

And now, an advert …

Cool module. Cool art. And remember, “tell them you saw it in The Dragon”.

From the Sorcerer’s Scroll: New Setting for the Adventure
by Gary Gygax

Here, Gygax talks about the relationship between TSR and TSR Periodicals, and his relationship as publisher vs. Tim Kask as editor and … yeah, I know. Who cares?

He then talks about the “Mugger” article from a couple issues back, and how it is both funny and great inspiration to look at different settings for games, in this case, the mean urban streets. Gary also gives us the lowdown on an adventure he’s working on in which adventurers in a city in the World of Greyhawk delve under that city and somehow end up in a subway tunnel in the modern world. He gives these guides for the particulars:

– In the city setting, magic will work, although cleric spells above third level will not. Of course, firearms also work.

– The perils of the place — police, street gangs, muggers, criminals of other sorts, citizens with
karate training or able to box, those with guard dogs, etc. — will be numerous and different.

– Weapons aren’t difficult to rate according to damage. Electricity will be interesting — low-tension AC giving but 1d6 damage (4d6 if the party is well grounded), low-tension DC doing 1d6 each segment until the victim is freed, and high-tension DC doing 1d20 in the same manner.

– Cars will inflict 1d4 damage for each 10 mph of speed. Small trucks will get a d6, large ones a d8, and trains a d10 for each 10 mph.

– Each special character (guard, policeman, street tough, mugger, etc.) will be given a level roughly corresponding to those of AD& characters, although the type of dice used will be non-standard.

– If the adventurers survive and manage to return to their own place in the multiverse, they will have little in the way of treasure — at least in all probability. Firearms will not work in the World of Greyhawk, of course.

He ends by pointing out that Schick and Moldvay make some of the heroes in their Giants in the Earth series too powerful. Now’s a good time for me to preview the way I’m rating fictional and real NPC’s in GRIT & VIGOR – by the number of years they’ve been active:

The New, Improved Ninja
by Sheldon Price

This is a set of rules extensions for the ninja class, which was published at some point in the past – I don’t remember the issue, and they don’t mention it here.

This version of the ninja is based on the book NINJA: The Invisible Assassins by Andrew Adams, published in 1970 by O’Hara Publications, Inc. of Los Angeles, California. Yeah – you can get it at Amazon.com.

The article starts out with weaponry. Here are some highlights:

In the hands of a ninja, the hankyu (short bow) fires at twice the normal rate.

There is a 5% chance per day of searching that a ninja can find 1d6 plants that work as caltrops.

It takes one week, and costs 2 sp, to make metal claws for the hands and feet.

Staves had small missiles attached to one end that could be thrown by flicking the staff.

Poison water guns have a range of 60′, and produce a cone of water 10′ wide at the base and 60′ high. The main use is to blind eyes – it takes 1d12 rounds to clear the eyes.

The weird signs the ninja makes (called kuji-kiri) are not magical, but they restore his morale and entrance non-ninjas (saving throw allowed).

Ninjas have two kinds of sandals – essentially they can replace the soles. One gave better traction, the other a more silent step.

Ninja can wear up to chainmail, and they can pad it so it remains silent without adding encumbrance.

Ninja can foretell the weather in the short term. Which is nice, because when assassination just ain’t paying, they can becomes TV weathermen.

They are also “earth aware” – can find good places for ambushes – and “man aware” – can manipulate people.

There is a huge list of special ninja equipment, from special torches to swimming flippers and rocket arrows.

There is a section on poison (the substance, not the metal band). Gyokuro is a poison that causes slow death – it kills the ill in a few days, and the healthy in 70. Wouldn’t that be a fun way to end a PC’s life. “Sorry Bill, you suddenly collapse dead in the street while haggling over that beaver tail soup. Turns out a ninja poisoned you a couple adventures back.”

Ninjas can make laugh-inducing poisons at level 4, sleep-inducing poisons at level 6, and insanity-inducing poisons at level 8.

Ninjas also have healing abilities, mostly on themselves, but I would think they would work on others.

Basically, ninjas are awesome.

Lankhmar: The Formative Years of “Fafhrd” and “The Mouser”
by Dr. Franklin C. MacKnight

For those not in the know, Lankhmar is not only the setting of Fritz Leiber’s stories of Fafhrd and the Mouser, but also a game. This article is written by a friend of his, and thus witnessed the birth of the Nehwon stories and the game. From the author:

“Lankhmar wasn’t just a game, it was an adventure. The pieces were not mere abstractions, but heroes with personalities with which one identified. It provided an esthetic thrill unequaled in my experience in any other game anywhere.”

Starring Barry Gibb as Fafhrd

Add Lankhmar to the list of games I want to play. The article goes on to explain how the game was originally played (before it was turned into something more commercially viable in 1976 – see HERE).

We also get this tidbit about Harry Otto Fischer:

“Harry not only looked like Edgar Bergen’s Charlie McCarthy but had a similarly extroverted temperament and wit. The famous puppet could have been copied from him!”

The article is a must read for folks who love the stories. Great background stuff.

Design Forum: Boot Hill? Sure! But What Scale?
by Ralph Wagner

That title is such an artifact of its time. We don’t live in a magazine world anymore, and whenever something passes from now to then to what, so many little things pass with it. I’m only 43 years old, but the then I was born into is rapidly becoming a what. I think my childhood and the childhood of people born in 1900 have more in common than my childhood and people born just 20 years later.

Oh – the article. It’s about what scale miniatures to use with Boot Hill. Personally, I would have gone with these bad boys:

Found at Etsy … already sold. Damn.

Designer’s Notes: Flattop: A Long Game but a Strong Game
by S. Craig Taylor, Jr.

This is a discussion of Flattop, a game that covers the Coral Sea-Solomon Islands geography during 1942, specifically the three carrier-to-carrier battles of that year, Coral Sea, Eastern Solomons and Santa Cruz. Mr. Taylor was the game’s designer and developer, and he has a few insights about it, in particular about victory points and the difficulty in writing a truly original game. Sounds like a pip. And a great cover, by the way.

Up on a Soap Box: Standardization vs. Playability
by Bob Bledsaw

He discusses the value of standardization in a game, but also its limitations. Wow – I’m sure you didn’t see that coming. Mostly, he describes how he does his own campaigns – how he handles the races and technology and religion. Could be some useful stuff to the newbies – after all, at this point almost everyone playing the game was a newbie. By being a basic framework, D&D opened the doors to a whole new world, and everyone was feeling out what they could and couldn’t do in that world.  What a great time.

And look at this little ad that popped up on page 21:

Things are about to get weird. If you are reading this and haven’t heard of Arduin, look it up.

Armies of the Renaissance
by Nick Nascati

This is Part V, and covers the armies of Eastern Europe – Poland, Hungary, Russia and the Ottoman Empire. It’s a good article – one page, two column, and covers the basic very nicely. What if we came up with a big d% table with 100 entries that determined a first level fighter’s starting equipment, based on various historical warriors (and maybe Buck Rogers thrown in just for fun). Might have to do that for the blog.

Tournament Success in Six Steps
by Jon Pickens

Tournaments were such a big deal in the old days. I wasn’t a con-goer then (or now, to be honest), so my only exposure to them at all was in some of the old AD&D modules I owned, which had a section on using the module in a tournament, with the points scores, etc.

Here a quick version of Jon’s rules for success:

1) Get in – i.e. sign up for a game. If you don’t get in the first round, sign up for the second.

2) Use magic to get rid of obstacles that would take too long to overcome the old fashioned way.

3) Have a plan (always a good idea).

4) Pay attention to the DM, and if something seems amiss, question him. He might only give out certain bits of information if the right questions are asked.

5) Don’t waste time.

6) Never quit – avoid combat as much as possible, but if you have to do it, do it with extreme prejudice.

Finally, never argue with the DM. If you think he or she screwed up, bring it up politely.

Out on a Limb

Ah – letters to the editor time. Here’s a dandy:

Q: “Something has been bothering me about the Druid class in DUNGEONS & DRAGONS. That is, I know of a couple of people in Chapel Hill who don’t know each other, but they are both the ‘Great Druid’.

A: “The stricture regarding the number of high level Druids is on a per world basis.”

He kindly didn’t add, “dumbass”.

Geek Rage of the Week:

“En garde, Master Rahman and those of you who defend such shoddy pieces of work such as Bakshi’s. (I’ll refrain from referring to it as the ‘Lord of the Rings’).”

Good Advice of the Week:

“It is my contention that all “good” referees should make it their duty to change large portions of the concepts presented in any given role-playing game.”

Terrible Augury of the Future:

“As you may have noticed last month, Wormy has returned. Wormy’s creator got married and moved to California, but he promises that Wormy is back to stay. As to more of Dave’s art, that is up to him and his job in CA. One can always hope . . .”

Cool ad for Dragon Tooth Fantasy Figures:

I haven’t done a random encounter table based on a mini’s ad in a while, so here goes:

d10

1. Rogue or thief (roll 1d4 for level) in leather doublet with short sword, mounted on light warhorse. Wears cloak and floppy hat. Will do anything to steal your purse.

2. Sorcerer (roll 1d5 for level) in the middle of casting one of his highest level spells. Will be extremely cross if you mess it up.

3. Swordsman (roll 1d6 for level) armed with sword and spear.

4. Rictus, the Zombie King; zombie with 12 HD and the strength of a hill giant (+4 damage).

5. Swordsman Kane, a neutral evil 8th level fighter from the terrible north, escaping his love of a good woman who threatened to turn his heart to good. Has +1 scale mail and greatsword.

6. Sorceress (roll 1d8 for level); she holds the mystic Moon Staff of Myrmidor, which can cast all sorts of cool light spells, and confusion and which can cast hold monster, at will, against lycanthropes. She rides a light warhorse.

7. Cleric in mitre with mace. Roll 1d10 for level. He is suffering a crisis of conscience, as he caught mother superior stealing milk and didn’t damn her.

8. Fool or jester, recently released from his master’s service and very hungry. He is a 1st level assassin.

9. Bard or harpist (roll 1d12 for level) in puffy velvet clothes and a great hat. He carries a silver longsword and a golden lyre that charms fey, 4/day. He rides a dapple grey light warhorse. He is arrogant and good-natured.

10. Swordsman Roland (level 9 fighter), with scale mail, +2 shield (axes stick to it on a roll of 1-2 on 1d6) and a major chip on his shoulder towards paladins and rangers (they think they’re so awesome).

Also, found this old issue of Popular Mechanics about painting Dragon Tooth miniatures.

Also, dig this 1978 catalog (which I’ve probably already posted at some point).

Giants in the Earth
by Lawrence Schick and Tom Moldvay

This edition of G in the E features Piers Anthony’s Sol of All Weapons (LN 20th level fighter, 14th level monk), Tanith Lee’s Zorayas (LE 23rd level magic-user) and Clark Ashton Smith’s Maal Dweb (LE 20th level magic-user).

I dug the little advert for Cities, by Stephen Abrams. I did a search and found that he did a few versions of this book, including one for Runequest. I think I’m going to by myself one. I’m intrigued. If I do, I’ll post a review.

The Dragon’s Augury

The games reviewed in this issue are Spellmaker reviewed by Bruce Boegman, Black Hole reviewed by David Cook and Down Styphon reviewed by Kenneth Hulme.

Spellmaker (1978, by Eric Solomon) pits powerful wizards against one another, trying to transport a princess to their castle to win the game. The reviewer calls it a “rare gem”, and I must admit, it sounds pretty cool. The spells are card-based, and I’d love to see a deck of them.

Black Hole (1978, by Robert A Taylor) pits two mining cartels against one another to capture a donut-shaped asteroid with a black hole tethered in the middle. The review is positive, so it might be a good con game for two.

Down Styphon! (1977, by Mike Gilbert) sounds pretty interesting. It is based on the book Lord Kalven of Otherwhen by H. Beam Piper, in which a Penn. State trooper is transported to a parallel earth where the secret of gunpowder is controlled by a bunch of priests. The trooper knows how to make gunpowder, better weapons and he knows something about the “future” of warfare. The game is a miniatures wargame in the musket and pike era. It is apparently a very playable game with only OK layout and some missing stats for artillery (which are provided in the review).

