This Old Dragon: Issue #49

Bit of a cheat today.  I went out to my FLGS and picked this one up just so I could review it today!  I wanted to have a look at the Alchemist class.  I was having a conversation online with a former co-worker and former White Wolf designer about the Alchemist.  I thought it might be fun to go back to the source.  So set back, enjoy because They Don't Write 'Em like this anymore. It's May 1981 and this is Issue #49 of This Old Dragon!

Let's talk about the cover first.  Wow. Nothing gets my early 80s gaming nostalgia going more than Tim Hilderbrandt.  A freaking HUGE dragon attacking a castle? Wow. That's some next level D&D action there.  The adventurers have retired and suddenly the big brother of all those dragons they killed comes a knockin.

Lovely old-school ad for ICE's Arms Law. 

So we learn right away that Dragon has a new publisher, Jake Jaquent and a new EiC, a young man by the name of Kim Mohan.  I bet we will hear more about him in the future.

You can really tell this is much older issue.  The first couple of articles deal largely with Tournament Play and Judging.

In the interest of fairness... by Dr. Allen Barwick fresh off the heels of Origins discusses the ins and out of judging a tournament game.

Philip Meyers has some more advice on The Slave Pits revisited.  It would have been interesting to have read this back when I ran the Slaver's series.  Granted, I was not doing it as a tournament play, but still, it would have been interesting.
Frank Mentzer has a rebuttal to this in Mentzer’s reply: It isn’t that easy.
I have run one (maybe two??) tournament games before.  It was fun, but not something I want to seek out to do all the time.

Related to all of this is a nice bit on Gen Con keeps on growing. No word on attendance predictions, but there will be over 170 events at Gen Con 14.

Anthony Salva is up first (! it's page 18 already) with the Samurai NPC class to fill that 80s need for everything Japanese.  Yes, I did own a copy of a Book of Five Rings too.   We are still few off from the official Oriental Adventures. But this is not a bad class really.  I never played Samurai at all, but I do see the appeal.

Merle M. Rasmussen has an article for Top Secret. This one covers various types of ammunition.
I really admire Merle's continued dedication to this game. That dedication is on display here in the long article. 

Karl Horak is next with a world-building article for D&D and AD&D; Getting a World into Shape.  Into shape is a bit literal, using various flat solids to represent a globe for mapping purposes.  This is something of a lost art in my mind.  I LOVE mapping software, especially ones that can give me a globe and a flat map.  But these skills are still very useful.

A series that I really miss is up next. Giants in the Earth covers some characters from Poul Anderson.  We get Holger Carlsen (14th level Paladin), Hugi (5th level fighter) and T. J. Morgan’s Ellide (6th level fighter).  Not familiar with these, but it is still fun. 

G. Arthur Rahman has an article on Historical Names.

Jon Mattson has an article that appeals to my obsessive desires to convert everything to everything else. Monster Mixing: Converting AD&D Monsters to Chivilary & Sorcery is exactly the sort of article I loved.  It gave me insight to a new game from the lense of a game I already knew.

The center section deals with the art and insight of Tim Hilderbrandt.  It is interesting and a real departure from the normal Dragon fare.

has a new creature. New even to me.  The Norga is a cat-like beast that causes darkness.  It is kinda cool really. Wonder if it ever got updated.
Ah, now we are at the feature I bought this for,.  Len Lakofka is back with his Tiny Hut feature giving us yet another NPC class that we all played anyway.  A Recipe for the Alchemist gives us a sub-class of the Magic-User. It's a long article giving us the level information for the Alchemist as well as the types of things an alchemist can create.  As with many of the classes from Lakofka it is elegant and very playable.  There are many great ideas here and I'd love to explore this class in depth a bit more.

Gary Snyder and Roger E. Moore have two independent guides on Wishes.  I took a novel approach to wishes in my games, I stopped having them.  No ring of Three Wishes and the Wish spell is severely Nerfed.

Travel & threads for DragonQuest by Paul Montgomery Crabaugh covers travel in the DragonQuest game.  DQ was always one of those games I knew about, read about and never got to play.   It looked like fun and I remember flipping through it a lot at my local bookstores.  Maybe I should pick up a copy, I bet they are pretty cheap on eBay (checking...eep! not as cheap as I hoped!).

The Eaters of Wisdom by Glenn Rahman looks like fluff for a game, but I can't tell what game.  Could be for any, certainly could work for any. 

The Eletric Eye covers a couple of new programs.  A BASIC program for keeping time for wandering monsters and a TI-58 Calculator program also for keeping time.  I think I still have a TI-58 here somewhere.  Maybe I could try it out.

Interesting Dungeon Hobby Shop ad.

Ed Greenwood is up with an opinion on Players Don't Need to Know all the Rules.  Pretty sure I disagree with this.

Dragon Mirth,  What's New (still in B&W), Wormy, and some Finieous Fingers.

Honestly a fun issue and worth the price.

I will admit it has a real White Dwarf feel to it for me.  Not sure why.
IF you are curious you can see what I was saying about White Dwarf at the time in White Dwarf Wednesday #24.

This Old Dragon: Issue #70

Let's go all the way back to the winter of 1983.  I was in 8th grade and getting excited about the new Return of the Jedi movie coming up.  Toto had knocked out Men At Work for a week with "Africa". In the theatres we cult classics like "The House on Sorority Hill", "The Entity" and "Videodrome". Though I would not see any of them myself till they came to videotape. At this point my gaming life was dedicated to the B/X rules but I was also moving over to AD&D.  It was a great time for gaming. It's February 1983 and this is issue #70 of This Old Dragon!

To begin I want to spend some time on this cover.  I really like this cover. I am not sure why really. It's not really D&D-ish or action filled or has magic in it.  But I have always liked it. It is by Dean Morrissey and has a Viking vibe to it.

Out on a Limb has readers asking for more coverage of other games. The "problem" we now face is there are so many games out now!

There is a little note here looking for native language Japanese speakers to translate D&D and AD&D games.

Ed Greenwood gives us another entry into the "OMG how much stuff was Ed writing back then?" file. This time another NPC class, The Smith. No word on whether or not you should name one Morrissey.  It is a good example of something that either a.) doesn't need to be a class or b.) justification of a "tradesman" or "expert" class like we later got in AD&D 2nd Ed (Masque of the Red Death) and D&D 3rd Ed respectively.  That all being said there is a lot of material here to help you decide what the local smith can do.

Bruce Evry is up with The Hull Truth About Speed. Or how size effects speed in ships. Interesting, but I never did much with ocean voyages till much, much later in my gaming career.

From the Sorcerer's Scroll is up and Gary Gygax has his rules for Social Class.  These would later appear in Unearthed Arcana more or less exactly as they appear here.
This is followed up by Frank Mentzer with how to use social classes in your games in A ‘Caste’ of Realistic Characters.  These are rules we used a lot in my games.  Social Class, in particular, Lords vs. Everyone Else was a big deal.

Frank is back with another go at Falling Damage. Back when this issue was new there were multiple independent D&D/AD&D groups in my Jr. High.  Consequently, there were also multiple independent methods of calculating "more realistic" falling damage.  So these articles were always a source of lively debate.  "Lively Debate" I think I meant 13-year olds arguing on who was right and who was stupid.

Come to think of it. Social Class and Falling Damage.  Sounds like a perfect metaphor for the 80s.

Giants Can be Awful or Awe-ful by Roger Moore is one of the enduring articles of this issue. It is one I come back too every so often when wanting to add a special guest NPC to a game. The "Giants" of the article refers to the "Giants In The Earth" column with NPC stats for some of literature's famous characters. What is also great about this article is the Appendix to all the Giants articles of the past with a list of characters and very brief class stats. Circe, for example, appeared in issue 52 and is an 18th level magic-user.

