# "Classic" Dragon Articles



## Erik Mona (Feb 2, 2004)

When you and your friends talk about Dragon Magazine, what articles do you always mention? Which, from any period in the magazine's history, stand out as "classics" to you?

For myself, I'd list Ed Greenwood's overview of the Nine Hells (way back in 1st edition days) and the critical hit article "Good Hits and Bad Misses" as articles I'll remember forever, if not use immediately in my game. Others, like Len Lakofka's "Suel Pantheon" series go on my list because they're of historical interest to Greyhawk fans like myself.

What are your favorites? Your input will really help me for a top secret project I'm working on.

Thanks!

Erik Mona
Editor-in-Chief
Dungeon Magazine


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## Olgar Shiverstone (Feb 2, 2004)

"The Ecology of ..."

"Wizards Three"

Gary's original "From the Sorcerer's Scroll", especially the one introducing the cavalier ...


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## Glyfair (Feb 2, 2004)

I'll start with two that might not be what you are looking for.

The old "Giants in the Earth" series regularly gets mentioned.  Unfortunately, I don't think it could exist today, in that format (the most recent incarnation was a pale shadow of the original).

Fictionwise, the Niall of the Far Travels series stands out.  Indeed, it is probably the only fiction in (the) Dragon that I read regularly.

The Nine Hells article definitely stands out.  Many of the articles that would stand out don't seem to innovative now, because they worked their way into the core D&D system (non-human deities, certain classes).  The original "Anti-Paladin" article got a lot of reaction for years after it appeared, even though that wasn't our style of game.


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## EricNoah (Feb 2, 2004)

Erik Mona said:
			
		

> When you and your friends talk about Dragon Magazine, what articles do you always mention? Which, from any period in the magazine's history, stand out as "classics" to you?




Roger Moore's articles on the various demi-human races (elves, halflings, etc.) practically defined the cultures of these races.  

Anything that added to the official canon in the early days was a welcome sight.  Examples: new illusionist spells, the thief-acrobat, etc.

Before there was a Dungeon Adventures, any issue that had a module in it was pretty special.  

Ed Greenwood did at least one article on worldbuilding before FR was a published setting.  You mentioned his Hells articles; very memorable indeed!

I'll never forget Tom Wham's "File 13" boardgame.  The names of the fake games were hilarious!


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## Olive (Feb 2, 2004)

My friends and I don't talk about _Dragon_ articles, but the one I always hear about and want to read is the Nine Hells article you mention.


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## talinthas (Feb 2, 2004)

the wizards three by far and away.  but then, i love anything even remotely dragonlancy =)


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## Ycore Rixle (Feb 2, 2004)

I agree that the Hells articles and Roger Moore's Viewpoint articles were very good and very memorable. My personal top three and other favorites include:

Top three:

My favorite Dragon issue of all time is 114, with the Witch NPC class.

Second favorite would have to be 148 with the Deck of Many Things insert (wasn't this in a Dungeon too?).

Our group really loved the comparatively recent issue (267 I think) with the avolakian, nerephtys, and ulgurstasta monsters. We had a great NPC avolakia lawyer, Slinkmor Vorshannen. Avolakia make great scheming shysters.

Others of note:

Gary Gygax's article "Let's Start Pushing the Pendulum the Other Way" from issue 100. Going on memory here, but I think that was the title and the issue.

The Nogard special insert that ran in one April issue. It had the Hopeless character class and the Random Damage table, which were both hilarious.

The adventures were all special and memorable, in particular the London museum adventure.

The Voyage of the Princess Ark series was neat and inspired a lot of ideas.


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## GreyShadow (Feb 2, 2004)

Ed's Nine Hells articles.
The Voyage of the Princess Ark series
The psionics issue with the Deryni
The older Ecology articles.


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## Richards (Feb 2, 2004)

I always loved the "Ecology" articles, even before I started contributing to them myself.

Oh, and of course the "Tucker's kobolds" editorial.

Johnathan


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## Grazzt (Feb 2, 2004)

- The Creature Feature articles from way, way back in the early issues.

- "Good Hits, Bad Misses"

- The Anti-Paladin article

- Len Lakofka's "Leomund's Tiny Hut" column, esp. the Deathmaster, Cloistered Cleric

- The Nine Hells stuff from #75, #76

- "The Politics of Hell" by Alexander Von Thorn (great name for a great article)


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## Twiggly the Gnome (Feb 2, 2004)

The *Voyage of the Princess Ark* series and the *Ares Section* are the first things that come to my mind. Though I'm particularly fond of issue #146 (the Thirteenth Aniversery issue), it's probably the only issue of Dragon that I ever read cover to cover.


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## Piratecat (Feb 2, 2004)

The articles on the tesseracts from Best of Dragon 1. I've gotten some _amazingly_ good adventures out of those two articles.


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## Sir Osis of Liver (Feb 2, 2004)

The wizard's three and the ecologies, especially the one featuring the monster hunters guild. Ecology of the flumph is probably one of my all time fovorite articles.


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## Silveras (Feb 2, 2004)

Most of mine have been hit already. 
I'd like to second the mentions for Len Lakofka's "Leomund's Tiny Hut" articles -- especially the Cloistered Cleric, and the treatment of pre-1st level training for all character classes. 

Next, the psionics articles on the Deryni, also previously mentioned. 

The Witch NPC issue. 

Other articles that come to mind as being immediately useful were: 
"Survival is a group effort", on population growth
"An army travels on its stomach", on what food is produced per hex of land

A more recent "classic" would be Ray Winninger's series on worldbuilding.


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## Davelozzi (Feb 2, 2004)

In general, "Ecology of..." and "Campaign Classics".  

Specifically, a lot of the Dark Sun articles that ran back in the day were great.  Although I've always enjoyed Dark Sun, it was not my favorite campaign back then, but many of the Dark Sun articles got photocopied, thrown in the boxed set and stuck around to become an indespensible part of the game.

To contrast, Forgotten Realms was my favorite campaign for much of my younger gaming years, yet F.R. articles were rarely of interest, in my opinion.  I guess there was just too much of them.  It often seemed like "oh great...another dragon, another bunch of magic swords, and other inn laced with wards."

I also really enjoyed the Forum section of the magazine, although with the advent of the internet and great places like this, I can see why it went away.


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## Sir Osis of Liver (Feb 2, 2004)

> Specifically, a lot of the Dark Sun articles that ran back in the day were great. Although I've always enjoyed Dark Sun, it was not my favorite campaign back then, but many of the Dark Sun articles got photocopied, thrown in the boxed set and stuck around to become an indespensible part of the game.




I had forgot about the Dark-sun articles. Did the same thing, myself. They were really well done.


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## Aeolius (Feb 2, 2004)

DRAGON #125 "Ecology of the Greenhag" by Nigel Findley


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## Orius (Feb 2, 2004)

Erik Mona said:
			
		

> When you and your friends talk about Dragon Magazine, what articles do you always mention? Which, from any period in the magazine's history, stand out as "classics" to you?
> 
> For myself, I'd list Ed Greenwood's overview of the Nine Hells (way back in 1st edition days) and the critical hit article "Good Hits and Bad Misses" as articles I'll remember forever, if not use immediately in my game.




Critical hit arcitcle?  Was that the infamous crit tale from #39?  And wasn't #39 the same on that had the old anti-paladin article?

If so, I'd consider them both classics.  I've never even _seen_ that issue (my earliest issue is #217), and yet I've heard of those articles.  So take it from there.


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## DaveStebbins (Feb 2, 2004)

I'll add my vote for Roger's demihuman articles and add _Best Wishes_ from (I think) issue #49. I paid to photocopy that one as soon as it came out. (Man, do I feel old!)

-Dave


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## Orius (Feb 2, 2004)

Davelozzi said:
			
		

> To contrast, Forgotten Realms was my favorite campaign for much of my younger gaming years, yet F.R. articles were rarely of interest, in my opinion.  I guess there was just too much of them.  It often seemed like "oh great...another dragon, another bunch of magic swords, and other inn laced with wards."




I'm kind of the opposite.  I'm not a big Realms player, but I always thought Greenwood's  Wyrms of the North series was good.  Some of those dragons were very interesting.



> I also really enjoyed the Forum section of the magazine, although with the advent of the internet and great places like this, I can see why it went away.




Ehh.  Go pick up a back issue of Dragon, read the forum letters and you'll see, more often then not, letters complaining about the same type of things we post here.  Some thinings in D&D _never_ change.


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## TeaBee (Feb 2, 2004)

Erik Mona said:
			
		

> When you and your friends talk about Dragon Magazine, what articles do you always mention? Which, from any period in the magazine's history, stand out as "classics" to you?



The Bestiary
Campaign Corner
Class Acts
Faiths of Faerun
Living Greyhawk Journal (all the sub-articles)
Rogues Gallery


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## NeghVar (Feb 2, 2004)

The Beastiary
Leomund's Tiny Hut
Critical Hits

Also - The Missing Dragons - Orange, Yellow, and Purple (would love to see an update)

Thanks!


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## S'mon (Feb 2, 2004)

Grazzt said:
			
		

> - - "The Politics of Hell" by Alexander Von Thorn (great name for a great article)




I agree with that one.  The article I still think about most was "The Highs & Lows of Fantasy" (in the 140s I think).  I enjoyed most of the Princess Ark series.


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## AFGNCAAP (Feb 2, 2004)

I apologize if I wind up repeating a lot of stuff that has already been mentioned, but then again, I hope it adds weight to the stuff that's come up before.

*  Elemental Gods

*  The Missing Dragons--Orange, Yellow, & Purple

*  The Gem Dragons article (esp. mentioning their singular god-like dragon, the Ruby Dragon, IIRC)

*  Guild of the Black Hand (August 1990 issue)

*  The Last Call Inn (also from August 1990 issue)

*  Roger Moore's articles on demi-human cultures & deities.

*  The "Good Hits, Bad Misses" article/tables.

*  The Winter Elves

*  Giants in the Earth: esp. the Nodwick one, Beowulf one, & Ged/Sparrowhawk one

*  Voyage of the Princess Ark, esp. ones which introduced new class options for OD&D (like the bard & half-elves)

*  SnarfQuest

*  What's New!

*  Dragon Mirth (liked a lot of the Joe Pillsbury comics from that section)

*  An article on the "other metallic dragons"--mentioned ones such as the iron dragon & vanadium dragon, IIRC

*  (yet another) Article on dragons that introduced the Raindow Dragon & Gray Dragon (IIRC, also had the Cobra Dragon)

*  An article that covered different materials for constructing arms & armor (back when the type of material used dictated how high of a magical bonus armor or a weapon could have)

_And for some non-D&D ones (i.e., honorable mention):_

*  The Marvel Phile!

*  The Eye of the Monitor series (IIRC)--basically reviewed various computer games, & the back part of the article was a Hints section submitted by readers (Man, did that ever help me with a couple of Ultima games)


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## Erekose (Feb 2, 2004)

Another vote for Roger Moore's articles on the demi-human races.


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## Felon (Feb 2, 2004)

When I think of old _Dragon_ articles, a lot of truly outrageous stuff comes to mind, like OTT character classes that had 4 or 5 pages worth of class features. Anyone else remember the ninja or the jester? Those authors didn't think for a second that they should be trimmed down to resemble something reasonable. But then again, why should they have? Everyone knew they were strictly for NPC's only.....

Riiiiight!   

Probably the one article that I always wanted to dig up was from back in 1989. It was an article on little-known 0-level spells, like "Find Earth" (which causes the caster to immediately fall down face-first and take 1d4 points of damage) and "Fiery Breath" (with a material component consisting of jalapeno pepper). They were pretty hilarious. Wish I could remember them all.


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## frankthedm (Feb 2, 2004)

The article on keeping modern morality out of D&D.

Old ecologies 

Creature Collections

Articles on other RPGs. Dragon was a hell of a better place for these than Dungeon


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## Daffyd (Feb 2, 2004)

I got Dragon from about #71 to #130+

The Tom Wham game 'King of the Table Top'. I cut and pasted most of the games but that one I played over and over with my brothers and wore the counters out. 

One _very_ good short story where a girl was playing in an online dungeon/labyrinth. This was a years before the advent of the internet.

The combat calculator. Glued it to cardboard, covered it with clear contact. I never looked at the combat tables in the DMG, always used this. A bit late to ask now but: how officially accurate was it?   

And the ecology of articles.

Now I'm going to look up all those old issues.


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## Wippit Guud (Feb 2, 2004)

I thought someone would've already said "The Whole Half-Ogre" by now...

Gem Dragons

"A Different Bard, Not Quite so Hard" cause I hated the 3 class thing you had to go through.

Anti-Paladin... and wasn't there an article with a paladin for each alignment?

"The Worthless Character"

Forget the name of the article, but it featured toothpicks of lightning, the onyx ball, the staff ON striking.


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## Cthulhu's Librarian (Feb 2, 2004)

Wormy
 The "Ecology of..." articles
 The Marvel Super Heros articles 

 So much more that I can't remember this early in the morning.


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## Ariddrake (Feb 2, 2004)

There was an article I remeber seeing that had the stats for Satan in an old dragon mag. He\she had like 666 hitpoints and a successful attack did 1d10damage+death ( I thought that was really funny). 

I also like the ecology of articles.


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## WayneLigon (Feb 2, 2004)

Daffyd said:
			
		

> One _very_ good short story where a girl was playing in an online dungeon/labyrinth. This was a years before the advent of the internet.



I'm going to have to fire up the magazine archive CD and re-read that one. I loved it, and still do. It was amazing prophetic, as well  

There was a lot of good fiction. 'The Gun That Shot Too Straight' comes to mind. The story of the trial of the doctor who removed people's sensory abilities (_They_ came to _me_!). The story about the evil-tainted swamp. John Gregory Betancourt's 'Slabs' stories. Certainly _Niall of the Far Travels_. _Child of Ocean_ by Eluki bes Shahar. The one about the kid who tries to bind a dragon as a familiar. 

The _Ecology Of.._ articles. The fiction bits about the Will-o-the-Wisp and the Harpy still give me creeps. The more recent one on the Feyr had the same effect 

A second shout-out to the _Leomund's Tiny Hut_, esp. for the Cloistered Cleric and the Deryni articles. 

Greenwood's first article (I think): _From the City of Brass to Dead Orc Pass_, about gates and D&D. I think this is the first mention of any FR location; others appeared in his articles on gems and designing a fantasy calendar (_The Merry Month of... Myrtul?),_ and you first began to realize 'man, this guy has a tremendously detailed world behind these articles...'. 

Katherine Kerr's articles (She'd later go on to write the _Deverry_ series of books)


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## Desdichado (Feb 2, 2004)

I don't know if they're "classics" or not, but I especially seem to hear a lot about Ray Winninger's Dungeoncraft run from a few years ago.

Heck, I'd like to see Aris (or whatever he called that setting) developed a bit more, updated to 3e (grumble, or 3.5 I suppose) and published as a book.


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## Faraer (Feb 2, 2004)

For me, all the best _Dragon_ material is tied to a specific world: Ed Greenwood's 200-odd Realms articles, everything by Gary Gygax, Bruce Heard's Mystara work, and others. Good stuff too from Robin Laws and Ray Winninger, but mostly the 'idea' articles and the pieces not anchored to a named setting are ephemeral and not the sort of thing you refer to later. Building memorable depth and emotion in an isolated non-narrative article is just too hard.


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## Omand (Feb 2, 2004)

Hello,

It looks like my memories/experiences with Dragon are a bit different from the majority posting here.  For what it is worth, here are some of my favourites (I will post more as I think of them).

- "Charging Isn't Cheap" forget the author & issue, but between #120 and #170 I think.  Great ideas article on spicing up magic items.

- "Whaddya Mean Jack the Samurai?" another article I forget the author and issue # of, but a great name generator for Oriental campaigns.

- There was also an article, who's title I have forgetten, that gave the folk properties of gemstones, and general values of the gemstones as well.  It was a great flavour article in that you could then use gems for reasons other than wealth in the game with some built in "known" properties.  Things like rubies attracting lightning, moonstones causing/influencing lycanthropy, etc.

- Another article whose title I have forgotten detailed fantasy cities/medieval cities and adaptations required for sieges, etc.  For example, how woould a higher magic D&D setting have influenced Minas Tirith in the LotR?  Umber Hulks chewing through the foundations, etc.  Great article on how to adapt cities to the high magic fantasy standard without having them become death traps for citizens when an enemy army marches up to the gates.  This one was in around the #170-180 range, I believe.

- The Ecology articles, generally enjoyed them, but prefer the new (3E) format to the old format, except for the Monster Hunters Association ones.  I LOVED the Monster Hunter Association take on Ecology.

Ray Winneger's Dungeoncraft articles on the WotC website were one of the main reasons I started subscribing again.  I enjoy the column in its new form as well, but the old version hooked me.

- Snarfquest, Wormy, Nodwick, loved them.

Cheers


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## DaveMage (Feb 2, 2004)

As was said earlier in the thread, the "Deck of Many Things" was a sweet bonus.  I'd love to see more stuff like that.

Also, I'd love a monthly feature highlighting locales/info on the various planes of existance.


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## Arnwyn (Feb 2, 2004)

Erik Mona said:
			
		

> For myself, I'd list Ed Greenwood's overview of the Nine Hells (way back in 1st edition days) and the critical hit article "Good Hits and Bad Misses" as articles I'll remember forever,



Holy crap. You mentioned the first two that popped into my mind (which I had cut-out and *still* use to this very day. Yes, really).

Others:
- the Nine Hells articles from around the same time
- "Horses Are People, Too" - detailing rules, stats, and guidelines for horses
- Deck of Many Things bonus
- Wizards Three
- Elminster's Notebook/Guide to the Realms/etc
- Roger Moore's demihumans article
- update of older campaigns for 3.5 (this one is destined to be a classic)


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## frankthedm (Feb 2, 2004)

Omand said:
			
		

> Hello,
> 
> - "Whaddya Mean Jack the Samurai?" another article I forget the author and issue # of, but a great name generator for Oriental campaigns.




who woulda thunk


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## mearls (Feb 2, 2004)

Erik Mona said:
			
		

> When you and your friends talk about Dragon Magazine, what articles do you always mention? Which, from any period in the magazine's history, stand out as "classics" to you?




Keeping in mind that I didn't buy Dragon from 93 to 99, I really liked:

* The PC and NPC classes. They provided a nice change of pace, particularly the jester, archer, death master, and anti-paladin.

* The article on playing aarakocra as characters, though this might be influenced by the old computer RPG Knights of Legend, which allowed you to created winged characters.

* The Warhammer FRP review from back in the day. This might seem like a funny choice, but it was very thorough and even gave an overview of all the fantasy RPGs on the market. It really give me a clear idea of what was out there.

* Wormy.

* I liked the articles that had a theme tying together new spells and new magic items. I can still remember the spells of Odeen clearer than a random jumble of druid spells.


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## the Jester (Feb 2, 2004)

'The Politics of Hell.'

The articles on the Nine Hells already mentioned.

The "Point of View" racial articles by Roger Moore.

'The Ecology of...' articles.

*Wormy!!!*


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## Shade (Feb 2, 2004)

The Nine Hells articles
The Dragon's Bestiary
Creature Catalog I, II, and III
The master indices to multiple books
Wyrms of the North


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## talinthas (Feb 2, 2004)

god, how did i forget Dungeoncraft?  That series of articles was instrumental in making me a better DM.  i still reference them today.


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## Kid Charlemagne (Feb 2, 2004)

There was an excellent feature on ships in one of the older issues (probably between #90-150)- unfortunately there have been other, less well-done ship articles.  

"The Day of the Dwarf" short story.

The Nine Hells deserve another mention.

The very first Forgotten Realms article, written as an example of how to build a world.  Before it became a TSR property.


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## diaglo (Feb 2, 2004)

Olgar Shiverstone said:
			
		

> "The Ecology of ..."
> 
> "Wizards Three"
> 
> Gary's original "From the Sorcerer's Scroll"...





the above and Wormy


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## Erik Mona (Feb 2, 2004)

Keep these responses coming, folks. They're very, very helpful.

