Ok, this really is less of a cheat than it might appear. This issue was actually third on my list for this week, it gets promoted due to one article that I'll mention in a bit. For now, it is March 1985, Madonna rules the radio and MTV. Eddie Murphy dominates the silver screens with
Beverly Hills Cop. On the way to our shelves is Unearthed Arcana (more on that) but there now is issue #95 of This Old Dragon!
Our cover is something of a classic from Dean Morrissey. I will admit I did not like it when this was new. I liked the idea, but the cover left cold. Over the years my mind has changed and I consider this one of my top 20 covers. Not quite top 10, but certainly up there.
The table of contents promises a lot of things, but at the bottom we get a note from Kim Mohan. Titled
In defense of advertising Kim advises us to read the letters on the next page and then come back. I'll talk about that in a bit. This article is a defense of the number of ads in Dragon magazine. He points out that while the magazine has grown the price, $3.00, has been consistent for nearly five years. Having grown up in that time with a limited income from a paper route I appreciated the price stability. Plus I *loved* the ads. That's how I knew what was new and what was going on with other companies. Some games I bought solely based on their ad in Dragon.
Ok
Letters. Dan Fejes sends in one titled "Hard of hearing?" where he complains about the number of ads in the magazine AND the fact that the editors are "not listening to the readers". Dan can't defend himself here, so me ripping into him is counter-productive. But seriously? I understand that no one is really made of money, but this sounds like typical entitled-gamer bullshit to me. Unless he has a degree in economics where he can show his price per useful content ratio is somehow less...but I digress. Forget Dan. I love the ads. My only beef is when the ads went exclusively to TSR. But that is some time away yet.
Speaking of ads...We get our first look at the nearly-mythical D&D Set 3: Companion Rules!
Suck it Dan.
Gary is up first with
Demi-humans Get a Lift in his
From the Sorcerer's Scroll feature. This covers the new level and class limits for Demi-humans in the AD&D game. A preview of sorts for the new Unearthed Arcana he announces at the end of the article. We also get an update on the D&D movie. That is to say that there is still a D&D movie being shopped around.
Gary mentions that Gen Con was attended by 8,000 people, the most ever of this kind of convention. I bet it will grow! This is cover some sort of argument over which one con was better/larger Gen Con vs. Origins.
Here is the article that bumped this issue to the head of the queue today.
The influence of J. R. R. Tolkien on the D&D® and AD&D® games. Why Middle Earth is not part of the game world by Gary Gygax.
Let's take a moment and remember when this article was written. 1985. I.C.E. has the MERP game now and TSR has already had a litigious past with the Tolkien estate. I am going to forward this quote first,
The popularity of Professor Tolkien’s fantasy works did encourage me to develop my own. But while there are bits and pieces of his works reflected hazily in mine, I believe that his influence, as a whole, is quite minimal.
- Gary Gygax, p. 12. Dragon 95, March 1985.
Now there are plenty of reasons for him to state this, and he follows up in the article going over now well known ground on how the pulps, Howard in particular, were the source of most of his fantasy thoughts. None of this is really in dispute. What follows is a breakdown of creatures D&D and Tolkien share in common and where Tolkien might have derieved them. All of which has the benefit of being true, we know this from Tolkien's own letters, and completely not really the point.
Gygax might be trying to make the point that D&D would have come about with or without Tolkien. He might be right, but it would certainly not have come out like it was in 85. The fertile ground that D&D grew in was tilled by Tolkien. Others have also tilled and sown those fields, but our good professor did a little more than his fair share of work. Plus I can't help but feel there is a bit of revisionism going on here. Lest we forget that the original D&D rules featured Hobbits, Ents and Balorgs by those names. Halflings in D&D are defacto Hobbits right down to their hairy feet and subrace names. Harfoots, Fallowhides, and Stoors for
Tolkien and Hairfoots, Tallfellows and Stouts for
AD&D. I am not going to belabor this point really other than to point out that Gary is both correct and wrong in his article. How much of this was oversight or even on advice from his lawyers we will really never know. There have been a number of follow-up articles, interviews and the like since then and right on up to his death.
For me. I am content that Tolkien is a model of a good D&D world. Maybe not a by-the-book one (any or either book) but for me, Tolkien and D&D have been together since the very, very beginning.
Whew! We are only on page 15!
The Convention Calendar is up. I see my FLGS is having a Game Day on March 30.
Yes. They are still open and they still have the same phone number! Well, the area code has changed twice since this ad. It is now 847-577-9656. Not too bad really. Want to buy a copy of the Dragons I review? I usually buy them here!
Ok I do want to talk about this ad.
So DragonRaid got a lot of grief in the gaming communities I was apart of. I had some Christian gamer friends that thought it was a cheap attempt to capitalize on their faith and some even that did not want to mix their D&D and belief. As an Atheist, then and now, I thought it was interesting. As someone who was interested in psychology then and someone with degrees in it now I also thought it was an interesting way to learn something, in this case, Bible verses. I always wanted to see the game for myself.
You can still buy the game directly from the publisher.
Anyone ever play this game?
Next up is
How taxes take their toll: The king’s collectors don’t have it easy, either by Arthur Collins is done as a faux interview. The basic premise is how to do taxes in your fantasy medieval world.
Ecology of the Cockatrice is next from Ed Greenwood. He has another entry later on. This is another good piece and reminds me why I liked these "Ecology of" articles so much. They can take an uninteresting monster and really do a lot with it.
In the days before the internet, this next article by Glenn Rahman was pure gold.
Prices for the Roaring 20’s: A way to measure PCs’ purchasing power gives us price lists. I remember sitting in my then local library for hours looking up prices for one of the first Victorian-era games I ever ran. Now it is a click away.
Katharine Kerr is back with more advice on experience rules in
Credit where credit is due. This article looks to examples from other games to award some non-combat experience and in particular the use of skills.
Next is an article I actually used quite a bit.
The many shapes of apes: Giving primates the attention they deserve by Stephen Inniss gives us some stats for various primates including the Gigantopithecus, which I used quite a lot.
We get to the main feature of this issue. A new mid-level adventure from Ed Greenwood called
Into the Forgotten Realms. This might not be the first official Forgotten Realms entry in the pages of Dragon, but it is the biggest so far. Run as a tournament module at Gen Con 1984, this adventure has you begin in the Realms. There are characters provided. It has been my plan to use this adventure in my Realms based game someday. I am still planning this. It looks really fun to be honest.
Battles above the dungeon by Tim W. Brown has advice for combat in open spaces.
The fiction section is next,
Desperate Acts, I know nothing of the story save that it has one of my favorite pieces of art to appear in a Dragon magazine. No surprise it is by Denis Beauvais.
I thought she was an awesome looking character.
The Ares section is next.
We get some new starships for the
Star Frontiers: Knight Hawks game NOW back in print.
Penny Petticord has some answers to various GammaWorld questions.
Jeff Grubb talks Iron Man in the
Marvel-Phile. Though at this point it is Rhodey wearing the armor of Iron Man and not Tony.
We get Dolphins as a space-farring race for RingWorld by Sherman Kahn. Now we know how they left Earth in So Long and Thanks for All the Fish. Interestingly enough a Star Trek TNG novel had dolphin crew member and I always pictured this art for it.
Small ads.
Big ad for Gen Con 18.
Wormy, Dragonmirth and Snarf.
Wow. What another packed issue. So much here that I remembered and so much more I had forgotten.
Want to know what I was saying about White Dwarf from the same time period? Have a look at
White Dwarf Wednesday #63.