Gary is up again with the Deities and Demigods of the World of Greyhawk.   This time we get three that I have always thought of as his favorites; Boccob (the Uncaring),  Zagyg (the mad arch-mage), and Olidammara (the Laughing Rogue).

Dwarves in Space by Roger Moore was an article that always appealed to me.  Essentially it is get D&D style dwarves into Traveller.  It works and Moore gives us plenty of great reasons why it would work.

Not to be outdone, Ed Greenwood is back (again!) and going in the other direction. A Second Volley is another look at firearms in AD&D.  Like Moore, he makes some good arguments.  Enough that I might give it a try in my next game.  Won't that freak out my kids!

The centerpiece is Mechica is an AD&D adventure for 5-8 characters, each of 4th-7th level by Gali Sanchez.  It is set in a Pre-Columbian Meso America like setting.  Among other things, it introduces a werejaguar monster.  It is a short adventure but looks like a lot of fun.  The setting appeals to me as well.

Ken Rolston has some advice for game masters in How to Make the Most out of FRP Tournaments.  We don't see much in the way of Tournament play anymore, having given way to organized play as the means of "official rules" play.  But there is still some good advice here.  It is quite a long article that can be summed up by "Anticipate what your player wants and what their characters can do."  It goes into far more detail than this.  I think I am going to put this on my TBR pile to re-read before heading to Gen Con again.  It would be great to run some more games this year and this might help.

Tim Grice has some mechanics of playing chess within an AD&D game in The Game Within a Game.  As per the 80s the rules are nearly as complicated as chess itself! Just kidding.  I used a similar idea when I had characters in Ghosts of Albion play the old Celtic Fidchell game as part of a challenge by a faerie lord.

Ken Rolston is back again with some reviews of Citybook I and Daredevils. He liked both products.

Nice big ad for some RPGA modules.

Phil and Dixie have advice on a lucrative career in game design.

Wormy battles a giant black leopard with wings.

No small ads or Dragonmirth.   Maybe my copy is missing them.
Nope, checked the CD-ROM and they are not there.

Ok.  So a great "pre-history"* issue of Dragon.
*by pre-history I mean before my personal history with Dragon.

What was White Dwarf doing at the same time?  Oddly enough I posted my White Dwarf Wednesday #38 almost exactly five years ago today (give or take a couple of days).

I *need* Some D&D t-shirts

If you have been on Facebook or other social media it is likely you have seen ads for some D&D themed/branded t-shirts.    They look really cool.

I am not here to link them or rat them out for selling unauthorized D&D products.  That is not my point today.


My point today is this ad.

If you are unfamiliar with the "Gateway to Adventure: 1981TRS Hobbies, Inc." brochure that came with the Basic and Expert Sets there is a copy on Archive.org.

I had always wanted those shirts.  In particular the D&D Basic set, the Players Handbook, and the Deities & Demigods shirts.

At age 11 though even the $6.00 + shipping seemed like a lot of cash when I was saving and buying things on my own. That six bucks was two paperbacks or half way to my next hardcover.

I am now at an age, and the means, to buy what I want.  I want some of these shirts, but sadly these are not something that comes up at game auctions or eBay. Plus if they did would I really want one?

I have made some shirts for other games, namely Ghosts of Albion, for when I am running games. But I really would just rather buy one.   I'd like WotC/Hasbro or their authorized reseller to have a storefront where I can buy retro-style D&D T-shirts.  I bought a "Red Box" D&D shirt from Wizards one Gen Gen con a number of years ago.  I would like some more.

HELL.  I want a Swords & Wizardry, Labyrinth Lord,  or White Star tee shirt too!
+Erik Tenkar,  +Matt Finch, +James Spahn who needs to be bribed to get these done?

This Old Dragon: Issue #132

Dragon magazine for April 1988 is quite a memorable issue.  First, it's an April Fools issue, and it's one I actually kinda liked. Secondly, I LOVE that cover. I mean, Elmore, Snarf. What's not to love?  I am still a Freshman in University still and living the life.  I think I bought this issue when it came out, which is something because most of my money was going to drugs, beer, books. Yeah, books.  It's April 1988 and this is issue #132 of This Old Dragon!

Let's admire this cover for a bit.  I don't care, I love Elmore's art.  Though I have to admit I thought Aveeare was silver and not gold.

So this is an April Fools issue, but the content is limited really.  The first entry has the infamous "Chainsword" in Bazaar of the Bizarre by Stewart Wieck.

Role-playing Reviews which is ©1988 by Jim Bambra.  We cover some now-classic games; Paranoia, Ghostbusters, and Teenagers from Outer Space.

Up next is the first big article of the issue is Beyond the Gate of Dreams by John Nephew.  This deals with the "semiclass" of the Dreamer.  Now there is a lot of REALLY cool things for this class. I don't think the class actually works as written, to be honest.  I like the idea really and there are a lot interesting spell ideas.   There is the option to play this as a single class or as part of a dual class.

Resourceful Sorcery which is also ©1988 by Michael DeWolfe and it covers some helpful hints for RuneQuest game sorcerers.  It's a cool article really, makes me want to get a RuneQuest game going sometime.

With All the Trappings by Gregg Sharp deals with trap construction and using some psychology to draw victims in.  I'll be honest, I never had the trap fetish that so many gamers seem to have.  Sure they can be fun occasionally, but all the time? I got my fill in the early 80s to last me a lifetime.

Skip Williams and Sage Advice cover a variety of topics.

Page 37 gives us an ad for New Infinities' Cyborg Commando!  The fate of the world is in metal hands^TM. I should not give Gygax shit for this.  We now know his world was crumbling down and the new heads of TSR were being colossal dicks to him.    Anyone play Cyborg Commando at all?

Scott David Gray is up with Let the Good Dice Roll. This is a collection of individual and cumulative frequency tables for the various methods of rolling a given ability score in AD&D.
A nice brief article that is informative, but also a relic of its age.  While the numbers are still good and even still apply to any version of *D&D,  these can be generated on the fly with the tools we all have at our disposal now.  Not just with Excel, but with Google Sheets which is free and nearly as powerful.

Out of Hand by Nina Kiriki Hoffman is the fiction piece of this issue.

Mark Feil gives us a rare non-Ed Greenwood (at least for the last few issues) Ecology Of article. The Ecology of the Aurumvorax covers the MMII monster also known as the "Golden Gorger".  Not a lot of information, but I did learn do not eat one of these things if you kill it. It gives you metal poisoning!

The big feature of this issue is +Bruce Heard's Orcwars game. Set in the Known World you get to play in the Great Orc Wars. It looks like it would be fun for a rainy afternoon. Set it in your own world.   Each player (2-4) gets to play one of the tribal coalitions of orcs.  I like it to be honest.  It is not exactly taking D&D back to it's wargame roots, but it is honoring those roots. Given the campaign I am currently running I could see using this as part of a flashback to an ancient battle.  Something to add more depth and color to the history of my game world.  Much like Traveller always did with their RPG and tie-in board games set in the Imperium.

Arcane Lore is up after all of that with some spells based on traits of animals. Like Oxen Strength and Lion's Courage.  Naturally (ugh) for druids. There are some goods here too.

Keith Polster has a bit on Gen Con and what to expect in 88 with The King of Conventions.  I certainly get the feeling here that Gen Con was growing more at this point.  This article covers the combined Gen Con/Origins Game Fair.  Robert M. Bigelow follows up on the next page with how miniatures events will be run at the combine con.  Now an aside.  I consider myself knowledgeable about the history of our hobby, but I also fully admit I am far from knowing everything.  I had no idea this happened! And I have some vivid memories of reading this issue.  How long did Origins and Gen Con stay together? When did they split up again?  Checking the internet I see this was done in 1988 and 1992. And yes Gen Con was seeing a lot of growth during this time.

Cash & Carry, Gamma Style covers the economic structure of Gamma World or least a small part of it.