Thanks!

--Erik Mona
Who's Planning Big Things


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## WayneLigon (Feb 2, 2004)

Kid Charlemagne said:
			
		

> "The Day of the Dwarf" short story.



Good lord, I cannot beleive I forgot this story. That was amazing. 'Battlecloud Galactica' indeed.. There was also the 'My Husband is the DM' short. One of my favorites involved (I think) Len Lakofka detailing what happened to their characters in G2 (The phrase about someone's druid hitting a monster 'with the force of a forest' has stuck in my mind for years), and in the early Metamorphasis Alpha game. Mmm, black ray pistols and androids. 

OK, tonight I'm just going to sit down with the Magazine Archives and make notes on what I liked, and why. I have a lot of fond _Dragon_ memories.


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## Sir Whiskers (Feb 2, 2004)

The "Monty Haul" articles from the early days (they were like Knight of the Dinner Table, just without art).

Sturmgeshutz and Sorcery, or How Effective is a Panzerfaust against a Troll (from _The Strategic Review_)

Birth Tables for DnD - archaic now, it was used extensively by my first couple gaming groups.

Let There be a Method to your Madness. An early article that had great advice on realistic dungeon design.

A relatively early issue carried the winner of the dungeon design contest - I still remember the cursed npc who could never leave the dungeon. Wish I could remember the issue number...

Ray Winninger's Dungeoncraft - probably the best series run in the Dragon (IMO)

Wyrms of the North

Regular columns:
Ecology of...
Bestiary
Bazaar of the Bizarre
Leomund's Tiny Hut
Fineous Fingers

And lots more from the early years that I can't remember off-hand (the memory's the first thing to go...   )


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## Cthulhu's Librarian (Feb 2, 2004)

There was an article on intelligent swords somewhere between issues 90-120 (or maybe it was in the old White Dwarf magazine?) that saw a good bit of use when I was in high school. And the "Treasure Troves" articles (I think that's what they were called).


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## MrFilthyIke (Feb 2, 2004)

GreyShadow said:
			
		

> The Voyage of the Princess Ark series




I'll put my vote in for Princess Ark as well, I loved that series.


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## Joshua Randall (Feb 2, 2004)

Some of my favorites:

* An article on runes, including a runic alphabet. (Dethek?) As a bonus, had some runic riddles which were campaign seeds in their own right. ("I guard beneath / Rubies three, sapphires three / And crown of gold." - Who _doesn't_ want to find that location?)

* "Be aware, take care: principles of adventuring success" - or something like that. Advice to the players about how to keep their PCs alive. Somewhat dated now, in that D&D has evolved beyond its DM-vs-players paradigm. But a new series for the players (rather than endless templates and upgrades for monsters = the DM) would be welcome.

* The aforementioned story about the girl playing what we would now call a Multi-User Dungeon (MUD) or MMORPG was outstanding. I still have the battered, dogeared copy of that magazine somewhere. (It has an illustration of a black dragon being soothed by a bard on the cover.)

* An article describing the six ability scores. Was very good on differentiating Intelligence from Wisdom and Strength from Constitution. An update for the modern era would be especially helpful to new players.

* "Of rogue-stones and gem-jumping", one of Ed Greenwood's Realms articles. Some of this material made its way into the FRCS, but not the evocative backstories. (Again - campaign seeds!)


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## Bloodstone Press (Feb 2, 2004)

> and wasn't there an article with a paladin for each alignment?




 Yeah, there was. I can't remember which issue it was in now, but I know my group used it a lot in those days. 

 I'd also vote for:
The anti-paladin article. 
The Politics of Hell
The Tesseract


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## Henry (Feb 2, 2004)

OH, GOOD GOD! I JUST REMEMBERED!

I haven't seen it mentioned yet, but from Dragon, somewhere in the #70 to #82 issues, the two "Be Aware, Take Care" articles by Lew Pulsipher. EVERY person that fancies themselves as playing an adventurer NEEDS to read the sneaky tactics and good advice that Pulsipher gives in these articles. I have never seen its like since, and have several times considered doing a 3E version of the advice therein for an ENWorld Player's Journal, or some such.

THESE TWO ARTICLES NEED TO BE REBORN.


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## Olive (Feb 2, 2004)

Felon said:
			
		

> When I think of old _Dragon_ articles, a lot of truly outrageous stuff comes to mind, like OTT character classes that had 4 or 5 pages worth of class features. Anyone else remember the ninja or the jester? Those authors didn't think for a second that they should be trimmed down to resemble something reasonable. But then again, why should they have? Everyone knew they were strictly for NPC's only...




This is one of the great things about 3e. You don't generally need a billion base classes, because skills, feats and PrCs let you create these options within the basic class structure.


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## MerricB (Feb 2, 2004)

Gygax's "From the Sorceror's Scroll" articles. Even if he can't spell, seeing the game in development was great. (Much the same reason I think the "Behind the Curtain" sidebars in the 3E rules are fascinating). I'd love to see more of that sort of column from the designers of D&D.

That recent article on bloodline feats (Dragon 311 - Arcane Ancestry). I really enjoyed that one, and created a feat based on the Cat Lord bloodline for my game. 

Precious little else. I enjoy Dragon, but not much really gets incorporated into my game...

Cheers


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## cybertalus (Feb 2, 2004)

Ed Greenwood's article about treasures which lead to adventures from an issue numbered somewhere in the 160's.  It was basically a table of treasure that included adventure hooks, such as a magical scabbard which is really a doppleganger, or a figurine that is really a person who was shrunk and placed in temporal stasis several hundred years ago.

The adventure "The Sword of Justice" by Jon Mattson from the December 1984 issue.  My first DM tried to run that adventure two or three times with our original group and for various reasons we never did finish it.  It was the the very first article I looked up when I bought the Dragon Archive CDs.

Of the series articles, Wizards Three was definitely my favorite.  I also enjoyed the Voyage of the Princess Ark (even though I had zero interest in the campaign world it was set in, the unfolding story got me hooked and kept me reading), Robinson's War, Bazaar of the Bizarre, and those articles Ed Greenwood used to write about spellbooks with unique spells where he spent as much space talking about the history of the spellbooks themselves and the mages who authored them as he did on the game stats of the new spells.


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## cybertalus (Feb 3, 2004)

double post


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## Tewligan (Feb 3, 2004)

Definitely the Deryni article. It was in the first issue of Dragon I ever bought, and reading that is what made me hunt down and read the novels. Oh, jeez, something else I just remembered - the cardboard inserts that let you build a model castle and, in another issue, a model dragon. I didn't get around to making the dragon, but I spent a lot of time putting that castle together. I was quite dismayed to accidentally step on it not long after finishing it. There was an article on enchanting dragon teeth to grow into dragon men - that one really caught my fancy for some reason. Oh, and there was an article on adventuring in Asgard, with an accompanying adventure, that really stands out in my memory. So many good articles over the years... C'mon, Erik, give us a hint as to what this is for, or at least an idea of when we can look for whatever it is!


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## Cthulhu's Librarian (Feb 3, 2004)

Tewligan said:
			
		

> the cardboard inserts that let you build a model castle and, in another issue, a model dragon. I didn't get around to making the dragon, but I spent a lot of time putting that castle together. I was quite dismayed to accidentally step on it not long after finishing it.



 There was also a cardboard model ship that I assembled and was quite happy with, and it sat on my bookshelf for years. When I went to college it got packed up and smooshed in a box, never to sail again...


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## Imhotepthewise (Feb 3, 2004)

The best, most useful article I ever read was the Seven Sentence NPC.  I think it still works well today.


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## Marius Delphus (Feb 3, 2004)

An editorial: all I can remember is it featured a paladin whose +2 dagger was the only weapon that could damage a powerful demon/devil, and they ended up battling in the air... until the demon/devil finally died, at which point the paladin plummeted to earth... and with single-digit hit points left, got up, dusted himself off, and said, "Got 'im." The editorial told the story with much more style and panache....

If you're including humor articles, *please* don't forget:

U2 Kan Ern Big Bux (iss 128)
Front-End Alignments (iss 124)

Cool thread, BTW, brings back some fond memories.


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## RichGreen (Feb 3, 2004)

Nine Hells articles

Roger Moore's [racial] Point of View articles

Ray Winniger's Dungeoncraft articles

An article by Wolfgang Baur (?) on "Dark Zakhara" or similar (horror-tinged Al-Qadim)

David Howery's The Dark Continent article on fantasy Africa

Whaddya Mean Jack the Samurai and quite a few other 1e OA articles. I had a lot of fun assembling that cardboard castle!

Cheers



Richard


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## kobold (Feb 3, 2004)

Not an article really, but Finieous  Fingers was the best comic (with wormy a close second) ever to run in Dragon. I still have my issue of the Finieous Fingers comic compilation.
The Hell articles still see use in my games, there were also articles on Valhalla and Olympus that were real useful


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## kyloss (Feb 3, 2004)

For me it would have to be "101 uses for a portable hole" for two reasons. I always thought the portable hole was an underrated item at least in my old gaming group, and it got me to start thinking more creativily about magic items. there were several more articles but this one always stood out to me.


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## Unseelie (Feb 3, 2004)

<i>Minarian Legends</i> - all of the background material that made up the world of <i>Divine Right</i>. Luckily, the game has been reprinted recently and all of the material plus a bunch of new stuff was included on the CD that came with it. I really like what they did with the rereleased boardgame. Sturdy board, CD with files of all of the materials so that if you lose some chits you can try to replace them, more background... I can't recommend it more highly.

I'd love to see someone do a world book of that setting.


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## caudor (Feb 4, 2004)

Class Act  (these were just great, especially the ones written by Monte Cook)

I also enjoyed articles that 'enhanced' a D&D product that was just released.  For example, when Deities & Demigods came out, I was dissappointed that Iuz was not included.  However, an article in Dragon included him, and provided his stats.

I also like the issues that covered the 'old campaigns' like Spelljammer and Red Steel.  That was terrific!


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## Samothdm (Feb 4, 2004)

*That Article With the 9 Different Paladins*

The article you mentioned that featured a paladin class for each of the 9 different alignments was in Issue #101.  I must've re-read that article about 20 times.  

I also really enjoyed the Princess Ark series.  

For humor, you can't beat "1/2 Spells" from issue #72 (the same issue where the Cavalier made his debut, which happened to be an APRIL issue).  My two favorite 1/2 spells:

*Purify Food 1/2*
Material Components: Ketchup, Pepper
Spell Description: Pour ketchup and pepper on food.  Everything tastes better with pepper and ketchup.

*Feign Death 1/2*
Spell Description: To cast spell, place your hand over your heart and say outloud, very dramatically:
"Alas, a touch!  I fear I breathe my last.  Bury me not on the lone prarie!  Give my chainmail to sis!  Farewell!".  Then, colllapse to the ground.

Maybe it's 'cause I was in Junior High at the time, but those cracked me up.


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## Zaukrie (Feb 4, 2004)

Nine Hells is my favorite. Any old Greenword is worth buying the archive CD to get.

Witch NPC, single greatest cover (hmm, I'll be 40 this year, how old was I when that was printed). Gravemaster (or was it ghoul master, I remember the author insisting it was for NPC's only). Anti-paladin got a lot of use. We experimented with "a paladin for every alignment". some of those were very interesting.

There was an article called "AKA" (it was longer in its total name) that was about calling creatures by different names when NPCs were talking about them. Typical villagers don't know one monster from another, so they might call a wyvern a dragon.....it still is great for misleading players.

The 101 magic items article someone already mentioned.

The monster hunters and old ecology articles. they had a story and sense of newness that current ecology articles don't have.

If i spent 30 minutes going through old covers, i could list many, many more.


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## SmokestackJones (Feb 4, 2004)

Hey there,

 My fave article is _The 7-Sentence NPC_.  Got that printed out off my Dragon Magazine  Issues 1-250 CD.  Helped me a lot.

*-SJ*.


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## Krieg (Feb 4, 2004)

*Fedifensor*

---Thus my fascination with the Githyanki was born.

*Halfling Guardian*

---A cool class for Halflings?!? Whoa.


----------



## Glyfair (Feb 4, 2004)

mearls said:
			
		

> * Wormy.




I wasn't thinking of including comics.  If I was going to, Fineous Fingers and Wormy both would be included.


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## grodog (Feb 4, 2004)

Among my favorites, in no particular order:


"Plan Before You Play" and "Law of the Land" by Ed Greenwood, two excellent articles on world-building from Dragons 63 and 65
"Wormy" and "Fineous Fingers" on the comics, of course
"Faceless Men & Clockwork Monsters" by Gygax (a story from The Dragon 17, in which D&D adventurers who get shifted over to Jim Ward's Metamorphosis Alpha game via a curse scroll)
"Thrills & Chills" by Arthur Collins in Dragon 68 (all about arctic adventuring)
"Abomination" by D. Aaron Achen (a very short story about a druid's salvation of an evil swamp; this is the quintessential druidical rolemodel for me; from Dragon 54)
"The Blood of Medusa" by Michael Parkinson (Dragon 58, a monster conversion from myth to AD&D for such creatures as Echidna, Cerebus, etc.)
Dragon 63 had Roger Moore's "The Bandit" NPC class, and Lew  Pulsipher's "Timelord" in Dragon 65 were great
The Creature Catalogs and Treasure Trove collections of monsters and magic items (various issues; alas, Creature Collection #1 is missing from Dragon 89 from the CD Rom...)
"The Pages from the Mages" series by Greenwood, in particular the first two (Dragons 62 and 69), which contained alternate spell creation formulas, scroll ink formulas, potion ingredients, etc., in addition to new spells
Joe Fischer's articles on dungeon/wilderness/town creationion, from SR 7 and TD 1 and 2
Katherine Kerr's "Beyond the Dungeon" 1 and 2 from Dragons 87 and 88; Kerr's "The Real Barbarians" from Dragon 72 was good too
"A Stone's Throw Away" from Dragon 85, the only Dragonlance fiction that I still reread from time-to-time
Stephen Inniss' "A Cast of Strange Familiars" (Dragon 84), nice alternatives to the usual cat, toad, raven, etc.
"Living in a Material World" from Dragon 81; Michael Dobson's excellent piece on making material spell component's meaningful in your campaign; this, coupled with Bruce Heard's excellent article on magical research from Dragon 82, "Spells Between the Covers"
my favorite demonology articles:  "Patron Demons" by Lewis Pulsipher (Dragon 40, most especially for Todd Lockwood's first image published in Dragon), "Demonology Made Easy" by Gregory Rihn (Dragon 20), which is almost as good Alexander von Thorn's "The Politics of Hell" from Dragon 28

I didn't bother listing all of the Greyhawk stuff, since I imagine you're looking for more general-interest articles, Erik


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## Olive (Feb 4, 2004)

grodog said:
			
		

> [*]my favorite demonology articles:  "Patron Demons" by Lewis Pulsipher (Dragon 40, most especially for Todd Lockwood's first image published in Dragon), "Demonology Made Easy" by Gregory Rihn (Dragon 20), which is almost as good Alexander von Thorn's "The Politics of Hell" from Dragon 28




These sound AMAZINGLY COOL!!! Any more info?


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## Phaedrus (Feb 4, 2004)

Healing herbs--with minor game effects (cure a couple of HP, stop bleeding, heal faster, etc).  I had my ranger out in the wilds harvesting them and toting them around (any similarities with a certain Aragorn would be purely coincidental).

Elemental Gods (mentioned above).
The Cavalier and Thief-Acrobat... I immediately rolled up one of each.

Forest of Doom module.  Giant tree hollowed out into a Drow fortress in the middle of a dark forest.  I remember Fedifensor fondly as well.

And my favorite... a short story about a serf boy who kisses a frog to free the princess who in turn dumps him.  I still remember the ending: a frog ribbits and he smashes it with a stick.  I want to say Baba Yaga was in the story.  If anyone remembers what issue that was, please tell me!  I'd love to dig it out again.


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## Tortoise (Feb 4, 2004)

The Politics of Hell

The Wandering Trees adventure (second place in the dungeon design contest).

The Ecology articles.

Pages From The Mages and anything dealing with ancient tomes of magic.


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## Eosin the Red (Feb 4, 2004)

Grazzt said:
			
		

> "The Politics of Hell" by Alexander Von Thorn (great name for a great article)





Best for me.


I also liked many of the articles on world building and ecology. [Specifically, Build your own Fantasy Kingdom -259, and The Ghoul Kingdom]

I also liked the various old classes.....I still use Jester Assassians based off of the Jester and those other classes (gravemaster, bounty hunter).


*Ackkk....I forgot the Sheen!!! I loved those things.*


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## Plane Sailing (Feb 4, 2004)

For me it was the empire-of the petal throne issue (issue 4) which introduced the Mihalli and had so much that brought that setting alive.


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## Phantom_Lord (Feb 4, 2004)

I particularly liked the "Ecology of..." articles. The 2nd edition ones were simply amazing. My favourite was the ecology of the rust monster. 

Those kinds of articles and other 'world enrichening' articles--Ed Greenwood's many articles on FR and Elminster and Volo--established not only many lores but also character personalities as well i.e., Volo and Elminster to name a few. In fact, many authors like Sean Reynolds, Roger E. Moore, Monte Cook, wrote those types of articles [aimed at rich game quality enhancement] and they simply 'rocked'.

I guess what makes a good article--IMHO--is the amount of detail and research put into it by the author.  

But I guess thats just me. 

Hope this helps Eric!


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## Wippit Guud (Feb 4, 2004)

Samothdm said:
			
		

> *Purify Food 1/2*
> Material Components: Ketchup, Pepper
> Spell Description: Pour ketchup and pepper on food. Everything tastes better with pepper and ketchup.
> 
> ...



There were better than that... (going from memory)

*Detect Life 1/2*
Somatic Component: Place index and middle finger on target's inner wrist.

*Neutralize Poison 1/2*
Somatic Component: Insert index finger down target's throat.

IMC, we use Detect Life 1/2 all the time, we even call it that


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## Qlippoth (Feb 4, 2004)

Over 20 years, one article that's been of consistent use to me is "A new name? It's elementary!" by Gygax. It provided a name generator using Anglo-Saxon root words. Great stuff!


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## Nellisir (Feb 4, 2004)

S'mon said:
			
		

> The article I still think about most was "The Highs & Lows of Fantasy" (in the 140s I think).




That was a GREAT article with GREAT art.

Princess Ark, Wyrms of the North, Wizards Three (not the articles themselves so much as the fluff + crunch aspect), and Leomund's Tiny Hut.

Also, the article on fairies, somewhere around the mid-140's.

It's interesting; there's a strong preference for series articles that combine game fiction and game mechanics.


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## qstor (Feb 4, 2004)

I liked Ed Greenwoods Hell articles as well, plus Issue #61 with the jester, eleven gods and the last jest bard ability, also the purple,orange and yellow dragon in Dragon 65 IIRC and updated to 2e in Dragon 248.

Being a Greyhawk fan myself I liked the bits of Ivid the Undying and the maps that appeared in Dragon around issue 205. Maybe you can do an article on eastfair for the LGJ. 

As for Ed, I still hope Ed's articles appear in the new issues of Dragon. I like Elministers Guide to the Realms. David Day's artwork is fantastic.

Mike


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## Michael Tree (Feb 4, 2004)

Felon said:
			
		

> Probably the one article that I always wanted to dig up was from back in 1989. It was an article on little-known 0-level spells, like "Find Earth" (which causes the caster to immediately fall down face-first and take 1d4 points of damage) and "Fiery Breath" (with a material component consisting of jalapeno pepper). They were pretty hilarious. Wish I could remember them all.



That's probably my single favorite article.   Drawmij's Instant Death (Drawmij, wherever he is and whoever he is, dies, instantly, with no saving throw).  Detect fire (Range: touch).   

My other favorites are the article about the Deryni and expanded 1e psionics to fit that setting, the NPC Witch article, the coupld of articles on new martial arts for the original Oriental Adventures, and the Marvel Super Heroes articles.


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## Gallo22 (Feb 4, 2004)

the main thing on my list!

