The Dragon #20, November 1978

So they decided to do a Halloween issue...in November...and the explanation is, um, November sucks apparently, so it needed something interesting?  Sounds more like someone couldn't get their material together in time for the holiday, but whatever.  40 years after the fact it's not like I actually care.

• <Sigh>, people are just dead set on adding every single mythos in the world as a Gods, Demigods, & Heroes supplement.  This month it's the Polynesian mythos.  Are we done now?  Can we be done?  I don't know if people actually liked this material or if it was just low hanging fruit as a way to get published in the magazine.
• Fitting the Halloween theme, there's a new article on a witch class (another appeared in an earlier edition), although these witches are a little more along the lines of historical druid-like witches vs the Satanic witches of the middle ages.  It's a pretty decent write-up for an amateur submission.  Of course, D&D would always take the official position that a witch was just a particular kind of wizard and didn't need their own class, but that obviously didn't stop people from trying.  In 2nd edition it would get the "kit" treatment at least once that I know of to placate fans.
• There's a terrific article on demon (or devil) summoning.  I always have been disappointed that D&D's summoning system...well, basically didn't exist.  There are so many interesting possibilities in building a detailed summoning system - researching the true names of summoned beings, the elements of summoning rituals, bargaining with summoned beings, etc.  But most summoning spells work just like any other spell.  The Cacodemon spell has a few elements thrown in, but it's still pretty meager.  This article goes into detail on rituals, the bargaining process, and the like.  It makes me wish for a more detailed magic system where it really pays off to specialize in schools of magic - whereas a fire wizard might become more powerful by learning more powerful fire spells (Burning Hands -> FireBall -> etc.), a summoner wizard would grow more powerful over time by gaining more and more powerful summoned creatures who served him (whether by force or by bargaining).
• There's a short but enlightening article by a DM who started keeping statistics on character death in his campaigns.  It ends up being a highly insightful look into the nature of the game at this point.  He recorded deaths only of player characters and their followers (not mercenaries or other NPCs), and recorded 600 in a 2-3 year period!  Can you imagine?  His tone indicates that most DMs still see their role as the adversary of the party, seeking to do them by any means necessary.  Obviously players under such a paradigm have to get used to rolling up characters one after another, as each previous one meets a new grisly end.  The statistics themselves aren't that interesting, with goblin-kin taking the top spot on the list of killers - not because they are the most dangerous foe, obviously, but because they are the most commonly encountered, and because they are often encountered in significant numbers.  I've said it before, but I'll be most interested to see the transition of the game from a hack and slash meat grinder that chews through player characters and enemies alike to more modern roleplaying sensibilities.
• Finally we get an article on demonic possession, something that never really made it into official material on demons and devils.  I don't know, maybe even Gary had his limits.  It's not very interesting - basically a demon possesses a party member who then most likely just attacks the rest of the party.  Still, like the article on summoning demons, I appreciate fans trying to add these aspects into the game.  I also wonder to what extent content like this came back to bite TSR when they had to start dealing with the Satanic panic of the 80s.  I guess we'll see in time.

That's all for this issue.  There was a lot of material devoted to other games, and besides the witch article and the two demonology-related articles it really wasn't much of a Halloween issue.  But now we get to an actual product again - the very first Basic D&D module - In Search of the Unknown.  I'll see you there.

The Dragon #19, October 1978

This issue of The Dragon falls right after the most recent GenCon and Origins, so it has a very con-heavy focus, debriefing a lot of what went on.

