This is the last blog in the series dedicated to Dragon #63 (July 1982), the magazine that served as the single most influential piece of reading for my neophyte understanding of what a role-playing game could be, right after the 1st Edition Dungeon Master's Guide.
The Humanoids
This article offered an in-depth review of the societies, cultures, and gods of the kobolds, goblins, hobgoblins, and gnolls. The Monster Manual obviously gave us a decent overview, but this piece really went the distance. Again I found material that helped us to differentiate between these nasty foes with something more their physical appearance and typical panoplies. I'm quite certain the monsters' evil deities found their way into Unearthed Arcana and 2nd Edition's Monstrous Mythology handbook. Nomog-Geaya (the patron hobgoblin deity of war) is still my favorite mythical figure from the D&D game.
Plan Before You Play
Ed Greenwood wrote this one, and he even mentions his homebrew setting Forgotten Realms within its pages. Who knew that before the decade ended we would see its release as a long-lived popular commercial franchise? That aside, this article really helped me to put some thought into the loosely-defined world where our campaigns unfolded. In those days, I didn't go much beyond the range of a few kingdoms and regions - which was all right - we didn't have globe-trotting journeys usually - but it was nice to have something more than just completely generic medieval towns separated by generic dangerous wilderness. Greenwood's nuts-and-bolts approach was perfect.
For the Sake of Change
The magazine also had an article based on coinage, citing historical examples and encouraging game masters to try out something more exciting than the old copper and gold pieces. They should have regional origins, names, and values.
Chagmat and Devas
Dragon #63 also included the adventure 'Chagmat', which kind of confused me with the spiderfolk's weird gem-operated chambers but was fun to play nonetheless. I think the cavern encounters on Little Boy Mountain were as fun as the actual chagmat lair. I still laugh about the ogre named Muddah Rateater. I also liked the dangerous chasm where the PCs and the hobgoblin sentries could knock each over the edge of the bridge (there was a great illustration of a hobgoblin getting shoved over with a spear thrust).
Finally, we get the first sight of the devas, angelic (sort of) creatures who served the good deities of the game's pantheon. I believe they made it into the Monster Manual II hardback a few years later. In some ways, they seem more frightening than the D&D fiends.
That's all for the D&D epiphanies for this week. I'll do another series later on.
As I mentioned in the last post, Dragon #63 proved to be quite an epiphany for me. I'll get right to the articles that made this issue such a great treasure in my early gaming days.
The Big, Bad Barbarian
This is where Gygax introduced the barbarian class. A version of it appeared later in the Unearthed Arcana D&D source book a few years later (1986?). What I thought was so cool about the article - besides the class itself - was that Gygax devoted a lot of text to help the reader make sense of the assorted abilities the character could have. He put the abilities in context of real world barbaric/heroic societies and their equivalent in his World of Greyhawk setting.
Bandits and Bandit Kingdoms
Dragon #63 introduced the bandit NPC (non-player character) class, sort of a mix between ranger and thief. I used this one a few times. Ultimately, it seemed kind of underpowered but it still seemed pretty cool.
The issue also spent a few pages detailing the World of Greyhawk's Bandit Kingdoms, complete with brief leader and army stats. Of course, I can't recall most of the kingdom names, but I think Rookroost was one of them. This brings me to another tangent point about the interesting place names from the World of Greyhawk: I never played the setting, but the names of the regions, countries, and cities were so interesting, I had to bring them into my game. Those evocative names brought some kind of gravity to the vaguely-formed world in which we played.
In the next blog, I'll review some bits about monster societies and world-building.
Dragon #63 (July 1982) made a huge impression on the way I viewed Dungeons & Dragons as a game master (or Dungeon Master in the old tongue). It changed - rather, created - a worldview perspective from top to bottom for all those myriad adventures. This issue brought the concepts of monster societies and world-building to the game in a ways I'd never fully explored before. It offered me big ideas and tools for making them felt in an intimate way on the ground level of our games.
The rule books (especially the awesome 1st edition Dungeon Master's Guide) and TSR's adventure modules already encouraged the game master to think of D&D as something more than just a series of dungeon crawls, but Dragon #63 put it in just the right combination and concentration for me. I never felt the same way about the game.
First, take a look at the cover (see right). While I liked a lot of Dragon's covers, this one really seems to capture not only the essence of the issue, but the common reality of the medieval world - even if a fantasy one - bandits in the forest. This painting of highwaymen still resonates with me.
More to follow...
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