Shorter articles...pure and simple.

A 4-5 page article is great.  A 10-20 page article can get pertty convoluted.  Many of the articles over the past year or so are just too long winded.  I feel they are just put in to fill space.  They could have gotten the point out with a much smaller article and left room for another.  I want a magazine for articles not long drawn out "books".  I don't know? Does this make sense?

As far as articles go, pretty much everyone is hitting the nail on the head.

I do miss the card stock "freebees".  Especially the monster tokens.  

Why not have an "Ecololgy of" article(s) with a small insert of tokens (maybe 4-5) for that monster.  Or when you have an article or monster..etc, put in tokens that go with that particular article, monster, trap, magic item...etc.  It does not have to be a whole sheet, but a small insert would we welcome!

Gallo22


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## Xorial (Feb 4, 2004)

I like just about any of the articles that expand of the different races. Player character races or not. Ecologies have always been helpful. I cant remember the issues, but there was an issue for 2e that concentrated of half-elves that I liked.

Another arcticle that i cant rember the issue for is the Elven Cavalier. I always liked the different take that the elves would have vs human concepts of honor. I like these different views on classes better than a generic "one type fits all" approach to some classes.

But, just about my all time favorite was in issue #100. It was an adventure that I still have, and still pull out to run every now & then. _The City Beyond the Gate_. I wouldnt mind seeing it updated & republished sometime. Searching for the _Mace of St. Cuthbert_ in modern day London is always a blast.


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## reddist (Feb 4, 2004)

My group STILL makes jokes about the Wandering Damage Tables that appeared in an old April issue.

Two major components in my home brew use the articles that gave us the Urgulstastas (sp?) and other "desert undead," and the Sheens.  Those articles have had a major impact on a very long-runnning campaign.

I'll READ the articles that center on a specific campaign world, but I prefer to USE articles that give me bits and pieces I can drop in to my own world with little or no tweaking.

-Reddist


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## Sketchpad (Feb 4, 2004)

Personally ... I've always enjoyed alternate ideas ...new races, new classes, varient classes, new prestige classes, new feats and new uses for skills.  I think that Dragon could use a regular article that introduces either a new class or varient class into the game.  For example, I'd love to see another stab at a Knight class ... or maybe alternates for rogues.  I think that WotC's site has a good thing with their Savage Species feature and maybe somethiing like that would be cool.  I think my favorite article from Dragon (that wasn't in the long deceased "Ares" section) was the Archer NPC class for 1e ... I loved that class


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## Naarg (Feb 4, 2004)

My friends and I still quote Roger Moore's "U 2 Can Ern Big Bux" quiz to this day.  Classic stuff.


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## inevitable (Feb 4, 2004)

For short stories, I'm particularly fond of two previously mentioned ones: "Abomination" (druid battles evil swamp, told from the swamp's point of view), and the one with the girl in the MMORPG. That author must have a crystal ball.

Game article I use the most? The chi-square test article. (Seems like everyone I play with is superstitious about their dice. Thanks to that article, I can prove that their "lucky" or "unlucky" 20-sider is just, well, random.

Loved the Fedifensor article, and I loved the mini-games that Dragon used to include sometimes; "Dragon chess" from one of the anniversary issues was my favorite.

Oh, and I fondly remember the years-long back-and-forth in the letters column about what "realistic" falling damage should be. And we think _we_ argue about D&D rules nowadays...


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## Urbanmech (Feb 4, 2004)

I loved the old "Ecology of..." articles, they made you want to use whatever monster they were mentioning in your game.  

I was also fond of any article that introduced new weapons to the game.  It got boring always using a long sword over and over again.

Any of the Dark Sun and Spell Jammer content from the old issues were welcome content in my games.

In more current issues I've enjoyed the Incursion arc, Monte Cook's Dungeon Craft articles, and the Bestiary articles.

Dragon and Dungeon magazine are worth their weight in gold.  While new books are only released every so often, I know that the magazines will come to my mailbox every month for a dose of gaming goodness.


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## RFisher (Feb 4, 2004)

* Article on creating Anglo-Saxon names. (Similarly, the article on oriental names was appreciated, though I never had occasion to use it.)
* Ray Winninger's Dungeoncraft articles.
* Gygax & Kuntz's recent Up on a Soapbox articles retelling stories from the early days.
* Wormy. 
* Ed Greenwood's magic item articles. (Back before FR was a published setting.)
* Giants in the Earth.
* Len Lakofka's Leomund's Tiny Hut.
* Gygax's From the Sorcerer's Scroll.
* An interview with a Rust Monster.
* A bit after 3e came out, there was a series of articles that would focus on a topic for players. I forget the name of the series. (Although it wasn't the best of the series, the 1st that springs to mind was one on battle cries.)


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## eoghanbt (Feb 4, 2004)

Let's see...

Nine Hells...
Ecology of the mind-flayer...
The whole April Fools issue that was...issue 72 I want to say? Had 1/2 level spells...like Summon Thunderstorm, Summon Ants...
Wound damage article...
All the Tom Wham game issues.
I think the dungeoncraft series more recently was excellent.

Tucker's Kobolds. 

Piece of short fiction called "The Gun" or some such..

I liked the book review column..
amazing that I read a review of Eddings' first novel in a Dragon when it was just a little paperback release..


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## jasper (Feb 4, 2004)

The paladin code article.


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## TroyXavier (Feb 4, 2004)

I liked the Completing the Color Spectrum Dragon Article, the Crossbreeds Artcile from 243, and the MongrelMan ecology article.


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## Qwillion (Feb 4, 2004)

Wyrms of the north

Wizards Three

Dungeoncraft.

First Quest

and the How to Design a (feat, prestige class) articles from the early days of third edition.


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## Hecatæus (Feb 4, 2004)

I just miss Wormy


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## The Sigil (Feb 4, 2004)

Sketchpad said:
			
		

> Personally ... I've always enjoyed alternate ideas ...new races, new classes, varient classes, new prestige classes, new feats and new uses for skills.  I think that Dragon could use a regular article that introduces either a new class or varient class into the game.  For example, I'd love to see another stab at a Knight class ... or maybe alternates for rogues.  I think that WotC's site has a good thing with their Savage Species feature and maybe somethiing like that would be cool.  I think my favorite article from Dragon (that wasn't in the long deceased "Ares" section) was the Archer NPC class for 1e ... I loved that class




I'll relate the stuff I liked from the 3e Dragons before I let my subscription lapse (due to differences of opinion with Paizon about the direction of Dragon, especially as it related to the printing of certain four-letter words - but that's neither here nor there)... just a few thoughts off the top of my head...

I suppose it would be difficult to do again, but I enjoyed the "Design a Feat" and "Design a Monster" articles.

I enjoyed the "Rays of Light" article... not so much for the spells, but for expanding what can be done with Rays.

Basically, I enjoy things that don't so much introduce "kewl new spellz and featz" so much as take an existing theme and play with it for a while.

Also, I *loved* the "Just Give Me Money" article from way way back.  Anything that helps add realism to "orc and pie" adventures is welcome.

Things that DON'T float my boat... "mad-lib table articles" (you are a TABLE A from TABLE B who wants to TABLE C with TABLE D)... non-game-related fiction (can't STAND it - Dragon is an RPG magazine, not a fantasy fiction magazine)... anything to do with Drow... "Matching Dragon's Theme to WotC's Latest Release And Making It a $7 Advertisement For the Release"

Basically, give me stuff that will be fresh and relevant *to my gaming sessions* three months from now.

--The Sigil


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## mtbdm (Feb 4, 2004)

*Dragons of the Realms*

Off the top of my head

Dragons of the Realms
the Recent Githyanki Articles
the articles on Alternate Spell Components
Sage Advice


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## Lokirime (Feb 4, 2004)

*here we go (bit long)*

Hello Erik,

I started to read Dragon with issue 74 (lotsa years ago) and immediately tried to get my hands on back issues (subscription came later).

Here's my list. It's bit long, though:

- Gary's "From the Sorcerer's Scroll" column.

- The old "Giants in the Earth" series

- The Nine Hells article (and its later addendum)

- The "Anti-Paladin" NPC class

- Roger Moore's articles on the various demi-human races (the POV series)

- Lakofka's "Leomund's Tiny Hut" column

- covers... Why hasn't no one mentioned them????
For starters, I think no one could intimate action as well as Holloway. I remember two covers vividly: one with depicting a nighttime swamp scene with a tattoed dwarf dragging a KO'ed orc and a woman hiding behind a tree plus some orcs in the background wading through the swamp, and another showing a post-combat daylight scene where a small group of elves is reluctantly approaching another group of feisty orcs; if you look closely some fallen orcs are not dead but lying in wait for the elves to get close so to give then a OACOWA). 
Beauvais is magnificent (the Chess series).
Ned Dameron did some highly dynamic covers.
Let's not forget the Witch cover for 114 (I belive), which showed a nekkid! woman in a highly stylised way but which caused an
uproar...
BTW, if you have any weight to throw around with Dragon's Art Dept, pls give us more action scenes and less portraits! (think Holloway, do not think  frex #315's cover).

- NPC classes (sentinel, frex)

- The complete content of issue 90 - (with the Asgard planar info plus _Aesirhamar_)

- As above, issue #67: Fedifensor and Astral Plane info.

- Again, the entire issue with the Illithid extra-long article, with impressive art by Janet Aulisio.

- Finieous Fingers & Wormy (nuff said)

- The Roger Moore article that analysed A&D&1E classes - very well thought out, based on factoids (XP, average HPs, etc). Unique!

- Creature Collections - frex, the lillend and the lhiannan shee came from these...

- "A Different Bard, Not Quite so Hard"

- the article with a paladin for each alignment.

- "From the City of Brass to Dead Orc Pass". 

- Ray Winninger's Dungeoncraft run. 

- Paul Jaquays article on Avatars

- the reviews section, particularly when they were done by game designers
(Bambra, Terra, Rolston).

- the Monty Haul run (and the Waldorf letters years later)

- extra material from TSR projects (FR comes to mind - Waterdeep
extra-material cut from FR1, Skullport extra-material, Ivid the
Undying material)

- "Plan Before You Play" and "Law of the Land" by Ed Greenwood. I based my first homebrew on the map presented by Greenwood in the 1st article...

- Katherine Kerr's "Beyond the Dungeon" 1 and 2 from Dragons 87 and 88; Kerr's "The Real Barbarians" from 72.

- Stephen Inniss' articles (he did a lot).

- "Living in a Material World" from Dragon 81(by Michael Dobson)

- Bruce Heard's article on magical research from Dragon 82, "Spells
Between the Covers". Excellent! Great Source for AD&D1E. superceded today by 3.* rules.

- Healing herbs article. I also used it intensively in my games.

- The Cavalier and Thief-Acrobat. 

- "The Toxins of Cerilon" (by Larry Di Tillio)

- The entire run of Minarian Legends

- "The Highs & Lows of Fantasy". That issue (146, I think) is just. about. perfect.

- The Elven cavalier article. Nice tropes.

- The "u2 ken urn big bux" is a classic. As mentioned before, some of my friends can quote the test verbatim... hilarious!

Cheers,

lokirime


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## Goobermunch (Feb 4, 2004)

Roger Moore's "U 2 Kan Ern Big Bux."

--G


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## Rifter (Feb 5, 2004)

*Here is my list*

I have to agree with the others: "Ecology of" rocked.

I also liked the Tesseract article.  I keep wanting to use that, and one of these days, I will.  

I liked the critical hits and misses.  

I know it is more modern, but I miss Class Acts.

I really enjoyed the Incursion Dungeon/Dragon combo, of course, I have always liked Gith of both flavors.  I would like to see more articles covering Giths, their wars, their homelands, and, mindflyers.

Another favorite of mine, was that one that others have mentioned, find earth, et all.  

Dungeon Craft would be nice.

I do like the tie-ins with recently released WotC products, but some of the feel forced.  I have generally enjoyed the recent OGL articles in Dragon, as well.  I think that was a good move.


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## grodog (Feb 5, 2004)

> - "The Toxins of Cerilon" (by Larry Di Tillio)




That reminds me, Larry's "Glyphs of Cerillon" (Dragon 50 IIRC) was quite good, too!


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## Sigma (Feb 5, 2004)

I'd agree with the people who said they'd like more D&D theory articles.  For example, an article explaining what qualities an exotic weapon should have, or how to balance a weapon by raising the starting price of it (thus making it so that characters cannot afford it until higher levels).  The behind the curtain articles of the early 3.0 days were terrific.

As for more "classic" articles, I can think of two or three that were staples of my gaming for a while.  The first was the frequently mentioned critical hit tables.  The second was an article describing a good method for making random encounter tables that included everything from streams to monsters.  The third was a random treasure generator that I used on every single random treasure I generated after reading the article.  It was really basic and easy, but it saw a lot of use.


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## Khorod (Feb 5, 2004)

-Dragonmirth
-Ecology (Particularly the Monster Hunters' Guild)
-Dungeoncraft
-Cities of the Ages
-Random Articles that added depth and detail flavorwise.  Like the alternate underdarks from whatever issue that was.


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## Dark Psion (Feb 5, 2004)

I'll go with all of the above, but..

The thing that makes some articles more memorable than others to me is how they are written.

 I like it best whe the article is written from within the game. It's not Ed Greenwood and Monte Cook discusing magic spells, it's Elminster chating with Malhavoc at an inn about their favorite gnomish illusions spells.

One recent article that was very memorable was the Ecology of the Sheet Phantom. It took a very silly monster and made it feel like it was an undead creature to be feared by showing it to us through the eyes of it's victims.

Imagine if in the last issue of Dragon, the Spies in the pictures were describing their own chosen "Professions". What if the Gadgets and Gizmos article was presented as the Aurora's Whole Realms Catalog was, as items for sale, but by a D&D version of Q?


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## Kayne (Feb 5, 2004)

Hmmm let's see:

*Voyage of the Princess Ark*: Gave much needed support and expansion to the OD&D game, both rules and setting.

*Wyrms of the North*: Still really surprised this material has never been collected together into a book (well okay some of it ended up in Cult of the Dragon, but still).

*Campaign Classics*: Not just the recent issue devoted to these (though that was a VERY cool issue and I hope it becomes an annual theme), but also the earlier installments, such as the three following issue #200 which were excerpts from the never published Greyhawk book Ivid the Undying.

*Pages from the Mages*: Themed collections of spells, with a spellbook to find them in. So much easier to work into a campaign than a random collection 10 new spells for this or that class.

*Wizards Three*: Alternating humourous and serious look at three game worlds from the point of view of three of D&D's most memorable characters. Shame that when Dragonlance finished we got that unknown apprentice of Mordenkainen's to fill in, it would have been so much better with a character from say Mystara (Terari or Jaggar come to mind).


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## Shadowdancer (Feb 5, 2004)

Many of my favorites have already been mentioned.

There was an article or adventure I remember on Baba Yaga's hut. Very interesting.

Article on what PCs can do with their money. It included rules for running a tavern.

A short story "Everything Eats Everything on XXX's World," or something like that. I remember the entire story fit on just one or two pages in the magazine. A true "short" story.

I used to like the old Ares section, especially the articles on Traveller. I'm still a big fan of that game.

The article on non-magical healing herbs.


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## Dacileva (Feb 5, 2004)

Erik Mona said:
			
		

> When you and your friends talk about Dragon Magazine, what articles do you always mention? Which, from any period in the magazine's history, stand out as "classics" to you?



First, thanks for asking for our input, Erik.  I really appreciate how much you, the other Paizo people, and most of the WotC people have all been very attentive to the D&D community...  In fact, I'd say most of the WotC/Paizo people have been more attentive ot their customers than the number one company in any other hobby I can think of.

Anyway, on to my picks.  Now, I never read Dragon until the final days of 2nd edition, so I won't be mentioning any older articles.

. Ares.  I like different game systems, and especially Alternity, so I wish the Ares articles would come back.
. Variant rule systems, or variants on the core game rules.  A recent example would be the articles in issues #310-#312 that actually had variant core classes.
. Dungeoncraft.  'nuff said.  Even experienced DMs can find notes they might not have thought of before.
. Ecology of...
. Prestige Classes - *IF* they're well-balanced.  More prestige classes add more options, and everyone who complains about there being too many prestige classes should remember that no one has to use any of them.  However, the better-balanced the class, the better it is.

I do also have one article type I am *not* particularly impressed by.
. Multiclassing progressions.  The ones that don't add *any* new rules or new thoughts.  It's just a waste of a half-page, IMO.


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## Erratic K (Feb 5, 2004)

Wormy, although Downer now in dungeon is quite good.

The comedy 1/2 level spells from issue 72.  My group jokes about detect evil 1/2 .  We might have made it up, but if we did it is inspired by that article.  It consists of point blank asking: "Are you evil?"  This spell is reversable.

The Dungeoncraft series.  It really should be required reading, while I don't agree with all of it, it is fantastic thinking material.

The third edition designing a monster article (I wish I had seen the designing a feat article).

The Archer Class article, man it was broken balance-wise, but super fun to a player.  Largely superceded by Arcane Archer.

Any of the crazy board games in the magazine.

I might have to go look through my Dragon CD archive...
I'm all nostalgic now.

-E


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## Scorpio (Feb 5, 2004)

As a collector of Old Dragons,(#s1-100), I would say "Up on a Soapbox", "Leomund's Tiny Hut", and "Wormy"....


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## Olive (Feb 5, 2004)

As a living example of how ENWorld is bad for your wallet, I went onto EBay and bought the Dragon Archive CD-Rom this morning.

Curse all of you!!!


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## Derulbaskul (Feb 5, 2004)

My vote for a classic article is Fedifensor from issue number 67. It was the search for a holy avenger on a githyanki citadel on the Astral Plane.

My vote for the useful articles are those that deal with names for the various races.

My recommendation for the editors is that it is high time a proper index was compiled and hosted on the website. I have all the Dragon issues (OK, I cheated by buying the CD ROM) but sometimes it's hard to find the one you need. Now, if we had an index that would be a whole lot easier.


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## Knightfall (Feb 5, 2004)

The Wizards Three
Campaign Classics
Anything Greyhawk related


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## Psion (Feb 5, 2004)

I'll second (or whatever number we are up to) *Dungeoncraft*
And *Toxins of Cerillon*. Permanently broke me of poisons that sounded like blood types. 
The article on mysteries in Dragon #240. It was a rockin' selection of intriguing elements you could drop in as plot hooks, clues, etc. It rocked so much, I wrote some of my own (see here and here.)
Ed Bonny's Skills & Powers planescape article. Yes some of it was over the top, but it brought planescape in line with S&P.
The articles on gem dragons and ferrous dragons.
Don't remember the exact title of the article, but there was a naming article that provided alternate cultural names for various creatures, like calling hobgoblins "bwgan."
A plethora of paladins. This is the paladins of different alignment article that lots of people were referring to, and it is in the early 100s (105 or 106 IIRC).
What's New, with Phil & Dixie!
The three part psionics article that included the psionicist and Deryni. (Looking back through the CD archive, it was funny seeing how they warned you to use the psionicist at your own risk "because Gary didn't write it any only he knows what's balanced." As if the existing Psionics system in 1e was balanced... BID.)
The creature catalogs. It chapped my hide that the third one got left out of the dragon CD archive... I had to go dig up my hardcopy.
The enchanted armors article illustrated by rk post, that had things like bug armor and force armor. I need to update that to 3e.
The article on new ioun stones in 179. It also talked about the original ioun stones as conceived by Vance, and made a sort of parallel where you could harvest them on a part of the plane of minerals that borders on the positive energy plane.
The humorous article with the wandering damage table (with interesting entries like "cut self shaving, consult limb loss table...")
The humorous article by Roger Moore in which he states that a date with a succubus can take you from archmage to prestidigitator in a single night...
As long as people are mentioning monthly columns they like, let me throw in my pitch for the somewhat newer (but still pre-3e) *Dungeon Mastery*. The content of the articles varied a lot, but there were a lot of intriguing articles in there, such as the article on generations (based on a real book that posits there is a generational cycle that defines the values of successive generations, and takes this theory and puts it into practice by applying it to the NPC trait tables.)


