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.