• There's an interesting article which gives a recap of one of the rounds at the Origins D&D tournament written from the perspective of one of the members of the winning team.  The team managed to complete both G1 and G2 modules and get most of the way through G3 before time was called.  I appreciate this because it gives a little more insight to how the game was played "back in the day".  Not surprisingly it's still a very "kick the door open and kill anything that moves," hack-and-slash kind of game.  Clever roleplaying merely consists of finding more creative and effective ways to hack and slash (and recover as much loot as possible).
• There's another article giving ideas on how to properly score a D&D tournament, which basically boils down to use as many objective (as opposed to subjective) measures as possible.  I'm not interested in the particulars of the article so much as I am just amused by the idea of a D&D tournament to begin with. I know it's always been around and is still around today, but to me personally, "competitive D&D" is an oxymoron.  It's not that I have anything against it really, and I can see the appeal to some people to the kind of game described above (like I've said before, I enjoy a little hack and slash myself every now and then).  It's just that whenever I've finished an adventure in a D&D campaign I've never found myself wondering if my group finished it "better" than another group might have.
• There's an article regarding managing magical wishes - always a sticky point for any DM. The article proposes assigning an alignment and strength level to wishes that come from magical objects in order to help the DM adjudicate the success of the wish, but ultimately I don't find the ideas very compelling.
• There's an article on creating treasures that proposes the radical idea that the treasure retrieved from a foe should have some kind of logical connection to that the foe.  I.e., a defeated thief would probably have thief-related treasure, as opposed to just whatever came up randomly on the tables in the DM's Guide. I wish this kind of sensibility had permeated the game more.
• And yet once more, because apparently players back then just loved this stuff, we get the Australian Aboriginal supplement for Gods, Demigods, and Heroes. Skip.
• There's an interesting article taking on spell caster progression, creating a new system of spell schools and requiring casters to learn spells in order by school. It's a nice way of taking on the inherent problem where a wizard can go his entire career never learning a single summoning spell, then suddenly learn an 8th level summoning spell at high level with no issue.  It also introduces a fatigue system for casting spells in place of normal Vancian rules.  It's a little rough as a system, but honestly just about anything is an improvement on the Vancian rules.

There was a decent amount of Gamma World material in this issue, but that about wraps it up.  I'll end with the beginning - the cover art for this issue.

The cover art for The Dragon has never been exceptional to this point, but...what the heck is that even supposed to be?  It looks vaguely like a dragon head, but made out of plants?? I'm not going to lie, I'm looking forward to the 80s when the artwork starts to become more professional.  Stick with me and we'll eventually get there. 

D3 Vault of the Drow

We finish up the D series with this module, and again, it follows the same format as the previous two:

• There are three detailed minor encounters: a Drow checkpoint, a nest of giant spiders, and most interestingly, a cave in which dwells a succubus and her vampire Drow lover.  A pretty interesting concept roleplaying-wise, but again, the only thing to do here is just kick down the door and kill them.  The giant spider nest has a pretty cool idol of Lolth that gives its possessor the powers of a spider, but makes them completely possessive of the item and gradually turns them into a giant spider.  This is why you never touch the obvious item of evil.
• I haven't touched on it yet in previous modules, but the D series introduced not only the Drow, but also the concept of their adamantite weapons and armor.  This gives all such items a bonus of +1 to +5, even though the items are not actually magical.  The module gives plenty of rules to make sure the party can't benefit from them though (at least outside of these modules).  Adamantite items decay if exposed to sunlight, and they lose their bonus in any case if removed from the Drow homeland for more than a month, as they get their powers from the special "radiation" in the underworld.  It's purely a gimmick by Gary to up the difficulty factor of the modules, since they're designed for characters level 9 and up.  I'm a software developer, and in software there's a concept called "code smell".  If you're looking at some code that works but still doesn't seem right, it is called a code smell and sometimes indicates a deeper problem in the architecture of the system.  Having to artificially create a gimmick like this to increase the difficulty of a module without also giving away the bank and letting characters walk out with an entire armory's worth of magical weapons and armor from defeated enemies is an RPG smell, and indicates a deeper fundamental problem in the rules - namely a flaw in the design of the hit and armor class system progression.
• And so we come to the titular vault, and there's an explanation of how minerals in the roof give a dim illumination to everything.  It's a vaguely scientific explanation, where a mineral called tumkeoite radioactively decays into lacofcite, giving off a ghostly purple glow in doing so.  "Tumkeoite" is actually a play on the name of Tom Keogh (whom you may recognize from the eponymous Keogh's Ointment), while "lacofcite" is a play on Len Lakofka.
• This module takes a similar tack to D2 that I just find a bit puzzling.  If the players have collected the medallions they've found on defeated Drow in previous encounters, then they can present them when they enter the vault and basically have free run of the place.  Just like the shrine, even though this is a place full of villains, they can just wander around.  The modules have made clear that the Drow (and the Kuo-Toa of the previous module, too) hate surface dwellers, but when surface dwellers show up to their respective areas, as long as they have the right tchotchkes, everything's just cool apparently.  I realize that the logical alternative - a city full of Drow who kill surface dwellers on sight - would be untenable, but I still just feel there was a better way.
• At last we arrive at the Drow city of Erelhei-Cinlu.  Gary created the name by using the first syllable of each of his kids' names (Ernie, Elise, Heidi, Cindy, and Luke).  It's a tremendously intriguing place - a dangerous, decadent, and depraved hive of evil, full of every sin and vice imaginable.  Demons, vampires, and more wander the streets (as if the Drow weren't dangerous enough), and the party is warned that they wander the back streets at their peril.  But all that appears in the module is just a few paragraphs slightly more expansive than what I just gave you.  There are no particular locations detailed, no NPCs, just a vague description, and if the party wants to do more than wander the streets aimlessly for random encounters, it's up to the DM to create something to do.  It's just so head-scratching to me, and completely counter to what you would expect to find in a modern adventure.
• FINALLY, six modules into this series (including the three G modules) we actually are told in full what the story is!  Can you believe this?  I mean, I understand that from the players' point of view it's supposed to be an unfolding mystery, but usually you don't want to keep the DM in the dark as well.  So here in full is the story behind these modules: Drow society is made up of multiple noble houses that vie with one another for power.  The most powerful house, Eilservs, has contended that Drow society needs a queen to unify it (which naturally should come from them, being the most powerful).  A coalition of less powerful houses, backed by the priestesses of Lolth, has opposed Eilservs and its own allies.  As a result, Eilservs has forsaken the worship of Lolth and pledged themselves to an Elder Elemental God (whose shrine appeared in G3), and Drow society is now in a sort of cold war over the issue.  Eilservs, led by the priestess Eclavdra, has attempted to gain power by moving to the surface, creating a coalition of giants and other evil creatures, and spreading the worship of their deity.  She had hoped to gain enough power through this plan to install herself as Queen.  This is what was behind the coordinated giant raids on civilized lands, and what the party has been thwarting.  The thing is, this little detail of the story is only given to the DM, almost as a side note in numbered location description of the Eilservs compound.  In no place is the party given any hooks or means of finding this out on their own.  It's like the players have to go hunting for the story, which again is so counter to how adventures should be written.  I try not to get too frustrated over this - I mean, to be fair, Gary is literally inventing the art of writing adventures as he goes, so obviously it will take some time to get the kinks out.
• This module introduces daemons (the *-loth creatures of 2nd edition), specifically the mezzodaemon and nycadaemon.  One thing I'll say about D&D is that I do like it's demonology, from the pact making devils, to the mercenary daemons, to the plain monstrous demons.  There are still some things I would change, but overall it's one of the things I feel D&D did really well monster-wise.
• The party can fight Lolth in this module if desired.  The whole presentation of her is very confusing to me.  It makes it clear that she is a demon lord and resides on a plane in the Abyss, but at the same time it makes it sound like she lives full time in the Drow temple to her.  I guess it's her avatar or something, but considering that 99% of the content of all the G and D series modules consists of just detailing the combat abilities or treasure of things the party can fight, I'm not surprised it's not well explained.

And with that we wrap up both this module and the D series.  I'll leave you with what is without doubt the most awesome part of this module - a drawing of a hypothetical battle with Lolth.  Now in this drawing the wizard is actually supposed to be flying, but the artwork does a poor job of making that clear, so instead he appears to be doing a flying karate kick at Lolth.  He's the man!