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## Gallo22 (Feb 5, 2004)

Dark Psion said:
			
		

> I'll go with all of the above, but..
> 
> The thing that makes some articles more memorable than others to me is how they are written.
> 
> ...




This is a VERY GOOD idea!!  Hope Erik goes with it!!

Gallo22


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## Klaus (Feb 5, 2004)

"The Green Dweomer", from Dragon #273 (the last 2e issue)...


... 'cause it was my first professional RPG gig! 

Also, "Bard on the Run" that featured the Companion's Rhapsody (with apologies to Queen):

"Oh Kitiara, Kitiara/Kitiara let me go!"


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## DocSER (Feb 5, 2004)

I have an odd favorite (favorite except for some that have already been mentioned here many times, at least).

I think it was in the last year or so before issue 200.  There was an article on "bonded weapons".  These were weapons that were composed of elemental or energy-based materials (defined broadly).  A magical sword actually made of sound or pure magic, for example.

The execution was not spectacular but the concept brought in a different class of magic weapons.  There was a lot of flexibility for customization and these were easy to drop in to a campaign.

It sure beats the prestige class (or dozen PrCs) that have become depressingly common.  PrCs take a lot of work to integrate in to campaigns for characters (they have to devote an entire level to these things just to start).  We are talking about months of game time to work through a short one.  While I like the idea, the marginal value has diminished substantially.

The bonded weapons, on the other hand, could be worked in to a campaign in a variety of ways.  One could simply find one of these weapons (maybe in the hands of an opponent).  One could have to create one to overcome a damage resistant monster.  One could have to quest to find an epic or near epic level bonded weapon.  There were simply lots of options.  If you wanted to make this the center of campaign, you could.  You could also just use one for flavor.

I like these sorts of campaign options that can be integrated in to campaigns with little disruption if one wants.


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## d20Dwarf (Feb 5, 2004)

Sheldon Price's ridiculous ninja class articles, with the land mines and rockets and stuff. The way we talk about them, though, you probably won't want to include them in your project. 

Bring back the jester core class, though. That would make me happy.


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## Calico_Jack73 (Feb 5, 2004)

Gotta go with the Paladin variants for all alignments other than Lawful Good.


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## nikolai (Feb 5, 2004)

I remember enjoying Elminster's Notebook, shame it slowly died...


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## grodog (Feb 5, 2004)

Olive said:
			
		

> As a living example of how ENWorld is bad for your wallet, I went onto EBay and bought the Dragon Archive CD-Rom this morning.
> 
> Curse all of you!!!




Olive, that's the single best $30 gaming investment you'll ever make.  Relish it!


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## BOZ (Feb 5, 2004)

graz'zt covered what i was thinking of.    that, and more than a few "dragon's bestiary" articles.  if i get the time to put it together, i'll list them.


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## Garnfellow (Feb 6, 2004)

In no particular order:


Roger Moore's Demi-Human series
The Nine Hells
The first few Pages from the Mages
Tom Moldvay's series of articles on undead (someone's gotta find that guy and convince him to do d20 design!)
The Death Master NPC class
The Kingdom of the Ghouls


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## frog (Feb 6, 2004)

Pretty much anything that was included in the Dragon Annual #2 or #3. If I remember correctly they had Tesseracts, Liches, Politics of Hell, the different articles that Roger Moore did on the races...

Just a huge treasure trove of goodies.


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## DemogorgonGroupie (Feb 6, 2004)

I saw this thread, my fingers itched and I joined up just to reply.  Unfortunately someone scooped me on my favorite old article, but here are some of my favorites anyway:

1.  Chi-square test.  I would like to know how many people became interested in math or science because of this little guy.
2.  Tuckers kobolds.  Having had to face a bunch of the little lizards based on this article, I will never forget...
3.  Giants in the Earth.  Always enjoyed these.
4.  There was an article about artifacts based on real world items.  Or did I dream it...

In general I always enjoyed new monsters, magic items or character classes.  Crunchiness all around.  I have only read one of the fiction stories, EVER.  And that was the recent George R. R. Martin preview.  Just an automatic skip for me.

Special mention for me was the Dragon annual with the gold cover.  Everything in there was great!

This thread is reminding me of all those old mags buried in a box, a thousand miles away from me, sigh...


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## Richards (Feb 13, 2004)

So Erik, any hints on what this is all about?

Johnathan


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## Savage Wombat (Feb 16, 2004)

I agree with a lot of people here, but I haven't seen one of my favorites listed.

It was called "History of a Game that Failed" - a reference to Twain - and detailed all the things that can make a mid-to-high-level campaign get completely out of hand.  It discussed topics ranging from magic item abuse to wish perversion, and all from the experience of someone who had gone through it personally.


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## fizban (Feb 16, 2004)

*Dragon Articles*

There's so many to mention. The above mentioned Nine Hells article is one of the all time best. I was always fond of the Anti-Paladin article. Ed Greenwoods ecology articles and just about anything from Ed was always top notch. 

Dragon seemed so much crunchier and more useful back in those days.


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## grodog (Feb 17, 2004)

fizban said:
			
		

> Dragon seemed so much crunchier and more useful back in those days.




Ironically, my favorite old SR, TD, and Dragon articles were system independent:  they provided DMs with thoughtful advice, background information, historical information, and new ideas for use in your games.  That's not to say that the various NPC classes, new spells and monsters, etc. also weren't cool:  I miss the old eclecticism and advice for already-savvy DMs.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Feb 17, 2004)

The Roger Moore demihuman articles are my all-time faves.

The original witch articles (both in the first 100 issues).

The original anti-paladin article.

Gary Gygax's half ogre article.

The really crazy stuff from when the Dragon was The Strategic Review, with people learning to speak Wall to get info on dungeons, and the great point-of-view-of-a-rust-monster story.

Niall of the Far Travels stories.

Some of the really old dungeons, like the Pit of the Oracle, the Citadel by the Sea (should really be updated and released as an official module, IMO) and whatever that low level spider-themed one was called.

More recently, the original Dungeoncraft articles. So good that they should collect them and publish them as a unit.


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## d20Dwarf (Feb 17, 2004)

fizban said:
			
		

> Dragon seemed so much crunchier and more useful back in those days.



I don't think it had more rules content than today's magazines. (I'm avoiding the terms crunchy and fluffy, I've hated them ever since 3e appeared.) 

I also think that thinking they were more useful is an exercise in nostalgia. I mean, back then, we were suckier gamers!  Over the years as your experience, tastes, and homebrews all grow, of course you'll find less to use in the magazine. But there are some awesome articles in the Wizards Workshop that I think define roleplaying for this generation, just as similar ones (but not in a regular section mind you!) did for us.

And Psion's reminder of the Warning! in the Dernyi article is funny in that it reminds one of similar warnings made in reference to Monte these days.


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## Endur (Feb 17, 2004)

My favorite articles are in the original "Best of Dragon".  How heavy is your giant.  The Secret Witch.  The Ninja.  etc.

Dragon #50.  

For me, my favorite issues are #1 to #50.


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## johnsemlak (Feb 17, 2004)

> I also think that thinking they were more useful is an exercise in nostalgia. I mean, back then, we were suckier gamers!  Over the years as your experience, tastes, and homebrews all grow, of course you'll find less to use in the magazine.




Perhaps, but I think the fact that 'back in the day' the very early Dragon and the Strategic Review was aimed at a smaller audience and perhaps was thus better able to please it.


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## Silveras (Feb 17, 2004)

grodog said:
			
		

> Ironically, my favorite old SR, TD, and Dragon articles were system independent:  they provided DMs with thoughtful advice, background information, historical information, and new ideas for use in your games.  That's not to say that the various NPC classes, new spells and monsters, etc. also weren't cool:  I miss the old eclecticism and advice for already-savvy DMs.




I have to agree. New Feats, Spells, and Prestige Classes are always of use to someone, but I really appreciated (and miss) the articles that were informative for people who do not have the time to do massive research.


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## PaulKemp (Feb 17, 2004)

1.  "The Politics of Hell."  Definitely.

2.  "For King and Country," an article (author escapes me) that attempted to reconceptualize the AD&D alignment system and did so rather nicely.

3.  The article with the revised unarmed combat system for AD&D -- can't remember the name of the article but it had a picture of a bunch of halflings wrestling an orc, with one angry halfling going off the top rope.  Unnecessary in the era of 3.5, of course, but indispensable to me as a DM of AD&D.

4.  The original appearance of the Cavalier and Barbarian classes, before the release of Unearthed Arcana.

5.  Not an article, but those great chess-piece themed covers.  Who was the artist?


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## BOZ (Feb 17, 2004)

OK, I’m sure some of these have been mentioned already, but I’m not going to go back and look to make sure.  

As you might expect, here are some of the best monster or monster-related articles that I’m nominating:

35: Angels

65: The Missing Dragons

75: The Nine Hells Part 1

76: The Nine Hells Part 2

89: Creature Catalog

90: Bats That Do More Than Bite

91: Nine Hells Revisited

94: Creature Catalog II

101: Creature Catalog III

119: Dragon’s Bestiary: A Walk Through the Woods
119: Uldra (heheh, I have an affection for the lil’ gnomes)

131: The Ecology of the Aboleth

134: Lords & Legends (Dragotha)
134: The Dragon’s Bestiary (new dragons)

138: The Ungrateful Dead

139&140: The Dragon’s Bestiary (Forgotten Realms creatures)

141: Dragon’s Bestiary: Nonhuman Creatures – With Human Form

150: The Dragon’s Bestiary (illithid-creatures) & The Sunset World

158: Also Known As… the Orc
158: That’s Not In the Monstrous Compendium! (pearl, jade, jacinth dragons)

170: The Dragon’s Bestiary (ferrous dragons)

182&183: The Viking’s Dragons

206: The Dragon’s Bestiary: The good, the bad, and the clumsy

210: Too Evil To Die

214: Dragon’s Bestiary (kercpa)

221: The Dragon’s Bestiary (Lords of Chaos)

243: Destriers of the Planes

and many and various other “Ecology Of” articles.


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## BOZ (Feb 17, 2004)

Psion said:
			
		

> The creature catalogs. It chapped my hide that the third one got left out of the dragon CD archive... I had to go dig up my hardcopy.




god, i know what you mean.  i had to get a friend to scan the article to PDF for me, but it's not OCR'd.


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## Greg K (Feb 17, 2004)

My favorite articles:

1) David Howery's revised 1e Barbarian in which he tones down the 1e Barbarian.  I still consider this is the best version of the Barbarian to see print for any edition of DND.

2) David Howery's revised 1e Cavalier in which he tones down the 1e Cavalier.
Just as I consider Mr. Howery's version of the Barbarian to be the best version of the Barbarian created for DND, I consider this to be the best version of the Cavalier to be the best.

3) Katherine Kerr's The Real Barbarians

4) David Howery's the Dark Continent

5) David Howery's article on creating characters and campaigns inspired by Native American cultures

6) The Nine Hells articles that have already been mentioned

7) From the Sorceror's Scroll

8)  Ray Winninger's column on World building

9) Roger Moore's articles on the various Nonhuman races

10) Roger Moore's article on Druid's of different enviroments.

11) any Dark Sun Articles 

12 ) An article on Non Violent Magic Items.  I think Lewis Pulsipher (sp?) was the author and the issue was around issue 73.  The article had a random list of magic items (e.g. wind chimes that sounded when anyone approached)


Non DND Articles
1) Any of the Top Secret S.I. material
2) The Ultimate Power Addendum articles by David Martin for the Marvel game.
3) Revised Benchmarks for the Marvel Game by Steven Schend


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## grodog (Feb 23, 2004)

So Erik, what are you doing with all of this research/info?  Planning to bring Len Lakofka back to write some LGJ articles, or what?


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## WizarDru (Feb 23, 2004)

Well, given how well Erik's last 'secret project' turned out, anything we can do to encourage it is GOOD.

All of Dragon Annual #1, in particular the Tesseract articles.  To this day, I still think of those as classics that have great value.

The Politics of Hell.
A Plethora of Paladins
Fedifensor
Was the Castle Avignon article in Dragon?  It's been so long, I don't recall...but I loved that article.

I really miss the old covers, too.  The "chess" covers, to be sure, but so many others.  I hate to keep harping on this one, Erik, but I just want some sort of story or action on the cover, instead of the same old character studies.  Dungeon has been getting better covers, as of late, so I hope Dragon can follow suit.  I'd love to see more pcitures of adventurers...well, _adventuring._

Thanks much!


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## Henry (Feb 23, 2004)

Silveras said:
			
		

> I have to agree. New Feats, Spells, and Prestige Classes are always of use to someone, but I really appreciated (and miss) the articles that were informative for people who do not have the time to do massive research.




Actually, it seems that the most popular mentions here are either rules-light or rules-independent - and the same kind of content that has appeared in the ENWorld Players Journal. The majority of gamers may enjoy new prestige classes, feats, items, etc. But quite a few dedicated players and DM's have been loaded to the gills with these things, and instead desire a change of pace.


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## Salad Shooter (Feb 23, 2004)

A lot of you mention the Wizards Three article, which issue was that from?


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## Unseelie (Feb 23, 2004)

WizarDru said:
			
		

> Well, given how well Erik's last 'secret project' turned out, anything we can do to encourage it is GOOD.
> 
> All of Dragon Annual #1, in particular the Tesseract articles.  To this day, I still think of those as classics that have great value.
> 
> ...




What he said... and less text on the cover would be nice as well. Compared to the old days, the covers of Dragon and Dungeon today are so cluttered. Let me see the art, dammit.


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## Salad Shooter (Feb 23, 2004)

Olive said:
			
		

> As a living example of how ENWorld is bad for your wallet, I went onto EBay and bought the Dragon Archive CD-Rom this morning.
> 
> Curse all of you!!!




Tell me about it, my FLGS has a box of old Dragon magazines, I plan on digging through it and see if I can find some of these oft mentioned issues.


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## der_kluge (Feb 23, 2004)

Ok, I'll admit that I am a mere "casual" reader of Dragon magazine.  I have a few back issues, and I do own the CD, but I have only really browsed it occasionally.

The only two articles that I could think of (and one was mentioned - once) are the following:

The article that details adventure hooks for things that you might pick-pocket from someone's pocket.  Interesting article.


The other article that I can recall really enjoying, wasn't really an article at all - it was the cardboard cutouts for the Deck of Many Things.  Wish I had those in their original form.


Now, to be honest, most of my Dragon's nowadays, I give a cursory glance to, and toss aside.  They don't really speak to me.  I've stopped being impressed by rules and "cool" things like I was when I was 16.  I'm looking for ideas now; something to inspire me.

That said, I would like Dragon magazine to speak to me, as a gamer.  I'd like to see Dragon become more of a gamer's magazine, rather than a WoTC magazine.  I want more reader mail, more reviews, more feedback from gamers like me.  Articles about the meta-game - finding gamers, resolving gamer conflicts, that kind of thing.

How about an issue of nothing but reader mail describing their campaign settings, and the campaign that they are currently running?

How about issues of the 2-10th entries in the campaign setting contest?

How about Dragon actually recognize and legitimize the d20 community, and interview talented, yet no-name authors of some of the better d20 products in the community.  How about actual reviews of said d20 products? 

I don't need info on the Forgotten Realms, and I care not for Dark Sun.  I don't read fiction in Dragon, and for the love of god, I don't need new core classes or even Prestige Classes.  I haven't played even 2% of the stuff that is already available to me.

I like the editorials by Gygax, and I like the sage advice, and the fan mail, and you know what, I generally just gloss over the rest and ignore most of it, frankly.


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## Erik Mona (Feb 23, 2004)

JoHnathan said:
>>>
So Erik, any hints on what this is all about?
>>>

Not yet, unfortunately. Let's just say that I've been spending a LOT of time with the Dragon archive. It's been great to see how so many readers' opinions match my memories of favorite articles, and how so many of the articles listed here are in fact ones I've marked "of interest" in my recent reading.

I've got to get back to my work lest the prowler in the publisher's office turn me into a zombei.

--Erik Mona
Editor-in-Chief
Dungeon Magazine


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## Richards (Feb 23, 2004)

> JoHnathan said



Nice "H" there, Erik!   

Johnathan


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## Steve Jung (Feb 24, 2004)

Salad Shooter said:
			
		

> A lot of you mention the Wizards Three article, which issue was that from?



It was a recurring series of articles written by Ed Greenwood. The articles were written as Ed's accounts of meetings of Elminster, Mordenkainen, and Dalamar in his home. The wizards gathered to gossip and trade spells, magic items and knowledge of magical creatures. These were given D&D statistics for use in game. I know of two articles: Dragons #196 p.82 and #238 p.42. I would guess there are more.


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## RFisher (Feb 24, 2004)

d20Dwarf said:
			
		

> I also think that thinking they were more useful is an exercise in nostalgia.




Well, I personally have been finding more stuff that is helpful to me _today_ in issues off the archive from before #68* than in the issues from last year.

I also mentally kick myself when I rediscover great articles in the archive that I'd read nigh on two decades ago but had forgotten.

Of course, it probably _isn't_ fair to compare recent issues to the archive. If an archive of Dragon issues from the years 2000 to 2010 fell through a time warp into my hands, maybe it'd look better as a unit than it does month-to-month. Maybe.

*My first issue of Dragon ever.


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## Alzrius (Feb 24, 2004)

I can't remember if I've said this before, but for me, the classic stuff was campaign-specific stuff that you couldn't get elsewhere. If you played in any of the established campaigns, things like that gave you that little bit of extra depth in the world, making it that much richer.

I also realy liked the articles with new gods. Something about that just made it so very cool. Things like the lesser gods of the Seldarine, etc. were pure gold!


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## Salad Shooter (Feb 24, 2004)

Steve Jung said:
			
		

> It was a recurring series of articles written by Ed Greenwood. The articles were written as Ed's accounts of meetings of Elminster, Mordenkainen, and Dalamar in his home. The wizards gathered to gossip and trade spells, magic items and knowledge of magical creatures. These were given D&D statistics for use in game. I know of two articles: Dragons #196 p.82 and #238 p.42. I would guess there are more.





Okay, thanks!


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## BOZ (May 22, 2004)

hi  

any more info yet?


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## Olive (May 23, 2004)

BOZ said:
			
		

> hi
> 
> any more info yet?




I second this request.


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## Endur (May 23, 2004)

My favorites: Any of the articles from "Best of the Dragon vol. 1".  Articles like "How Heavy is my Giant", the Secret Witch, the Ninja, etc.


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## bweibeler (May 23, 2004)

I'd like to see more Ecology articles, particularly of non-OGL monsters such as the kuo-tao


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## AdmundfortGeographer (May 23, 2004)

Since I missed this thread the first time through I wanted to give my list of Dragon mag content that I still go back to every now and then.  In no particular order...

Tucker's Kobolds.
The Waldorf letters.
Deck of Many Things pull out.
Ed's "Nine Hells" article.
Voyage of the Princess Ark
Known World's Grimoire
Ecology of the Bag of Holding
Skills and Powers articles for specific campaigns (Planescape, Dark Sun, Birthright)
Gygax's "From the Sorcerer's Scroll" dispatches of Greyhawk updates
U2 Kan Urn Big Bux
The Kingdom of the Ghouls article in Dragon and its companion adventure in Dungeon.


Regards,
Eric Anondson


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## Dire Serpent (May 23, 2004)

Alignment Made Easy! (or Alignment Made Simple!, I don't remember which) - which I still use
Mihalli - Prof. M.A.R. Barker
All of Tom Moldavy's Undead articles
Skullport
Hedge Wizards
The African, Indian and Native American articles...


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## Death_Jester (May 23, 2004)

Erik Mona said:
			
		

> When you and your friends talk about Dragon Magazine, what articles do you always mention? Which, from any period in the magazine's history, stand out as "classics" to you?
> 
> For myself, I'd list Ed Greenwood's overview of the Nine Hells (way back in 1st edition days) and the critical hit article "Good Hits and Bad Misses" as articles I'll remember forever, if not use immediately in my game. Others, like Len Lakofka's "Suel Pantheon" series go on my list because they're of historical interest to Greyhawk fans like myself.
> 
> ...