Bazaar of the Bizarre: Orlow’s Inventions Can Liven Up Your Life
by William Fawcett

This article could be a great blog post – a random list of minor magic items that include spoons of stirring, brooms of sweeping, needles of sewing, amulets of caterpillar control, socks of dryness and matches of many lights. This stuff would be so great for putting in a wizard’s tower. Just awesome – if you can find a copy of this issue, find it for this. I’d post the random table, but it’s a little more than I’d be comfortable sharing considering the mag is copyrighted.

So, Different Worlds gaming mag. Never heard of this. I hunted down some descriptions, and apparently some issues you can still buy. I love the art in the ad, and would love to see a sample issue in PDF. There is so much buried treasure out there for gaming!

I also have to share this ad, for on heck of an artist for hire …

… who is still out there working, thankfully.

Dig Tramp’s minotaur in Wormy. So cool.

Dragon’s Bestiary: The Curst
by Ed Greenwood

I’m not sure if this is the first thing in the magazine by Ed Greenwood or not. The curst are still roaming about in the Forgotten Realms setting. Humanoids (98% are human stock) that have been cursed and cannot die, they are chaotic neutral, retain their class abilities except psychic powers and magic, gain infravision 90′ and apparently have no sense of smell. In modern parlance, they would be a “template”.

Finieous Fingers shows us what failing a surprise roll looks like.

And that does it for The Dragon #30. A pretty good issue, overall, with lots of interesting artifacts of the old days of gaming that I love. Seriously – find a copy and check out the minor magic items article – well worth it.

Dragon by Dragon – September 1979 (29)

/ jstater

September of 1979, and lots of kids were getting ready to go back to school (and lots of parents were thanking God the kids were going back to school). Maybe the mail brought a few of those kids one last bit of fun before the learning began – Dragon #29.

Note on the cover – not terribly impressive to me, except for that little bit in the lower right-hand corner. Woimy’s back!

What does the “premier magazine of games and gaming” have for us this month?

Kask has a few things about subscriptions to discuss in the opening. First, make sure you address things to TSR Periodicals to get things moving fast. Second, let them know when you’re moving. Finally, when you resubcribe, do it before your subscription ends to make sure you don’t miss an issue. All of these things – almost completely moot in the modern world.

Apparently, this was an issue for clarifications – they had to reprint the image of the Slinger from last month’s Bestiary – they apparently should have told the printer to increase the screen density by 20%. Here’s Mary Lynn’s little masterpiece:

The first article is missing a title, but the TOC calls it “Of the Gods”. Whatever it’s called, its by Craig Bakey and concerns the idea of “campaign gods”. The argument by Bakey is that every campaign should have its own gods and goddesses, rather than just using the mythos in “Gods, Demi-gods and Heroes”. What follows are some guidelines on how to create an original pantheon for your game. A couple points:

1. The power of the gods runs in cycles, so different pantheons can hold sway over the Prime Material Plane at different times, though the other gods are by no means powerless. This is actually a cool idea – different gangs of gods rising and falling in power.

2. Beyond the gods are forces of immeasurable power who have long since lost interest in the universe – i.e. The Old Gods. According to Bakey, there are 24 hyper-physical padrones which manifest themselves as colored jewels of six different disciplines. The concepts of Law and Chaos, and the gods themselves, originated in these jewels.

Note – I love how in the old days, an article that seemed like it was going to be campaign neutral suddenly decides on pretty campaign specific stuff that everyone should use. It’s as though there was still an idea that all D&D campaigns really should be linked with each other, and therefore needed to have a solid foundation underpinning them.

The aforementioned disciplines are:

I – blue gems – abstract religion

II – purple gems – space, dimensions, form, motion

III – green gems – matter

IV – yellow gems – intellect

V – orange gems – individual and intersocial volitions

VI – red gems – affections, personal, moral, religious, etc.

He goes on to describe the basic characteristics all deities should have, and other statistics to define them. Then come the random tables for generating deities – this I like. The main table has a weird entry on it that might come from the digitizing of the magazines, but it covers the basic power level of the deity – from demi-god to “gods of the inner circle” to banished gods and rogue gods. There are tables for determining Armor Class and Hit Points, relations between the gods, alignment, gender, their portfolio, and extraordinary abilities and fantastic possessions. He goes on to present some sample pantheons, which appear to have an alignment factor to them (makes the whole rotating pantheons in power make more sense).

I dig that he includes “Dormamnu” as the god of paradoxes and energy. Ardnha, the “presence of swords and machines” and Quasiman, the goddess of black sorcerers sounds pretty cool as well.

Next is a variant on the Source of the Nile game by the authors, Dave Weseley and Ross Maker (I think). It’s a collection of flow charts that are pretty meaningless without the game rules. Or maybe not – here’s a sample:

Now that I look at them, they might be useful to somebody running a wilderness adventure. In fact, designing some flow charts of my own might be useful.

In the “Fantasy Smith’s Notebook” we have “An Ounce of Preparation is Worth a Ton of Paint”. I always found this to be true when I painted minitures (Warhammer, mostly). A nice primer coat was a must, especially since I sucked at painting a good black undercoat really helped make my minis look way better than they would have otherwise. The article is a good guide to prepping miniatures, using dowels to hold them (wish I’d thought of that), filing them to correct problems with the casting, etc.

An interesting thing that was either an advertisement or a tiny article comes at the end of the previous article, for the Order of the Indian Wars (PO Box 7401, AC 501-225-3996, Little Rock, Arkansas 72217), a group dedicated to studying the American Indian Wars.

The coolest thing – still around! OIW’s website is HERE.

Gary Gygax is up next with “From the Sorcerer’s Scroll”. Here, he introduces “The Half-Ogre, Smiting Him Hip and Thigh”. Here, EGG mentions that he has seen many treatments of the idea, and now he’s wading in with something official – and a warning.

“The character races in AD&D were selected with care. They give variety of approach, but any player selecting a non-human (part- or demi-human) character does not have any real advantage.”

“Consider the various factors which must be taken into account when designing a race for game purposes. Remember that last part, game purposes; AD&D is, first and foremost, a game. Races, just as with classes, must be in relative balance with each other, as well as with the game as a whole.”

Dear old dad

He actually gives some nice design advice on creating character races, and also on why he made the rules he made in AD&D to keep things balanced.

Time to roll up a half-ogre. Half-ogres have the following ability scores: Str 14-18 (use d6, with 5 and 5 equaling 18), Int 3-12 (3d4), Wis 2-12 (2d6), Dex 3-12 (3d4), Con 14-18 (as Str above) and Cha 2-8 (2d4).

Note – I suddenly love the idea of each race rolling different dice for its ability scores, instead of just using bonuses and penalties.

I roll up the following: Str 16, Int 7, Wis 7, Dex 7, Con 17, Cha 3 (or 6 with ogres and half-ogres … so even my own people find me distasteful).

Half-ogres can be fighters (unlimited advancement) or clerics. I don’t qualify as a cleric, so I guess my half-ogre, Zapp Smashigan, will be a fighter. As a half-ogre, I get infravision to 60′, speak ogre, orc and troll (if raised by my ogre parent), a swarthy and dull complexion, dark and lank hair, an average height of 7.5 feet, roll two Hit Dice at 1st level, and then regular progression thereafter. So, as a first level fighter, I roll 15 hit points, plus 3 per hit dice for my high Con, so 21 hit points at first level. Not too shabby, actually. If the others chip in and get me a decent weapon and armor, I can really kick some tail and let the clerics focus on healing the other fighters in the group.

Next, Harold Pitt gives us “Curses: Never Get Even – Get Ahead”. From the second paragraph:

“The curses spoken of here are the ones that the Dungeon Master may lay onto his players as a matter of the course of play, a penalty for acting out of character (alignment), or just as an equalizer for someone who has been exceptionally successful. Or for that character that has just succeeded in demolishing the trap you spent hours agonizing over (frustrating, isn’t it?) and feel that perhaps, somehow, he shouldn’t get away scot free. Remember: never get even—get ahead!”

Harold sounds like a fun DM to play with. “Hmm, Pete’s thief has done pretty well this adventure, even got past that killer trap I set up. Guess it’s time to curse him.”

The advice in the article is sound and common sense – I use it when designing curses in my hex crawls. Basically – figure out what will really challenge a character, and use it. Curses really should be about challenging the players and making the game more interesting. As Harold puts it:

“In conclusion, cursing can be fun. It can become a battle of wits and resources between DM and player.”

Still, I can’t endorse the idea that the DM needs revenge on successful players. No good will come from that attitude.

Time for “Out on a Limb” and some thoughtful letters to the editor. I actually liked this bit in a letter from Marc Jacobs of Allentown, PA:

“Obviously, the feudal class structure of Europe will not work for D&D the way it is usually played. First, ruined castles and dungeons would probably be the property of someone, and adventuring in them would be akin to poaching in the king’s forest. In a magic-intensive world, it would be hard to hide the origins of your wealth.”

Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t see this as a bug, but rather as a feature.

Dig this from the editor:

“To my knowledge, and I’ve been here since there has been a TSR Hobbies, Inc., there has never been an “enemies list” or black list. Not that we don’t take note of who the most vociferous critics are, naturally we do.

I don’t have a bad side; my answers are very much the product of the mood I’m in or how the particular letter struck me at the time. There are dozens of different ways to humiliate people in print that I would never stoop to using.”

Good times. Good times.

Lawrence Schick and Tom Moldvay now come waltzing in with another “Giants in the Earth”. This month, we get Roger Zelazny’s Shadowjack, a 25th level thief, 9th (18th) level fighter and 9th (18th) level magic-user. Also, Jack Vance’s Iucounu, the Laughing Magician, a 20th level magic-user. Along with Iucounu, you get a bevy of Vancian spells: The Charm of Forlorn Encystment, The Charm of Untiring Nourishment, The Excellent Prismatic Spray, Felojun’s Second Hypnotic Spell, etc. I’ll reproduce one of these spells:

Thasdrubel’s Laganetic Transfer or the Agency of Far Despatch: when this spell is uttered, the recipient is bound as if by a hold person spell. A nycadaemon appears (i.e., is gated in), grasps the held recipient and flies him or her either to a point designated by the caster or 10-100 miles in a random direction. Range: 3”. Area of effect: 1 creature. Casting time: 1 round. Saving throw: none.

Idea – everybody picks a character from “GitE” and we hold a Google+ fight club using AD&D rules.

In the “Design Forum”, Doug Green presents “Rewarding Heroism in D&D”. It comes down like so: If a player or a couple players want to act for the entire group in situations where the life or freedom of the entire party is on the line, they attack as though twice their normal level (or apply spell rules as though double level, though they don’t get additional spells), and take half-damage from attacks. All other abilities are +20%.

As Doug puts it, “This rule simulates the effect of adrenalin on a person in a life or death situation and the natural law present in most fantasy stories that good will triumph over evil.”

Doug also gives the point man in the party +20% XP, and anyone praying after sacrificing himself has a percent chance equal to his level of getting a reaction from the gods. Also, heroic acts are worth 1,000 to 5,000 XP.

Not sure who wrote this next one, but it’s called Inns and Taverns, and the art is groovy:

The article gives a nice guide to what inns and taverns are (or were), along with percent chance to find on in different sized communities (75% chance in a community with 150 people or less) and what to do without one (beg for lodgings). He notes that in 1453, Paris consisted of three square miles, within which lived 150,000 people and 5,000 inns and taverns.

He also covers prices (5 cp to 5 gp per night – quite a spread), what you get for your money, etc. Good, solid article. I have to reproduce the food prices:

Check out this little inclusion:

So now you know.

I also enjoyed this ad from Nimrod Games:

A couple links for you – Knights & Knaves and Surigao Strait.

