I have little to say about this issue. It is almost completely devoted to material for Empire of the Petal Throne. If you're not familiar with it, EPT was one of the very first roleplaying games. I want to say it was the second after D&D, being released in 1975 only a year after the original boxed set, but I can't find a source that can positively confirm that. It was created by M.A.R. Barker who was inspired after seeing D&D to create his own game. TSR purchased the distribution rights and it became one of their standard products early on, although it never really achieved widespread popularity like D&D.
The setup is interesting - it is a fantasy game, but yet takes place tens of thousands of years in the future. The premise is that far in the future a planet is colonized by technologically advanced humans. Then, for reasons not understood, the entire solar system the planet is in becomes trapped in its own pocket dimension, separated from the rest of the galaxy. Cut off from civilization and nearly destroyed by cataclysm, over the next fifty thousand years society reverts to a primitive state, but artifacts from the previous age of technology can still be found and used, if not understood. The shift to a pocket dimension also allows for contact with extra-planar beings, some of whom become the new gods of the world, and access to extra-planar powers allows magic to work.
It's an interesting setting, but it's not D&D material, which is what I'm really here for, so I don't have much to say about it. I will comment that settings like this seemed to be a theme in the 70s - a technological age that has suffered catastrophe and devolved to a more primitive state. Just in roleplaying alone you have EPT, Metamorphosis Alpha, and Gamma World. I suppose with the Cold War, the end of Vietnam, trouble in the Middle East, and inflation it's not surprising that it was a difficult time whose zeitgeist produced pessimistic views of the future of humanity.
Fortunately The Dragon is still bimonthly at this point, so we only have a few more to go before getting back to actual products. Join me next time for another issue.
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