Some small ads.
TSR Previews gives us a look ahead at some new releases.  This includes two of the biggest disappointments, for me at least, in adventures.  First is WG7 Castle Greyhawk.  While I do appreciate the humor in some of the levels and I respect how deadly this module actually is, it does not make up for the fact that it is also not very good. It was also not the Castle Greyhawk we have heard about for years and years.  I ran Castle Greyhawk once.  Not likely to run it again. Next is OP1 Tales of the Outer Planes.  If Castle Greyhawk was bad, this one was just lackluster.   The Outer Planes would get a huge boost in a few years with the advent of Planescape.

Jon Slobins is next with variable hero creation for the DC Heroes game. This produces heroes a little less super. Ah yes, we are moving to the 90s and the age of the gritty "street-level" hero.

Mike Lane has new ships for Star Frontiers.

And in a move that would surprise new readers of today, Jeff Grub gives us a Marvel-Phile of "joke" (or no joke depending on your read) hero; Rocket Raccoon.

The Role of Computers has expanded to 6 pages now including a huge review of Beyond Zork.

We have a couple of pages of Dragonmirth. Some ads. 5 pages of the Con Calendar.

We end with SnarfQuest on his prospecting mission.  About this time I began to loose interest in Snarf. I think a lot of people did. If had completed its big arc and now seemed to be a little lost.   OR what is more likely I could not keep up with it like I used to because I was not buying Dragons regularly anymore.

Wormy is also here.  About this time Tramp would disappear.  Little did I know at the time he moved to the same town I was living in.  I could have passed him in the grocery store and never knew.

Really a pretty solid issue.  AD&D 1 was showing its age at this point and the world outside was changing.  Soon word would come down that AD&D 2 was on the way and the 90s would start.  But until that time there was plenty to do.  The Dragon was more and more focused on TSR-only games, but still, a few others snuck in every so often. They were more inclusive than say White Dwarf was at this time.  In fact, April 1988's White Dwarf #100 would be the last White Dwarf I ever owned.

We are certainly on the verge of something in this issue. That might be my retrospective on it, but some big changes had already happened here and more are coming.

This Old Dragon: Issue #81

Today I set the Wayback Machine to my Freshman year in High School.  I was just getting over an 18-week long bout with a brutal combination of chicken-pox and pneumonia, both for the second time. No joke, I dropped to something like 80 pounds and was in the hospital on IVs. Don't even remember how I got there.  But by January I was getting better enough to go back to school.  1984 was a big year for me in terms of geeking and gaming. I had just finished reading all the Lords of the Rings books and was watching a lot of Doctor Who.   For me, everything was either Doctor Who or George Orwell jokes as we go to January of 1984 for Issue #81 of This Old Dragon!

This issue is in not too bad of shape really.  The cover is missing, which is a shame because it is one of my favorites interestingly enough.  A furry ice dragon (I am going with a dragon) and an adventurer on a wooly mammoth? What's not to love really.  I also hold this issue up as a typical issue of the time "Before" my time buying Dragons.  It is not one I ever saw in the stores (that I can recall 35+ years later) but it one that I saw other people carry around.

Kim Mohan's Editorial covers how they will no longer be printing the adventures that won the adventure design contest some time back. This is too bad, but I easily see why. I think this might also have lead to a later decision to create "Dungeon" magazine, but I have nothing to back that up.  It is just taking too many resources to get the adventures to a publishable state. The last adventure is printed and will be talked about later.  Thinking back to some of the adventures I wrote back then I cringe to think about what they would have gotten.  I hope I can find the adventure contest rules in an earlier issue.  I wonder what the submission requirements were and whether they took printed manuscripts or if they accepted floppy disks in the mail yet.

Letters cover more requests for back issues, reprints, and even the runner-up adventures. Others complaining about how the magazine has changed for the worse over the last year.  I swear some people are never happy.

Our first article is a good one. One of my old DMs had kept a copy of it to use all the time.  Much to my chagrin.  Taking the sting out of poison by Chris Landsea was another attempt to classify poison.  Personally, I never had an issue with what was in the DMG and thought it was good enough.   But I also only ever played one assassin ever my entire gaming career, so it also did not come up a lot for me.  But it also covered Holy and Unholy Waters, something I used a lot, so that was kinda cool.

Another ad for my FLGS.  They still have the same number! Well, the area codes have changed on them twice since this add. It went from 312 to 708 to now 847.  Plus another ad for the Witch Hunt game.  Seeing these again makes wish I had not sold the game back in a Games Plus auction now.

The fiction piece comes early. In the Cleft of Queens by Esther M. Leiper.  Looks like it is about some dragons.

On page 24 we get The Forum: a new feature.  The introduction of the Forum.

Ok. Up next we have The Ecology of the Basilisk by Ed Greenwood which is a fine article in it's own right, but reading has gotten me thinking.  In fact, my thoughts might be considered heresy in some parts and even I would not have considered them two years ago.  But I am beginning to think that Ed Greenwood has contributed more to Dragon than Gary Gygax did.  I am not talking about *D&D in general, just Dragon Magazine.

A big two-page ad on the new Advanced Dungeons & Dragons miniatures line, followed by an article on minis.

Pete Mohney is next with Chariots for characters: Adapting ancient vehicles for AD&D play.  I always had this plan to play a Classical Greek/Roman/Egyptian game completely based on the classic myths.  I wanted a copy of this article because how can you not have chariots in a classic game.  I still might do that one day.  I mini-series of just mythology themed games where the Gods meddle directly in the affairs of humans.

Now here is an oddity.  Presented in the middle of the magazine is an AD&D character build for Cú Chulainn by Roger Moore.  This is prior to the introduction of the UA Barbarian, which he would have been perfect for, so he is 22nd level Ranger/12th level Illusionist with some Bard ability.
It's not a bad build really, but someone like Cú Chulainn is hard to build since he was essentially a superhero of the Red Branch myths of Northern Ireland.  It's interesting though that the only reason he has an Illusionist class at 12th level was so he could the powers of his berserker rage, called a "Warp spasm" or Ríastrad in the myths.  But if you read over these stats he is very much the prototype of the barbarian class we will later see.  I also did some stats for Cú Chulainn for the Ghosts of Albion game.

Up next is The Ruins of Andril designed by Ian Melluish. This is a high-level adventure, levels 8-11, for 4-8 characters.  It is an investigation of an old "Egyptian" ruin.  I have flipped through it and looks fun.  Part of me wants to run it if for no other reason than for its historic place in Dragon history.  It's a long one, for Dragon, at 16 pages.

Michael Dobson's Living in a Material World covers almost everything you need to know about material components for your AD&D or any other FRPG.  Now I love material components. If you are playing in an Old School D&D game I am running then your spellcaster better have their proper material components or they can't cast the spell.  Thought I do make most components easy to find or buy AND I allow substitutions.  Don't have that pinch of sulfur for your fire based spell? Try a pinch of dirt see what happens! This article is a long one, 10 pages, and covers a variety of materials and their uses.   Well worth visiting again.

Off the Shelf, a few pages later, covers the latest books of the start of 1984.

Lewis Pulsipher is back with Get out of the Medieval Rut in The Role of Books.  Again this might be the issue that got me interested in the idea of running a classical game. Lew covers books detailing ancient Rome, ancient Egypt and Greece (well Athens in particular).   I have some similar books on my too be read pile.  Now to figure out which system to use.

Ken Rolston reviews some new gaming titles in Gaming without Heroes. Or Horror Role-playing titles.  Featured in this review are the infamous Shadows of Yog-Sothoth for the Call of Cthulhu game and the Ravenloft module.   Of the two Rolston has high praise for Ravenloft, but feels that SoY-S does a better job of conveying fear, terror, and dread.