Man, this whole thread takes me waaaayyyy back.  I love the language articles for all the original races.  That was in the early thirties and forties of the magazine I think. They have done something like that recently too with all the races again so I doubt that they will really do anything with that. 

There was a one called Landragons with flightless semi-intelligent dragons that were like a primitive versions of dragons.  They were to dragons what apes are to humans.  Which I thought was very cool back in the day. 


The Ecology Articles were great too it was always great to see the reaction of the players to something that they had never thought about monsters doing.  Like tending their young or looking after the dead.  I was a great resource. 

There used to be a series of articles where they would take people from history like the Bogytrs of Russia and the Jaguar people of Africa and detail them for the game. It was very good for resource material and the like.  

All of the Treasure Trove and pages from the mages stuff was good also for background.  

The Princess Ark series, because to this very day, Mystara remains one of my favorite game settings. 

These are just a few of the ones that really made an impression on me back in the day.  What I used Dragon for was background information and to help flesh out my world so it would see less like a two dimensional place and more like a real place and for the most part it was very helpful. 

Hope this helps.


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## Rabelais (May 23, 2004)

*issue 63?*

I loved the Duelist NPC class.  I played one up to about 8th or 9th level in one of our campaigns.


----------



## Thotas (May 23, 2004)

I liked a lot of what's been mentioned; particularly the various "point of view" articles.  What was really nice was it made the kobold-goblin-orc-hobgoblin-gnoll sequence more meaningful than just a progression of slightly more powerful races to fight in large groups (which is what they were in those days).  Particularly fond of the detail that gnolls are all male-chauvanist; females have a genetic oddity such that the average female gnoll is much less intelligent than the average male gnoll, and that the male gnolls have a hard time understanding that their race is the exception.  As such, gnolls almost always underestimate females of other races.  

Also liked Giants in the Earth; c'mon, who doesn't read sword and sorcery novels and at least on some level try to figure out what level the heroes are?

With something close to shame, I also admit to liking the "Bard on the Run" parodies.  But my taste in music has diverged from what's popular nowadays to the point where I wouldn't get the joke anyway, I know this from the song parodies I see on sketch comedy shows.

There was an old issue (number 79, I think-- Yes, I am an old gamer.  See previous paragraph) that had an article on Saints.  I think it qualifies as the very first example of what would now be called a "Template".  It was a good one, too.  

There were a couple of issues that had material for a setting similar to India, and I think 3.x has ignored that (other than Green Ronin's Mindshadows).


----------



## Azazyll (May 23, 2004)

Add me in for the recent dragon with avolakaia's and such.  That, along with the unpronounceable undead maggot skele-machine, have to be two of the best original monsters in a long time.  I was glad to see they made their way into the canon with MMII and the FF.  

Something I don't think anyone said, but I loved the Machine Cysts from Machine vs. Mage and the follow up article a few issues later.  Mostly for the monsters, less for the mages.  THe idea that machines had to make biological components in order to use magic, and then that that biological component disrupted their connection to the machine mind and made them independent was truly neat.  I also loved pretty much every Alternity article they put out, but that remains the best RPG I've ever seen, and all the improvements of D20 remain a bastardization of the best of Alternity with the nostalgic of D&D.  The articles desrcibing each of the core alternity races were great, and the weapons articles were a welcome addition of creative new ideas to an already monumentally creative game in a sci-fi industry that often seems repedetive and reusable (can anyone say star trek and star wars in the past ten years?)


----------



## Thotas (May 23, 2004)

Thanks Azazyll, you reminded me of another one ... the machine cyst material.  But you neglected to mention the best thing about that one, and if Erik's looking for hints about how approach future projects, you've given me a great opportunity to give him one.  Many people argue lately about what kind of crunch/fluff ratio is best, and this article was great for that.  Because not only did we get a great set of monsters from it, we also got several story outlines that could cover a very short of very lengthy stretch of a campaign.  The longest one they provided could cover at least a 10 level span.  Maybe some of the people who complain so much about have yet another PrC in an issue would be happier if there was a much plot specific (but setting flexible) advice on how to use them as the machine cyst article had?


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## BOZ (May 24, 2004)

one bump and people notice again.


----------



## Tratyn Runewind (May 24, 2004)

Hello, 

Wow, a way interesting question and a chance to influence a secret Erik Mona project all in one.  Most excellent...  

The "Voyages of the Princess Ark" series, and its follow-on, the "Known World Grimoire" column, are the pinnacle of Dragon to this old Known World/Mystara fanboy, and the major reason I acquired the Dragon Archive CD-ROM set.  Wonderful mix of story and BD&D rules support.  The maps in particular are the equals in quality (if not size) of those in the Gazetteers themselves.

Other favorites of mine that have been mentioned include:

the Deryni-inspired stuff including the original 1e Psionicist class and Len Lakofka's Cloistered Cleric.
The Tucker's Kobolds editorial.  
The "U 2 Kan Ern Big Bux" quiz.  ("Cute on the end of a spear."  "Yo!  Ugly!  Let's party!"  "Not got long to live.")
the "Giants in the Earth" column, which began the tradition of blatant copyright infringement that was carried to its peak in the first-printing _Deities and Demigods_, which contained the Cthulhu and Melibonean Mythos.  (The tradition continues to this day, as copyright questions are apparently one of the reasons why the Dragon Archive CD-ROM went out of production.)  Sparrowhawk was probably my favorite write-up.
the Nine Hells articles.
the Marvel-Philes column, a generally well-written showcase of Marvel's vast array of characters that I liked even though I thoroughly disliked the mechanics of the TSR Marvel RPG.
Cool stuff I've not yet seen mentioned includes:

One of my favorite "crunchy" articles, the fixed 1e Monk class that was later reprinted in "Best of the Dragon volume 3".  Much more usable than the old 1e PHB Monk.
My favorite Dragon adventure setting (not really quite what I'd call a full "module"), capable of killing even heavily-powergamed characters, yet relatively merciful to the polite and discreet, "The Dancing Hut".  The bit about Baba Yaga never bothering to use calling diagrams, because the lower-planar creatures all know and fear her, was particularly cute...  
In more general terms, I also liked the willingness of Dragon back in the day to publish good articles for non-TSR games like _Champions_ and _Car Wars_.

Hope this helps!


----------



## scourger (May 25, 2004)

The one on dwarven runes I have used a lot back in the day and recently.  

I also loved The Whole Half-Ogre.


----------



## MrFilthyIke (May 25, 2004)

> and the major reason I acquired the Dragon Archive CD-ROM set.




I'm sure this has been answered, can you still buy this archive??


----------



## Olive (May 25, 2004)

MrFilthyIke said:
			
		

> I'm sure this has been answered, can you still buy this archive??




You can get it on ebay, but you can't order it from WotC.


----------



## Mouseferatu (May 25, 2004)

Wow. I, too, missed this thread the first time. Erik, if you're still reading, maybe _now_ you can hint at what this is about?

I'm going to mention an article nobody else has. I _loved_ the article that provided alternate charts for the Wand of Wonder. In fact, I mentioned this article a few months back, and the writer was kind enough to send me a copy. 

I loved the anti-paladin, death master, duelist, witch... Basically, all the new classes that did stuff you couldn't do with the core classes. I loved the Ecologies, especially those that were written "in-character" and provided new material and alternate versions of the creatures.

In fact, come to think of it...

I think my favorite articles from back in the day were those that introduced new elements to the games, things you simply couldn't do (or at least couldn't easily do) with what you had available. Don't get me wrong, there's always room for articles on how to better use what you've got--but I've rarely found those as inspiring as those that presented something new. It's a much harder feat to accomplish now, because 3E is so much more flexible than previous editions, there's a lot less that you _need_ brand-new material for. Still, I'd love to see more of such things.

And while it's not an article issue, I'd like to second (third? fourth?) the call for more actual _scenes_, and fewer character studies, on the cover. They're a lot more grabbing.


----------



## spectre72 (May 25, 2004)

Favorites are

NPC Witch
NPC Elven Cavalier
Snow Elves
Aquatic Elves (included aquatic half elf)
Deck of Many things insert


----------



## Dr. Harry (May 25, 2004)

MrFilthyIke said:
			
		

> I'm sure this has been answered, can you still buy this archive??




  I was looking for OOP stuff yesterday, and I ran across this ...

http://www.svgames.com/tsr11448.html

This morning I saw your post.  (I have the archive, and I greatly enjoy it.)


----------



## Beckett (May 25, 2004)

Missed this thread the first time around, and it looks like many of mine have already been said.  But, I'll go ahead and repeat them.

Politics of Hell
Anti-Paladin
Death Master
Ecology of... articles by Ed Greenwood, Roger Moore, Nigel D. Findley, and Spike Y. Jonez.  Particular favorites are the Beholder, the Mind Flayer, and the Doppleganger (which I don't think was by any of the four).  Findley's Gibbering Mouther also had some very nice bits.
Armies Up From the Ground, and other articles from that same issue dealing with running land (an aspect of the game that always fascinated me, but seemed neglected).
King of the Table Top
Greenwood's Nine Hells, particularly the opening.
Nogard
The Deck of Many Things-  I've still got my Deck, but haven't introduced one into a campaign for a long time.


----------



## Faraer (May 25, 2004)

SVGames.com sells the _Dragon Magazine Archive_.

[Edit: The one time I don't read all the posts in the thread, and I repeat something...]


----------



## johnsemlak (May 25, 2004)

I bought it late last year at www.barnesandnoble.com


----------



## MrFilthyIke (May 25, 2004)

Dr. Harry said:
			
		

> I was looking for OOP stuff yesterday, and I ran across this ...
> 
> http://www.svgames.com/tsr11448.html
> 
> This morning I saw your post.  (I have the archive, and I greatly enjoy it.)




Wow, thanks for the linkage.


----------



## Mouseferatu (May 25, 2004)

Dr. Harry said:
			
		

> I was looking for OOP stuff yesterday, and I ran across this ...
> 
> http://www.svgames.com/tsr11448.html
> 
> This morning I saw your post.  (I have the archive, and I greatly enjoy it.)




Grumble, grumble, stupid link, making me spend $42, grumble...



Seriously, thanks. Mine's on its way.


----------



## MrFilthyIke (May 25, 2004)

Mouseferatu said:
			
		

> Grumble, grumble, stupid link, making me spend $42, grumble...
> Seriously, thanks. Mine's on its way.




Hee hee, I hear you "grumble, grumble"...


----------



## Lazybones (May 25, 2004)

You've all hit the ones I remember most.  I instantly recalled "Good Hits, Bad Misses;" I used it in two campaigns and it was INSANE.  My party looked like a bunch of escapees from a WW1 veterans' hospital; one player had a wooden foot, another a wooden arm, a third was missing an eye (and of course that ignores the ones that didn't survive, including a guy who shot a bolt into his own brain with his crossbow).  

For a bunch of teenagers, it was wicked fun 

The other thing that really stuck were the comic "What's New" and the modules... "Citadel by the Sea" was a classic starter in those days (played or DMed it maybe 4 times in total).  Never got to play "Baba Yaga's Hut" but I remember writing out about 20 pages of notes on what was in those rooms.


----------



## Dr. Harry (May 25, 2004)

MrFilthyIke said:
			
		

> Wow, thanks for the linkage.






			
				Mouseferatu said:
			
		

> Seriously, thanks. Mine's on its way.




    You're quite welcome.  I just happen to notice it by luck, as I hadn't gone to that site in quite a while, so I'm happy to have done my good deed for the day.


----------



## Emirikol (May 25, 2004)

Erik,

My glory days of Dragon were between 76 and 118 (my first purchase was #86).  Some of the finest issues ever were between 107 and 118 (and are essentially 3rd edition in the flesh).  Now look what you've done, I've got to go dig out my Dragon CD's to relive my past 

I really loved the list/blocks of mercenaries in 109 (etc.) and the cover done by my favorite fantasy artist, Daniel Horne.  Here's a list:
Greyhawk stuff (cuz' it had so many open-ended adventure strings and 'that Greyhawk feel')
The classes:  incantatrix, duelist, barbarian-cleric, the witch (114..cover mostly)
109-Locals aren't all Yokels, Hooves & green hair
118-Hero points (nuff said)
116-All about Thieves
Later issues also had stuff on "how players can help the DM" and "how the DM can help the players 'role'-play."  I liked those a lot.
148:  Deck of many things 

To sum it up:  I like those little charts of useful information that I can clip and stick on my DM's screen to help aid an adventure.  I always wish that Bizarre of the Bizarre and the like would have put the new magical items in a format that I could do the following with:
1.  Sorted by low/med/high level instead of all mixed together, leaving you to 'guess' if an item might work.  All of the articles should have worked more towards 'fitting' the stuff into a campaign at level variances..just like DUNGEON does with their adventures.  Wow, I can already see how this would fit into DUNGEON...
2.  "Boxed" or something so that I could copy off the page, cut out the description of the item and just HAND it to the player instead of having them have to hand-write out the description..which ALWAYS ended up being just the bonuses and NOT the history of the item (which is what really makes the items cool).

I was neutral on the following:
Princess ark..interesting, but not something I felt like sorting through

On the wrong end, I never found any practical use for the following:
The over-done, numerous, redundant, useless, space-wasting, surplus YEARLY articles on Dragons.  Christ, 90% of regular campaigns have maybe TWO dragons in them per player LIFETIME but Dragon always chewed up an ENTIRE issue every year.

jh
..


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## DungeonmasterCal (May 25, 2004)

I remember the Nine Hells articles (and the Elmore drawing of the Paladin stating "Tomorrow I ride on the Hells".  We all thought that guy surely had more balls than brains.  

Issue 114's Witch Class is one of my favorites, and my first original D&D character was an anti-paladin (my first character was a fighter I inherited when a player quit the campaign).  

"Good Hits and Bad Misses" saw much usage in our campaigns.  My players LOVED those charts, even the Fumble chart.  I've created a d20 based Critical Hit system that we use now, but it still lacks the feel of that original one.

The Dragon's Bestiary--more cool monsters than you could shake a stick at, and most you wouldn't even dare doing that to.  

Bazaar of the Bizarre--Having a regular monthly article with new magic doohickeys was great.

New NPC articles, such as the Bounty Hunter, the Mariner, the Deathmaster, The Dreamer, etc.  I played a Type II Bounty Hunter for years, and the most insidious foe some of my early players faced was a Deathmaster.

Historical articles about so many topics, such as early forms of long distance communication, themed articles about real world cultures and how to integrate them into a campaign (the issue with all the classes and weapons from India is still one of my favorites).

The Halloween issues chock full of undead and necromantic goodness, and the April Fool's issues that were actually funny.

And The Forum!! Sure, sure, we have messageboards and the internet now, but man...I miss reading the Forum articles.

"What's New with Phil and Dixie"...it was great to have them back for awhile.

Oh...and the covers that actually seemed to tell a story on their own.  I can't recall the issue, but the cover features an undead knight in rusted armor astride a skeletal horse in a dismal marsh, holding a lantern on a pole.  I created a whole adventure based on that one cover, and tied the incident to a holiday celebrated in the campaign I ran then.  Another favorite was a Jim Holloway cover of three wounded orcs surrounded by an elven army, and one of the orcs beckoning the elven commander to "Come get some".  Current covers, while often done by very talented artists, seem flat and lifeless to me.

In today's Dragon, I really have no use at all for anything to do with the Forgotten Realms or any of the fluff, to be honest.  I used to read Dragon cover to cover because even the fluff was interesting, but now it just seems to be advertisement for more product.  Now I just glean the crunchy bits out and put the rest away.  Some of the older Dragon mags (especially from the mid 80's to early 90's) carried articles that challenged a person intellectually, involving random number theories, how languages were developed, and historical facts to back up examples for game play. I've not missed a single issue since #115 (and have managed to track down 70% of the remaining issues), but I feel Dragon has "dumbed down" a great deal over the years, and have been pondering how better to spend my subscription money.


----------



## woodelf (May 26, 2004)

Erik Mona said:
			
		

> When you and your friends talk about Dragon Magazine, what articles do you always mention? Which, from any period in the magazine's history, stand out as "classics" to you?
> 
> For myself, I'd list Ed Greenwood's overview of the Nine Hells (way back in 1st edition days) and the critical hit article "Good Hits and Bad Misses" as articles I'll remember forever, if not use immediately in my game. Others, like Len Lakofka's "Suel Pantheon" series go on my list because they're of historical interest to Greyhawk fans like myself.
> 
> ...




Well, you ask what are, to me, three distinct questions. Which articles we talk about, which are classics, and which are my favorites, only have partial overlap. 

The only ones we seem to talk about on a recurring basis would be the attack priority and alternate alignment articles, and the ecology articles in the abstract (not any particular one, just how great the old ones all are). Oh, and i might bring up Role-Playing Reviews any time i want to bitch about how the magazine has changed.

The classics? 

Role-Playing Reviews
Ecology of ...
Voyage of the Princess Ark
Gods of the Suel Pantheon
Pages from the Mages
Treasure Trove
Creature Catalog
From the Sorcerer's Scroll
Leomund's Tiny Hut
The [demihuman] Point of View series (only reason this one doesn't make it onto my favorites list, below, is because by the time i got into D&D, the material that had first appeared in these articles was pretty much a given, so i don't really think of these articles as to credit)
Nogard and the whole April Fools section of #96, especially the Wandering Damage Table
The Marvel Phile
the Tucker's kobolds editorial
The Plants of Biurndon
Arcane Lore
Katherine Kerr's outdoor adventuring articles
SnarfQuest
Wormy
Dragon Mirth
I think that about covers it. Leastways, that pretty much covers what immediately leaps to mind as "classically 'Dragon'".

As for my favorites--you'll notice a lot of the "classics" from above on the list, and a lot missing. This is far from a complete list, but it took me long enough to locate these (i wanted to put issue numbers to as many of them as possible), so i stopped looking around #200 (my collection is ~75 - ~275).

series:

Role-playing Reviews (while i generally preferred the ecology articles, it was Role-playing Reviews that kept me subscribed to Dragon for two or three years after the rest of it had gone to pot and was rarely of any interest to me)
Ecology of ... (though i hear tell that, since i stopped reading, they've pretty much ruined these, dropping the fluff that made them so useful, in favor of just crunch)
Voyage of the Princess Ark
The Marvel Phile
the African series of articles (monsters, gods, weapons, classes, maybe one or two others)
Pages from the Mages, and then Arcane Lore [much preferred to Three Wizards] is probably second only to Ecology of ... for the most-reliably satisfying article series
Wormy

individual articles:

Notice Anything Different? (perception stat--i'm still disappointed they rolled this into Wis in D&D3E)
Get Your Priorities Straight (best system for D&D-style alignment i've seen yet, #173)
Hey, Wanna be a Kobold? (#141)
Who Gets the First Swing? (attack priority, #71--the basis for much of my combat system from the time i saw it)
Underestimating Druids (Is a Bad Practice) (#119)
Good Stuff, for a Spell (magic-focusing items, #111)
Welcome to Malachi (city designed with magic in mind, #111)
The Plants of Biurndon (fantasy _non-magical_ vegetation, #108)
The Laws of Magic (#106)
The Sunset World (mind flayers--i'd probably pick this as the single best article prior to issue 275 (when i stopped reading), if i had to pick just one)
The Many Types of Magic (how spells are classified into their schools)
He's Got a Lot to Kick About (revised monk)
Singing a New Tune (revised bard--i used this one in preference to the 2nd-ed one for many a year)
A Plethora of Paladins (#106)
The Ranger Redefined (wilderness skills, #106)
Ay pronunseeAYshun gyd (#93)
wandering damage (#96)
"tucker's kobolds" editorial
the editorial pointing out that more people suffer religion-inspired hallucinations than fantasy-inspired hallucinations when they suffer a psychotic break 
land dragons
ferrous dragons
Short Hops and Big Drops (jumping mechanics)
Mind of the Monster (RPing monsters according to Int)
the incantatrix
gemstone dragons
Six Very Special Shields (i generally don't care for magic item articles, unless they have very cool backstories)
How Many Coins in a Coffer? (treasure volumes)
Unearthed Mundana (non-magical treasures)
The Enemy at the Gates (castle design with magic in mind, #160)
Thief on a String (fiction, #160)
Inside Information (information sources, #161)
Romance and Adventure (#161)
Making Law out of Chaos (clearing up alignment, #163)
The Making of a Monster (RPing monsters, #171)
Role-playing and the Real World (guest editorial by Michael A. Stackpole, #171)
Lifegiver (fiction, nov '94)
No Campaign Ever Fails (campaign-fixing eadvice, #111)
Worth its Weight in Gold (dwarven beards)
For King and Country (alignment system, #101)
Treasures of teh Wilds (furs and such, #137)
The Long Arm of the Law (#136)
Front-End Alignments ("alignments" for players, rather than characters, #124)
The Mystic College (#123)
Are You Having Bad Thoughts? (psionics in ravenloft, #174)
The Whole-Earth Ecology (creating believable creatures, #123)
How Taxes Take Their Toll (#99)
article on magic items made of embodied elements or ideals, like a sword literally made of lightning

There, that should keep you busy for a bit.


