TSR Periodicals published The Dragon Issue 29 in September 1979. It is 56 pages long, with a cover price of $2.00. In this issue, a future legend joins the magazine, we talk about race in D&D, and we welcome back everyone's favorite comic strip dragon!
Assistant editor Gary "Jake" Jacquet is seeking new writers, saying, "Well-researched historical background pieces, innovative designs and systems, reviews, variants, and occasional humor or satire are our prime need. Payment is 1¢ per word, minimum, payable within 30 days of publication." That's the equivalent of about 3.5¢ per word in today's dollars. And it is important to note that it was the minimum.
What is perhaps more interesting, from an editorial standpoint, is a new name in the magazine credits - Kim Mohan. Mohan had most recently worked for the Beloit Daily News, writing about everything from sport to state politics. He was freelancing news articles when he applied to TSR for a job. Kask later recounted that, in his interview, Mohan described himself as "not a wargamer looking to work on a game magazine, but rather a journalist that also played some boardgames once in a while." This self-description sold him to Kask!
Aside from a brief interruption from '86 to '88, Kim Mohan worked continuously as an editor with TSR, and later WOTC, up until his retirement in 2013 - much longer than the people who originally hired him! Following his "retirement," Mohan has worked on a bunch of 5e books, most recently "Eberron: Rising from the Last War." We don't often celebrate editors, but Mohan's contribution to D&D is immense.
There are seven feature articles in this issue. "Of the Gods" supplies a bunch of random tables to help you generate a pantheon of deities quickly. The tables are well-realized if a bit obvious in places. "Curses" gives some guidance to DMs looking to bestow a curse upon their players. The article would have been better with some more examples. It also suffers from the "DM vs. Player" mentality that was often a part of D&D in this era. The subtitle of the article is, "Never get even-get ahead!"
On to the regular features. "Fantasysmith's Notebook" describes the basics of figurine painting. "Giants in the Earth" gives us statistics for Roger Zelazny's Shadowjack, and Jack Vance's Iucounu, the Laughing Magician. Good choices! You could not do these columns today, with everyone much more protective of their intellectual property. "Bazaar of the Bizarre" describes the Ring of the Necromancer, which grants control over the undead, while "Dragon's Bestiary" includes the supremely forgettable Whiz-Bang Beetle.
This month "From the Sorcerer's Scroll" is written by Gary Gygax and is subtitled "The Half-Ogre, Smiting Him Hip and Thigh." Gygax states that a lot of people have been asking for a half-ogre player race. In typical Gygaxian fashion, he responds that the "character races in AD&D were selected with care," and that adding to them would be a bad idea and open a huge "can of worms."
He then turns around and gives statistics for a half-ogre player race anyway, which he also immediately describes as "a rather unappetizing and boring prospect for character play." What is really interesting is the postscript he gives to this whole discussion, which is so important that I will quote it in full:
There are several rules variants in this issue, including minor tweaks for Avalon Hill's Source of the Nile and SPI's Air War. The rest of the variants are for D&D, including aging rules, variant damages for smaller than human-sized weapons, and another entry in the long-running mythos series, this one describing the gods of Oceania.
"Strain and Spell Casting" presents a fatigue mechanism for spellcasters, causing the editor to quip, "This is the first "spell point" system, or facsimile thereof, that I've ever liked; it makes M-U's even weaker than they already are." I've mentioned this before, but the whole "Magic-Users must be kept in their place" idea that you find in early issues of The Dragon both baffles and annoys me.
"Rewarding Heroism for D&D" caught my attention. The author proposes to encourage "heroic acts" by giving players a temporary power boost when they undertake them--in this case, doubling their level for a short time! It is a clumsy design solution, but the idea is one that would soon be picked up in other RPGs with things such as hero points and the like.
"Trained Animals in Dungeons & Dragons" is an example of a rule variant executed well. It includes a large amount of material that you can immediately use in your campaign--in this instance, training costs and statistics for creatures such as war dogs, ravens, wargs, and so on. "Inns and Taverns" is also pretty good, explaining how many such establishments you would find in a village or town, the cost of staying at them, and what's on the menu.