Lots of ads. Convention Calendar. Dragonmirth.
What's New with Phil and Dixie has Dixie's Dragon Notebook. Wormy and SnarfQuest introduces a revolver to an AD&D world. Wackiness ensues.

Really a fun issue with so much I want to use in a game still.
If nothing else it has renewed my desire to run a sandbox like adventure int he Classic world.

Want to see what I thought of White Dwarf from the same month?  Check out White Dwarf Wednesday #49.

This Old Dragon: Issue #96

The issue I pulled for today was #123, but a quick look lets me know I had already done that one back in May. I mentioned then I had extras, but I guess I forgot to sort this one out.  No worries. Grabbing the next one.

I have made no secret of my general dislike of the various "funny" April Fools editions of Dragon magazine.  Not that I have anything against humor in D&D/RPGs; quite the contrary. I just like good humor. 9 times out of 10 the jokes fall amazingly flat.  Issue #96 is that 10th one that actually works.  In fact, this is one of my most fondly remembered issues of Dragon during what I think of as my heyday of AD&D.  So with that in mind lest have a look at April 1985. Ladyhawke and Cat's Eye are in the theaters, I am in my sophomore year in High School and this is This Old Dragon issue #96!

Again, the cover here is missing. Popping in my Dragon CD-ROM. The cover comes from Jack Crane and really fits the issue not at all! Well, fits it in terms of humor. But do not expect a mechanical dragon any time soon.  I like the cover though, it's fun. 

The Editorial made me laugh I admit. Printing the whole thing backward was a neat idea. I tried to do something similar with my high school newspaper and found it really difficult. This was a time before we had computers and nice layout software.  The Letters section is a mix of real and supposedly humorous ones. 

Up next is an ad for Pendragon that always caught my eye.  I wanted to run a King Arthur/Camelot game once upon a time, but never quite got there.  Too bad really, I think it would have been fun.  

Another "important" ad.  This one is for "Dragons of Autumn Twilight" the first Dragonlance, and first AD&D, novel from TSR.  1985  was that year of transition. The Golden Age was over, though I  didn't know that at the time, and the Silver Age was upon us.  This time has been described by some as the "Hickman Revolution".  There was certainly a shift that even I could feel in my little Mid-West town to me it felt like things were getting more "modern" in terms of production value.  We are still a little bit away from the release of the Unearthed Arcana and the end of Gygax's involvement with all things D&D.

Speaking of the Old Master, Gary is up with From the Sorcerer's Scroll on New Jobs for Demi-Humans.   There is a lot here really, though most will see the light of day in UA.  I am not sure if I had played an Elven Ranger before this or not, but I know I rolled one up around this time.  To me, it seemed natural. In fact, it is something you can see with my own Huntsman class. 

There is a little bit on Paladin dual-classing I took to heart. I loved to play Paladins back then (still do in fact).  I often would play clerics to a certain level (usually somewhere between 3 and 10) and then pick up the Paladin class if it was possible for my stats.  It was easy to rationalize; the character had to spend time in the normal service of his god (which was almost always Pellor for me) and then move up to Paladin status.  Worked remarkably well.  I did the exact same thing with my current D&D 5 Cleric/Paladin.  

For me THAT is the real Hickman Revolution; allowing me to play the character I want and the rules supporting it, not looking at the rules and deciding what character to play.  It's less about "what Hickman did to D&D" and more about the direction D&D was going to go anyway. 

Following up on this is Katherine Kerr's What Good PC's Are Made Of.  Kerr has written a number of articles for Dragon and this is just before her first novel is published.  She gives us some basic background information for characters including how/where the characters grew up and what their social class is.  It's actually interesting enough to keep for a lot of FRPGs. 

Ed Greenwood is up with Ecology of the Gulgurtha which is a surprisingly interesting article on the Otyugh and the Neo-Otyugh.  I recall coming up with a few ideas for these.  I seem to recall reading somewhere about using an Otyugh in the bottom of a cistern to eliminate waste. I also created a giant otyugh.

The Handy Art of Forgery by Keith Routley was another great article.  It's still rather timely. I showed it to my son, who is my local D&D 5 expert, he he thought it would work well enough to expand the Forgery skill of the Assassin specialization for Rogue class.  I am sure it would also work well for the AGE Rogue/Expert class with the Assassin specialization.  

Arn Ashleigh Parker discusses how to incorporate ideas from books in Books to Games? Perhaps!

The advice is sound, if simple.  Some examples are given such as Gor, Barsoom, and Middle-Earth.

Despite there being a nice big ad for the D&D Companion Rules, you would think that D&D was a dead line at this point.  I also can't recall if I was excited at seeing this or not. I have spent a lot of time talking about those rules here, I would have thought I would have remembered this a little better.

An article on Play By Mail updates. 

The special section of the issue is the April Fools section.  Up first is the "adventure" Nogard.

I'll make two confessions here. 1. I liked this, a lot. We wanted to use this and play it seriously. 2. It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize that Nogard is "Dragon" spelled backward. 

The "What's New Dragon" is also featured in There Can Never be Too Many Dragons. Fun little critter. Odd it was published after the What's New comic was no longer in the magazine.  The next dragon is the "Quazzar Dragon". We joked about actually using this monster too. We took it seriously when the Frequency said: "Only Once". Though at 120,600 KM across (75,000 miles) we never had a dungeon to put it in. 

And....it goes downhill. The Meanest of Monsters details the Killer Dungeon Master monster.  Not a fan BUT there is something here I have loved and used before, the Wandering Damage Table.  I have pulled this out when dealing with younger players that are getting rowdy. I play it lightly, but it always gets their attention.   Since I have that more or less memorized I ripped this one out and gave it to my son.  Sorry +Greg Littlejohn. 

Huh...comical races, hopeless characters...can't bother really. 

I skipped over the map of Ginny's Delight.  I'll talk about that in a bit. 

Craig Barrett is back with some DragonQuest rules for swimming in Getting in Over Your Head. One day I'll have to get a copy of DragonQuest and play.  Maybe at a con sometime. 

The Ares Section is up.

First up is Dale L. Kemper with These Are The Voyages of the Ginny's Delight. While the adventure itself didn't really appeal to me I loved the little ship Ginny's Delight. The map of the ship is in the middle of the magazine. It's about the size of a large DS9-era Runabout. It's not an attractive ship but there something about it I really like.  I converted it over to Star Frontiers and Doctor Who (FASA version).

Why is This Mutant Smiling? from John M. Maxstadt covers new mutations in the form of exta limbs and body parts for Gamma World.  This would also work well for Mutant Future or Mutant Crawl Classics.

Marvel Phile is mostly here.  Whoever owned this before me had cut out the section on Iron Man but left Howard the Duck.

Convention Calendar, ads, a big spread of Wormy and three pages of Snarf Quest.

In truth, this was a fun issue and one that seems have had a much larger, lasting impact than I originally remembered.  I mean I remember where I got Ginny's Delight, but the Otyugh and the Random Damage table origins had been lost to my memory.

Curious to see what White Dwarf was up too at the same time?  Well, check out my review of White Dwarf #64 from April 1985.

This Old Dragon: Issue #58

Today is the birthday of one my first AD&D DMs.  Jon and I started playing way back in Junior High. So for him, I thought a nice deep cut into my D&D archive would be appropriate.  In February of 1982 I was in 7th grade and 12 years old.  I had been playing D&D, Moldvay flavored for a while, and prior to that a mishmash of Holmes with an AD&D Monster Manual.  The early 80s were considered by many to be the Golden Age of RPGs and D&D in particular. That was certainly my own opinion, but we are doing pretty nice today too.
So put on some J. Geils Band as we head back to February of 1982 for issue #58 of This Old Dragon!

The first thing I notice is that paper of this magazine feels thicker than some of the newer ones. The makes the magazine feel thicker with fewer pages, this one weighs in at 80 pages, sans covers.  Could it be this is one of the reasons these older magazines "feel" more important to us? Well, one of many I know.

