- The first D&D-related material of the magazine is an article regarding high level monk advancement. The monk class introduced the concept of there being a limited number of characters of high level, and once a monk reaches a certain level, to advance he must defeat the next higher level monk in a challenge (a concept that was reused in the druid class and which lasted even into 2nd edition). The article outlines a combat system for resolving these challenges. One might naturally ask why it couldn't be resolved with the normal combat rules, which is what Supplement II: Blackmoor assumed in describing the process. Of course it could, but I find this article fascinating because it shows a desire even at the very beginning of D&D for more tactical combat. D&D at least through 2nd edition always suffered from "I attack with my sword...again" syndrome. Combat was simple, but it was also too abstract, and fighters literally had nothing to do but declare which creature they were attacking and roll to hit. The solution of course is a more detailed combat system, but its extremely easy to go too far and make combat a cumbersome affair where every encounter takes an hour to resolve. The system presented here, while somewhat interesting for a primitive attempt, is just that. It's a nice addition for special combats like monk advancement, but far too onerous for normal kobold swatting. While I have mixed feelings about 4th edition, one thing it did excel at is providing a good tactical combat system that didn't get bogged down in its own rules. As a final note, the author's homemade artwork demonstrating the various martial arts moves is simultaneously both adorable and awful:
- This issue is very fiction-heavy - I'm sure a deliberate effort on the part of the editor to create a more general fantasy magazine. There's the second part of Gygax's "The Gnome Cache", a short story set in Greyhawk. There's the conclusion of a short story started in the previous issue, which is a silly dungeon-crawl with 4th wall / anachronistic humor. Finally there's a short story by Gardner Fox starring his new protagonist, Niall of the Far Travels, which is a Conan pastiche, although it's not a half-bad read for fans of sword & sorcery fiction. I'm actually taking notes on the Gnome Cache stories, as I'm interesting to see if the various elements mentioned (mostly geographical locations) ended up actually making it into the formal Greyhawk campaign setting.
- There's a the conclusion of a three part series titled, "Hints for D&D Judges". I don't believe I've commented on this one before, as the previous two installments weren't particularly noteworthy. This one though caught my attention though because it emphasizes the comments I've been making about the tone of D&D at this point in its history. It contains suggestions for dungeon elements. Among its gems:
- A chest which is intelligent and fights the party as a 2nd to 9th level magic user.
- A suggestion that after the party defeats a red dragon, they discover that his "gold" is actually chocolate-centered candy.
- Gems that are worth 500 gold pieces, but which can be commanded to turn into a random monster - anything from a kobold to a dragon.
This is what I'm talking about when I discuss the non-serious tone of early gaming. There's no concern with any kind of verisimilitude when creating dungeons. An intelligent chest that can cast spells? Why not? I know some people react with the attitude of, "In a world with magic, being concerned with realism is pointless," but I contend that suspension of disbelief is not an infinite resource available to the participant.
- This issue's Creature Features introduces the remorhaz, one of the more interesting original creatures for D&D.
- An article introduces an alchemist class for the game. While the bard and illusionist classes started in The Strategic Review / The Dragon and eventually made their way into the core game, the alchemist is one of those classes that never quite did. However, the concept has always appealed to a certain portion of the player base, and thus write-ups of the class will continue to appear in later editions of the game in magazines and non-core sourcebooks. The core issue is ultimately the philosophy behind defining a "class". TSR made it clear up through 2nd edition that their philosophy was that classes were meant to be very general, and that you didn't need a plethora of specific classes. Alchemists and witches - two of the most commonly requested "additional" classes - to them were just particular kinds of wizards and didn't need their own class (there's a specific discussion on this in one of the 2nd edition products, but I can't recall which one). Personally I'm not a fan of the class concept at all, and prefer skill-based rule sets where the philosophy is "you are what you do".
- A final article - by the same author as the previous one - gives us some weapon rules that are a primitive version of weapon specialization and two-weapon fighting.
Join me next time as we continue to look at The Dragon's formative issues.
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