I am tempted to skip this article, but I should mention, "Non-player Characters have Feelings, Too." This presents a mini-system to "round out" the personality of NPCs. You roll on one table to determine the strength of feeling and another to determine the target of that feeling. So a roll of 2, 67 would mean the NPC "Loves Pets" while a roll of 3, 45 means they "Dislike Alcohol." It's not a bad system, but one of the target entries is "Beautiful Women," and another is "Ugly Females." Sigh. These are the sort of things that turned many women off the hobby back in the day.
There are a bunch of quick game reviews, including two games from Chaosium. Reich has "some serious design flaws," while Raiders and Traders has "many interesting facets and can be played on several levels." There are three games reviewed from Gamma Two Ltd. Last Spike is "intense and fun," Team is "an excellent beer-and-pretzels game," while Klondike is "highly recommended." Two games are reviewed from a new company called Task Force Games. Starfire is "a lot of fun to play," while Star Fleet Battles "holds a lot of promise." Finally, Circus Maximus from Heritage is "the best treatment of chariot racing" seen to date.
There is only one historical background article of the type that was rapidly disappearing from The Dragon. "Origins of the Norse Pantheon" is a rambling piece on Norse mythology with no central thread and limited applicability to gamers. Perhaps there is a reason these articles were disappearing!
One final note. I rarely mention the humor section in these columns (it's hard to know what to say), but it's worth noting that "Wormy" returned this issue. For those who don't know, "Wormy" was a fantasy comic strip about a wise-talking green dragon, written by artist Dave Trampier. A lot of old-timers regard the strip with a lot of respect and affection. Wormy had been absent from the pages of Dragon for almost a year--I'm not sure why.
Next issue, we have a new column by Len Lakofka, The Dragon tackles the Satanic Panic, and Ed Greenwood makes his debut!
Assistant editor Gary "Jake" Jacquet is seeking new writers, saying, "Well-researched historical background pieces, innovative designs and systems, reviews, variants, and occasional humor or satire are our prime need. Payment is 1¢ per word, minimum, payable within 30 days of publication." That's the equivalent of about 3.5¢ per word in today's dollars. And it is important to note that it was the minimum.
What is perhaps more interesting, from an editorial standpoint, is a new name in the magazine credits - Kim Mohan. Mohan had most recently worked for the Beloit Daily News, writing about everything from sport to state politics. He was freelancing news articles when he applied to TSR for a job. Kask later recounted that, in his interview, Mohan described himself as "not a wargamer looking to work on a game magazine, but rather a journalist that also played some boardgames once in a while." This self-description sold him to Kask!
Aside from a brief interruption from '86 to '88, Kim Mohan worked continuously as an editor with TSR, and later WOTC, up until his retirement in 2013 - much longer than the people who originally hired him! Following his "retirement," Mohan has worked on a bunch of 5e books, most recently "Eberron: Rising from the Last War." We don't often celebrate editors, but Mohan's contribution to D&D is immense.
There are seven feature articles in this issue. "Of the Gods" supplies a bunch of random tables to help you generate a pantheon of deities quickly. The tables are well-realized if a bit obvious in places. "Curses" gives some guidance to DMs looking to bestow a curse upon their players. The article would have been better with some more examples. It also suffers from the "DM vs. Player" mentality that was often a part of D&D in this era. The subtitle of the article is, "Never get even-get ahead!"
On to the regular features. "Fantasysmith's Notebook" describes the basics of figurine painting. "Giants in the Earth" gives us statistics for Roger Zelazny's Shadowjack, and Jack Vance's Iucounu, the Laughing Magician. Good choices! You could not do these columns today, with everyone much more protective of their intellectual property. "Bazaar of the Bizarre" describes the Ring of the Necromancer, which grants control over the undead, while "Dragon's Bestiary" includes the supremely forgettable Whiz-Bang Beetle.