My copy, of course, is missing the cover, which is a shame because we get another great Clyde "I'll Have the Thigh" Caldwell cover.   On the back side is an ad for the TSR min-games. I had a copy of Vampyre for the longest time. I never got to play it more than once or twice, but I loved the idea.   I am quite sure I bought it because of this ad or one just like it.

First up is an offering of Leomund's Tiny Hut from Len Lakofka.  Titled Beefing up the Cleric it includes an intro from Gary Gygax himself.  Pause a moment to appreciate these names being tossed around casually.  I am not talking cult of personality here, but the fact the some of the luminaries of the game are writing a page 5 article.   The past truly is a foreign country.
Anyway enough of that, let's talk about the article at hand.   This article includes a number of new cleric spells. Many of these will later appear in the Unearthed Arcana.

The Dragon's Bestiary is next with some weird-ass monsters from Ed Greenwood.  Of these, the one that jumps out me is the Sull.  These things are like a giant floating mushroom caps with teeth on their underside.   They remind me of this bizarre bit of cryptozoology and ufology that I remember reading about years and years ago about "Giant Sky Critters". The name stuck with me.  I am sure that Ed got these from a similar source. Roger Moore contributes with "Magenta's Cat" named for the wizardess that tried to breed psionic familiars.   This one could be fun to use as well.

Michael Parkinson gives us The Blood of The Medusa, an article on all the monsters in Greek Myth produced by the Medusa.  I had just gotten out of a HUGE Greek Myth stage at this point so I really loved this article.  It's a fun read and has some great stats to boot. One day I'd love to run a game set in the Classical Period. Greeks, Romans, Etruscans, Phoenicians, Persians, Egyptians and the whole lot.

This is followed up by Four Myths for Greece, featuring four unique NPCs from Greek Myth.  This includes Atalanta, Daedalus, The Sybil of Cumae, and Chiron.

We come next to the big feature of this issue, A Special Section: Dwarves.  We know now that a lot of this will be re-edited and put into the Unearthed Arcana, but then this was great stuff. Well, great if you are into dwarves.  The last Dwarf I played as a character was Fjalar Snowcrest a dwarf thief back during the end of AD&D1.
Up first is The Dwarven Point of View by Roger Moore. Which talks about how dwarves see the world around them.
Bazaar of the Bizarre has two dwarven magic items; the High Anvil of the Dwarves (helps dwarves make items better and faster) and the Helm of Subterranean Sagacity (helps with a dwarf's natual abilities to detect stoneworks).

Sage Advice covers a lot of Dwarf related questions.
Roger Moore is back with The Gods of the Dwarves. Most of these gods are now common enough names in D&D, but here is where they got started.  It includes a monster called a "Rapper" which is an undead Dwarf.  Personally, I would rather use the term "Knocker" since it has some supernatural connotations already.

John Eric Holmes gives us some fiction with In the Bag.

The Centerfold (see what I did there) are the Spell Minders, a playing aid for cleric and magic-user spells.  I'd love to talk about them, they sound cool, but my copy does not have them.  Nor do I remember them well enough.  This leads me to think that my original copy of this issue, the one I remember reading in 82 actually belonged to someone else.

Up next are a couple of articles on archery in D&D and looking for more realistic ranges.  Personally, I prefer game ranges that are more easy to use and "realistic enough".

Not to be forgotton or left out we get an article from David Nalle on Swords, Slicing into a Sharp Topic.  It's a nice overview and history of swords, sword making and how to apply this to your game.

Glenn Rahman has a review/article on the Knights of Camelot game. It covers the game to a small degree but it is more about playing a "Bad" or less virtuous, Knight.

Traveller gets some love from Jon Mattson is Anything but Human. Which is basically a randomized alien physique system.

The Dragon's Augury cover a new aid for Runequest, Griffin Mountain (Bill Fawcett likes it), Star Patrol (also reviewed and enjoyed by Bill Fawcett). Tony Watson covers Traveller Adventures 5 from GDW and Scouts and Assassins from Paranoia Press for Traveller.

Off the Shelf hits the books. Chris Henderson reviews C.J. Cherryh's The Pride of the Chanur which is declared as a great book.  The last John Norman Gor book gets an "At least it is over".

We end with a two-page Valentine's day special What's New with Phil and Dixie and a one-page Wormy.

Maybe the older the issues are better? It is really hard to judge. This one has a bunch of nostalgia for me and some useful material but does that make it better than say one that was made in 90s or 2000s?  All I know for sure is I'll have fun trying to find out!

What are your memories of this issue?

Want to know what I was saying about White Dwarf magazine during the same month? Check out my White Dwarf Wednesday for issue #26.

This Old Dragon: Issue #72

Another one I have multiple copies of. Sadly none of them have the cover or the File 13 game.

Dragon Magazine Issue #72 takes us back to April 1983. Let's see...I would have been in 8th grade then.  So for me that was the start of my AD&D 1st ed years and the waning of my B/X years.

Now I have a confession. I HATE the annual April Fools issues of magazines. Maybe hate is too strong of a word. But I admit that even the small (very small) amount of humor I find in some of the issues is off-set by the loss of what could have been good material.  Last week though reminded me that even when they had a full magazine to devote that not all the material was good.

This issue is an exception. There is one other coming up (if I even have it), but the humor here is mild and the other material makes up for it.

Let's start with this wonderful Clyde Caldwell cover.  We have two excellent cavaliers fighting a cool looking dragon.  Ties in nicely with the Cavalier class.  I am also surprised that there is no bare thigh in sight!

Kim Mohan's editorial really typifies why I hate the April Fool's issues. You are actually better off not reading it. You can save time and get to the exact same issue by reading the Letters.
The Letters section is full of bemoaning of how the magazine is getting too big (80-88 pages) or too expensive ($3.00).  Here I am in 2017, nearly 35 years later thinking that we don't have enough Dragon these days.

There is an ad for the Science Fiction Book Club. I had joined a couple of different time over the course of my years.  I wonder if they are still around? (https://sfbc.com/Yes they are!) I am pleased to see I had read a good number of the books advertised, but there are few more I'd love to get my hands on again.

The big article of this issue is the Cavalier.  I always had a soft spot in my heart for the Cavalier. I liked the idea of a knight in shining armor, but who wasn't a Paladin.  There is a lot to like here and a great example of the long-form article that I really enjoyed from Dragon.  This is of course from Gary himself.  I also love that art from Keith Parkinson.  Too bad that playing a female elf cavalier riding a unicorn is WAY beyond the scope of the rules they are with!

Following this is, believe it or not, one of my favorite Ecology articles.  The Ecology of the Piercer. Seriously. Though the article has less content that I recalled (or I could be missing more pages) we decided that Piercers are a delicacy in my world, much like escargots are  in this world.  People collect young piercers for food and are worth a lot of money.  The older the piercer the less fresh they taste, so only the young are prized.  Piercers fed a steady diet of deer, elk or other game they would not normally get are even more prized.  Piercer farming has not worked out well, but adventurers are set on the task of collecting the little ones, all while avoiding the big ones!

The article on Gems is interesting, but I would rather have gone to a science book.

The Katherine Kerr article on The Real Barbarians is not one I read a lot of back then, but find very interesting now.  Easily one that should be paired with the Barbarian class that either will show up soon or just did.  Worth reading again to be sure.

Something that is an artifact of it's time is The PBM scene.  Playing by mail is a concept that I think most gamers would never think about these days. Oh I am sure if you look around you might find one or two still going.  Likely a Diplomacy, Tunnels & Trolls or a Traveler one.  It is a long ass article too.  I am not sure if I know anyone that ever did a Play By Mail game.  I considered it, back in the day, but never got around to it. Plus I could not bring myself to pay a buck every turn.