J. D. Webster now gives us a variant – “Air War North Vietnam”. It presents some new scenarios for the game, which I know little about. I do know that my favorite fighter plane when I was a kid was the F-4 Phantom II.

Thomas Holsinger now gives us “Smaller Than Man-Sized Weapons Table”. Simple little article showing weapon damage for weapons as used by gnomes or goblins. Useful table back in the day, probably not as much now.

For those who like costumes and hitting people with sticks, Allen Hammack writes “Anatomy of an S.C.A. Battle – The Sleep War”. This article introduces the ways and means of the Society for Creative Anachronism in terms of their battles.

Paul Karlsson Johnstone now tells us of the “Origins of the Norse Pantheon”. Nice article about where it came from, what it meant, the cults. A good introduction to the topic.

Jerome Arkenberg gives us “The Mythos of Oceania in Dungeons & Dragons”, with sections for Micronesia and Melanesia. I dig the Porpoise Girls (AC 2, HP 50, fight as 1st level fighters). Their ogres can also shapechange into giants, crocodiles, snakes, ospreys, fish, hawks and bears. That’s actually a nice little variation.

How good were these miniatures? FIND OUT HERE!

“Strain and Spell Casting” is a nice article by Kevin Thompson. The editor notes that this is the first “spell point” system he has ever liked, possibly because it makes magic-users weaker. It is based on the idea that each spell cast causes strain on the magic-user. The magic-user’s Constitution score determines their “strain multiplier”.

You multiply this by his level to get his total strain points for the game. So, a 5th level magic-user with a 8 constitution has 2 strain points. When a spell is cast, the spell level is deducted from the strain points. Spells from magical implements cause half-strain, while potions cause no strain.

The magic-user can go over his normal daily strain total by consulting the Effectiveness Chart and roll D6.

You also have to roll on the Overstrain Chart:

I dig the system for the most part. It’s pretty similar to what I did in Pars Fortuna. It does seem a bit severe, though, for mid-level magic-users who don’t have great Constitutions.

I have a feeling this is my new half-ogre character

Now we get a few quick, short articles (often the best kind) –

“Trained Animals in Dungeons & Dragons” by Robert Greayer. It deals with using wild dogs, war dogs, wolves, dire wolves, winter wolves, worgs, pigeons, ravens, hawks, falcons, golden eagles and bald eagles as henchmen. I would give Zapp Smashigan a bald eagle for a pet, but I think his Charisma is too low. Poor Zapp.

Mike Crane gives us “Aging in D&D”. He has a neat little chart of the percentile chance, at different ages, that a character keeps his Str, Dex or Con as-is, instead of losing a point or two. Simple and clean – I like it.

“Adventures in the Improbable” by Richard Dienst is a weird little story about using the thieves’ guild charts in Greyhawk. I really don’t know what to do with it.

Rick Krebs tells us “Non-Player Characters Have Feelings Too”, a set of random tables to generate personalities for NPC’s.

“Bazaar of the Bizarre” this month is the “Ring of the Necromancer” by Bill Howell and “A Working Design for Heward’s Mystical Organ” by Steven Widerhoft.

The Dragon’s Augury reviews dice by The Armory in Baltimore, new water-based paints (also by The Armory), Reich: The Iron Dream of German Unification by Chaosium, Raiders and Traders by Chaosium, a couple books on tanks and The Tolkien Quiz Book by Bart Andrews (love the cover).

The Dragon’s Bestiary presents “Whiz-Bang Beetles (Coleoptera Conflagratio Amotensia) by John Hageman. These are tiny beetles that are like living bullets. They attack fire sources, and in their hives there is a 75% chance of finding 1d6 ounces of “whiz-bang honey” that might give people heightened speed (like a potion). I like these guys – they would make a good swarm creature in modern versions of the game.

In Wormy by Tramp, we get a nice summing up of what has happened up to this point, including Wormy stomping on dwarves, the arrival of the blue demon from the 8-ball, etc. I would super love to play a game set in the Wormy world – anyone out there game?

And this ends #29! Lots of interesting little articles in this one, and noticeably less war game-oriented than some of the recent issues. Hope you enjoyed it – have a groovy Sunday and an efficient week ahead.

Dragon By Dragon – August 1979 (28)

/ jstater / 3 Comments

It’s August 1979, and you’re standing in front of a magazine rack. Which magazine do you choose?

Well, too bad. I’m not reviewing Playboy (more’s the pity). You’re going to have to be happy with The Dragon #28.

We open this issue with this:

“It is fun to be unique. It is fun to be part of something unique. Sometimes, though, some of us forget just how strange all of this stuff is to the uninitiated. In the eyes of the mainstream of contemporary culture, what we do — play “games” — is decidedly different. Some would even
call it strange …”

Kask ain’t just whistlin’ Dixie. The funny thing is – as much as Gary and Dave’s little game has influence modern video games, those of us who still play the pen & paper varieties are still considered strange. People I work with are always a little surprised – not sure quite how to react – when I mention that I write role playing game books. Interesting to hear in the comments how many of us are “open gamers”.

Well, this issue opens up with a biggee – “The Politics of Hell” by Alexander Von Thorn. Van Thorn has an author page at Amazon.com, and (if it’s him) a Twitter account. If you have any questions about Hellish politics, feel free to contact the author directly.

The first line is: “Author’s note: The following article cannot be considered the official doctrine of either Advanced Dungeons and Dragons or the Roman Catholic Church. However, it is compatible with AD&D, and except for the parts about Asmodeus it is not in conflict with works on demonology as generally accepted by Catholic exorcists, thus enjoying tacit approval by the Church.” You know, just in case you were worried about your AD&D game rubbing the Catholic exorcists the wrong way.

The article pretty much sets up the political landscape of AD&D’s version of Hell, as we came to know it through the Monster Manuals, with Asmodeus on the top of the heap. It also includes stats for Satan, Belial, and Astaroth (with art).

Next, Jake Jaquet presents The Dungeon Master’s Guide – possibly the most useful RPG book ever made. The article is a collection of comments and reminiscences by people who were involved with the project, including Jeff Leason, Len Lakofka, Lawrence Schick, Jean Wells, Allan Hammack, Mike Carr, James Ward, Darlene Pekul and Gary Gygax, in an exclusive interview with The Dragon (I’m sure it was quite a coup to land that interview!)

Up next, Dan Bromberg writes “A Short Course in D&D“. This is an interesting article about folks at Cranbrook Prep School setting up a 2 week course in D&D for incoming freshmen. They ended up charging $1.50, plus another $1.50 for low impact dice (the DM didn’t have to pay). The course books were a copy of Basic D&D and the Player’s Handbook. Given the fact that I still find rules in AD&D I didn’t know existed, a course like this might have been useful to me when I was a kid.

Time for some war gaming – “The Cavalry Plain at Austerlitz” by Bill Fawcett. This is a nice description of the battle that pitted the cavalry of Napoleon’s France against Austria and Russia. It is followed up by an article on “Simulating the Cavalry Plain”, also by Mr. Fawcett. He gives a nice overview of the order of battle on both sides, along with victory conditions for each side. Highly useful for folks playing Napoleonic war games.

I didn’t get interested in the Napoleonics until I started reading Military History magazine in college. Now I’m super excited to get GRIT & VIGOR published so I can write up a Napoleonic supplement to it.

Next up – alignment time! Gary Gygax opines on Evil: Law vs. Chaos in “From the Sorcerer’s Scroll”. In this, he defines the characteristics of Chaotic Evil and Lawful Evil … and then let’s Neutral Evil fall where it may. He defines “evil” as the desire to advance self over others by whatever means possible, and always by the foulest means possible (emphasis mine). I like this, because it makes no qualms about what evil characters are in AD&D – they’re villains. They’re not misunderstood, and they’re not necessarily realistic depictions of human beings. Just theatrical villains you can take some enjoyment in beating the crap out of (or in playing, if you’re in the mood to foreclose on orphans and tie maidens to railroads). The Law vs. Chaos element is the desire to create a world ruled by evil vs. evil for its own sake. Now you know.

Dig this ad:

Looks like Judge’s Guild got into computer games early. The only thing I can’t figure is whether or not this was a licensed game. Here’s the article on the game at Wikipedia … and here, apparently, is a clone …

Allen Hammack writes “Six Guns & Sorcery”. If this sounds familiar, you might remember it from the old DMG, where they provided guides for conversions between AD&D and Boot Hill and AD&D and Gamma World. If you need a quick bravery stat, you can use the following:

Subtract the following from 100 for each class:

Cleric: 2 x Wisdom
Fighter and Monk: 1 x Wisdom
Magic-User: 3 x Wisdom
Thief: 4 x Wisdom

Maybe more interesting are the damage dice for some Old West weapons – Derringers do 1d4 damage, other hand guns do 1d8, shotguns do 1d10 and dynamite sticks do 4d6 damage. With these values, I wonder why they were so worried about including firearms in D&D.

Phil Neuscheler now writes “Fantasy Smith’s Notebook”. This was intended as a series of articles concerning the modeling of miniatures for D&D.

“When you have small amounts of cash to start with, you may wish to get adventurer character figures first, and use a substitute for monsters in your miniature games. After all, you will continue to play your own character(s) no matter what kind of monsters you encounter, so you’ll use the character figure more often than any individual monster. Monsters are simply not cost effective.”

The article provides contact information for several miniature makers active at the time. I wondered how many were still in the business today:

U.S. Airfix – I remember these guys making airplane models – maybe snap-together models. They still produce figures, though I’m not sure they have any ancients or medievals anymore.

Archive Miniatures – These guys appear to be defunct.

Garrison (Greenwood & Ball) – Sadly closed for business. Name sounds more like a law firm.

Grenadier – These folks appear to now be owned by Mirliton. Free downloads at the link.

Hinchcliffe Models Ltd – Still alive, but owned by Hinds Figures Ltd.

Heritage Models Inc – now defunct.

Jack Scruby’s Miniatures – there’s a Jack Scruby line at HistoriFigs. Also found a catalog from 1972 at Amazon.

Martian Miniatures – couldn’t find them online.

Miniature Figurines Ltd (Minifigs) – alive and kickin’ with a Tripod site.

Ral Partha Enterprises – still around, and pushing the resurgence of Chaos Wars. I always wanted to get into these minis when I was a kid, but the money just wasn’t there.

Next up is “Armies of the Renaissance – Part IV The English” by Nick Nascati. This covers the Welsh longbow and its importance to the rise of English military power, as well as their deadly combination of bill, pike and musket. They wore less armor than other armies, but appear to have had a high level of discipline. Also notable is the adoption of the red coat in the late 1600’s.

You might remember Lance Harrop from last week’s installment of Dragon By Dragon – this week we’re looking at his “Elvish Tactics in Fantasy Miniatures”. Not surprisingly, elvish tactics are all about speed and maneuverability. Lance gives us the following order of battle:

The light archers, light horse archers and light cavalry are there to harass the enemy. The light archers are protected by the light infantry. The medium infantry are the main line of troops, with the medium archers behind them. The elite heavy infantry are the reserve, and the medium mounted infantry and heavy mounted infantry are fast deployment reserves. The medium cavalry are the shock troops, and the heavy infantry are the elite elvish knights.

As always, Mr. Harrop gives a few notes about elves:

* They use silver to denote rank, not gold
* They do not use red or black leather
* High elves wear blue and white, middle elves green and white, low elves dark green and tan, sea elves sea green and sky blue and dark elves browns and blacks
* Elves are concerned with having a unified front

Next, Gygax sounds off in Up On A Soap Box – in this edition, on manufacturer conventions. You can imagine how fascinating this article is 35 years after it was written.

In Out on a Limb, we present this week’s Great Moments in Nerd Rage:

“This brings me to a point that I didn’t want to write about when I started this letter: spell points. I HAVE HAD ENOUGH OF FORGETTING SPELLS!!!!!!!” – Mark Jacobs

And in response:

“Gee, it’s always so much fun getting letters from unproven critics who think they have some inner track on “the way of things.” As to what may or may not be absurd, let me say this; if you don’t like it, why give me all of this grief? D&D has always made a point of being nothing more than guidelines for structuring a game, and stating so.”