----------



## Joshua Randall (May 26, 2004)

The majority of people's favorites mentioned in this thread fall into one of two categories:

(1) really cool fluff wrapped around a little crunch
(2) new game mechanics

I think that the days of seeing a lot of (2) in Dragon are over. Why? Because under the d20 license, publishers don't need Dragon as a vehicle for introducing cool new rules variants. Third-party publishers are the major source for new game mechanics, now.

As for (1), we could debate until the end of time over the appropriate fluff-to-crunch ratio. For my own preference, I would point to the Githyanki Incursion articles in Dragon (and Dungeon) as the 'right' ratio: a few new PrCs and weapons and magic, and a whole ton of wicked-cool background information. I'd like to see more articles like that in Dragon. But again, that's just me... your fluff-to-crunch mileage may vary.


----------



## Patlin (May 26, 2004)

Stuff I remember most fondly:

1. The Deryni and the original Psionicist class
2. A story called "Wear Wolf" -- I don't read Dragon for the short stories, usually, but this one has stuck with me.  I really liked the punch line.
3. Giants in the Earth.  I liked both the conversions of literary characters and some of the new stuff.  I remember a halfling who's enemies tended to be accident prone.  One fell out of a window and landed on his own sword and knife a couple of dozen times! (This was from an April issue, I'm sure.)

New stuff I especially like:

1. Zogonia!! More! More!
2. Anything that provides new spells and/or feats.  One of the editorials in the last couple of years discussed how cool that is, and I agree.  Water Blast from the temple of Elemental Evil article is my Arcane Trickster's number one spell...


----------



## Olive (May 26, 2004)

Joshua Randall said:
			
		

> (2) new game mechanics
> 
> I think that the days of seeing a lot of (2) in Dragon are over. Why? Because under the d20 license, publishers don't need Dragon as a vehicle for introducing cool new rules variants. Third-party publishers are the major source for new game mechanics, now.




Well, i think it's also a product of 3e. 3e is so much more flexible around core mechanics (feats, skills PrCs) that many new mechanics are simply unnecessary. Most of the classes mentioned are easily replicable with feats and PrCs.


----------



## woodelf (May 27, 2004)

Felon said:
			
		

> When I think of old _Dragon_ articles, a lot of truly outrageous stuff comes to mind, like OTT character classes that had 4 or 5 pages worth of class features. Anyone else remember the ninja or the jester? Those authors didn't think for a second that they should be trimmed down to resemble something reasonable. But then again, why should they have? Everyone knew they were strictly for NPC's only.....
> 
> Riiiiight!




Actually, in all the groups i knew about, we took that seriously, with one exception--had an anti-paladin once. But never had a balance problem with that one, either--i'd looked at it before allowing it, just as i'd judged for myself to disallow the ninja, witch, and several others.


----------



## woodelf (May 27, 2004)

Faraer said:
			
		

> For me, all the best _Dragon_ material is tied to a specific world: Ed Greenwood's 200-odd Realms articles, everything by Gary Gygax, Bruce Heard's Mystara work, and others. Good stuff too from Robin Laws and Ray Winninger, but mostly the 'idea' articles and the pieces not anchored to a named setting are ephemeral and not the sort of thing you refer to later. Building memorable depth and emotion in an isolated non-narrative article is just too hard.




Huh. The idea articles are the ones i still go back to, 20 years later. The crunch i used to varying degrees, though i never have liked the Forgotten Realms, so articles that fit well with it often didn't appeal to me (even when they weren't so tied to the Realms that they couldn't be put into a different setting).


----------



## woodelf (May 27, 2004)

Imhotepthewise said:
			
		

> The best, most useful article I ever read was the Seven Sentence NPC.  I think it still works well today.




Doh! Completely forgot about that one. i *should* be using it still, to this day. D'you remember which issue that one was in?


----------



## Ron (May 28, 2004)

*The Voyage of the Princess Ark* series by Bruce Heard is, by far, the best articles I ever read in Dragon. I am also liked the *Nine Hells* by Ed Greenwood and the *Anti-Paladin* piece, which also got a lot of use in its time.

The worst offender was, also by far, *The Three Wizards* series of articles by Ed Greenwood. I found them to be _stupid_ and I still hate them (yes, I still have strong negative emotions to those) after many years.


----------



## MerricB (May 28, 2004)

If there's one type of article I'd like to see, it is the article where a designer explains the choices made during the design of a feat, prestige class, game mechanic or similar.

Yes, I love the "Behind the Curtain" sidebars in the books. 

Cheers!


----------



## Tratyn Runewind (May 28, 2004)

Hi again, 



> Posted by Patlin:
> *I remember a halfling who's enemies tended to be accident prone. One fell out of a window and landed on his own sword and knife a couple of dozen times! (This was from an April issue, I'm sure.)*




This would be the infamous Eubeen Hadd, from the "Midgets in the Earth" column in Dragon #60.  How could I have forgotten poor Eubeen?!    The passage in question is,

_There were some troubles at the start of his career, but most of them were cleared up in a short time. Hecklers at his nightly rallies were surprised to find the thongs on their sandals cut or tied together, and all of their spare change disappeared when they least expected it.  The hecklers assumed that Eubeen’s numerous halfling followers were to blame, and they hired a noted and feared anti-paladin to go after him and discuss the matter. Unfortunately, the anti-paladin suffered an unusual accident while riding through town to meet Eubeen. His saddle straps parted as he rode past a group of hairy-footed children, and he fell into a large public fountain. Though the children tried to rescue him, it was to no avail. Constables on the scene found the anti-paladin had drowned and had fallen on his sword and dagger thirty-eight times. Later, a ringleader of the hecklers was found in his home, having apparently fallen from an upper-story window twice, after tying himself to a chair and taking poison. Eubeen’s comment that the man must have been accident-prone was accepted without hesitation by everyone, and his rallies now go on uninterrupted._

Hope this helps!


----------



## BOZ (May 28, 2004)

heheh...


----------



## woodelf (May 29, 2004)

Joshua Randall said:
			
		

> Some of my favorites:
> * An article on runes, including a runic alphabet. (Dethek?) As a bonus, had some runic riddles which were campaign seeds in their own right. ("I guard beneath / Rubies three, sapphires three / And crown of gold." - Who _doesn't_ want to find that location?)



Which reminds me of the articles on how to create riddles and work them into your adventures. I loved those.



> * "Be aware, take care: principles of adventuring success" - or something like that. Advice to the players about how to keep their PCs alive. Somewhat dated now, in that D&D has evolved beyond its DM-vs-players paradigm. But a new series for the players (rather than endless templates and upgrades for monsters = the DM) would be welcome.



I think you may be misremembering the tone of the article. I never took it as being adversarial-GMing-specific, or even particularly pertinent. Most of the advice falls into the category of "how to be a better adventurer", and a lot of it was character-level, rather than player-level. Yes, some of it was strategic advice--but it no more championed adversarial play than the current PH, or the many [current] Dragon articles on optimum multiclass or feat progressions. You can be highly strategic without metagaming, and you can metagame with out being adversarial.



> * An article describing the six ability scores. Was very good on differentiating Intelligence from Wisdom and Strength from Constitution. An update for the modern era would be especially helpful to new players.



I dunno. There's a fair bit more detail on this in the PH than there used to be, isn't there? Personally, i don't remember that article as being particularly revelatory--i'll have to give it another read.



> * "Of rogue-stones and gem-jumping", one of Ed Greenwood's Realms articles. Some of this material made its way into the FRCS, but not the evocative backstories. (Again - campaign seeds!)




Further evidence (along with the majority of the citations in this thread), IMHO, that the fluff is what makes or breaks RPG stuff. Crunch is good, but the best crunch in the world falls flat without the fluff to bring it to life. And, IMHO, this is where a lot of the current Dragon articles fall down, and why they don't appeal to me as much as old Dragon articles do, despite using mechanics i'm not using.


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## woodelf (May 29, 2004)

grodog said:
			
		

> Among my favorites, in no particular order:
> 
> 
> Katherine Kerr's "Beyond the Dungeon" 1 and 2 from Dragons 87 and 88; Kerr's "The Real Barbarians" from Dragon 72 was good too
> Stephen Inniss' "A Cast of Strange Familiars" (Dragon 84), nice alternatives to the usual cat, toad, raven, etc.




Totally forgot about "The Real Barbarians". Too bad they decided to base the D&D3E class on Viking berserker legends rather than this article.

We used a lot of those alternate familiars, back in the day. Though the most memorable was a Shadow Drake familiar that was one of the PCs. She was a fairly typical, devious shadow drake, and the PC was a good-hearted, altruistic, naive, Good-with-a-capital-g pixie wizard. The dynamics between those two were great--Tekka (the pixie) would never have believed anything but the very best of any of her companions, especially her familiar. And Listhan (the shadow drake) made masterful use of that blindspot, without being actually disruptive to play. Basically, we'd discovered the player/shadow dynamic that Wraith: the Oblivion codified almost a decade later. Listhan helped Tekka "realize" that she was to blame when some stuff went awry for the group, and nearly got her to commit suicide (by suffering the point-blank impact of a retributive strike in order to destroy the "corrupting" magical item)--if a dashing chivalrous swashbuckling sprite (new PC) hadn't shown up at just the right moment. But that's a whole 'nother story (and, for that matter, part of a couple other very memorable stories, too).


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## woodelf (May 29, 2004)

Nellisir said:
			
		

> That was a GREAT article with GREAT art.
> 
> Princess Ark, Wyrms of the North, Wizards Three (not the articles themselves so much as the fluff + crunch aspect), and Leomund's Tiny Hut.
> 
> ...




You say that like it's surprising? It seems to me that it's the fluff that makes RPG material good and memorable. How much crunch you need with it varies from game to game, group to group, and player to player. But i'd be surprised if you didn't find that the most-used stuff for any group was that that had a healthy dose of good fluff in it. For some, like me, that'd mean good fluff with as little crunch as possible. For others, like my friend Akira, that means good fluff with a level of crunch on par with the PH. For others, it probably falls in between somewhere. 

Frex, i loved the Pages from the Mages and Arcane Lore columns, without exception, but never cared for The Wizards Three. And the only real difference (they were all basically new spell columns) was that i loved the fluff in the former two, and never could stand the game fiction of The Wizards Three. (Not saying that the same judgmentes of relative merit would be applicable to everyone, just that i think most people would prefer whichever of those series they liked the fluff from the best, rather than preferring the one with the best new spells.)


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## woodelf (May 29, 2004)

frog said:
			
		

> Pretty much anything that was included in the Dragon Annual #2 or #3. If I remember correctly they had Tesseracts, Liches, Politics of Hell, the different articles that Roger Moore did on the races...
> 
> Just a huge treasure trove of goodies.




That'd be _Best of Dragon_ vol. II (race viewpoint articles) & I (all the rest you list). Dragon Annuals are all-new material and didn't start until, what, '97?


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## woodelf (May 29, 2004)

fizban said:
			
		

> There's so many to mention. The above mentioned Nine Hells article is one of the all time best. I was always fond of the Anti-Paladin article. Ed Greenwoods ecology articles and just about anything from Ed was always top notch.
> 
> Dragon seemed so much crunchier and more useful back in those days.




Funny. I'd have said Dragon seemed so much less crunchy and more useful back in those days. 

And your examples seem to agree with that statement. The Nine Hells articles are pretty much the antithesis of crunchy--without pulling them out, if there was any crunch at all it was maybe a new devil or two. Likewise, the ecology articles were tons of fluff, and only gradually got crunchier over time [though i hear they're now pretty much all crunch]. For that matter, i'd say that most of Greenwood's Dragon articles were at least heavily fluffy (The Wizards Three, Wyrms of the North), when they weren't all-fluff (The Merry Month of ... Myrtul?). I know the reason i loved some of his magic item articles was precisely for the fluff elements. The fact that a new magic shield would give me half a page or more of backstroy to go with the sentence of game stats was what made it so good.


----------



## Tav_Behemoth (May 29, 2004)

It won't take more than a quick glance at the Masters and Minions tournament at Gen Con to realize that we're all huge fans of the "Ecology" series.

I'm also running "Barnacus: City in Peril" from Dragon #80 as the sequel to Zenopus' Tower from the Holmes blue box set. That's a great adventure!

If this was the First Place winner in the Module Design Contest Category A-8, how many other categories were there? How many were ever published?


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## schnee (May 29, 2004)

I will never forget the original Anti-Paladin. Part of it was due to the artwork, part of it was due to that Charisma table (either 17+ or 4- hahahaha).

The Tesseract article rocked. Messed my head up pretty good.


----------



## BOZ (May 29, 2004)

schnee said:
			
		

> The Tesseract article rocked. Messed my head up pretty good.




as well it should.


----------



## Faraer (May 29, 2004)

People are struck by and remember ideas, images, atmosphere and stories. Game mechanics per se don't exactly touch the soul, do they? Except in so far as they facilitate ideas, images, atmosphere and stories in play.

Even if a rules-heavy article has bits that are easily transferrable to home campaigns -- though I don't think borrowing a mechanic and *then* rationalizing how it fits into your campaign world is a very sane method of world-building -- the article itself won't be much credited, since you've just stripped it for parts.

woodelf, you never liked the Realms but you loved the Realms background in "Pages from the Mages" and "Arcane Lore"?


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## grodog (Jun 2, 2004)

So, Erik, what can you tell us about your vague plans for all of this info?  A Best of Dragon (Ever) compliation?  3.5 reprints of old classics?  Tracking down the best authors of yore to get them to write for us?  

More info please


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## DungeonmasterCal (Jun 2, 2004)

woodelf said:
			
		

> Funny. I'd have said Dragon seemed so much less crunchy and more useful back in those days.
> 
> And your examples seem to agree with that statement. The Nine Hells articles are pretty much the antithesis of crunchy--without pulling them out, if there was any crunch at all it was maybe a new devil or two. Likewise, the ecology articles were tons of fluff, and only gradually got crunchier over time [though i hear they're now pretty much all crunch]. For that matter, i'd say that most of Greenwood's Dragon articles were at least heavily fluffy (The Wizards Three, Wyrms of the North), when they weren't all-fluff (The Merry Month of ... Myrtul?). I know the reason i loved some of his magic item articles was precisely for the fluff elements. The fact that a new magic shield would give me half a page or more of backstroy to go with the sentence of game stats was what made it so good.




Regarding Greenwood's "Dragons of the North" articles--how many bloody dragons does a campaign world need?  Good grief...anyway..that's my piece on that.

But some of that fluff, especially the 1e and early 2e fluff, was (to me, anyway) interesting fluff.  That Tesseract article kept me busy for days, just trying to wrap my 3 dimensional head around a 4 dimensional concept.  It was fluff that educated and entertained, not like so much of what Dragon puts out now.  The Githyanki issue was a lot of fluff, but it was at least something new and somewhat innovative, not another article about a famous tavern in the Forgotten Realms, for pity's sake.  The ecology articles were great fluff, and I really miss those.  But I prefer crunch.  I can make up my own fluff.  I just don't have the time to do both AND run a campaign world.


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## EB3 (Jun 2, 2004)

One of the first issues with a D&D-WW2 crossover.  Reprinted in the first Best of Dragon.  Wizards verses the SS...too cool.


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## BOZ (Jun 2, 2004)

grodog said:
			
		

> More info please




yes, please.


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## woodelf (Jun 3, 2004)

Faraer said:
			
		

> woodelf, you never liked the Realms but you loved the Realms background in "Pages from the Mages" and "Arcane Lore"?




I loved Pages from the Mages because it gave me a spellbook with ab ackstory, and sometimes a character. I never found those particularly "Realmsian", unlike a lot of other Greenwood articles. I could easily slot one of those spellbooks in, drop the associated mage into my settings history somewhere, changing a few names or locations as needed, and i was all set. IIRC, most of the wizards depicted in Pages from the Mages were real bit-players in the Realms, and not tied all that specifically into Forgotten Realms stuff--not like the Symbul or Elminster or Thay. So, in short, it was isolated enough that it wasn't "Realms background" to me, it was just "background". Not entirely certain why i didn't find de-Realms-ing other articles harder and/or less satisfying.

As for Arcane Lore--i don't remember any of those being explicitly Forgotten Realms. They came from all different writers, and implied all sorts of different backgrounds. Used a couple in their entirety (working the wizard into the campaign history in some minor way), used a lot for just one spell here or there. I always liked to give PC wizards the feel of a tradition of apprenticeship and closely-guarded secrets, so i'd rated all spells as common, uncommon, or rare, and would give them mostly common spells to start with, but also a couple of uncommon and rare ones, usually including at least one or two spells the players (collectively) had never heard of--usually culled from something like Arcane Lore.

[just was rereading the very first Arcane Lore, and i'm entertained by the fact that it specifically says that they will sort out spells and print them in various groups as appropriate (i.e., themed), so don't count on seeing all your spells in one group; send no more than six spells per submission; and don't include magic items unless "closely tied" to the spells. That first column is credited to one author, and has 8 spells and a magic item.]


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## grodog (Jun 13, 2004)

grodog said:
			
		

> So, Erik, what can you tell us about your vague plans for all of this info?  A Best of Dragon (Ever) compliation?  3.5 reprints of old classics?  Tracking down the best authors of yore to get them to write for us?
> 
> More info please




*bump*


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## kolvar (Jun 13, 2004)

By far Dragon 106 (lots of paladins and ranger add ons)


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## viscounteric (Jun 13, 2004)

The first dragons I ever bought were the most influential to my development as a player/DM.  
#136: Building Blocks, City Style, A Room for a Knight, 50 Ways to Foil Your Players.       
#137: Weathering the Storms, Treasures of the Wilds, What's for Lunch?
#145: A Castle here, a Castle There, Holding down the fort, Stronholds Three

I used those articles as crutches for my developing GMing 'skill'   Eventually I weened myself off of relying on them all the time, but I'll still reference them from time to time (And Expeditious Retreats free e-book on the Magical Medieval City is the first that may be better, but more complicated, than the Dragon Article.


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## Derulbaskul (Jun 14, 2004)

Hey Erik,

All this talk about good articles should highlight something that Dragon sorely lacks: a searchable index!

How about making the Paizo site useful and include an online index?

Cheers


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## The Madhatter (Jun 14, 2004)

I really liked the article that introduced half-ogres as a playable race. We used them as PCs and some wicked NPCs


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## BOZ (Mar 18, 2005)

Erik Mona said:
			
		

> Your input will really help me for a top secret project I'm working on.




i wonder how secret this is now?


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## tigycho (Mar 19, 2005)

Gotta say, In no particular order:

Roger Moore's 'Point of View' Articles
Most of Best of Dragon 1, particularly:
- What to do when the Dog eats your Dice
- Excerpt from Interview with a Rust Monster
- Monkish Combat in the Arena of Promotion (or some such)
The Whole Half-Ogre
A PC and His Money
The countless articles in the first 60 or so that dealt with rules for world building, agriculture, manors, kingdoms, merchanting and the like


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## BOZ (Mar 20, 2005)

i hope there is still room for more suggestions from latecomers, since the "volume 1" has been announced already.