I get to the "behind the scenes" of File 13. Which made me realize I don't have a copy of the actual game.

Ugh... we get to the April Fools section.  I'll make this one fast. Valley Elf song? pass. I have the Frank Zappa album that Valley Girl came on and I got more D&D ideas from that then I do this song.
The Jock. Pass. More Sex in D&D humor.

I am jumping ahead to the book reviews.  Ok. Lots of really cool things here. In particular, I am drawn to Philip K Dick's "We Can Build You".   I remember the book since I was then and now something an armchair Lincoln scholar (what? I can layers.) but what strikes me the most these days is how much the fiction of Philip K. Dick shaped the world we live in now.  I think that is something worthy of a post on it's own someday.

The comics feature Phil n' Dixie doing their normal shtick.  Wormy is interesting though.  The wizard creating the portal is some of the best "portal" art I had seen up to that point.

The ads were good, lots of cool memories. Nothing really in the way of computer games yet.
Nice nostalgic issue.  Not a lot I can use today except maybe the barbarian article, but still fun.

Want to know what I was saying about White Dwarf from the same month? Check out White Dwarf Wednesday for issue #40.

RPGaDAY2016: Day 23

Share one of your best 'Worst Luck' stories.

I mentioned this one a couple years ago for "Most Memorable Character Death" but it also falls under best "Worst Luck" since the poor guy was at the receiving end of some truly diabolic dice rolls.

I have played exactly 1 ninja my entire  gaming life.  His name was Oko-nishi (horrible I know).  My lame attempts at a Japanese sounding name.  In my defense at what I knew was a bad name, I made him a half-orc; because I could then blame his orc parent.  It must have been around 1984-5 as I made him using the Oriental Adventure rules.  My then DM and I had worked up a D&D combat simulator on the Color Computer 2 and we plugged him in with 9 other characters.  He was attacked by a Black Dragon (or Red, cant recall) and killed. The dragon kept attacking him and only him.  We had not worked out all the errors. In the end, he had been reduced to something like -70 hp.  My DM offered to let him be ok, or keep him dead. We enjoyed watching it so much and getting the mental image of this dragon jumping up and down on my dead ninja that I felt it was a waste to say it never happened.

I never played a ninja or a half-orc again.

http://www.brigadecon.org/rpgaday2016/

Friday Night Videos: Happy Birthday Jon!

Wednesday, July 6 is the birthday of one of my oldest friends Jon "Flat Black" Cook.
Growing up Jon's birthday always meant that going over to his place and playing D&D until sunrise.  Great times really.

Since I have not posted one of these in a while I wanted to do this one for him.  Plus Jon always had a great collection of music.  He got me into Rush and Iron Maiden. He was the one that threw a copy of Iron Maiden's "Number of the Beast" at me and told me to listen to it and don't come back till I knew all about Eddie.
Metal, D&D and summer's hanging out with Jon were what made the early 80s for me.
Also this is more like Friday Afternoon Videos since I want to tag him on Facebook with this.

I'll admit it. During the height of the "Satanic Panic" Jon and I would do whatever we could to make matters worse. Playing D&D and listening to Iron Maiden was the norm. Thankfully for us we had parents that were neither impressed with two teens nor stupid.




I am not really sure who introduced me to Pink Floyd first. Jon or my late brother Mike.  I am inclined to give Mike the credit because Mike was really cool like that and that is how I want to remember it.  But Jon certainly introduced "Not Now John" from Pink Floyd's "The Final Cut" to me.  I am in the minority here, but I rather enjoy the bleakness of this album. People say The Wall is depressing. That's a cake-walk compared to Roger Water's soul-bearing requiem for the post-war dream.
Fuck all that.  This is just a great song.




One of these days...I need to do a FNV dedicated to Pink Floyd.
One of these days I am going to dance with the grim reaper...or cut you into little pieces...never was sure hat he was saying here.




It is no doubt that Jon introduced me to Rush.  To this day I equate Rush and D&D so tightly largely due to these summers.  This was the first song I can remember him playing while we gamed.




Another group Jon played a lot of and I associate with gaming to this day is Blue Öyster Cult.  Veteran of the Psychic Wars from "Fire of Unknown Origin" might be the most D&D song ever written.



It wasn't all metal. David Bowie's "Let's Dance" was a BIG hit around this time.




Even years later as I was getting ready to go away to college Jon still had something new for me.  With his typical "you need to listen to this now" attitude he popped in a tape (yeah tape) of this new band he discovered; Guns and Roses.

No association with gaming here.  Just Jon once again being Jon and finding out about music when no one else in our little midwest town had never even heard of these guys.



So Happy Birthday JR!

Friday Night Videos: Iron Maiden, Part 2

A while back I put up a bunch of Iron Maiden videos.

I figured since they have a new video, album and tour coming up it was time for that Part 2.

They cool thing about Maiden having new material out is the number of people that I have seen excited about it.  The cross-over with the people that I know who are all old-school gamers is both a little expected and cool at the same time.

Plus I am planning on some Amazing Adventures this weekend and Iron Maiden IS the official band of Amazing Adventures.  Ok, not really. But they should be.

Let's start off with their newest "Speed of Light". The video is an homage to all sorts of video games and styles from the last 4 decades. Even if you don't like Maiden this is a cool video.




"Run to the Hills" is one of my favorite Maiden songs. Another great from Maiden's golden age of Number of the Beast.  I have not seen this particular video for it before.




"Holy Smoke" is a fun video. Plus it is a great message that rang pretty clear to a young atheist.  From No Prayer for the Dying.




1984.  We played D&D while outside the world inched closer and closer to nuclear armageddon.  Maiden knew this even while tried to ignore it.  "2 Minutes to Midnight" from Powerslave reminded us everytime we played it.




Ever play a fighter? Ever play one in 1983? I bet this song came up at least one or twice. "The Trooper" from Piece of Mind.




I mentioned it last time but "Wasted Years" is one of my favorite Iron Maiden songs.  So imagine my delight when I find an all girl cover band The Iron Maidens doing a killer cover of Wasted Years.
Irons Up ladies, cause you fucking rock!

Friday Night Videos: Flashback 1982

Welcome back to Friday Night Videos!

Tonight I want to pay homage to the years that really got me going D&D wise.  1980, 1981 and 1982!

So this morning I was reading Arlee Bird's blog Tossing it Out.
Lee is the brains behind so many great blog challenges including the April A to Z challenge.

This morning he was talking about music and it's relationship to people.  For me though music has always been about the times it was in or what was going on when I heard it.  The cue for me to switch gears tonight and focus on 1982 was his use of the fantastic Alan Parson's Project, Eye in the Sky.  The meaning of the song of the same name is debated; is it about 1984, security cameras or something else.  For me this song will ALWAYS be about the module B3 Palace of the Silver Princess.  The "Eye in the Sky" in this case is the evil creature/god Arik and his ruby eye.  This song was on constant rotation the entire time I bought and first ran this adventure.




From the same album is a song my younger brother and I loved, "Psychobable". To me the song was more about horror and nightmares and that certainly had a huge effect on the style of game I ran even back then.  This was only compounded when I got my first copy of Chill.
This video is an odd one but I really like it.  The creator re-edited an old Orson Welles student film to go with the song.  For me it just fits.




Few albums are more "D&D" than Blue Öyster Cult's Fire of Unkown Origin and few songs more so than "Veteran of the Psychic Wars".  Let's look at the song's pedigree for a moment.  It was co-written by Micheal Moorcock, author of the Eternal Champion series. It is about the greatest, or at least the most popular of all the Eternal Champions Elric of Melniboné.   The song also appeared in the movie Heavy Metal.  On the releases I saw this was during the Taarna sequences.  The song is an ode to any D&D character ever. It is practically a Grognard anthem.  I would revisit the imagery myself during the years I was running my "Willow & Tara" game, Episode 5: Veteran of the Psychic Wars.