Oh wait – some more:

“Your argument that healing is too slow is specious, and naive. You obviously have never been in a combat situation yourself, nor have you apparently even participated in something such as the Society for Creative Anachronism’s mock battles.”

God, I love this hobby (and God – I hate this hobby).

We now have another installment of The Voyages of Exploration Ship Znutar. An excerpt:

We have next a full board game by Tom Wham – The Awful Green Things from Outer Space. I won’t go into much detail here – the rules look pretty simple, the game is tied in with Znutar above, and I love that they used to do things like this in The Dragon.

Len Lakofka’s Bazaar of the Bizarre presents Potions of Forgetfulness, Rings of Silence, the Horn of Hadies (their spelling, not mine), the Chime of Warning, the Apparatus of Spiky Owns (a play on Spike Jones, God bless him), Leomund’s Plate and Cup, and a slick little guide for generating random magic-user spell books. To whit:

Jon Mattson now gives us “Level Progression for Players and Dungeon Masters”. This is actually a guide to how many XP players and Dungeon Master’s earn for playing different games. I kinda love this – would be a blast to introduce to the blogosphere. I have to reproduce the level charts:

“Giants in the Earth” time! Lawrence Schick and Tom Moldvay (my hero) give us the following literary giants given AD&D stats:

Leigh Brackett’s Eric John Stark (15th level fighter) – I have to admit, I was bored to tears by the one Eric John Stark book I read; they also include stats for Northhounds (4 HD)

Lord Dunsany’s Welleran (A Lawful Good ghost that possesses anyone who picks up his sword)

James M. Ward now gives us “Monty Strikes Back”. He was the original Monty Hall Dungeon Master, you might remember, who gave out tons of great treasure. This is another story of a game played with many of the early entrants into the hobby.

“We were on a winter level tonight and were far from pleased. It was Friday, one of our usual D&D nights and we were going down into a refrigerated level of Monty’s that we had found weeks before. We had all made fur coats for our figures and most of the group was going down. Robert, Jake, and Dave (I) (Tractics boys through and through) were going down as their 20th level fighters; Brian (a tractics lover too, but a fanatic on Western Gunfight) was going as his 21st level thief/fighter/cleric dwarf; Ernie, Dave (II), and I were going down as wizards of the 18th level (just little guys); Freddie was his stupid high level sword carried by a flesh golem from Jake’s golem squadron; Tom and Tim went as druids (probably because they liked all types of herbs).”

In “The Dragon’s Augury”, we have reviews of Divine Right by TSR, Sorcerer by SPI, and a book, America B.C.: Ancient Settlers in the New World by Barry Fell. Still for sale at Amazon, and four stars!

“The Dragon’s Bestiary” gives us Jake Jaquet’s Slinger. Here are the basic stats in B&T format:

Tiny Magical Beast, Low Intelligence, HD 3, AC 17, ATK 1 spine (1d4 + poison IV), MV 60, F15 R11 W15, AL N, XP 300.

These little buggers, which look like iguanas, can throw their tail spines about 20′. They are vulnerable to fire.

Fineous Fingers, Fred and Charly are stealing a Palantir in this issue.

And that wraps up issue #28. It’s always nice to leave with a song, and since Spike Jones was mentioned …

Dragon by Dragon – July 1979 (27)

/ jstater / 3 Comments

I just drove in from Cedar City, and boy is my car tired.

Vaughn and Pfundstein – Go watch their play – it is excellent

I use that by way of an explanation for why this post is showing up now, rather than this morning. My daughter and I traveled to the Utah Shakespeare Festival to watch The Taming of the Shrew, starring Brian Vaughn as Petruchio and Melinda Pfundstein as Katherine. It was fabulous. If you get the chance, visit the festival. Now I want to do a Shakespeare edition of Bloody Basic in iambic pentameter. I’m not sure that’s possible, but boy would it be a fun challenge.

And now that I’ve given some love to the USF, it’s time for a review of The Dragon #27, published 36 years ago this month – time for a baby to be born, grow up, and begin yelling at kids born when 4th edition was published to get off his lawn. As he should, the grubby little beggars.

The ads the issue opens up with aren’t new, but I did notice this bit:

Great artifact of the size of the hobby 36 years ago.

The first article in this issue is “Agincourt: The Destruction of French Chivalry”, a game review by Tim Kask. As he writes, “Ah yes, that’s a Dunnigan game.” As in James Dunnigan. As an avid reader of his excellent books How to Make War and The Quick and Dirty Guide to War, this piqued my interest in the game review (I also note that Al Nofi did the historical research – I love his CIC articles at Strategy Page). Kask praises how he makes the game feel like the period, reflecting the fact that the French mostly defeated themselves at Agincourt. He finds it both a very complex game, and a very playable game.

To my delight, the review was followed by an article from Dunnigan himself – “Agincourt: Designer’s Notes”. One extract:

“I would say the single most difficult aspect that I had to incorporate into the design of Agincourt, were the combined arms and doctrine factors that were critical to the outcome of the battle, This is best shown by looking at the rules covering crowding and fugitives and their effect upon morale.”

I note this, because it’s similar to what I try to do with Bloody Basic and articles on fantasy campaigns in NOD (and not always successfully) – how do you interject the feel of the subject you’re covering without making the game needlessly complicated. It brings to my mind the idea of first principals.

Keeping the theme alive, Steve Alvin now writes “The Political and Military Effects of Agincourt on the Hundred Years War”. I love history – majored in it in college – and I know most war game buffs have at least some regard for it, but I wonder how popular articles like this were back in the day. I hope very. I wonder how they would play now?

Get your scissors out, because Jeff Swycaffer‘s article “Elementals and the Philosopher’s Stone” has a full-color cutout. In the article he mentions the four elements of Greek philosophy and the elementals they inspired … and then remarks on the twelve new types of elementals discovered by “a mad philosopher”. These would be the quasi-elementals and/or para-elementals. I can never keep them straight. Swycaffer visualizes the placement of the elementals thus:

“To visualize the placement of the elementals in the scheme of reality, imagine a globe. The equator is divided into eight segments: air, cold, water, moisture, earth, heat, fire, and dry. Thus the circle is complete, with dryness adjacent to air. This is reasonable, as the alchemists of the 1200s depicted the elements in this fashion. Here water is both cold and moist, and both air and fire are dry.

This is merely the plane of the equator, however. At the south pole, evil. Good and evil are the poles of the physical world, and no one element is more evil than good, or vice versa.”

He then goes on to explain how the elements interact with good and evil – these are the qualities, which include pleasure, fertility, beginning, light, ending, darkness, pain and barren. He explains that the “elementals of good and evil” are the demons of Eldritch Wizardry, D&D Supplement III and the angels of Stephen H. Domeman that appears in The Dragon #17. He then goes on to describe, in basic terms, the elementals of qualities. For example:

“ENDING: Appears as a normal human. Closes doors (as a wizard lock), dispels good magic, and curses as an Evil High Priest.”

For those who need to know, the Ending Elemental has 2 HD, movement of 9, does 1d6 damage per hit, has AC 9 (remember, this is old “lower is better” AC), and is friends with air, water and cold elementals.

“From the Sorcerer’s Scroll” this month is by a guest writer – Bob Bledsaw. He created a little something called Judge’s Guild, which produced some of the great little gems of the OD&D era. He covers all the things JG had done at that time for D&D – a nice little bit of horn blowing, but well deserved I think. I liked this quote:

“Ya don’t tug on Superman’s cape, and ya don’t mess around with the play balance …”

Truer words were never spoken.

Next up is an “Out on a Limb”. God, this is classic geek-fight material, and it should surprise nobody that these are the folks that invented the internet. An example, from an extremely long letter to the editor by Ray Rahman of Minnesota. The first paragraph of his letter:

“Upon reading Mark Cummings’ review of Ralph Bakshi’s film THE LORD OF THE RINGS, I became as concerned about Mr. Cummings’ ethics as he was of Mr. Bakshi’s morals. His review of the film begins dramatically with the statement: “Your film is a ripoff! Yes, rip off! I know that the expression has moral connotations, and that you haven’t done anything wrong legally; but I happen to believe that moral obligations often make demands that go beyond the demands of laws. So stay with me for a few paragraphs, and I’ll explain why your film is immoral … Let me start by saying that I’M not an outraged purist.”

Wonderful!

Next up is an ad for Boot Hill, a game I know little about but would love to explore. I’ve been hankering to do a sort of Old West Bloody Basic, but I’m waiting until Grit & Vigor is finished so I can base it on those rules.

Gary Jordan now presents a variant that might delight fans of the recent Marvel movies, “Tesseracts: A Traveller Artifact”. The idea is using these not as a way to confuse mappers (as they had previously been presented to DM’s), but as a boon to the players of Traveller. Really, it comes down to using matter transmitters to move folks around a ship.

Up next is a new cartoon to The Dragon called “The Voyages of Exploration Ship Znutar, A Starship on a Mission of Empire”. I don’t remember this from the era of Dragon magazines I grew up in, so I wonder how long it survived.

Gary Jordan now chimes in with another Traveller article on Star System Generation. This is a scheme for filling hex maps, filling in the presence of planets, star ports, etc.

In the Designer’s Forum, “Divine Right” is covered again (it was TSR’s newest game), by Glenn and Kenneth Rahman (there’s that name again – can’t be a coincidence, can it?).

Lance Harrop now presents “A Quick Look at Dwarves”. This is a long article on how dwarf armies are organized, with an accompanying chart.

Wow – they got into it in the old days, didn’t they. Still, there are lots of great ideas – the dwarven engineers, miners, masons, etc. forming divisions of the army. He adds the following at the end of the article:

On Painting Dwarves: Elite units of dwarves should have white beards (reminds me of the Graybeards units in Warhammer), dwarf armor should be shiny and a mix of metals, dwarves don’t seem to have national colors (“don’t seem” – well, they aren’t real, so I suppose they don’t) but use colors to designate individuals, and whatever you do, don’t make your dwarves too gaudy.

On Dwarvish Tactics: Vanguards always drive towards the dwarf commander, dwarves love to tear into orcs, dwarf morale is very slow to break and dwarves are known to leave the field of battle after their leader is killed, but they do not rout – they just walk off slowly, carrying his body.

The Design Forum continues now with Jay Facciolo writing about “The Emerald Tablet”. This is a miniatures war game published by Creative Wargames Workshop (side note – imagine how many games there are out there that have never been cloned, for good or ill). I love the name. The game was an attempt to make something that was neither too specific or vague, and which incorporated magic into the rules, rather than just overlaying magic atop ancient or medieval warfare. If nothing else, you have to appreciate the cover I found at BoardGameGeek.

It sounds like an interesting take, with each unit in the game begin given one of four orders before the game begins – attack, skirmish, hold or support (another unit). These orders can only be changed during the game by one of the figures representing the players. Interesting idea, and requires a great deal of thought before the game starts. The magic segment of the game requires quite a lot of explanation, and appears to be, if not complicated, then at least engrossing. It even comes with a bibiolography (and a bit of cheesecake)

“Giants in the Earth”, one of my favorite features, comes next. I really need to do something like this myself in NOD – maybe I should let people vote on G+.

This edition includes the following literary giants:

Alan Garner’s DURATHROR (13th level fighter/Dwarvish paladin)

Fritz Leiber’s FAFHRD (20th level fighter/8th level thief) and THE GRAY MOUSER (18th level fighter-thief)

Edgar Rice Burrough’s JOHN CARTER OF MARS (30th level fighter)

Eh – never heard of ’em.

Robert Camino writes “Go Boldly Where No Man Has Gone Before: Expanding Imperium“. This is a variant which requires two sets of the game, the boards being connected by eight jump routes which are always charted by the players (whatever that refers to). Love the art!

