This Old Dragon: Issue #44

 I talked about Gardner Fox and his contributions to the Appendix N yesterday. I thought I'd pull out a very old Dragon magazine, #44, and feature his contributions from it today. As I mentioned previously, he is one of the rare few authors in the Appendix N who would later also publish within the pages of Dragon. So let's set the controls all the way back to December 1980. At this point, I have been playing D&D for a little more than a year. Playing was rare, but it always filled me with excitement.  Clint Eastwood stars with an orangutan in "Any Which Way You Can." In a sad note, the orangutan, Buddha, who played Clyde, was clubbed to death by his trainer for stealing a doughnut. There were no laws about the treatment of animals on the books at the time, so nothing happened. "Lady" by Kenny Rogers is all over the airwaves, and on tables and game store shelves everywhere is This Old Dragon #44.

Our cover is from none other than Phil Fogolio, featuring the new included game, Food Fight. Other artists include Mike Carroll, Jack Crane, Jeff Dee, Tracy Lesch, Kenneth Rahman, Roger Raupp, Jim Roslof, and Bill Willingham.

I have to start by noting how thick the paper is for this one. At 100 pages, this issue is heavy. Yes, there is the Food Fight game inside, but still, the paper is quite thick. Compared to the similar page count of Issue #85 (my first purchased issue) they feel very different.

So already this is a big issue in more ways (weighs?) than one. 

We have two Editorials: one from Bryce Knorr on his Food Fight game, and another from Assistant Editor Kim Mohan on all the features of this issue. 

Letters is still known as Out On A Limb at this point. The topic of the month are Dwarven Women, Beards or No. 

Up first, and foremost, is The Lure of the Golden Godling, a Niall of the Far Travels tale by Gardner F. Fox. While this is not a Dragon I owned back in the 80s, I looked up once I got my Dragon CD-ROM and I was completely surprised that Fox had written for Dragon.

The Super Spies for the new Top Secret game is up by Allen Hammack. This covers the Top Secret stats for various movie and TV Spies like James Bond, Napoleon Solo, John Steed, Emma Peel, and even Maxwell Smart and Agent 99. I rather love things like this and have done my own fair share of multimedia witches here. So I can appreciate this level of obsession. This is not something you would see anymore; corporations are far too litigious. 

Mark Simmons has a review of the King of the Mountain board game. The game is for 2 to 10 players. The premise is simple: get your character to the top of the mountain first and claim the wizard's prize with one player controlling the actions of the Wizard and the monsters. It sounds like it could be fun, but it doesn't trigger my "Traveller Envy," which I guess is good.

We get to an early featured topic section in Dragon with Fantasy Genetics. These articles all attempt to take a scientifc point of view on the various humanoid species in D&D. 

Gregory G. H. Rihn is up first with Humanoid Races in Review, which builds upon The Dragon #29 article from Gygax about the Half-ogre and the issues it caused back then. Among other things, we get some quasi Linnaean taxonomy on the various species. Humans are Homo sapiens sapiens, elves are Homo sapiens sylvanus, and orcs are Homo sapiens orc. The implication here is that humans are fertile with both elves and orcs. Cavemen are Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, dwarves are Homo faber (and both genders feature beards), and the Sasquatch is Homo sasquatch. Gnomes are a subclass of Homo faber. So both dwarves and gnomes are "makers." That works. Halflings are not covered, but 24 years later, we get the discovery of Homo floresiensis, who are called "Hobbits."

Half-ors in a Variety of Styles by Roger Moore takes us to Fantasy Genetics II. Here, our focus switches to the orc family and the various cross-breeds they can have. Here Moore contends that orcs are a member of the genus Australopithecus. These include: Kobold (Australopithecus boisei), Goblin (Australopithecus africanus), Hobgoblin (Australopithecus robustus), and Bugbear (Australopithecus giganticus). Even ogres (Ramapithecus robustus) and hill giants (Meganthropus giganticus) are covered.  The science is a bit bonkers, but it is a lot of fun. I mean if dragons can have a taxonomic nomclature, humanoids certainly should.

Fantasy Genetics III kicks off with What Do You Get When You Cross...? by John S. Olson. He is also building off of the Half-Ogre idea from The Dragon #29. He makes the radical suggestion that nearly any sort of creature can crossbreed with another. But not all of their offspring are going to be suitable for play.  In fact there is a section here that is close to the hearts of many new players that most old players seem to have forgotten was first introduced in 1980.