Last week I talked about how much Stevie Nicks influenced, well, pretty much everything I have ever written.  "Leather and Lace" was another song from Bella Donna that I loved.  This one I also connect to B3.  In particular the love story of the Princess and the White Drake.  In the original version of the adventure (written by Jean Welles) he was the bad guy.  In the revised version (by Tom Moldvay, the hero of 1981!) they became lovers instead.  I have to admit I like his version better than hers.



In the opposite direction of the sentiment of Leather and Lace we have Greg Kihn, whom I always associate with the start of the "video age".  "The Breakup Song" was from Kihn's album Rockihnroll.  The truth is, just like the song says, they just don't write 'em like that anymore.




This is one is kind of a cheat. I loved this song back in the day, but never associated it with gaming till much, much later.  Donnie Iris' "Ah! Leah!" from Back on the Streets.  Though it was out in 1980 I am sure I never heard it till 81.  Like Veteran of the Psychic Wars this song became part of the "soundtrack" of music I listened to when working on the Buffy RPG and then later Ghosts of Albion.  "Leah" was immortalized in my game universe as the name of the woman that married Tara's brother Donny in "Strange Sort of Homecoming" (which itself is named for a Sting song).




"Let me be the one to say when I've had enough..."

Sum songs capture an age perfectly.  Others only capture the feeling, and in retrospect are perfect.  Santana's "Hold On" is that sort of song.  It's too Latin sounding to be really part of the early 80s. But yet here we are and this song is perfect at describing the time.  The first track released from 1981's Shangó.



Got to concentrate, file away
Every last detail
Don't want to lose what's going down
I want to remember everything I'm feeling
Should time try fading or stealing something away.

What are your favorite memories from 1981 and 1982?

Friday Night Videos: All Hail Dio!

Welcome once again to Friday Night Videos!

This week I have a special treat. Well at least for me.
Tonight features what must be the quintessential videos and songs of what was known as "Sword and Sorcerery Rock".

And the lord of all of these was none other than Ronnie James Dio!

He fronted Black Sabbath, Rainbow and his own band Dio. He was a rocker and showman and by all accounts a great guy.

So here we have some of his most "D&D" songs ever.  These were huge inspiration to me in the day and then again later one when I was working on newer games.

Man on the Silver Mountain might just be one of the first "Sword and Sorcerery" songs recorded by a "metal" group.  Ritchie Blackmore left Deep Purple and after hearing Dio sing wanted him for his new band, Rainbow.  Of course the reasons Deep Purple had problems continued to plague Rainbow, but not before we got Man on the Silver Mountain.



Dio left Rainbow and about that time Ozzy was kicked out of left Black Sabbath.
Heaven and Hell is considered to be one of the penultimate Dio-fronted Black Sabbath songs.



Black Sabbath and Dio parted ways, but that gave us one of the best 80s metal bands and early darling of MTV's metal playlist.  Many nights when playing D&D we had to stop to watch Holy Diver or The Last in Line.

Rainbow in the Dark became something of a theme during my Buffy playtests.

The 30 Greatest D&D Adventures of All Time

Been kinda of obsessed with lists lately.  But this one does have a point for me.  A while back (2004 in fact) the Pazio run of Dungeon Magazine listed their top 30 adventures of all time.

I have been going through what I call the "Classical Canon" of D&D.  Not just so I have the experience of running them all, but so my kids can also enjoy these great adventures.  I also am looking for what makes a truly great D&D adventure; something that people still talk about years later.

Anyway here is the list with my thoughts.

30. The Ghost Tower of Inverness, 1980 (C2)
This is great one, but an odd one to run with a party in an ongoing campaign.  So I used it in my Doctor Who Adventures in Time and Space playtest and ran it as "The Ghost Tower of Inverness, Illinois".  I used this as the location of the "Ghost Tower" which is actually a malfunctioning Time Beacon.

29. The Assassin’s Knot, 1983 (L2)
Personally I prefer L1, Secret of Bone Hill, but this is a great sequel and I can see why many people like it more than Bone Hill.  Assassin's Knot works well as a murder mystery, but not great if your players are wanting to go in a bust skulls.

28. The Lost City, 1982 (B4)
I played this one in 8th Grade when it was new and had a blast.  I ran it again for my kids a few years back and still had a blast.  There were so many things in it I had forgotten and I spent most of the module smiling to myself in memory.  It is a Moldvay classic really and really has the feel of early 80s Basic D&D.

27. The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, 1981 (U1)
This was one I played back in the day but I have yet to run.  I have it all ready to go with my 3rd Ed. conversion notes.  Of course at the time I thought this was great because I was deep into my Anglophilia and I thought ANYTHING from England was perfect. Given that it was written (in part) by Don Turnbull then it was bound to be good.  If I remember right I played this one after Lost City.  I loved the tenor and mood of the module. It inspired an adventure I wrote in 88 called "Home by the Sea".  Parts of that adventure were then later used in my Ghosts of Albion adventure Blight, which took place in Ireland.  So it all came full circle.

26. City of Skulls, 1993 (WGR6)
This is an odd one. I never played it, never ran it and never really heard anything about it.  This was near the end of my Ravenloft games and very, very close to the time where I took a huge break from D&D.  I will check it out sometime, but doubt if I'll ever run it.

25. Dragons of Despair, 1984 (DL1)
I never played or ran any of the Dragonlance modules.  I enjoyed the books when they came out and I liked the idea that everyone playing was going through it all at the same time.  Hey, maybe someone should revive this for the next D&D Encounters!  I loved the idea and I loved the new design of the modules, but even then it felt a little railroady to me.  Plus I wanted to use my own characters.

24. City of the Spider Queen, 2002
I am not a good judge of this one. I don't like Drizzt. I don't like R.A. Salvatore. I never really cared for the Forgotten Realms till about 4th Edition.  I don't really know anything about this module. I suspect it was added to the list because there was a dearth of "modern" adventures and most of the others were "Greyhawk" related.

23. The Forgotten Temple of Tharzidun, 1982 (WG4)
Now this adventure...This one I can get behind.  I never played this one, but I have run it twice. It's a death dealer and a peak into what might have been coming as a narrative arc if Gygax had been into such things.  This module is one of out first peeks into the horror that is Tharzidun, a god that is part Cthulhu and part Satan in my game.  I am weaving material from this module into my larger campaign.

22. The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, 1982 (S4)
The same is true for this module. I remember buying it as soon as it came out and I begged my DM to run me through it.  I have run it myself twice since, the most recent time with my Dragonslayers group.  This is one of my most favorite modules. It has a vampire, Iggwilv, tons of new demons (many that later became part of the Monster Manual II) and just enough puzzles to keep the players on their toes. Running it this last time was a lot of fun.

21. Dark Tower, 1979 from Judge’s Guild (JG 0088)
While I would argue that this is an obligatory JG entry, this one is actually a lot of fun.  I never played it myself and it is so rare on eBay that it has been cost prohibative.  Thankfully we have PDFs of the Original and of the 3.5 update.

20. Scourge of the Slave Lords, 1986 (A1-4)
Another classic getting the reprint treatment.  I remember playing this one in 8th grade as well.  My DM at the time folded the Lost City into the A series to make a campaign out of them. Also he had a copy of Grimtooth's Traps which made everything deadlier. Or as he said "better".  I still have a thief stuck somewhere in a pit trap.

19. Against the Cult of the Reptile God, 1982 (N1)
I have never played or run this one.   I have though always wanted to use it as a start of a "Second" campaign,  After running the Classical Canon, I would start with a new campaign focusing on reptiles as the enemy.  Work in some modern "Reptoids" and have a go at it.  Maybe someday I will still do this.  But this is a fun adventure to read.