Great advert comes next, for Tome of Treasures, published by GRP Enterprises of Arlington, VA. The tagline got me “Plumb the depths of the Cube of Time and the Bow of Precognition. Explore the effects on hapless orcs of the Sword of Rout. Gems, jewelry, and 172 brand new, quality magic items are described …”

Jerome Arkenberg now presents “The Mythos of Africa in Dungeons & Dragons“. This is one heck of a tricky subject, as treating Africa as though it a single culture is ridiculous. The article presents many gods. For creatures, we get:

“In this category fall: witches, ghosts, were-lions, were-hyenas, and fairies. These are all the same as in the D&D Monster Manual.”

Turns out, we had all the African monsters we ever needed. I have a feeling that either the article was too long and something had to be cut, or the research was just too difficult back in the 1970’s. The article also includes many heroes.

The “Dragon’s Bestiary” presents the Horast, created by Mary Lynn Skirvin. Also known as a “whipper beast”, a very rare creature with a whip-like tail that deals 4d6 damage. This one didn’t make it into the MM, but fear not, for the article ends with this:

“By gracious arrangement with the author of AD&D, Gary Gygax, monsters appearing in this column are to be considered OFFICIAL AD&D MONSTERS.”

So, if you need a monster with a whip tail, D&D has you covered. Officially.

Comic strip time. We have Finieous Fingers (their spelling, not mine), which again includes some nudity of the female variety – D&D was a game for grown-ups, after all.

No, I’m not going to show it this time. Finieous’ butt from the last post will have to suffice.

In “Bazaar of the Bizarre” (the elements are all coming together, aren’t they), Gygax presents the Bag of Wind. Write your own jokes, folks.

Dig the back cover, kids:

Looks like I need to up my game with NOD.

Fun issue, with plenty for D&D’ers and war gamers. Check it out if you can find a copy.

Dragon by Dragon – June 1979 (26)

/ jstater / 5 Comments

Two years ago, I was writing a series of weekly blog posts on the old issues of Dragon magazine – something like reviews with a bit of crunch mixed in. And then I stopped. And I don’t remember why.

Well, now I’m starting again. So … journey back in time with me to June of 1979, when the Bee Gees were dominating the charts with Love You Inside Out …

Oh – that’s Wanda Nevada. Brooke Shields. Groovy.

Anyhow – into this golden age of entertainment comes Dragon Magazine, Volume III, No. 12 with a kickin’ cover depicting some Napoleonic war game action, and of course much more. Let’s dive right in.

The first thing we’re greeted with is a great full-page Ral Partha advert, noting that “The Little Things Make a Noticeable Difference”. If you’re in my generation of gamers, Ral Partha is just branded into your brain. They were so prevalent in the pages of magazines, and had some great adverts. Honestly, I never messed with miniatures back in the day. I got into the Citadel stuff in late high school and through college, and bought a few Ral Partha minis then, but I really missed the companies hey day. Alas.

On the contents page, we are made aware that this issue marks the beginning of Gay Jaquet’s reign as assistant editor, assisting T. J. Kask, that is. I note this only to point out that TSR appears to be growing.

Another ad now, for the Origins! 79 convention in Chester, Pennsylvania. Do you think the geeks that now trod those halls know the gaming history of the place? Probably not.

https://www.google.com/maps/embed?pb=!1m0!3m2!1sen!2sus!4v1436714251332!6m8!1m7!1scz6zKvyptBHn3Dg5DGMjQA!2m2!1d39.860951!2d-75.353605!3f295!4f0!5f0.7820865974627469

Looks like a cool college – love the brick work. I’m from Las Vegas – we live in a world of stucco and sandstone, so the brick stuff always impresses me. What can I say – I’m a cheap date.

Next, we have a status update on Gencon XII, and a notice that they’re looking for judges and events for the con. We also get a full con schedule, some prices on back issues of The Dragon (back issues are $2.10 a pop, or $6.88 in today’s dollars. Not a bad price).

Oh yeah – and a McLean cartoon involving the confusion between rocs and rocks. I love watching his art style grow in these early issues. There was some solid young talent in gaming back in the day. I wonder what they paid him per cartoon?

Now we reach the first article – “System 7 Napoleonics: Miniatures Meet Boards”, by Kask. I’m not going to delve too deeply into the article itself, which reviews the game System 7 Napoleonics by GDW, which uses cardboard counters in place of miniatures, and is thus cheap compared to using the lead, but I will point this out:

“The problem with establishing a campaign in a college club, whether it be D&D; TRAVELER, or a Napoleonics, is one of continuity. Each semester, some of the stalwarts say goodbye and depart for “the real world.” This can be especially traumatic if one of those departing owns the French Army, or what passed for it in terms of collective club figures.”

Funny to think how wrapped up the game used to be with issues like this. I suppose it still goes on to this day – maybe some college kids could chime in in the comments below and let us know if they still deal with this. Personally, I’m an old fart, and I do my gaming on G+ these days.

This article is followed up by another article on System 7, by Rich Banner (the designer), called “Necessity is the Mother of Innovation”. If you were into this new game, this was your lucky month, because this article is followed up by a Q&A with Banner.

Speaking of GDW (or Game Designers’ Workshop), we are now treated to a full page ad for their new expansion for Traveler, Imperium – Empires in Conflict: Worlds in the Balance. Great title.

From the Dungeon Hobby Shop in Lake Geneva (no longer there, I’m afraid), we have an ad for 4th Dimension, the Game of Time & Space, produced by TSR (sort of – click here for more). Apparently, you play a Time-Lord (does the hyphen grant immunity from BBC law suits?) commanding an army of Guardians, Rangers and Warriors in some sort of board game battle.

Next we get back into some D&D goodness, with “Giants in the Earth”. Great series of articles, giving game stats to literary characters (why don’t I do that in NOD?). This is a particular goody, because we get Jack Vance’s Cugel the Clever (14th level thief, Str 15, Int 18 (56%), Wis 13, Dex 18 (93%), Con 15, Cha 16 – sounds like Vance was cheating on his dice rolls when he rolled up Cugel, and what’s with the percentiles – I thought they only did that with Strength scores in AD&D?), Karl Edward Wagner’s Kane (30th level fighter, 20th level magic-user, 14th level assassin – how many XP would that take?) and Talbot Mundy’s Tros of Samothrace (15th level paladin). I love Cugel, I’ve heard of Kane (but never read him), but Tros was new to me.

Ah – this is included:

Note: For the game purposes of these heroes: Dexterity 18 (00) gives +4 on Reaction/Attacking, -5 Defensive adjustment and three attacks per round for high level fighters. Constitution 18 (00) gives fighters +4.5 per hit die bonus

Oh, and Judge’s Guild (hallowed be their name) was hawking the Treasury of Archaic Names by Bill Owen. Struggle no longer for heroic character names!

Up next, “What of the Skinnies?” by James W. S. Marvin, a Starship Troopers variant. Not going to lie – caught a bit of the movie, never read the book, have never laid eyes on the game they’re referencing here. This might be the greatest article on the topic ever, and I’ll never know it. Moving on.

Edward C. Cooper gives some tips on “The Placement of Castles” in Lord and Wizard. Article aside, L&W sounds like a pretty cool game: “Mighty, magical holocausts, awe-inspiring Dragons, weird and terrible monsters, military battles on a grand scale. Which of the combatants, Order or Chaos, shall win? And can the forces of Neutrality maintain the precarious balance of power . . . An exciting, fast moving game of movement and combat in a fantastic world, where skill and strategy will decide the winner.” Another board game – the RPG’s are still in their infancy, after all, and at this point most RPG’ers have probably come to the game from board games and miniature war gaming. Makes sense.

Joe Curreri writes “35th Anniversary of D-Day Remembered”. There were lots more veterans of that day alive at the time, and their kids were the ones playing all these silly games. The page also has an ad for Lyle’s Hobby & Craft Center in Westmont, Illinois. Sadly, also no longer there.

In the Design Forum, James McMillan writes about “The Solo Berserker for William the Conqueror-1066“. This article presents solitaire rules for the aforementioned game, with a little history on the berserkers. He includes the note that Eystein Orre, one of Harald Hadrada’s men, was called “the Gorcock”. If you’re reading this and play a barbarian or berserker in some game, please consider renaming your character “the Gorcock”. For me. For Eystein. For America.

Next up, David Sweet presents game stats for “Chinese Undead”. We have stats for Lower Souls, Lost Souls, Vampire-Spectres, Sea Bonze, Celestial Stags and Goat Demons. Boy, stats were simple in those days:

Also this:

Look out!

Fantasy 15s has a full page ad for 15mm miniatures allowing you to “re-create the mass battles of Middle Earth – at prices you can afford!” I wonder if there’s a source for cheap men-at-arms so fighter lords can do the same thing. The reproduction ain’t great, but the art in the ad is pretty cool …

The next article includes Boot Hill additions, revisions, and triva (!) by Michael Crane. The have a great “Fast Exact Hit Location Chart” that could be useful for duels, but also just combat in general (especially missile combat):

And, because it wouldn’t be a real D&D mag from the old days … “Another View of the Nine-Point Alignment Scheme” by Carl Parlagreco. This article tries to lay out what you can and cannot do with each alignment. Helping people is something Good characters do, apparently, while trusting in organizations is something for Lawfuls. Here are a couple samples:

Chaotic Good … will keep their word to other of good alignment, will not attack an unarmed foe, will not use poison, will help those in need, prefers to work alone, responds poorly to higher authority, and is distrustful of organizations

Neutral Evil … will not necessarily keep their word, would attack an unarmed foe, will use poison, will not help those in need, may work with others, is indifferent to higher authority, and is indifferent to organizations.

I think this is actually a much more useful way to look at alignment that getting philosophical with it, especially for people new to the game. Of course, you need a reward/penalty mechanism with alignment to make these strictures matter.

Next is Kevin Hendryx’s “Deck of Fate”, with illustrations by Grey Newberry. This is a great magical tarot card deck. Characters draw cards, and get magic results based on what they draw. For example:

II – Junon – The Goddess: No effect for non-clerics. For clerics, permanently boosts their Wisdom score to 18 and gains use of one spell of the next higher level.

In other words – it’s a pretty powerful magic item – an artifact really. You could probably make one heck of a quest into a band of adventurers having to retrieve all of these magic cards.

Rick Krebs now provides “D&D Meets the Electronic Age”. Boy, they had no idea. Dig it:

Over the years access to photocopiers and mimeograph machines have aided many Dungeon Masters in copying maps, charts and even publishing their own zines, all to the expansion of their campaign. But, the recent electronics explosion has now brought another tool to those DMs fortunate to have access to them: the micro-computer. We were one of those fortunate groups to gain the use of a 4K (4,000 bit) memory, BASIC speaking microcomputer.

Charles Sagui now writes “Hirelings Have Feelings Too”. It’s a short article that provides some guidelines for paying hirelings to keep them around. According to Charles, hirelings should be payed two years salary in advance, plus a share of the spoils – either an equal share, or a percentage. Non-humans, he says, will not hire on for salary alone – except orcs – but will also demand to be supplied with equipment and weapons to go into the dungeon. Elves, he says, don’t like to go into dungeons as hirelings – they like fresh air and trees too much. They don’t care much for gold, but they will demand a fine cut gem or magic item + 15% of treasure. Dwarves can be greedy at times – they want four years salary and 15% of treasure. And if you try to give a +3 returning warhammer to somebody else, there’s a 65% chance the dwarf will try to steal it. Orcs will go in for one year salary and 2-5% of treasure, and will only work for chaotics. They are prone to run away when confronted with a difficult fight and have a bad habit of killing their employer in his sleep and stealing all his stuff. I guess turn-about it fair play in a dungeon.

Charles also says that hireling NPCs will only go into the dungeon once – after that, they retire to blow their hard-earned gold on “strong drink and their favorite vice.” Once their money is gone, they might go back in with the PC’s – and if the PC’s paid well last time, they’ll be more loyal. Loyalty ratings for hirelings aren’t used much these days, but they were an important system in a time when hirelings and henchmen were the norm for D&D.