This month "From the Sorcerer's Scroll" is written by Gary Gygax and is subtitled "The Half-Ogre, Smiting Him Hip and Thigh." Gygax states that a lot of people have been asking for a half-ogre player race. In typical Gygaxian fashion, he responds that the "character races in AD&D were selected with care," and that adding to them would be a bad idea and open a huge "can of worms."
He then turns around and gives statistics for a half-ogre player race anyway, which he also immediately describes as "a rather unappetizing and boring prospect for character play." What is really interesting is the postscript he gives to this whole discussion, which is so important that I will quote it in full:
Many modern readers will feel uncomfortable with the idea of "racial superiority" being baked into the system, even if we are talking about pretend races. Some have even concluded that the D&D treatment of race is inherently problematic because of such things and that it needs to be torn down and rebuilt. This is a vast topic and one that I can't fully explore now, but the above quote is relevant to the discussion.
There are several rules variants in this issue, including minor tweaks for Avalon Hill's Source of the Nile and SPI's Air War. The rest of the variants are for D&D, including aging rules, variant damages for smaller than human-sized weapons, and another entry in the long-running mythos series, this one describing the gods of Oceania.
"Strain and Spell Casting" presents a fatigue mechanism for spellcasters, causing the editor to quip, "This is the first "spell point" system, or facsimile thereof, that I've ever liked; it makes M-U's even weaker than they already are." I've mentioned this before, but the whole "Magic-Users must be kept in their place" idea that you find in early issues of The Dragon both baffles and annoys me.
"Rewarding Heroism for D&D" caught my attention. The author proposes to encourage "heroic acts" by giving players a temporary power boost when they undertake them--in this case, doubling their level for a short time! It is a clumsy design solution, but the idea is one that would soon be picked up in other RPGs with things such as hero points and the like.
"Trained Animals in Dungeons & Dragons" is an example of a rule variant executed well. It includes a large amount of material that you can immediately use in your campaign--in this instance, training costs and statistics for creatures such as war dogs, ravens, wargs, and so on. "Inns and Taverns" is also pretty good, explaining how many such establishments you would find in a village or town, the cost of staying at them, and what's on the menu.
I am tempted to skip this article, but I should mention, "Non-player Characters have Feelings, Too." This presents a mini-system to "round out" the personality of NPCs. You roll on one table to determine the strength of feeling and another to determine the target of that feeling. So a roll of 2, 67 would mean the NPC "Loves Pets" while a roll of 3, 45 means they "Dislike Alcohol." It's not a bad system, but one of the target entries is "Beautiful Women," and another is "Ugly Females." Sigh. These are the sort of things that turned many women off the hobby back in the day.
There are a bunch of quick game reviews, including two games from Chaosium. Reich has "some serious design flaws," while Raiders and Traders has "many interesting facets and can be played on several levels." There are three games reviewed from Gamma Two Ltd. Last Spike is "intense and fun," Team is "an excellent beer-and-pretzels game," while Klondike is "highly recommended." Two games are reviewed from a new company called Task Force Games. Starfire is "a lot of fun to play," while Star Fleet Battles "holds a lot of promise." Finally, Circus Maximus from Heritage is "the best treatment of chariot racing" seen to date.
There is only one historical background article of the type that was rapidly disappearing from The Dragon. "Origins of the Norse Pantheon" is a rambling piece on Norse mythology with no central thread and limited applicability to gamers. Perhaps there is a reason these articles were disappearing!
One final note. I rarely mention the humor section in these columns (it's hard to know what to say), but it's worth noting that "Wormy" returned this issue. For those who don't know, "Wormy" was a fantasy comic strip about a wise-talking green dragon, written by artist Dave Trampier. A lot of old-timers regard the strip with a lot of respect and affection. Wormy had been absent from the pages of Dragon for almost a year--I'm not sure why.
Next issue, we have a new column by Len Lakofka, The Dragon tackles the Satanic Panic, and Ed Greenwood makes his debut!
