Accessory - Dragon Magazine #117, MAGAZINES, Dragon Magazine
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Magazine
Issue #117
Vol. XI, No. 8
January 1987
10
REGULAR FEATURES
The Elements of Mystery Robert Plamondon
Players dont need to know everything!
What are the Odds? Arthur J. Hedge III
What are your chances of rolling an 18? Theyre all here.
Feuds and Feudalism John-David Dorman
One answer to four old gaming problems
Condensed Combat Travis Corcoran
Streamlining the to-hit tables in the AD&D® game
Dungeoneers Shopping Guide Robert A. Nelson
More supplies (and costs and weights) for adventurers
Adventure Trivia! Tom Armstrong
Torment your AD&D® game players with these tidbits
A Touch of Genius Vince Garcia
Putting intelligence to work for player characters
Sage Advice Penny Petticord
The Ecology of the Anhkheg Mark Feil
An interesting species for your bug collection
Hounds of Space and Darkness Stephen Inniss
A githyankis, githzerais, and drows best friends
Fun Without Fighting Scott Bennie
Creative adventures in which you never draw your sword
The Forgotten Characters Thomas M. Kane
Henchmen, hirelings, and followers in the AD&D® game
By Magic Masked Ed Greenwood
Nine magical masks from the Forgotten Realms
Bazaar of the Bizarre The Readers
More Power to You Leonard Carpenter
More skills, more powers, more CHAMPIONS gaming power
Tanks for the Memories Dirck de Lint
Flattening your CAR WARS® game opponents the easy way
Roughing It Thomas M. Kane
Taking TOP SECRET® agents into the wild country
The Marvel®-Phile Jeff Grubb
A Marauder a day keeps the Morlocks away
Even the Bad Get Better Stewart Wieck
Improving criminals in VILLAINS & VIGILANTES games
Gamma III James M. Ward and Harold Johnson
Converting your GAMMA WORLD® campaigns to the third edition
The Role of Books John C. Bunnell
The Game Wizards TSR Games Division
Publisher
Mike Cook
14
16
Editor
Roger E. Moore
18
Assistant editor
Robin Jenkins
Fiction editor
Patrick Lucien
Price
22
Editorial assistants
26
Marilyn Favaro
Georgia Moore
28
Eileen Lucas
Debbie Poutsch
Art director
Roger Raupp
32
33
Production staff
37
Linda Bakk
Gloria Habriga
Betty Elmore
Kim Lindau
Carolyn Vanderbilt
40
Advertising
Subscriptions
43
Mary Parkinson
Pat Schulz
Creative editors
Jeff Grubb
46
Ed Greenwood
Contributing artists
48
52
Jim Holloway
Diesel
Larry Elmore
Brian Maynard
Robert Maurus
Joseph Pillsbury
56
Roger Raupp
Mark Saunders
Bruce Simpson
Richard Tomasic
62
David Trampier
Marvel Bullpen
Lawrence Raimonda
68
74
76
81
90
DEPARTMENTS
3 Letters
86 TSR Previews
97 Snarfquest
4 World Gamers Guide 94 Gamers Guide
100 Dragonmirth
6 Forum
96 Convention Calendar 102 Wormy
84 TSR Profiles
COVER
It was difficult to get Jim Holloway to volunteer information on his cover painting the
fifth one hes done for us. What can you say about the picture? Uh . . . um . . . Were
there any amusing stories behind this picture? (Yes, but we couldnt print them.) Is there
anything else youd like to add? Gimme a lotta money. There he is, Jim Holloway.
2 J
ANUARY
1986
LETTERS
More and Moore
Once in a while, I receive a letter
from a reader who asks that I write
more articles like the ones I used to
write for DRAGON® Magazine. Its
always nice to inflate the old ego
with things like that (I have those
letters bronzed and placed over my
computer terminal), but things
arent that easy now.
I like to write articles, and Im glad
some of you like them. However,
one cannot edit two magazines and
write much at the same time. It is
also much more important to get
more of you, the readers, into print
than it is to get more of me, the
editor, into print. Its been a long
time since I wrote those articles on
the demi-humans and their deities,
and its probably better to close the
book on that. The more authors we
have writing for DRAGON Magazine,
the better the magazine.
This issue is a case in point. We
have no particular theme for this
month, but we have more variety
and more articles on gaming than
weve had for some time. You have
the chance to read material from
some of the best people we have
writing for us.
If you have a list of favorite topics
you would like to see covered in this
magazine, by all means, send it to
us. We can commission articles from
our better writers on occasion. We
can also list the most-wanted topics,
letting everyone get in on the act.
There are a few things we cannot
cover, however. We have no way to
evaluate computer programs for
gaming use, so we ask that you not
send any of them to us. We gener-
ally avoid board games, but we
might cover certain particularly
popular ones if they are of interest
to fantasy or science-fiction gamers.