Michael Crane also contributes “Notes from a Very Successful D&D Moderator”. This is a chance, he says, for the moderators (i.e. game masters) to share their tips and tricks after many players have shared ideas for beating dungeons. The article is pretty much about one-upmanship between the DM and the players. A nice historical piece, from when the game was (and was supposed to be) a competition between the DM and the players.

Gary Gygax now chimes in with his “From the Sorcerer’s Scroll” with “D&D, AD&D and Gaming”. The article discusses the origins of role-playing games, of fantasy war gaming, and of role-playing within fantasy war gaming. It’s a nice retrospective, and Dave Arneson’s innovation of giving players individual roles to play is mentioned. Gygax also takes pains to explain that AD&D is a different game than D&D – not an expansion or revision. As Gygax explains:

“Where D&D is a very loose, open framework around which highly imaginative Dungeon Masters can construct what amounts to a set of rules and game of their own choosing, AD&D is a much tighter and more structured game system.”

Which also explains why I like D&D better than AD&D. I like my games loose and imaginative. The article lays out the future of AD&D. And then this towards the end:

“For those of you who wondered why I took certain amateur publishing efforts to task, it was because they were highly insulting to TSR, D&D, this magazine, and myself.”

Nerd fights. They never end.

Kevin Hendryx now presents a variant game for D&D in the modern era called “Mugger!”. Welcome to the 1970’s. Technically, it is Mugger! The Game of Tactical Inter-City Combat, 1979. Each player plays a mugger, gaining experience for each successful mugging and gathering loot. The goal is to “… amass as large a horde of experience points as possible while carrying out one’s crimes and eventually gain a seat in the U.S. Congress …” The times, they ain’t a changin’ all that much, are they?

Random encounters include 1d2 cops on their beat, 1d3 roving squad cars, 1d6 tougher muggers, 1d8 street gangs, 1d20 Hare Krishna fanatics and 4d6 stray dogs.

Oh, and you pick up 1,000 XP for stealing 10 kg of plutonium.

Here’s the level chart:

It’s actually a pretty long article, and though tongue-in-cheek would probably be fun to play one night with some friends. It strikes me that the old city map from Marvel Super-Heroes would come in handy on this one.

Lots of articles in this issue. Next is “Birth Tables and Social Status” for Empire of the Petal Throne, by G. Arthur Rahman. EPT was still a major component in gaming in this period, and its generally featured in every issue of The Dragon. It provides a very long table for generating birth and social status, and this translates into skills, spells and the like for the character. Looks good to me.

Apparently, Grenadier was pushing their new line of licensed Gamma World miniatures with a full page ad. You can see some unpainted models HERE and some painted ones HERE.

Len Lakofka’s “Bazaar of the Bizarre” is “Blueprint for a Lich” in this issue. This is an in-depth article on how high level magic-users and clerics become liches, including a recipe that involves 2 pinches of pure arsenic and 1 measure of fresh wyvern venom (under 60 days old). Don’t mix this one up at home, kiddies.

The would-be lich then drinks the concoction and rolls the D%

1-10: No effect whatsoever, other than all body hair falling out
11-40: Come for 2-7 days – the potion works!
41-70: Feebleminded until dispelled by dispel magic. Each attempt to remove the feeblemind has a 10% chance to kill the drinker if it fails. The potion works!
71-90: Paralyzed for 4-14 days. 30% chance of permanent loss of 1d6 dexterity points. The potion works!
91-96: Permanently deaf, dumb or blind. Only a full wish can regain the sense. The potion works!
97-00: DEAD – star over … if you can be resurrected.

First – I can actually use this in the online game I’m running.

Second – awesome random table for generating liches – they’re either a bit paralyzed, could be blind or deaf, or maybe are completely normal. Side-effects are a good idea for major potions.

Gary Gygax now provides tables for “Putting Together a Party on the Spur of the Moment”. This generates a PC party quickly, with tables and rules for generating quick ability scores, level, armor, weapons and magic items. I think this made it into the DM’s Guide. Which DMG you ask – come on, there’s really only one.

Thomas Holsinger provides a “Strength Comparison Table”. He provides a strength table from 0 to 18/00, with monster equivalents, hit bonuses and damage bonuses. It’s inspired by Dave Hargrave’s Arduin Grimoire II. FYI – Leprechauns are stronger than Brownies, and Pixies are stronger than Leprechauns, just in case you were going to run an all-fey remake of Over the Top. (Google it!)

Jeff Neufeld now provides a review of a play-by-mail game called Tribes of Crane (which is mis-written as Tribes of Tome in the first sentence). We also have reviews of Ice War. (Soviet/US confrontation), Mercenary (a Traveller book), The Battle of Monmouth and Grenadier Figure Packs and a very long review of Battle Sphere with lots of cool illustrations.

The Dragon’s Bestiary (formerly Featured Creature) presents the barghest, so you now know which decade to blame for those little bastards.

Next comes “The Adventures of Fineous Fingers, Fred & Charly”.

Who says old school fantasy is all about scantily clad females?

Great article title by Rod Stephens – “The Thief: A Deadly Annoyance”. Amen to that. He laments the misuse of thieves in dungeons, because they’re really meant for urban environments, where they can steal from high-level NPC’s and other players – because PC’s have more money than just about anybody in the game. He isn’t wrong.

We finish up with some full page ads for GenCon XII, TSR’s new game Divine Right (notes that T.M. Reg. has been applied for – so don’t try anything funny) and Space Gamer (subscribe to get a free game – Ogre, Chitin I, Melee, WarpWar or Rivets).

A packed issue, and a reminder that The Dragon was a full-bodied gaming magazine at the time, and not just TSR’s house organ.

Hope you enjoyed the review – have a happy Sunday and a great week ahead.

Dragon by Dragon – December 1978 (21)

/ jstater

Just imagine all the spiffy Ronco products people were unwrapping on Christmas day in 1978! A few folks might have also been perusing the December 1978 Dragon magazine while they were waiting for Christmas lunch or dinner. Let’s see what it included …

First up, we have a groovy little advert from Ral Partha that would make a good elven army list or encounter list. Let’s make it random …

01-05. Wood Elf Archers (Longbow and Shortsword)
06-25. Wood Elf Infantry (Longbow and Longsword)
26-30. Woof Elf Cavalry (Lance)
31-50. Sea Elf Pikeman
51-60. High Elf Swordsmen
61-75. High Elf Spearmen
76-95. High Elf Cavalry (Two-Handed Swords)
96-100. Elfin Command Group – Elf Commander (5th level fighter/magic-user), Elf Lieutenant (3rd level fighter/magic-user)

First article this issue is a revisit of the Search for the Nile game. This is basically a response to the article in the last issue of The Dragon by the games creator.

Okay – have to share this next ad with everybody …

Next up, we have a neat little table of titles for powerful NPCs by Brian Blume. This one works like the old menus at Chinese restaurants – choose one bit from column 1, one from column 2, etc. Here are a couple examples:

The Lord Protector, His Most Distinguished Illustriousness, The Crown Prince Bob, the Incomparable Slaughterer of Dragons

The Guildmaster, Her All Triumphant Laduyship, Lady Cassandra, The Terrible Scythe of Honor

Kinda groovy – worth checking out. I’ll probably turn it into a random table and use it for Nod now and again.

Willie Callison now presents a Cure for the “Same-Old-Monster” Blues. Every long-time DM has gone through this. Mr. Callison’s suggestion is to look at the world around you and draw inspiration from nature. The giant snake, for example, can be described as any real species of snake – different types of attacks, different color patterns, etc. You get the idea.

Callison also provides the next article – Inflation in D&D. In 1978, inflation would have been foremost on people’s minds, and Willie complains about the lack of realism inherent in the D&D economy – i.e. too many gold pieces floating around. Unfortunately, he doesn’t really give any solutions to the problem. So, kind of a pointless article.

Prophet Proofing (or how to counter foretelling spells) by David Schroeder attempts to throw a monkey wrench into spells like clairvoyance, clairaudience, wizard eye, ESP and x-ray vision. I’m generally not a fan of ideas on how to screw up powers that players should rightly be able to exercise with the characters. I mean, a fighter with a high strength and two-handed sword sure does kill lots of orcs – shouldn’t there be a way to screw that up? Sneaky tricks are a good thing in D&D – keeps the players on their toes – but at the same time, the clever use of spells to overcome obstacles is one of the points of the game.

Sensible Sorcery is an article by Ronald Pehr that explores ways to make researching spells more difficult for magic-users. I think I’m detecting a theme in this article.

Robert Wagner (no, probably not him) now delivers a Boot Hill Encounter Chart. The chart is for town encounters, and is divided into two parts – Town till 8 p.m. and Town after 8 p.m. The early chart gives a 1 in 6 chance of an encounter, while the late chart gives a 2 in 6 chance. Early encounters include pickpockets, various job offers (a very good idea!), being shot at by 1 or 2 people, being mugged by 1 or 2 people, being falsely arrested or have 1 or 2 deputies after you. The late encounters include jealous husbands, being challenged to a gun fight, seeing a bank robbery, more job offers and being arrested by a U. S. Marshall (maybe this guy!). It’s a very good chart, and easily adaptable to a fantasy game or one set later than the Old West period.

Rod Stevens delivers Encounters with Personality. Here, he provides a few ideas on giving monsters and NPCs a bit of history and personality for encounters. Did DM’s actually not do this back in the day? Perhaps – old D&D had a few elements of wargame/boardgame to it back in the day, but articles like this show the progression to a more story-based game. A couple examples:

1. BLARG: Ftr. Cha/Evil. Hobgoblin. Blarg hates everything but ogres. These he emulates but they hate him.
 
3rd 20 5 16 7 7 6 8 6 +1 +1 shrt. sd.

8. CLARENCE LINDIR: Ftr. Law/Good. Human. He is a constable who is always accompanied by 11 other constables. He will do anything to make an arrest including arresting jaywalkers, people with water in wine skins, or anything else he can think of. He often makes up absurd charges. When in court he will then charge resisting arrest if the party didn’t come peacefully. Of the hundreds of arrests he has made, he has only gotten 2 convictions. The townspeople pointedly ignore him and call him “Clarence the Clown” behind his back.
 
1st 9 7 1 7 9 1 0 9 7 8 + 2 + 2 mace & spear

Next come the game reviews. Olympica is set in 2206, where a human colony on Mars is being conquered by a group mind called “The Web” (prescient in a way, huh?). One player controls the assault group being sent by the U. N., while the other player defends the Web generator from the assault.

Don Turnbull of Cambridge, England presents a section of his Greenlands Dungeon – The Hall of Mystery. It’s quite a long description, but it involves riddles (sort of), mirrors (one a mirror of opposition, the other of life trapping containing a succubus) and a host of monsters in rooms. I will share the map …

Gary Gygax pops in next with a strategy guide for Rail Baron. I’ve heard good things about this game (one wonders if it could have been used in concert with Boot Hill), but I’ve never played it. Since I haven’t played it, I won’t chime in on how good a guide it is, but it does look as though it’s quite thorough. In fact, I think it might be the longest article in the magazine.

A couple more game reviews follow. King Arthur’s Knights, which reviewer S. List describes as being similar to TSR’s DUNGEON. Players choose to be a knight errant, knight at arms or great knight, which increasing levels of power and obligations, as well as tougher victory conditions. The map was apparently gorgeous, the rules book 16 pages long and there were 11 decks of small cards. There are several Magic Places on the board, and on each one places a magic treasure and magic guardian.

Timothy Jones now presents some optional rules for DUNGEON. There are new characters (halfling, dwarf, cleric, thief and paladin), new prizes (including a bag of dung!) and new monsters (red dragons, blue or white dragons, witches, evil wizards and evil priests).

T. Watson then has a review of Tolkien’s Silmarillon. Watson describes it as the bible of Middle Earth, with the Valar as the angels, Melkor/Morgoth as Lucifer and the elves as the chosen people. Watson seems to like it, despite it being long and dry, but also seems to indicate that it’s for folks who really want to know more about the imaginary Middle Earth.