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## Rawhide (Mar 20, 2005)

I loved all the articles with names, languages and phrases. Those were immediately useful, and never needed rules crunch. Many are printed out and in my folder right now.

The old additional classes. The jester, anti-paladin and Incantrix in particular. I'd love to see new core classes for 3.5, too (like what's being done in the hardbacks with the healer, warlock, and hexblade.)


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## Ron (Mar 20, 2005)

I brought the Dragon Archive CD at the time it was released and it was a great disapointment. There were historically interesting things here and there but, in the end, I figured out I don't appreciate Dragon that much.

Still, there are some very good pieces:

*The Voyage of the Princess Ark* is, by far, the best thing I ever read in Dragon. It's clever, well written, and really hooks you to the very end.

*A Plethora of Paladins* not only is pretty good, but it also have find some use in my game.

*Elminster's Hell Articles* is a surprising good piece, as I think very poor of Mr. Greenwood writing skills (unlike many posters, I think that the Wizard's three series is rather weak).

*IOUN Stones* article is also very good (thanks Psion to recalling it).

*Giants on Earth* series was also excellent in early issues. I realize you may not be able to reprint them, but I also like the articles about mythological or historical characters.

*Greyhawk's regional feats* was the last article I liked (good job Erik), but it is, perhaps, too soon to republish it.


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## DMH (Mar 20, 2005)

I hope this thread was also used: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=109274

I also hope the Ecology of the Dungeon shows up in the first book.


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## BOZ (Mar 21, 2005)

given that erik mona replied in that thread, i think it's safe to assume that he's at least aware of it.


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## Razz0putin (Mar 21, 2005)

I've got to go with DungeonCraft.  
although I think the is dragon relevant thread to take it way to far it does bring up some good points about how everyone makes classes, spells, magic items.
another great article in these modern times was the one about limiting prestige classes


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## Gentlegamer (Mar 21, 2005)

Off the top of my head:

Roger Moore's Point of View series
Roger Moore's editiorials
From the Sorcerer's Scroll:  many, many articles from Gary Gygax explaining aspects of the game
See the Pomarj and Die! -- great example of fleshing out an undeveloped portion of an established campaign setting
The Politics of Hell
Roger Moore's Astral Plane article from #67
Poker, Chess, and the AD&D System by Gary Gygax -- explains why house rules and radical changes are "bad"
Day of the Dwarf
Snarf Quest
Yamara
The Twilght Empire
Fineous Fingers
Knights of the Dinner Table
Voyage of the Princess Ark
Known World Grimoir
IOUN stones article
Norse Dragons
Spike Y Jones's Ecology articles
First Quest
Through the Looking Glass
Eye of the Beholder
Black Hand Thieves Guild
Psionics In Living Color
Giants in the Earth
Horses Are People, Too! -- horse traits
That's Familiar -- familiar enhancing spells
Featured Creatures -- official monsters
Care for a Drink? -- uses for _decanter of endless water_
Enemy at the Gates -- seige warfare in fantasy campaigns
Get Your Priorities Straight! -- alignment and motivation guidelines
Sage Advice
Forum -- before the internet, a great place for opinions of other fantasy role-players
Leomund's Tiny Hut
Rob Kuntz's Greyhawk campaign journals


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## jrients (Mar 21, 2005)

My all-time favorite Dragon article has to be Bruce Seligman's "Gandalf Was Only A Fifth Level Magic-User."


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## The Shaman (Mar 21, 2005)

I can't believe that no one's mentioned _The Awful Green Things from Outer Space!_ - we could play that for days! We even designed the _Znutar II_, which was sent into space to recover the _Znutar_ and met the Terrible Purple Things, the Awful Green Things' cousins...

I loved the Minaria articles - my 1e and 3.0e campaign-worlds were heavily influenced by the land of _Divine Right_, one of my all-time favorite board games.

The herb uses article was one that I actually ported into my games as both a player and a GM - I would love to see something like this updated, maybe released as a .pdf along with uses of gems, minerals, and so on.

I used the _Traveller_ tesseract to increase the size of the cargo hold in my merchant captain's Type A freighter, the _Half-Life_. He was such a killer speculator that we had very little incentive to follow the GM's plot hooks, 'cause we were making credits hand over fist hauling industrial-world goods to the agrucultural-world one jump away...

Finally, there was the mini-game that I think of as the precursor to d20 _Modern_: _Mugger_. Put on your leather jacket, grab your switchblade and your Saturday Night Special, and hold up the liquor store or steal an old woman's Social Security check - good times. Until I made up a city map we used the city board from _Squad Leader_ as our "campaign-map."

Funny how my most memorable articles from _Dragon_ had nothing to do with _D&D_...


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## Qlippoth (Mar 22, 2005)

One of my long-time favorites is "A New Name? It's Elementary!" by Gygax. Gave a pair of tables with which one could generate names (personal, place-related, and the like) composed of Anglo-Saxon root-words (along with rough corresponding meanings). I've used that article for names, idea hooks, etc. ever since it was printed (well over 20 years).


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## Swordsage (Mar 22, 2005)

So many favourites, but after having a good think I realised that most of them related to 'themes':

A better way of playing the game than existed in the current rules-set: "Two-fisted Fighting" and "Physics and Falling Damage".

Enhancing the bad guys articles: "Deathmaster" NPC class, "For Your Orcs Only".

New bad guys with back story and cool new monsters/items/spells: "The Cult of the Dragon".

Spells and magic items with 'substance', usually meaning back story: "Pages From the Mages", the first "Arcane Lore" article, "Six Very Special Shields", "Soargar's Legacy".

Commentary on the game itself and bad trends/habits (yes, a bit subjective but useful nonetheless): "History of a Game That Failed", "Nogard" (the tongue-in-cheek look).

World- specific material for the fans of those settings: "Dragotha", "Wyrms of the North", "Voyage of the Princess Ark".

New adventuring vistas material: "The Nine Hells".

IMHO, Dragon worked best when it catered to all the fans by giving them a breadth of material. That meant regular 'monster' stuff for the DMs who wanted to throw something new at their players ("Creature Catalogs", "The Ecology of ..."), regular FR articles for the fans of that setting without necessarily having to do a 'series' ("Rogue Stones and Gem Jumping", "City of Sunken Spires", "Seven Swords"), regular GH/DL/Mystara et. al. articles for the fans of those settings, and enough non-gameworld specific material to stop the griping from the anti-FR/GH/DL etc. brigade. I was always interested in material that could be instantly used in any campaign like new herbs, poisons, horses - even if that material was showcased in a gameworld specific vehicle (like GH or FR) - it was very simple to take it out of the 'fluff'. And at the very least, the 'fluff' was usually interesting and entertaining and with a bit of work could be transported to other campaign settings. Certainly better than a bland, dry schoolbook recitation of game stats.

I have high hopes for the new Erik-helmed DRAGON. I just pray that those hopes aren't submerged in a morass of flavourless PrCs/spells/magic items and monsters.

-- The Swordsage


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## ColonelHardisson (Mar 22, 2005)

Ron said:
			
		

> I brought the Dragon Archive CD at the time it was released and it was a great disapointment. There were historically interesting things here and there but, in the end, I figured out I don't appreciate Dragon that much.




Why were you disappointed? Had you not read Dragon very much before buying the archive? I ask because I see you're not in the US. I'd read Dragon since issue 45, and I love the archive.


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## BOZ (Mar 22, 2005)

Swordsage said:
			
		

> New bad guys with back story and cool new monsters/items/spells: "The Cult of the Dragon".




you've also reminded me of Ed Greenwood's original Incantrix article... another good one.


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## Olive (Mar 22, 2005)

ColonelHardisson said:
			
		

> Why were you disappointed? Had you not read Dragon very much before buying the archive? I ask because I see you're not in the US. I'd read Dragon since issue 45, and I love the archive.




Prbably because everyone talks about the old dragons as if they were hugely different from the new dragons. And they're not!

Mostly people's nostalgia kicks in here: when I first started gaming (and actually when i restarted in my 20s) everything was cool and new. The people who are posting here and read this stuff as it came out are almost certainly jaded as all hell!


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## S'mon (Mar 22, 2005)

The one I always remember is "The Highs & Lows of Fantasy" which explains how to run low-fantasy & high-fantasy campaigns, and what the difference is.


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## S'mon (Mar 22, 2005)

I also think Dragons 136 (cities) & 145 (castles) are the bee's knees, I still refer to them frequently; 136 is likely to see a lot of use in my current campaign.  For me Dragon between 136 to about 180 (or whenever they put the cover pic in a white border, *yuck* was the golden age, I had to throw out most of my Dragons but I kept all the pre-180 ones.


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## RichGreen (Mar 22, 2005)

S'mon said:
			
		

> For me Dragon between 136 to about 180 (or whenever they put the cover pic in a white border, *yuck* was the golden age, I had to throw out most of my Dragons but I kept all the pre-180 ones.




Wasn't the white border a UK only thing? I agree -- *yuck*


Richard


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## TheAuldGrump (Mar 22, 2005)

Claydonia.

Tom Wham games.

Cardstock structures. (Several castles, and a small ship.)

Dragon Chess.

The Divine Right column (I forget its name off hand).

Wormy.

The spiritualism rules for Call of Cthulhu.

The Auld Grump


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## Thanael (Mar 22, 2005)

RichGreen said:
			
		

> An article by Wolfgang Baur (?) on "Dark Zakhara" or similar (horror-tinged Al-Qadim)




Second that. I believe it was titled Dark Arabia.
A great way to tie the Complete Necromancer Guide together with standard AQ.

I also nominate: 
Most of the other AQ articles.
Paths of Power (Path Magic) by Baur/Kuntz (still using it with 2E to flesh out MUs)
+ a letter from a later mag with 2 more bard paths.
The Ecology of the Ghoul by Wolfgang Baur (Doresain recently resurfaced in Libris Mortis!)

Dark Sun character Kits
Completing the complete Bard (2 nice Bard kits)
the one with the fighter assassin kit  (also northman, and horsenomad?)
the Lost Orientals (2E oriental kits)

Of course the old Deities & Demigods of Greyhawk by Gygax
Suel deities by Leomund
the newer 2e Faith & Avatars style Greyhawk deities
Roger Moore's article on the Jermlaine and other Suelspawn
all the Greyhawk Grimoires
of course all the LGJ !!!

the lost seldarine

I also liked some of the articles on the old alignment debate, esp "Get your priorities straight", which introduced superstitions and principles according to AL.


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## Gentlegamer (Mar 22, 2005)

Swordsage said:
			
		

> IMHO, Dragon worked best when it catered to all the fans by giving them a breadth of material. That meant regular 'monster' stuff for the DMs who wanted to throw something new at their players ("Creature Catalogs", "The Ecology of ..."), regular FR articles for the fans of that setting without necessarily having to do a 'series' ("Rogue Stones and Gem Jumping", "City of Sunken Spires", "Seven Swords"), regular GH/DL/Mystara et. al. articles for the fans of those settings, and enough non-gameworld specific material to stop the griping from the anti-FR/GH/DL etc. brigade. I was always interested in material that could be instantly used in any campaign like new herbs, poisons, horses - even if that material was showcased in a gameworld specific vehicle (like GH or FR) - it was very simple to take it out of the 'fluff'. And at the very least, the 'fluff' was usually interesting and entertaining and with a bit of work could be transported to other campaign settings. Certainly better than a bland, dry schoolbook recitation of game stats.



This an excellent description of "the old days!"  This is generally how I remember Dragon when I was a regular reader.


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## Gentlegamer (Mar 22, 2005)

More coming to mind:

Ecology of the Gibbering Mouther

"The Lay of Droone" -- short story

"Thief on a String" -- short story


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## diaglo (Mar 22, 2005)

TheAuldGrump said:
			
		

> Tom Wham games.




visit www.tomwham.com  



> Wormy.





i miss Wormy.


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## Ron (Mar 22, 2005)

ColonelHardisson said:
			
		

> Why were you disappointed? Had you not read Dragon very much before buying the archive? I ask because I see you're not in the US. I'd read Dragon since issue 45, and I love the archive.




We often played at a friend's house who was a subscriber in the middle 80s. I read a lot of those issues and, at that time, they appear to be nice. I was about 18 and I wanted to digest everything I could find about D&D. I was in my middle 30s when I brought the CD and, quite frankly, I think Dragon don't have much for a more mature audience. I didn't found much use to the rules additions and I didn't found the setting pieces to be that interesting. In fact, there are already too many rules available for free or otherwise and I believe that reading fantasy literature or real world history is much more inspiring than reading rpg settings.


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## ColonelHardisson (Mar 22, 2005)

Olive said:
			
		

> The people who are posting here and read this stuff as it came out are almost certainly jaded as all hell!




I think its people who _didn't_ read it back in the old days who are jaded, perhaps because they don't have the nostalgia factor working on them.

*jaded*   adj. 
Worn out; wearied: “My father's words had left me jaded and depressed” (William Styron). 
Dulled by surfeit; sated: “the sickeningly sweet life of the amoral, jaded, bored upper classes” (John Simon). 
Cynically or pretentiously callous.


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## ColonelHardisson (Mar 22, 2005)

Ron said:
			
		

> We often played at a friend's house who was a subscriber in the middle 80s. I read a lot of those issues and, at that time, they appear to be nice. I was about 18 and I wanted to digest everything I could find about D&D. I was in my middle 30s when I brought the CD and, quite frankly, I think Dragon don't have much for a more mature audience. I didn't found much use to the rules additions and I didn't found the setting pieces to be that interesting. In fact, there are already too many rules available for free or otherwise and I believe that reading fantasy literature or real world history is much more inspiring than reading rpg settings.




Well, sure, the rules additions are for older editions of D&D, so are of limited use for 3e/3.5 players. I think the archive is great because it shows the evolution of the game, and reveals how gamers have always been pretty much the same, in that they have always been interested in the same basic things - rules additions, monsters, etc. 

At that time, the late 70s and into the 80s, the age of the average gamer was probably a lot younger than it is now, simply because the game itself was new, which would explain why Dragon didn't seem geared toward a more mature audience.

I think comparing the archive to today's game environment may be a little unfair. For a long time, Dragon was one of only a very few outlets for game material that was available on a wide-scale basis. The internet has obviously made the dissemination of game material much easier on a much wider scale. I'd say the Dragon archive is more interesting as an historical document than as a game resource for today's gamer - but I do think there are plenty of ideas to be gathered from it.


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## Gomez (Mar 22, 2005)

TheAuldGrump said:
			
		

> Tom Wham games





Man that bring be back! I vividly remembering playing _The Awful Green Things From Outer Space_ with my friend after school! Good times, good times!


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## The_Universe (Mar 22, 2005)

I nominate the "Missing Dragons of the Color Wheel" though I suspect it's too late.


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## Committed Hero (Mar 22, 2005)

First one read was #63; subscription started with #67 (Fedifensor)

Favorite Issue:  #73.  Contest-winning dungeon (Forest of Doom), reworked Elemental Planes; good stuff on every page.

My favorite 1/2 spell was Bigby's Insulting Finger.

I remember reading pre-FR Greenwood articles (esp Pages from the Mages and Seven Swords from #74) and marveling at the backstory of the people and places involved.

My list includes:  Top Secret Adventures;

the Greyhawk metaplot articles from the #50s-60s or so;

I can't make a pantheon anymore without thinking about #77's Elemental Gods article;

just about anything by Katherine Kerr;

Weather in the World of Greyhawk (#68);

and the first and second reviews of Magic: The Gathering 

PS Sunday's planet....


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## fredramsey (Mar 22, 2005)

Baba Yaga's Dancing Hut

Oh, and what I wouldn't give for a Nine Hells boxed set... [drool]


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## ShadowDenizen (Mar 22, 2005)

Erik,
Thanks for the nod to the years of Dragons past.  I think that you have done a stellar job so far, from what I've seen.  I (we?) appreciate your taking into account the opinions of older gamers, while still trying to drag a new generation into a great RPG.  While I'm still a far way from a subscription, Issue 330 was one of the first "Dragon" issues that I've picked up from my FLGS in many years.


Of course, most everything I've said has already been listed, but, for completeness' sake, here's some of the things I immediately thought of when this topic came up:

I'll also list the "Nine Hells" overview as my very favorite article: I still have my original issues with that article. (IIRC, it actually spanned two issues.)
The "Witch" character class. 
The "Death Master" chracter class.
The "Gem Dragons". 
"Giants in the Earth": not one specific instance, but overall.
the "Tesseracts" article
I'm sure in in the minoroty on this, but I always enjoyed reading "the Voyage of the Princess Ark" series
the Kender/Gnome ecology/history articles from when Dragonlance was first published.
Snow Elves
Deck of Many Things (IIRC, this was coupled with a "Dungeon" adventure called "House of Cards" where all the doors were sealed with cards from the Deck?)
the "Deryni" articles
the "ecology of" articles
the "Baba Yaga's" hut article



> Oh, and what I wouldn't give for a Nine Hells boxed set...



I'll second this. (And while we're at it, one on the Seven Heavens, too): Sure I have the boxed Planescape Sets, which I still love, but a new boxed set? Is a no-brainer, IMO.


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## DMH (Mar 22, 2005)

Gomez said:
			
		

> Man that bring be back! I vividly remembering playing _The Awful Green Things From Outer Space_ with my friend after school! Good times, good times!




SJ Games bought it and put out a box set. I saw it in my FLGS recently and they bought it last year. FYI


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## Ron (Mar 22, 2005)

ColonelHardisson said:
			
		

> Well, sure, the rules additions are for older editions of D&D, so are of limited use for 3e/3.5 players. I think the archive is great because it shows the evolution of the game, and reveals how gamers have always been pretty much the same, in that they have always been interested in the same basic things - rules additions, monsters, etc.




The CD was released during the 2nd edition tenure. As such, it was trivial to adapt material from previous editions. Still, I didn't found much material of interest to my game.

I agree with you about the historical interest. It was, for sure, what kept me reading from time to time.



			
				ColonelHardisson said:
			
		

> At that time, the late 70s and into the 80s, the age of the average gamer was probably a lot younger than it is now, simply because the game itself was new, which would explain why Dragon didn't seem geared toward a more mature audience.




I can agree with that.



			
				ColonelHardisson said:
			
		

> I think comparing the archive to today's game environment may be a little unfair. For a long time, Dragon was one of only a very few outlets for game material that was available on a wide-scale basis. The internet has obviously made the dissemination of game material much easier on a much wider scale. I'd say the Dragon archive is more interesting as an historical document than as a game resource for today's gamer - but I do think there are plenty of ideas to be gathered from it.




Yeah! As such, a well edited compilation might work. However, I was arguing that Dragon, since from its early days, was never as good as people remember.


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## Olive (Mar 22, 2005)

ColonelHardisson said:
			
		

> I think its people who _didn't_ read it back in the old days who are jaded, perhaps because they don't have the nostalgia factor working on them.
> 
> *jaded*   adj.
> Worn out; wearied: “My father's words had left me jaded and depressed” (William Styron).
> ...




I know what jaded means. You misunderstood. I don't mean jaded about the old magazines, I mean jaded (in the worn out sense) of new gaming material.

You get it all the time here. Old gamers going on about how everythign used to be fresh and new. Well, duh. Of course when you were new to gaming, things were fresh and new to you.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Mar 22, 2005)

I love the insane "Strategic Review" articles that talk about people learning to speak Wall or the article written by a rust monster on his experiences with adventurers. Very, very silly, but rich in old, old, old school flavor. Many of these were reprinted in "Best of the Dragon" vol. 1.

The anti-paladin articles are good (again, for flavor), "From Dead Orc Pass to the City of Brass" is great, "Wormy" is a much-missed classic, and a sampling of the best old school April Fool's material (like the original Jester NPC class) were all wonderful.

The witch article that I think was mentioned on the front page is great. It was the second one, as I recall, but far superior.

