The Dragon #3, October 1976

We continue our long stretch of Dragon issues:

• The editorial by Tim Kask is an excellent piece discussing the relationship between the fiction we read and the games we play.  Apparently he received a small but vociferous backlash against the amount of fiction included in the last issue.  His argument is that our ability to imagine is dependent on our background and what we have been exposed to.  The richer our exposure to concepts - regardless of whether we like them or dislike them - the richer our imagination will be, and thus he defends the inclusion of fiction in the magazine in order to provide fuel for the reader's imagination.  I certainly agree with his argument in general, but I believe it's still not the right choice editorially.  I believe people subscribed to The Dragon because they wanted a gaming magazine.  Do fantasy gamers need to constantly expand their horizons through fiction?  Of course, but that's up to them to do in the time and manner of their choosing.  There are/were already magazines devoted to fantasy and sci-fi literature.  The Dragon would have been better served with a tighter focus (which is eventually what happened anyway of course, as it became virtually exclusively a D&D magazine).
• There's an article on female characters that's simultaneously hilarious, bizarre, and more than a little sexist.  I don't recall the original boxed set saying anything about female characters, I'd have to check, but I think the assumption was just that if you want to play a female character, you just do, and they follow the exact same rules.  This article seems to assume that female characters should be fundamentally different from male characters.  First, they only get 1d8+1d6 for strength, which I don't have a problem with, but then they have a beauty score instead of charisma, which I do take issue with.  It provides new lists of level names for women, which makes sense, since the normal level names are somewhat masculine, but here's where it really gets cringeworthy.  The first four levels for thieves are named "Wench", "Hag", "Jade", and "Succubus".  No joke.  Female thieves get the ability to do tarot readings as a special ability.  It gets worse, as all female characters, if I understand the rules correctly, get certain female-only spells, like Charm Man and Seduction (but only if their beauty score is high enough!).  Remember ladies, your only real talent is your ability to seduce men!
• Another article addresses the issue of character backstory for I believe the first time.  Finally someone thinks to address the question, "Where do all these player characters come from?"  It also introduces non-class occupations that players can have as a result of their background - a primitive form of non-weapon proficiencies.  It's nice to see sensibilities for this sort of thing appearing, as you know how much I've remarked on the story-less, XP grinding-only nature of the game at this point.
• The very first Finieous Fingers comic appears in this issue.  Finieous would stick around for a few years in the early life of Dragon and was a notable first in comics dedicated to roleplaying.
• In the Out on a Limb letters section, there's an amusing exchange between a fan who wants to be able to photocopy material from D&D books and TSR staff who are adamant that doing so amounts to ripping them off.  I have a minor interest in intellectual property law and have eagerly watched the battles of the last twenty years between content creators and consumers due to the internet's influence.  It's interesting to know that it's old hat and nothing really ever changes.  There's also a humorous flame war between two letter writers over Tolkien's elves.  One of the writers had contributed an article in a previous issue separating out the various kinds of elves according to Tolkien's work and writing up stats for them.  The second author wrote in to say that the first had no idea what he was talking about, to which the first replied the same.  The Silmarillion was still a year away at this point, which would settle all such contention.
• The quest for sub-classes continues, with articles in this issue creating classes for healers, samurai, and berserkers (who are sort of barbarians who can change into a were-shape in the frenzy of battle).  Obviously these never quite caught on like the bard and illusionist (although the samurai would appear in Oriental Adventures), but it again shows the tension in the game over the philosophy of classes.  There's also a write-up for a jester class, but I'm not sure if it's meant to be taken seriously or is just a joke.
• A very confusing article gives rules for sage specialists.  The author seems to not understand the D&D rules, and I'm not sure why the editor included this one.  The supposed purpose of these sages is to copy spells into mages' and clerics' spellbooks, which ignores the fact that mages can already do this and clerics don't even have spellbooks.
• A final article gives expanded rules for dwarves and opens up the cleric and thief classes to them (a change that obviously would become lasting).  It's also notable that it is one of the first instances of a particular type of optional rule that would appear in material through 2nd edition - demihumans being able to exceed their normal racial limits if their attributes are high enough.

There was a lot of content in this issue, and I love it because I feel it shows the imagination of the player base really taking off, seeking to expand the game in ways unforeseen by its creators - with mixed success, as the discussions above show, but in the evolution of any game there are of course going to be good ideas as well as bad ideas that lead to dead ends.