In James Ward’s Monty Strikes Back, we get another installment of gonzo dungeoneering done right. Here’s a sample:

“The three ancient white dragons guarding the door were no problem. It was just a matter of running in the chamber hasted and invisible and throwing three hold monsters at things. They didn’t have any treasure, they were just there to slow us down a bit. As we walked through the door ‘Monty gave his “evil” chuckle (which always meant we were in big trouble) and we were told that we were sliding down a sheet of glare ice. We wound up pinioned against a mass of ice spears and everybody but Freddie had taken damage. He then thought it would be a great idea to use his flaming power to melt the spears away. Ernie and I, knowing the horrors Monty could think up, tried to stop him but it was too late. We were hit from above by partially melted ice stalactites and again Freddie was the only one unhurt.”

This was my point about D&D once being something like a wargame/boardgame. The fun was in moving around the pieces, not telling their life stories.

And that’s it for December. The reviews were interesting, a few of the articles useful, but honestly not among the best issues I’ve read.

Enjoy your Saturday gang!

Dragon by Dragon – October 1978 (19)

/ jstater

Hey – almost have my months synced here! October 1978 and Dragon blows in with what appears to be a pretty full issue. Let’s begin …

First thing I see this issue, other than the editorial, is “The Battle for Snurre’s Hall”, the tournament for the Origins ’78 D&D Tournament. Good recap of the winning team’s tactics, and reminds you of the game aspect that I think sometimes gets buried under the “role play” aspect.

How Many Ettins Is a Fire Giant Worth: Competitive D&D by Bob Blake

And then this article reminds me of the importance of role play in the game. Basically, this is an article about scoring competitive modules. Given my intense interest in such things …

A Compendium of Diverse D&D Player Personalities by Mike Crane

Hmmm … maybe the next article holds something interesting …

Gamma World – A New List of Treasures To Be Found by Gary Gygax

Thanks EGG! A nice random table (1-100) of relics for Gamma World. We have a home donut maker, wire cutters in fair condition (an amazing find), a plastic box of 50-100 assorted screws (you know these are going to be used to stud a club, right), a leather bag of dice, etc.

Gamma World – More Excerpts from the Journals of Hald Sevrin by Gary Jaquet

This one covers the history of Gamma World in the Black Years. Apparently, it was hard, but people adapted.

Wormy

Or “Wormy 8 Ball” to my 12-year old brain.

Wormy swoops in (thank God) and provides some light entertainment – if you consider a tree troll being ripped apart light entertainment. Beware blue demons!

The thing that always made me wonder about Wormy was the trolls. Trolls were supposed to be complete bastards, right? But these guys were pretty cool. As a kid, the Monster Manual was as canon as it came, and this was the first introduction I had to “it’s my world, I can do whatever I want”. Good training for a young DM.

The Lowdown on Wishes by Kevin Thompson

The thing is, wishes have absolutely no place in a game. In a story, they’re fine. But in a game, nothing but trouble. Great line …

“Most DM’s want to be fair about wishes but don’t want Player characters to take undue advantage. So they kill them.”

The article tries to get into the science behind wishes. Mildly interesting, but very “campaign world” specific in a way. The idea is that wish spells are empowered into devices by wizards to allow non-wizards to use magic. They may vary in strength, and might have alignment restrictions as well (i.e. a lawful wish cannot be used for something chaotic). Thompson divides wishes into four classes:

CLASS I: Creates purely physical (mundane) objects or occurrences

CLASS II: Creates living, non-magical beings, weak magical equipment and duplicates magic-user spells up to 5th level

CLASS III: Creates living, magical beings (but only the weakest type), moderately strong magic items and can duplicate any magic-user spell and cleric spells up to 4th

CLASS IV: Can do almost anything except granting more wishes in any way, shape or form.

Not a bad schema, really.

Planning Creative Treasurers by Dave Schroeder

Dave gets into thinking more about treasures – why is that orc carrying a bunch of gems, for example, or using a theme with a treasure horde. He refers to these as toolkits, for example …

“A thief’s toolkit could contain a +1 dagger, a gem that glows in the presence of traps, a set of Gauntlets of Dexterity, a skeleton key that would raise its user’s chances of opening locks, or a pair of “waldos”, that would allow him to open trapped chests from a distance. Don’t forget a periscope for peeking around corners, or perhaps a bag of holding for the loot. Disappearance Dust would be useful, as would a Gauntlet of Etherealness that would let pouches and pockets be picked tracelessly.”

The Mythos of Australia by Jerome Arkenberg

Another in the line of mythos articles, and if you’ve ever dipped your toes into the Australian myths, you know they are quite interesting and tough to adapt to D&D. The beauty of the Greek and Norse myths is that so many of them read like comic books.

Systematic Magic by Robin W. Rhodes

I love it when geeks begin “rationally” explaining why it makes no sense that a magic-user with charm person in his book could ever earn enough gold/experience to figure out hypnotic pattern, since charm person is clearly a control spell and hypnotic pattern a mental spell.

Spells here are divided into these different categories, which have different prime requisites. Control spells, for example, have charisma as a prime requisite, while nature spells have constitution as their prime. Holy spells only have the lawful alignment as their prime requisite.

Lawful characters begin with two holy spells. Neutrals get one 1st level spell from (I guess, the language is confusing) the category that matches their highest ability score. Chaotics aren’t mentioned, and a character can never have more than two new spells at any one time.

The chance to miscast a spell is equal to the level of the spell divided by the prime requisite. So, dispel magic, a 3rd level defense spell, would have a 3/15 chance of miscast if the caster had a constitution of 15, i.e. 20% chance of miscast. DM determines the side effects of a miscast spell.

Casting a spell costs one point of its prime requisite per spell level – so that dispel magic spell would cost 3 points of constitution. One point is recovered for every turn (minute or 10 minutes, depending on the version of the game) not spent in melee.

A new spell must be successfully cast once per spell level before the caster can learn another spell of that level.

Only two fields of magic can be learned at a time.

A bit fiddly, but a neat idea. Wonder how it works in real play. Again, though, you can see the future divides of gaming even at this early stage – more rules vs. fewer rules, “logic” vs. gonzo, etc.

The Fastest Guns That Never Lived, Part III by Allen Hammack

This third in a series examines several more characters from western shows and gives them Boot Hill stats, including Bret, Bart and Beau Maverick, Will and Jeff Sonnet, Eli Wallach, Charles Bronson, James Coburn (fuck, I want to play James Coburn in a game of Boot Hill), Robert Vaughn, Tim Straum, Kid Shelleen and Jason McCord. I love that the article mashes up characters and actors.

A Mixture of Magic and Technology: Gamma World Review by Robert Barger

When people say magic and technology don’t mix, it really burns the author. Hallmark of a geek – being annoyed at differing opinions. He mostly covers the ease with which one can combine Gamma World and D&D, which is something I like as well. Moving on …

Spell Determination for Hostile Magic-Users by Steve Miller

This is a quick article to randomly determine what spells an NPC magic-user might have, inspired by a bunch of players bitching when a randomly encountered enchanter threw and ice storm and fireball at them and wiped out their PCs. My response to this problem …

Honestly, it is good to vary the spells a bit, but on the other hand, do players ever apologize for destroying the kick-ass villain you designed in some dungeon you worked all month to stock? No, they don’t. You shouldn’t either.

Charts for Determining the Location of Treasure by Ronald Guritzky

Nice random table of treasure locations – very helpful when you write a lot of this stuff.

1) The location of the treasure
1-6 Chest
7-9 Urn
10-12 Bag
13-13 Pot
16-17 Loose
18 Carried
19 Hidden (Wall, Floor, Secret Compartment, etc.)
20 Ref’s Choice

2) There is a one in four chance that a treasure has a trap in it.

3) Traps
01-20 1-8 Daggers (1 in 6 poison)
21-36 1-6 Arrows
37-46 1-3 Spears (1 in 6 poison)
47-62 Gas
63-78 Poison Lock
79-88 Monster in Chest (Pay attention to monster’s size)
89-92 Exploding Chest (2-7 dice of damage)
93-95 Chest Does a Spell At Person
96 Chest Acts as Mirror of Life Trapping
97 Intelligent Chest (2nd -7th Level Magic User)
98 Lose One Level of Experience
99 Lose One Magic Item
00 Roll Twice

4) Gasses (Roll 6 sided die for first digit and 4 sided die for second digit)
11-12 Obscures Vision (Players run into each other, miss treasure, etc.)
13-14 Blinds Player 01-100 Hours
21-22 Fear During Next 2-9 Fights
23-24 Sleep 6-36 Rounds
31 + 1-4 Points to Random Ability (8 hours) (1 in 10 permanent)
32-33 Sick: Return to Surface (1 in 6 in coma)
34 Paralyzation
41 Stone
42 Death!!
43 Polymorph to Monster or Animal 10’R.
44 Amnesia (1-20 days, 1 in 6 permanent)
51-52 Change Alignment
53-54 Slow (As slow spell)
61-62 Haste (As haste spell)
63 Cloud Kill
64 Go Berserk! Attack Friends!

I dig this ad for Star Trek miniatures. Even though Star Wars gets more notice, I think Trek, being born of episodic TV, might be a better fit for RPG’s

Footsteps in the Sky by ???

Fiction …

“All he could do was walk on the air as normals could walk on land and his four older brothers repeatedly told him that it was the most useless of all mental mutations. After Reveral’s long training sessions for manhood, he was finally beginning to believe his brothers’ taunts. His oldest brother Fer-in and his next oldest, Serpt, both could teleport themselves vast distances and had easily passed their tests of manhood. Karn, the brother closest to him in age, could read minds and, with great effort, control them, given time. He was even now on his test of manhood, but no one doubted that soft spoken Karn would do anything but succeed. Reveral was starting to be concerned with his own chances at surviving the test.”

Wormy Again …

He’s back, and that blue demon just bit a giant pool cue hard.

And that does it for October 1978. A few nice articles, a few that did nothing for me at all. Have fun this weekend!

Dragon by Dragon – August 1978 (17)

/ jstater / 1 Comment

No, I didn’t stop doing Dragon by Dragon, just got busy last week. Now that I’m back, let’s see what the August 1978 issue (number 17) has to offer.

First and foremost, we have a cover that reminds me of some of the pinball machines of the era, or perhaps the side of the bitchin’est van to ever ply the byways of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.

Article #1: Vampires in the Dungeon by Clayton J. Miner

The article seems to work off the notion that vampires are total party killers, which may be true, depending on the level of the party. The article goes on to explain why, taking into account their different abilities and how to use them to best effect – including charming multiple party members and having them wait to be drained of blood later, using the dungeon rodents as a spy network, etc. Some of the article seems to assume things about vampires that I don’t think were addressed in the rules – i.e. the older a vampire is, the more resistant it is to holy symbols (which may be true, if you’re considering the vampire’s Hit Dice correspond with age). It also posits the best ways to destroy a vampire. Not a bad article, but to be frank, the monster description and a little imagination from referees and players would be just as good.

Article #2: Chainmail Revisited – Jousting in D&D by Jon Pickens

Ah – anyone who has tilted in the FLAILSNAILS Jousting Tournaments run by the excellent Mike Davison is already aware of these rules. This article works on addressing a few perceived shortcomings of the rules, i.e. “I’m a Lord, and he’s a lowly Level 1. IT ISN’T FAIR!”

There is also a cartoon from Will McLean, who will go on to be, in my opinion, one of the shining lights of Dragon’s humor department for many years to come.

Article #3: Dragonlord review by Glenn Williams

If I’m honest, I never spent much time reading reviews in Dragon Magazine. Reading reviews to old games is even less interesting to me, but I’m going to do it anyways. Williams finds the art, by Morno, to be top drawer. The game concerns battles between dragon riders. Williams points out that the map, while pretty, is screwed up because it shows everything from the side, when it really should be top-down. In addition, the map sections do not align correctly, and the grid is a set of Cartesian squares – a hex grid would have been better. The rules, Williams says, are also too complex. Still, he likes the concept, and thinks the game can be improved, such as playing it with the Warriors of the Green Planet map.