Finally, in Fantasy Genetics IV, Paul Montgomery Crabaugh takes us back to high school biology, Mendelian genetics, and Punnett squares in Half + Half Isn't Always Full. Well, a really simple overview of inheritance by genes. Examples are given with humans and orcs. 

None of the four articles really solves any problems and likely introduces new ones. I'll have to pick ahead and see if there are any letters about this issue. 

Nice big ad from J.J. Brodsky & Sons, Inc. Hobby Distributors. Featuring all the hobby stores in the Midwest that offer Dungeons & Dragons. This gives a little bit of evidence to my whole Illinois Pipeline idea. There are a ton here whose addresses are well known to me, but sadly, there are no hobby stores left there. One of which would have been a 10 min drive or less from my home. 

Sage Advice covers some AD&D rules questions.

Dave "Zeb" Cook (of the Expert Set, Isle of Dread, and so much more) is next with a new Giants in the Earth featuring two more NPCs taken from novels. We have C.S. Lewis's Reepicheep and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Professor Challenger. I don't know the first, but I am a fan of Challenger, who in my mind should be played by Brian Blessed. Though I don't think he is a 16th-level fighter, really. He would make for a great NIGHT SHIFT character.

My late friend Len Lakofka is up with Leomund's Tiny Hut Monsters: How Strong is Strong? where he attempts to give some monsters some Strength Scores. His logic is sound IF the damage types and spreads are good. I have gone through many, many monsters in my oft-languishing "Basic Bestiary," and there is some good data here. But as well know, really, that Gygax often did not build his monsters using the same rules that characters use. That is not something we will see until the new editions of D&D, starting with 3rd. Len, though, makes a solid showing here, and his numbers look really good.

The Simulation Corner is up with A History of Games and Gaming from John Prados, noted Wargame designer, and here about two years shy of his Ph.D. in Political Science. He is lamenting the lack of any written history of games and gaming and is actively looking for such documentation. 

Food Fight is our mini-game this issue, but it does take up quite a lot of the issue, to be honest (24 pages and a cardstock insert) . The game was designed by Byce Knorr, and the art is from the amazing Bill Willingham and Jeff Dee.  You can read a bit about the game at Board Game Geek, but it does make this your better-than-average value Dragon magazine. Honestly, reading it over more I kinda want to adapt it somehow to my Jackson, IL game! Though it doesn't really fit the vibe I am going with.  Though there is a really convenient map.

After this, we get the continuation of the Gardner Fox Niall tale. 

Here Comes the Judges Guild, by William Fawcett, is an overview and review of nine products from Judges Guild. These are some of the classics of the early days of JG; Modron, Escape from Astigar's Lair, The Treasure Vaults of Lindoran, Inferno, Portals of Torsh, Spies of Lightelf, Wilderlands of High Fantasy, Legendary Duck Tower, and City of Lei Tabor. Great content. Too bad JG went to complete shit. 

The agents for Top Secret continue, as does the review of King of the Mountain. 

Glenn Rahman is up with his classic Minarian Legends for the Diving Right game. This time about The Black Knight. I will admit that I know next to nothing about this game. But there is a wiki for it, so maybe I will check it out.

The Electric Eye from Mark Herro offers early examples of computer software for playing D&D-like games (Dungeon of Death). Keep in mind, we are talking Atari 2600-level games at this point, and this is the end of this column's first year. The games include  Dungeon of Death by Instant Software for your solo gaming needs. Android Nim by 80-US, and Time Traveller by Krell Software. Software companies came and went like leaves in the wind back then. Few survived to today.

There is even a little BASIC program at the end. 

Dragon's Bestiary gives us three new AD&D creatures. The Koodjanuk, Cyroserpent, and Ice Golem.

Another ad for a Hobby Game Distributors, with more stores in Illinois than in nine other states combined. 

Nothing But the Ho-Ho-Ho Truth by Douglas Loss is an odd one, since WotC has it online for you to read.

Comics include Wormy and Darlene's The Story of Jasmine. The art for Jasmine is still above and beyond anything you should expect from a magazine.

So this is a really good issue and filled with some really fun content.

Makes me want to check out more from this era.