Weve also dropped our coverage of
many of the less-popular role-play-
ing games, even those made by TSR,
Inc. If few people play them, why
run them? Our license on some
games has expired as well (i.e., no
more Indy Jones stuff).
Otherwise, the sky is the limit. Tell
us what you want, and well see
what we can do about it. This is
your magazine, after all.
As Arnold Schwarzennegger
and Bubba say, Lets party.
Deities disappear
Dear Dragon:
This letter is a public petition of sorts, con-
cerning the Cthulhu mythos. The original edi-
tion of the DEITIES & DEMIGODS Cyclopedia
included this group of deities and associated
creatures. In the second edition, however, and
in Legends & Lore, it was absent. I imagine that
the rationale behind this change (if not made for
financial or other mundane reasons) was that no
character would choose to worship a 600-tall
heap of slime.
I, however, have found this assumption to be
decidedly untrue at least in the case of a
group of characters that I both DM and adven-
ture with. Some of the most exciting characters
(and campaigns) that I have encountered deal
with the eerie spirits and situations invoked by
the use or worship of the beings in this mythos.
For instance, one group of witches, controlled
by a friend of mine, are the consorts and shape-
shifted spawn of Yog-Sothoth, and they are
slowly corrupting and taking over an entire
nation.
Our actual petition is that you have a feature
in an upcoming magazine about the Old Ones
and their cohorts. If possible, you might include
new material, such as Brown Jenkin from The
Dreams in the Witch-House. Ultimately, per-
haps, TSR, Inc., might bring the mythos back to
mainstream AD&D® gaming, but a feature in
your magazine would make a fine start.
Marc Spraragen
Schenectady, NY
distributed, and will any further supplement
work continue to be done for the game?
A final question: To my knowledge, only one
article on the DRAGONQUEST game appeared
in DRAGON® Magazine; was there a reason for
this?
James Comingore
Bloomington, IN
It is possible that TSR, Inc., will produce an
occasional DRAGONQUEST game module,
printed with dual statistics allowing its use with
the AD&D® game. This project is still in the
planning stages, however. Presently, there are
no plans to re-release the DQ game.
An editorial decision was made to discontinue
printing DRAGONQUEST game material in the
magazine, since the reader interest level in such
material was quite low. We have printed mate-
rial on this game in issues #49, 57, 78, 82, 86,
89, 92, 96, and 97. The last DRAGONQUEST
game material left in our files is the College of
Lesser Summonings, which dates from the SPI
days of the game. This may appear in a future
module as an added bonus.
—
RM
Multiple targets
Dear Dragon:
I am writing about an article that you pub-
lished in your magazine entitled, One roll, to
go (#113). The system has a slight flaw. For
example, suppose two opposing armies are
facing each other, each with 100 men and the
following breakdown:
25 men with plate mail, shields, and
long swords;
25 men with leather armor and long
bows;
25 men with ring mail and crossbows;
and,
25 men with padded armor and large
shields (serving as shield bearers).
The 50 archers from one side fire into the
mass of the other. If the one army is mixed
together, what armor class would I use to look
up the to hit number on the table? Dont get
me wrong, though; the article was work of
brilliance, if you were firing into 100 orcs.
Elliott Jackson
Seattle, WA
Many readers have asked that TSR, Inc., add
both the Cthulhu and Melnibonean mythoi to
the new editions of the
Legends & Lore
vol-
umes, but this is not possible. TSR, Inc., was not
licensed to use this material when the first
edition of DEITIES & DEMIGODS Cyclopedia
was printed, so these mythoi have been re-
moved from later editions. At the present time,
Chaosium, Inc., has the gaming license for these
mythoi, and has produced two excellent games
from them (the CALL OF CTHULHU® game and
the STORMBRINGER game). TSR, Inc., has the
gaming license for the Lankhmar stories of Fritz
Leiber, so the Nehwon mythos has been
retained in
Legends & Lore.
—
RM
DQ in Limbo
Take the total number of missile attacks fired
by a particular group of archers and divide it up
among the various groups of targets, resolving
each attack separately. In the above example,
the 25 crossbow bolts fired in one round are
divided into the four groups in the enemy army,
with the extra bolt going to a random group. Six
bolt attacks are then resolved (using a single roll
and the 5-roll binomial table) against each
group, save for the one group getting seven
bolts. The archers’ arrows are handled in the
same manner.
—
RM
Dear Dragon:
I am a very big fan of the
DRAGONQUEST® game, as are many of my
friends, and we believe it to be an excellent
system. I know you may have addressed the
of many SPI games and products in earlier
issues of DRAGON Magazine, but as I am an
infrequent reader of the publication, I have
missed this information. Specifically, I would
like to know the fate of the DRAGONQUEST
game. Will it continue to be published and
fate
(Continued on page 91)
D
RAGON
3
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