I couldn’t find the game online for sale, but there are some other Wee Warriors products at EBay.

Article #4: Faceless Men and Clockwork Monsters

Why wasn’t that the name of an actual game? This article presents a Dungeons & Dragons adventure aboard the Starship Warden (from Metamorphosis Alpha). I’m pretty familiar with this story, but if you haven’t read of this genre-bending excursion, you should try to find it.

Next comes a great add from Dragon Tooth Fantasy Figures, proclaiming the war between the Saurian Empire and Amphibian Confederacy. Love the art …

 I think I get more inspiration from the ads of Dragon Magazine than the articles – quick, dynamic ideas with catchy art.

Article #5: A Wizard with a Difference by James M. Ward

Love the editor’s note …

“ED. Note: The following is recommended as a source of bedevilment to be used by DM on their NPC’s. Some of the possibilities here will drive the average group of PC’s wild when trying to deal with running NPC‘s.”

Prepare for a piece of pure opinion by yours truly – D&D is more fun when the DM is trying to kill the characters. I don’t mean by cheating, but by being a clever, inventive bastard.

The article presents the idea of specialist wizards, using the following types: “Wizard of Aggression”, “Wizard of Defense”, “Wizard of All Things Rustic”, “Wizard of Control”, “Wizard of Tenaciousness” (yeah, I’m picturing Jack Black), “Wizard of Detection”, “Wizard of Fire” and “Wizard of Movement”. One can see some overlap with the later specialists – Conjurer, Necromancer, etc., but these do sound more fun.

The concept is that these wizards get two spells of their specialty per level (I think, the rules could be a bit clearer) and have a percentage chance of casting them based on the level of the spell and the level of the magic-user. Ward suggests these wizards are best used as NPC’s, which is a good point. The average NPC has a short lifespan in combat, so doesn’t necessarily need a vast list of spells, many of which are designed for exploration, which the NPC doesn’t need.

There are plenty of new spells or modified spells – a really fun article to read.

Article #6: Sights & Sounds in Dungeons & Dragons

Another one of those darned useful sets of random tables, this one for random sounds and random sights in a dungeon. Both use a d20, though the sounds table actually runs to 21, with 21 being a bit of a joke (rattling dice/dungeon master’s scream of anguish/garbage disposal/etc.)

Article #7: Variant Monster Dept.

This article gathers a few monsters, including the Magic Munchkin by Michael Kolakowski, the Scholar by Patricia LaPointe, and the Crs’tchen by Dennis Chapman. I love the fact that none of them share the same statistical arrangement – heck, the Munchkin has no stats to speak of. Just for fun, I’ll convert the Scholar for Blood & Treasure:

SCHOLAR
Medium humanoid, Neutral (N), High Intelligence; Symposium (1d10+10)

HD: 1 to 3
AC: 10
ATK: By weapon
MV: 30
SV: 1 HD = F15 R15 W12 / 2 HD = F14 R15 W12 / HD 3 = F12 R14 W11
XP: 1 HD = 100 (CL 2) / 2 HD = 200 (CL 3) / 3 HD = 300 (CL 4)

Scholars are short, bearded men in tweed robes with leather patches on the elbows. They smoke foul-smelling pipes than can produce enough smoke to provide an obscuring mist. There are three levels of scholars.

Instrictors (1 HD) know two spells, confusion and read obscure languages. Confusion is cast by answering a simple question, the answer being in an obscure language.

Associate Profussors (2 HD) know three more spells: Fear, time stop and book missiles. Fear takes effect after muttering about term papers being due. Book missiles works as magic missile, save the books inflict 1d8 points of damage.

Fool Profussors (3 HD) have three ultimate spells. The first is power word stun (the incantation being “Surprise Quiz Today”). Academic dust does 3d6 points of damage and can paralyze the mind for 2-4 turns.  The final spell is cause boredom, which works as a sleep spell that affects any level/HD of creature.

One powerful incantation causes scholars to be seized by instant cardiac arrest – “Tenure denied”.

Article #8: The Monk and Bard in ‘DUNGEON!’ by Jon Pickens

Always love Pickens’ stuff. This one introduces the bard and monk into games of DUNGEON!. I love that game – so sorry that I got rid of my copy years ago. I need to find a copy online (and yeah, I know Hasbro is going to do a reprint – I’d rather have an old game – I’m weird that way).

Article #9: Tesseracts by Gary Jordan

These have been covered nicely at Aeons & Auguries. Jordan covers putting cubic tesseracts into a dungeon do drive map makers nuts. A worthy goal!

Article #10: Ogre Piece by Piece by Jerry Epperson

I’ll admit it. I played it years ago, and found it somewhat boring. If you do love the game and want some variations from 1978, find this article.

Article #11: Design Journal – Boredom and the Average D&D Dungeon by James Ward

If you know James Ward, you know “average” probably ain’t happening in any dungeon he’s written. In this article, he described the idea of filling new dungeon levels with “areas of history” – i.e. themed sections based on history, like an Ancient Egypt area with minions of Set, evil high priests of Set, an 11th level grave robber thief, etc. He also covers Ancient India, The Far East and The Future Machine Age. Good advice, of course, especially for fun-house dungeons.

Article #12: A Short History of Adamantite by Charles Sagui

Short indeed. He labels adamantite as an alloy of Mithril, Carbon, Iron and a few secret ingredients – technically known as Mithriferral Carbide. It is 4/5 the weight of steel, and provides a +2 on AC and hit probability for weapons. It is much more expensive to work and much more difficult to enchant. Sagui gives some prices for different armors (plate armor is 20,000 gp, chainmail 14,000 gp, daggers 1,500 gp) as well.

Article #13: Messengers of God: Angels in Dungeons & Dragons by Stephen H. Dorneman

Dorneman introduces the idea (new at the time, of course) of some non-omnipotent Lawful beings to counter all those devils and demons. He describes four types of angels – Type I (Angel of Wrath), Type II (Angel of Healing), Type III (Archangel of Mercy) and Type IV (Seraphim). Honestly, it never occurred to me to use “types” of angels to counter the “types” of demons. Neat article.

Article #14: Natural Armor for Monsters in Monsters, Monsters by Doug Miller

This one is just what it sounds like. If you don’t have Monsters, Monsters, it won’t do much for you.

Comics

Fineous Fingers is saved from the Antipaladin by the evil wizard, because he needs a thief – not a bad way to handle an encounter in your next game, especially if the needed character is a major pain in the ass to the rest of the party.

Wormy plays a nasty trick on some goblins and tree trolls.

Article #15: Warp War review by Tony Watson

Warp War was a mini-game by Metagaming (click here for Warp War on Boardgame Geek).

From the description, it almost sounds like Car Wars in space – you have to build your ships and then use them to fight over star systems. Watson likes it, and I must admit it sounds fun.

And that brings us to the end. This one is pretty packed, with lots of great articles. Definitely one to look out for!

Dragon by Dragon – May 1978 (14)

/ jstater

I would have been 6 years old for this one, and 6 years away from discovery D&D. Let’s see what it has to offer …

First up, winners on that “Name the Monster” contest. Conrad Froelich of Wyoming, OH was the winner with “The Creature Some Call Jarnkung”. Runner’s up were Cursed Crimson Crawler by Thomas & Edward McCloud and The Ulik by Ann Corlon (who sez women didn’t play D&D back in the day). The winning stats were as follows:

Jarnkung, Large Magical Beast, Chaotic (NE), High Intelligent: HD 5; AC 3; Atk 1 tail (2d6) and 1 or 2 weapons; Move 20 (or 9 for S&W); Save F10 R11 W12 (or 12 for S&W); XP 500 (CL 6); Special: +1 or better weapon to hit, magic resistance 20%, detect thoughts (ESP) at will, may have psionic powers.

A. Mark Ratner now gives a review of Space Marines (not the later effort by Games Workshop), a game which he designed. Apparently it is a modified Tractics which owes something to Starguard. I wish that meant something to me. What did I learn about Space Marines from this article? Well, it has things like Nuclear Damper Fields, Mekpurrs (inspired by the killer herbivores from Satan’s World by Anderson), canineoid, rauwoofs, hissss*st (based on The Time Mercenaries by Philip High) and Klackons. The article has many rules ideas and additions for the game – mostly involving air combat and underwater combat. Makes it sound like a cool game.

J. Ward offers up a review of Nomad Gods. Unfortunately, this is another game I haven’t played or read, so I can’t comment much about it. Likewise with Tony Watson’s review of Cosmic Encounter.

Barton Stano and Jim Ward present Robots as Players in Metamorphosis Alpha. This one gets down into it, giving players structure points (115) and power points (100) to spend on propulsion, computer units, armor and various physical devices like quills, lead shielding and grasping claws. While this seems like a logical way to handle robots, it also stands as a preview of where RPG’s were going in terms of character building.

Michael McCrery now presents Excerpt From an Interview With a Rust Monster. Apparently this hinges on an NPC who was polymorphed into a rust monster, and now sometimes shows up as a wandering monster in McCrery’s dungeon.

Cool miniatures ad for spaceships …

Five sizes for each, which brings to my mind the ship sizes I used in Space Princess – starfighter, shuttle, corvette, star cruiser and dreadnaught. For their part, the ships are Galactic Dreadnaughts, Galactic Attack Carriers, Galactic Battlecruisers, Stellar Cruisers and Stellar Destroyers. OK – their names are better – I’ll give them that.

Gygax writes From the Sorcerer’s Scroll on D&D Relationships, the Parts and the Whole. This one gets into the edition mess that was forthcoming for TSR – i.e. what is the “Basic Set”, will the Original game be around much longer and what is Advanced D&D.

James Ward pops in now with Monty Haul and His Friends at Play. This appears to be a satirical piece about the folks at TSR. I dug the accompanying art:

And now, a peeved letter to the editor about the Cthulhu Mythos from the February issue. This is classic geek one-ups-manship at its finest, for example:

“First, the Elder Gods, after they defeated the Great Old Ones, stripped Azathoth of a lot of his power, so his hits should be lowered to 200 to 225.”

“If you’re wondering who is number one — YOG-SHOTHOTH his hits should be raised to 400. You can say that is rather powerful; you’re damn right. The Great Old Ones are so powerful, that the total power of the Elder Gods could not destroy them; only imprison them.”

“These may seem trivial, but if Howard Phillips Lovecraft, Augest Derleth, or Robert Howard saw your use, they’d roll over in their graves not once but at least ten times.”

Another one from James Ward – The Total Person in Metamorphosis Alpha. This is a set of random tables for determining a character’s background. I always think these are most useful for Referees working out NPC’s.

Next we have an ogre fight in Wormy and Fineous Fingers being offered up as a sacrifice for a dark knight.

Gregory Rihn writes Lycanthropy – The Progress of the Disease. You can tell D&D is getting more advanced now and a little less free-wheeling for some folks in 1978. I dig this paragraph:

“A low-level werebear who takes six rounds to change fully would fight as follows: round one, normal level; round two, level minus two; round three, level minus four; round four, bear minus four; (claws and teeth have reached minimal offensive effectiveness) round five, bear minus two; round six, normal bear ability. Of course somewhere in here he has to shed his clothes.”

I like the idea of a lycanthrope changing during the course of a battle. The article includes a level table, which I would think was for adjudicating lycanthropes with class levels in the game – it has columns for “Changes Per Day”, “Chance of Involuntary Changes”, “Time Required for Change” and such – except it also has XP for each level. I guess it makes sense – XP determine one’s “lycanthrope level” separately from one’s normal class level.

And that’s it for #14. A few good bits in this one, but not my favorite issue. Even though I don’t always get much use for the articles in these issues, I still find the environment of gaming inspiration in these magazines. Well worth reading, especially for folks who have no grounding in the history of the game.