18. The Hidden Shrine of Tamochan, 1980 (C1)
Another great old module I never played, but read many times.  Like N1 I always hoped that I could use this one as part of a second campaign.  Though given some of the elements I would not be amiss using it in my "Come Endless Darkness" campaign.  I already have too many modules/adventures for the 5-7 level range.

17. Ruins of Undermountain, 1991
Ah. This is one that I have always known about but never really bothered with.  It was Forgotten Realms so I never gave it much thought.  Though I always thought this was more of a campaign expansion, ie part of the the whole Underdark deal so I never considered it an adventure.

16. Isle of Dread, 1980 (X1)
Oh the hours I spent pouring over this map.  This was Tom Moldvay's love letter to the pulp era and to such classic horror movies as King Kong. This also included the first full map of the Known World.  I ran it many times as a kid and it was one of the first modules I ran for my son.  He wanted to go an island of monsters, "like in Godzilla".  This did not disappoint him or me.  More so than any other adventure, the Dragonslayers were born here.

15. Castle Amber, 1981 (X2)
Another great. Again Moldvay's pulp horror influences are showing here, in particular his love for the works of Clark Ashton Smith. This time we enter an old house full of crazy characters and plenty of dangers.  This could have come off as a "fun house" dungeon, but something in the presentation is different.  Maybe it is the undertones of horror and dread.   My players in our 5e game are going through this one now. I have dropped the first hints of the "coming darkness" to them here.
This is one of my personal favorites. Certainly part of my top 5.

14. Dead Gods, 1997
Dead Gods is not an adventure I have ever run or been in, but it is one I have used quite a bit.  There are a number of elements in it that I use for my "Rise of Orcus" plot. Especially back in the 4e days and the rise of Orcus adventures.  Honestly there are enough adventures out there that you could build a universe (and edition) spanning mega campaign on nothing more than stopping the machinations of Orcus.  One day I should give that a try.

13. Dwellers of the Forbidden City, 1981 (I1)
This is a great adventure and part of my "Second Campaign" (AGGHHH too many adventures to play!) it is also at the 4th-7th level sweet spot.  This one is a key part of that idea since it introduced the Yuan-ti, a monster I have used repeatedly; often calling them Ophidians.   It has elements that would fit in nicely with my 5th edition group, but I have too many adventures for this level.

12. The Forge of Fury, 2000
So this is our obligatory 3e adventure I think.  I never played it or ran it, thought I have read it.  Personally I think The Sunless Citadel was better and should have been on this list.  It was the first and introduced a generation to Meepo.  Sure he was no Aleena, but you could also say that Aleena was no Meepo!

11. The Gates of Firestorm Peak, 1996
Ugh.  Sorry, but there is a lot about this module I just don't like.  I don't care for the shoehorn plot for starters and I hated the Skills & Powers books. Som much that it threw me off of D&D till 3e came out.  It was "Lovecraftian" and I did like that.  I suspect that is why it is on this list to be honest. Though many of the ideas in this module came into sharper focus during the 3e years.

10. Return to the Tomb of Horrors, 1998
You have to admit. This is a total cheat.  I have it, I enjoyed it and I like the idea that the Tomb is something that people can keep going back too (whatever the edition).  As a sequel there is a lot to like. As a stand alone and on it's own merits though it might be passable.

9. White Plume Mountain, 1979 (S2)
I am inordinately fond of the S series of modules.  This one is no different.  It of course makes 0 sense, but works great as an epic D&D adventure. Plus it gave us Wave, Whelm and Blackrazor.

8. Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, 2001
In many ways I like this one better than the original. I like the idea of returning to the Temple I also like the idea of talking in game about adventures that came before.  Gives me a sense of continuity.   This is one of my favorite 3.x era modules to be honest.

7. The Keep on the Borderlands, 1979 (B1)
What can I honestly say about this one?  The Cave of Chaos were as well traveled as a local Mall in the 1980s.   When I think "Classic Canon" this is the first thing that comes to mind.

6. The Desert of Desolation, 1987 (I3-5)
Another total cheat this "super" module is made up of Pharoah (I3), Oasis of the White Palm (I4) and Lost Tomb of Martek (I5).   Though to be totally fair they are linked together. Another really great set of adventures I would LOVE to play or run (read them many times) but not likely to.  Maybe if I do my "Second Campaign".  There is a lot in these I have used elsewhere though.

5. Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, 1980 (S3)
"You know what AD&D needs?  Freaking laser guns! Lasers and killer robots!"  Seriously. Has there ever been a module to encapsulate everything the late 70s and early 80s was all about more than this one?  It even has a karate instructor robot.  I am going to add in a break-dancing robot that moves to a funky Herbie Hancock beat when I run this next.  Which should be soon. I am going totally gonzo with it too. I am grabbing bits of Gamma World and Metamorphosis Alpha too.   In fact since the characters are higher level than the module requires I am doing a sort of "Return to the Barrier Peaks" spin on it. I am going to add some material from The Illithiad as well.

4. The Temple of Elemental Evil, 1985 (T1-4)
Another of the classic canon. If you didn't start your adventure in the keep, then chances are you started it here.  I have always wanted to run this one and never have.  I have used pieces of it before.
I suppose if I do my "second campaign" I will start with this and change the temple a bit.

3. Tomb of Horrors, 1978 (S1)
We just finished this one and it was every bit the meat grinder it was rumored to be.  I had gone through back in the day, but running it was a completely different experience.  Now I might be branded as a heretic here but it is not really that good of an adventure.  Really it isn't. There are lot things in the adventure that don't make sense except in a D&D world.  That being said it is a rite of passage and everyone should try it at least once under their favorite edition or at least once under 1st ed as Gary intended it to be.

2. Ravenloft, 1983 (I6)
Here we go. This is my favorite module on the list. I just love it; warts and all.  Yeah there are some real leaps in logic in this one and there are plenty of reasons NOT to like it, but I don't care. I think it is great. It's a Hammer Horror film in D&D form right down to the small "Hammer Hamlet" village with terrified peasants.  There are vampires, gypsies, werewolves, really strong zombies, gargoyles. Even a huge pipe organ played by the vampire.  You can almost hear Toccata and Fugue in D minor while running it. I have played through this once and I have ran it three or four times.  I would love to try it sometime under the Ghosts of Albion rules.  I am going to take my 5e group through it when they complete Castle Amber.

1. Queen of Spiders, 1986 (G1-3, D1-3, Q1)
The first AD&D campaign arc.  We talk alot about being "plot free" in our adventures but when it get right down to it we love a good story arc and the GDQ was that.  I am not 100% sure that Q1 lived up the promise of the G and D series, but damn was it fun.
This super module was made up of:

• Against the Giants (G1-3)
• Descent into the Depths of the Earth (D1-2)
• Vault of the Drow (D3)
• Queen of the Demonweb Pits (Q1)

Back in the day EVERYONE was going through this. It was the D&D Encounters of it's time.  The only problem was no one was doing it at exactly the same time or way.  So I know dozens of stories about how these turned out. I have dozens of my own.  Plus that Bill Willingham cover of the Giants is one of the most iconic covers of the age I think.

There you are. The 30 greatest adventures as ranked by Dungeon Magazine.
Do you agree or disagree?  What is missing?

Here are my honorable mentions.

In Search of the Unknown, 1978 (B1)
Every adventure starts somewhere. Mine usually start here.  This is my go to module for a quick a easy sandbox style dungeon crawl.  I have run it half a dozen times or more with new groups and it is always a thrill.

Palace of the Silver Princess, 1981 (B3)
Yes it is a rather silly adventure, but I really enjoy it.  Plus the backstory on it makes it a lot more fun.

Palace of the Vampire Queen, 1976 from WeeWarriors (V2)
The first ever published adventure or "DM's Kit" as it was called then.  What it lacks detail it makes up for in style.  I have ran this one twice now under various systems.  It works with everything to be honest; it is that sandboxy.