"Citadel by the Sea," "Fedifensor" and whatever that 1E mountain dungeon full of spiders was were all great, too.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Mar 22, 2005)

Imhotepthewise said:
			
		

> The best, most useful article I ever read was the Seven Sentence NPC.  I think it still works well today.



I ran two campaigns with that article open in front of me at all times. Great stuff. I would agree that it's probably the most useful Dragon article ever.


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## BOZ (Mar 23, 2005)

Whizbang Dustyboots said:
			
		

> whatever that 1E mountain dungeon full of spiders was were all great, too.




Chagmat?


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## Samothdm (Mar 23, 2005)

ShadowDenizen said:
			
		

> I'm sure in in the minoroty on this, but I always enjoyed reading "the Voyage of the Princess Ark" series




No, I really liked that, too!  I re-read that several times over the years.  It was one of the things I was most looking forward to reading again after I got the CD-ROMs.  I liked all the crazy-weird stuff like the Spanish halfling guy from Texeiras or wherever.  It was so different from the other game worlds out there, and it fit in pretty well with the Known World style.


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## TGryph (Mar 23, 2005)

dyx said:
			
		

> the Lost Orientals (2E oriental kits)




After hopefully perusing 6 pages of replies, FINALLY someone mentions one of the ones I wrote! Does my old heart good! Glad you enjoyed it

(BTW It was called The Other Orientals    

TGryph


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## TheAuldGrump (Mar 23, 2005)

Hmmm, I posted last night, but it seems to have disappeared.

Claydonia.
Tom Wham Games.
Dragon Chess.
The cardstock buildings, ships, castles, etc.

The Auld Grump


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## DaveStebbins (Mar 25, 2005)

TheAuldGrump said:
			
		

> Hmmm, I posted last night, but it seems to have disappeared.



Nope, it's hiding right between post #228 and post #230 on the previous page.


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## ColonelHardisson (Mar 25, 2005)

Olive said:
			
		

> I know what jaded means. You misunderstood. I don't mean jaded about the old magazines, I mean jaded (in the worn out sense) of new gaming material.
> 
> You get it all the time here. Old gamers going on about how everythign used to be fresh and new. Well, duh. Of course when you were new to gaming, things were fresh and new to you.





Maybe, but I guess I'm an "old gamer," and I still get a kick out of new material. I'm not saying my experiences are the norm, but I find this to be true of other gamers my age also.


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## Olive (Mar 28, 2005)

ColonelHardisson said:
			
		

> Maybe, but I guess I'm an "old gamer," and I still get a kick out of new material. I'm not saying my experiences are the norm, but I find this to be true of other gamers my age also.




Hey, me too! But it does seem to me that there isn't as much of a difference between old Dragon and new Dragon as people claim.


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## lewpuls (Mar 31, 2005)

*Someday...*

I, too, have thought about redoing that article, but my problem is the same one that caused me to quit writing for Dragon 20-some years ago: they insist on buying all rights, and that is just plain wrong.

Perhaps sometime I'll do it, having been encouraged by this comment. Right now I'm much more into designing new games

Lew Pulsipher
pulsiphergames.com
Britannia Second Edition, Sep '05




			
				Henry said:
			
		

> OH, GOOD GOD! I JUST REMEMBERED!
> 
> I haven't seen it mentioned yet, but from Dragon, somewhere in the #70 to #82 issues, the two "Be Aware, Take Care" articles by Lew Pulsipher. EVERY person that fancies themselves as playing an adventurer NEEDS to read the sneaky tactics and good advice that Pulsipher gives in these articles. I have never seen its like since, and have several times considered doing a 3E version of the advice therein for an ENWorld Player's Journal, or some such.
> 
> THESE TWO ARTICLES NEED TO BE REBORN.


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## BOZ (Mar 31, 2005)

welcome to ENworld, Lew.


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## BOZ (Mar 31, 2005)

lewpuls said:
			
		

> I, too, have thought about redoing that article, but my problem is the same one that caused me to quit writing for Dragon 20-some years ago: they insist on buying all rights, and that is just plain wrong.
> 
> Perhaps sometime I'll do it, having been encouraged by this comment. Right now I'm much more into designing new games




one of the nice thing about the internet, especially having your own website, is that you can post your own articles (and if you've sold the right, post with permission) on the internet to share.


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## Arbiter of Wyrms (Jul 16, 2005)

I thought that it might be useful to post a link to the thread with the reactions to the product this thread has produced, the "Dragon Compendium Vol. I" thread:
http://www.enworld.org/newreply.php?do=newreply&noquote=1&p=2417290


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## The Shaman (Jul 16, 2005)

The articles that I remember most fondly had nothing to do with D&D - background for _Divine Right_, modules for _Top Secret_, the _Awful Green Things from Outer Space_ game, the tesseract for _Traveller_, a couple of _Boot Hill_ pieces.

D&D stuff? Meh, for the most part.


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## ColonelHardisson (Jul 16, 2005)

The Shaman said:
			
		

> The articles that I remember most fondly had nothing to do with D&D - background for _Divine Right_, modules for _Top Secret_, the _Awful Green Things from Outer Space_ game, the tesseract for _Traveller_, a couple of _Boot Hill_ pieces.
> 
> D&D stuff? Meh, for the most part.




I think you bring up a great point. Early on, I was impressed with the sheer variety of articles Dragon published, covering a lot of different games. I think I was most fascinated by the Traveller articles, as they still stand out in my memory. Those non-D&D articles gave support for games that I didn't see much support for at the time. For instance, it was years after I saw Traveller articles in Dragon before I saw a copy of the Journal of the Traveller's Aid Society.


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## Infernal Teddy (Jul 16, 2005)

The Politics and organization articles from #196
Most of #200
The Reviews, but especially those by Rick Swan and Lester Smith (Issue 195 still gets reread)
I loved forum. The internet still hasn't reached that level of "wow"
Then there was that article in... 208 i think, on how to set up a campaign FOR the players, written by some geek called Erik Mona...


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## The Shaman (Jul 16, 2005)

ColonelHardisson said:
			
		

> Early on, I was impressed with the sheer variety of articles Dragon published, covering a lot of different games....Those non-D&D articles gave support for games that I didn't see much support for at the time.



I also found inspiration in articles that had nothing to do with what I was playing at the time - a couple of _Empire of the Petal Throne_ pieces, a good article on demi-human miniature armies, some _Gamma World_ stuff.


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## ColonelHardisson (Jul 16, 2005)

The Shaman said:
			
		

> I also found inspiration in articles that had nothing to do with what I was playing at the time - a couple of _Empire of the Petal Throne_ pieces, a good article on demi-human miniature armies, some _Gamma World_ stuff.




Minarian Legends is also a great example of this type of article.


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## DarrenGMiller (Jul 17, 2005)

I brought out the old _Dragon_ adventure "Nogard" last week and let one of my current players read it.

DM


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## BOZ (Jul 17, 2005)

Infernal Teddy said:
			
		

> I loved forum. The internet still hasn't reached that level of "wow"




are we using the same internet?


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## S'mon (Jul 17, 2005)

"The Highs & Lows of Fantasy" is the one I always remember.  But everything in the circa 136-160 range of issues was cool.


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## orangemike (Sep 18, 2006)

Omand said:
			
		

> - There was also an article, who's title I have forgetten, that gave the folk properties of gemstones, and general values of the gemstones as well.  It was a great flavour article in that you could then use gems for reasons other than wealth in the game with some built in "known" properties.  Things like rubies attracting lightning, moonstones causing/influencing lycanthropy, etc.




Thanx.  I wrote that, and enjoyed it a great deal. "Many Facets of Gems"; issue #83.

-- 
Michael J. Lowrey


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## Shade (Sep 18, 2006)

I love this thread, and welcome its return from the dead.


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## BOZ (Sep 19, 2006)

orangemike said:
			
		

> Thanx.  I wrote that, and enjoyed it a great deal. "Many Facets of Gems"; issue #83.
> 
> --
> Michael J. Lowrey




welcome to enworld!


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## el-remmen (Sep 19, 2006)

The Princess Ark series

All the various NPC classes of the old days, like the witch, jester and the plethora of paladins! (this last one from the early 100's 108? 109? 113? I forget)

Also, my personal favorite feature that was discontinued later was "the Role of Books" - which I found useful not only as a source for fantasy/sci-fi books to look for, but the reviews were often presented in such a way to provide nuggets of ideas to use in your own campaigns without ever having to read the book itself. . .  Great resource.

Oh, and Wormy comes up every single time we wax nostalgic about Dragon. . .


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## Thurbane (Sep 19, 2006)

Sorcerer's Scroll: Simiting Him Hip and Thigh - The Half-Ogre, The Best Darn Door Opener There Is


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## GVDammerung (Sep 19, 2006)

Olgar Shiverstone said:
			
		

> "The Ecology of ..."
> 
> "Wizards Three"
> 
> Gary's original "From the Sorcerer's Scroll", especially the one introducing the cavalier ...




Not meaning to pick on your selections but for me the first two are some of the worst articles, IMO.  I have always found Wizards Three and the Ecology articles, especially the Ecology articles pre 3X, to be worthless wastes of space and paper.  Too much bad, amateur fiction, IMO, that doesn't even qualify as "fluff."  I like fluff but I don't find these fluff so much as phooey.  Any way, just my opinion.  YMMV obviously.

Talked about/used articles around my tables -

Ed Greenwood's Nine Hells Various Issues - All time best articles, IMO.
The Witch Issue 114 - Still gets pulled out and adapted. 
Treasures of the Wild  Issue 137 - Still gets pulled out and used
Angels Issue 35 - Companion to Greenwood's Nine Hells still used for a "classic" 7 Heavens 
Not for the Living:Six Haunted templates Issue 336 - Best 3X article PERIOD!  Used a lot.

Those are my top five.

Others:

Shadow's City (Balefire) Issue 322
Vault of the Drow Issue 298
Secrets of the Brotherhood of the True Flame Issue Issue 268
Linnorms (Viking Dragons) No. 1 & No. 2 - Issues 182 & 183
Archer Sub-class (and all those articles on bows & arrows) Issue - 45

That rounds out my top ten.

Honorable mention - All those articles on the various Selderine


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## Ghendar (Sep 19, 2006)

El Pirato! said:
			
		

> The Princess Ark series
> 
> . .




Seconded
and thirded
and fourthed
and fifthed
and sixthed
and...........well, you get the idea.

I'd have to go through all my old issues to get a real good list going.
The Greenwood Nine Hells articles are classic.
I, for one, enjoyed Greenwood's ecology articles but I found those done by others to be hit and miss.


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## Imruphel (Sep 19, 2006)

Fedifensor.

The early FR articles by Ed Greenwood before FR was published.


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## diaglo (Sep 19, 2006)

El Pirato! said:
			
		

> Oh, and Wormy comes up every single time we wax nostalgic about Dragon. . .




i still miss Wormy.


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## Exquisite Dead Guy (Sep 19, 2006)

diaglo said:
			
		

> i still miss Wormy.



QFT.

I also miss the "old style" Ecology articles, especially the ones by Jonathan Richards (see his .sig for some rejected articles he posted on EN World last year).  The new style is too dry for my tastes, though I do like the info available with a Knowledge check sidebar.


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## Raven Crowking (Sep 19, 2006)

The articles on world-building.  Specifically, there were some articles that, regardless of the system you are using, remain as useful today as they were when first penned.

I don't know the issues, and I don't even know all of the names, but....

There was an article once on passageways between major cavern areas that included random generators for interesting fluff along the way.

Let There Be a Method to Your Madness, a long-ago article on dungeon design that was fantastic and had advice that would not be remiss if printed today.

There was a great article on world building that basically built up a small kingdom, and suggested PC handouts based on what the characters would be likely to know.

All of the Ed Greenwood world building articles, especially the one that described local customs.

It seems to me these days that every article I read on world-building seems to be surface, sketchy world-building.  Dungeoncraft, while offering some good ideas, seems to be basically advocating _not_ creating a world as much as possible.  There are so few of those articles aimed at DMs who actually want to create a world that will both stand up to multiple campaigns and be distinct in their own right.  

RC


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## Raven Crowking (Sep 19, 2006)

Reading through this thread, I'll tell you what I'd love to see in upcoming issues, based upon what I loved in past issues:

(1)  A tutorial on map-making.  Right now, I am of the pen & paper breed, but there are a lot of other methods out there.  Designing maps is a huge part of the creative process (for me at least) and I'd love to be able to produce professional quality maps.  Especially 3-d perspective & multi-level in one image maps.

(2)  Designing cities.  Here, again, I'm talking about a focus article that simply deals with laying out & mapping cities, based upon historical, fantasy, & D&D precedents.

(3)  Running Urban Adventures:  I've been doing this for a long, long time, but someone else's perspective is _always_ useful.

None of these articles would even require a single stat block.

RC


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## Shawn_Kehoe (Sep 19, 2006)

1) Beyond the Dungeon - Issues 87 & 88 - An excellent article about urban and wilderness adventures. This predates my involvement in D&D by several years, but was instrumental for some of my friends.

2) Tom Moldvay's variant undead articles - there were at least three of these - one focusing on vampires, one on corporeal dead and one on ghosts. I think there may have been a lich article too. What I really liked about them was that they were rooted in mythology - the vampires included greek, transylvanian and chinese legends, for example.

Shawn


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## 00Machado (Sep 20, 2006)

d20Dwarf said:
			
		

> I don't think it had more rules content than today's magazines. (I'm avoiding the terms crunchy and fluffy, I've hated them ever since 3e appeared.)
> 
> I also think that thinking they were more useful is an exercise in nostalgia. I mean, back then, we were suckier gamers!  Over the years as your experience, tastes, and homebrews all grow, of course you'll find less to use in the magazine. But there are some awesome articles in the Wizards Workshop that I think define roleplaying for this generation, just as similar ones (but not in a regular section mind you!) did for us.
> 
> And Psion's reminder of the Warning! in the Dernyi article is funny in that it reminds one of similar warnings made in reference to Monte these days.




I agree with the poster that Dragon seemed more useful back in the day, though I don't think it was more crunch that did it.

I see a few factors that have made Dragon less of a must have/must use at my gaming table
*Shifted much of the GM content out of it
*Back in the day, there were fewer new products, no third party products, and that meant fewer rule widgets to evaluate and incorporate into a game. These days, there's too much for me to even consider most of it, regardless of the source.
*The above point aside, were Dragon to shift more to text that inspired the use of the material rather than just presenting the new widgets, they'd probably all end up being considered for in game use, and enjoyed on their own merit even when I don't have a game use for them. Basically, shift the presentation of the new elements to layer campaign themses and adventure hooks around them. Make the mechanical stuff come to life in the context of fictional elements for lack of a better way to describe it.


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## 00Machado (Sep 20, 2006)

Alzrius said:
			
		

> I can't remember if I've said this before, but for me, the classic stuff was campaign-specific stuff that you couldn't get elsewhere. If you played in any of the established campaigns, things like that gave you that little bit of extra depth in the world, making it that much richer.




Quoted for Truth


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Sep 20, 2006)

You know, it occurs to me this thread reads like a list of ideas to pitch to Dragon in a cleaned-up modern take on the same subjects. Yes, part of why they're beloved was the execution, but good ideas are always good ideas. I know that Dragon historically has a (somewhat strange, IMO) aversion to revisiting some subjects ("There was an ecology article on that critter in 1985!"), but I suspect Erik, like most editors, can be won over by a _truly_ good pitch and new take on a classic idea.


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## 00Machado (Sep 20, 2006)

MerricB said:
			
		

> If there's one type of article I'd like to see, it is the article where a designer explains the choices made during the design of a feat, prestige class, game mechanic or similar.




Yeah. This would be cool. I always like designer diaries and whatnot. It could help keep un-fun house rules from always being suggested too, if everyone reading Dragon picked up a sense of the trade offs in design decisions, and even encourage strong design of the house rules people do go with.


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## 00Machado (Sep 20, 2006)

After reading through the thread, I've picked up quite a few articles to go look at in the archive CD.

Here are the ones that come to mind based on my experience with Dragon (which I enjoyed more in the past than I do now, but will say that the current October issue looks great).

The Wizards Three. The spells were cool, but just as engaging were the commentary on what was going on in the various settings, where the spells came from, etc...the current events was good for adventure ideas, and the background on where the spells came from were good for inspiring histories and ways to inttroduce new spells into a campaign

Good Hits and Bad Misses

The 7 sentence NPC

The article on the alternate monk

Give them enough rope

Articles that add to a published Wizards book. Basically, I look at it like this...none of the books WoTC puts out are perfect. There is going to be one of two situations, if not both.
1 - Some elements that lend themselves to playability get left out, and Dragon can fill in those gaps and so add value to the product I may already own, or give me some basics to keep me from needing the book so much. I've heard for instance that the Stronghold Buildgers Guide has rules for new constructions, but not for taking over and refurbishing or expanding an existing one. Dragon would be a great place to address that shortcoming in the product. And, if all you had was the Dragon article, it would still be good enough for many game needs.
2 - Embellish on what is already there and bring more of a good thing into play. I'd say that Power of Faerun comes to mind here. There can be many riffs on the various sections/campaign themes, such as divine campaigns, mercantile campaigns, etc. You could add some more campaign arc hooks, prestige classes, NPCs with specific agendas and methods of pursuing them. You could even add some of element 1 here, because the mercantile section seemed sparse, with room for expansion.

There was one on fiends - and how they can hide and plot and scheme in the material plane. I remember it suggested not letting detect lie work on them. Don't remember the article name, but it was cool.

The Marvel and Top Secret articles, especially that one on all the martial arts for Top Secret

The ecology articles were fun

Elven Pantheon articles. I used the specialty priest classes one from 2e days mainly

From the Ashes - The real coolness of this article was the suggestions for the campaign themes, power levels, and locations where you might hang those frames on. More like this for any setting (but especially Greyhawk) would be cool.

The articles on playing a character with high charisma

Dungeoncraft

Bazaar of the Bizarre - I liked these better then than now. Not sure why exactly. Maybe there are too many widgets in the game now. Maybe this was a better source of new magic items back in the day. Not sure.

An old article on Adapting modules/making adventures

Any good one on war/military and espionage themes in D&D. Also on rulership, land management, and political campaigning. I'd still like to see more of these. The Greatest Most Honorable adventure, I think, is the name of one.

The article on horses - types of horses, traits, etc. 

The riddle articles...

Living Greyhawk articles were very cool, and I'd like to see them resume (good luck)

Article on charged magic items (like a +1 sword with 50 charges) and lower powered magic in general

the familiar enhancer spells (making familiars fun and able to survive the higher levels), and arcane lore in general (when the spells are themed and presented in a context with inspiring fluff as to the history of the spells, the spellbook, etc 

Strongholds three.

The Archer class. I played one once. He was tough, so my DM took his bracers of archery away :-(

A good humor article was the tactics for humanoids, courtesy of Elmonster

various articles on miniatures - most importantly the ones on using various things as monsters and terrain (like plastic toy spiders for giant spiders, etc), and also the ones one painting miniatures. Articles on miniatures rules weren't of interest to me, since I don't usually play miniatures games.

Someone mentioned in the thread the idea articles being where it was at. I agree. I think there could be more of this in Dragon today. I've found that these days I like Dungeon much more than Dragon, and have even considered letting my subscription expire. I think it's because the articles haven't inspired me to want to include them or build adventures/campaigns around them since the big changes to Dragon and Dungeon a while back. For what it's worth, the recent October issue really looks cool and I've already spent more time reading it that I have the past years worth of Dragons. Cult of Vecna. Alternate vampires. Looking forward to the rest this month.

I also second the nomination for the monthly planar location articles. This would make Dragon more interesting to me.

Others have mentioned it, and I'll restate it. Some of the old covers inspired game play in and of themselves. Covers that could be your characters adventuring are great. A pinup of an NPC can be useful, but too much of them means I'm losing out on the great potential of the former. If I had to go with one all of the time, I'd go with the ones that look like PCs in the middle of an adventure, rather than pinups.


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