Dragon Magazine

February, 1980 ave the feeling you’ve seen this month’s cover of The Dragon before? No, you haven’t, but since this month we have an in-depth look at Contents Divine Right, TSR Hobbies’ limited role-playing fantasy board game, who better to do the cover than the artist who did the Divine Right box FEATURES cover, Ken Rahman? (Some of you may be more familiar with Ken’s DOOMKEEP —The Masters’ Tournament Module ...... Ml “nom-de-brush”: Elladan Elrohir. Divine Right, by the way, was recently honored by Special Divine Right Section: the Hobby Industry of America for its packaging, winning a Silver Award. Making a Great Game Greater So, kicking off TD #34, we have seven different articles on Divine Right. The first, by the Changes from the Designer —Glenn Rahman ......... 4 designer of Divine Right, Glenn Rahman (Ken’s brother), is a series of designer’s notes Second Edition Rules —Mike Carr .................. 5 and suggested changes. For comparison and contrast, the second is by TSR Hobbies’ The History of Muetar —Glenn Rahman ............. 6 General Manager Mike Carr, and contains the official rule changes that will appear in Ambassador Cards —Jon Foster. ................... 7 the second edition of Divine Right. Following these two articles is the first of a new, The “Rest” of the Rule Book —Tom Wham .......... 8 semi-regular series: The Minarian Legends, also authored by Divine Right designer For Your Minarian Merriment —Ed Greenwood ....... 9 Glenn Rahman, and illustrated by brother Ken. This month’s piece details the history Other Variations on the DR Theme —Victor Selby ...... 10 of Muetar. Soapbox —Samuel Gill. 12 ............................... And we have variants! Jon Foster gives us new personality cards for ambassadors, and Sage Advice —Questions &Answers on D&D ........... 16 a new unit, the siege train (all produced on heavy card stock for ease of including in your In Defense (Once Again) of the M-U —Michael Dodge ..... 17 game, should you choose to do so). Tom Wham (one of the many TSR people who Fantasysmith’s Notebook —Miniature Spotlight .......... 22 worked on the development of Divine Right) reveals a few aspects of the game cut in the Dastardly Deeds & Devious Devices .................... 24 final draft. More variant rules are offered by Ed Greenwood, and still more variants are This Is a Tekumel Test —Michael Crane ................. 26 presented by Victor Selby. Whew! Will I ever see two games of Divine Right played the Tournament Tabulation Formula —Jon Mattson ......... 28 same again? Leomund’s Tiny Hut —Lenard Lakofka ................. 34 Bazaar of the Bizarre —Tim Lasko ..................... 41 OK, AD&D fans. Response to the appearance of the IDDC winning module, “The Fell Dragon’s Bestiary —Charles Carson’s Vilkonnar ......... 48 Pass” by Karl Merris, in the December issue was very favorable. We hope you enjoy this issue’s module, “Doomkeep” by Brian Blume, the dungeon used for the 2nd Official Invitational Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Masters Tournament VARIANTS held at GenCon XII. As always, we’re trying to give you, the reader, what you want. So Fearsome but Familiar Fiends —Blake Ward ............. 18 let us know what you like and what you don’t. Feel Like RISKing Everything? —George Laking ......... 20 D-Day: A More Accurate Variation —Robert Barrow ...... 23 Elsewhere in this issue, we have Up On A Soapbox, where Samuel Gill discusses Bolotomus’ Revenge —Glenn Jarrell ................... 27 creative imagination in wargaming, more defense of the D&D Magic-User by Michael What’s In a Name? —Mark Whisler ................... 27 Dodge, a monster determination table for dungeon adventures by Blake Ward, a look Beware of Quirks and Curses— at D&D tournament scoring systems by Jon Mattson, and some defective magical Tom Holsinger & Candy Pearson ................ 30 items by Tom Holsinger and Candy Peterson. George Laking offers us a variant on the classic game of Risk, and allows for the use of BACKGROUND nuclear weaponry. The Fantasysmith presents his first Miniature Spotlight with a Lankhmar —F.C. MacKnight ......................... 32 look at a method to store and transport miniatures. And Michael Crane has a Tekumel Trivia quiz for those of you who feel you know the game of Empire of the REVIEWS Petal Throne. Bushido —D. Okada. ................................ 46 Hammer’s Slammers —E. Gary Gygax ................. 46 The Dragon tries to have a little something each month for every aspect of gaming. For The Wolfen —E. Gary Gygax ................... 47 those of you who enjoy Avalon Hill’s D-Day, Robert Barrow has a new Order of Spacefarers Guide to Alien Monsters— Battle and Order of Appearance, one which more accurately reflects the history of the battle. Glenn Jarrell has a variant for Snit’s Revenge to help out the Bolotomus player, Lawrence Schick . .. 49 and Mark Whisler has a table for generating names for D&D characters. DRAGON MIRTH Our regular and semi-regular columns continue this month, with Sage Advice from Disasters —Jeff Swycaffer ............................ 50 Jean Wells for D&D; Leomund’s Tiny Hut looks at the AD&D melee system of Inert Weapons ...................................... 51 combat. The long promised Dastardly Deeds and Devious Devices premiers this Wormy —Tramp ............................... 52 month with some exceptionally devious devices. F. C. MacKnight continues his series on Lankhmar. Tim Lasko points out some interesting facets of magic fountains in NEWS/VIEWS D&D in the Bazaar of the Bizarre, and Charles Carson has a new critter for us in the Dragon Rumbles. ................................... 2 Dragon’s Bestiary. Out on a Limb . .................................... 3 44 Another first this month is Dragon Classified Ads. If you’re interested in placing an Convention Schedule ............................... ad, complete details can be found on page 45. The Dragon’s Augury reviews Classified Ads ...................................... 45 Bushido and a few books this month, and Jeff Swycaffer has a look at disasters in the Dragon Mirth section. If your mailing label says TD 34 Next month will see some new variants on Traveller, an AD&D player rating system, and a hot-off-the-typewriter Sorcerer’s Scroll by Gary Gygax. I’m hoping for (but this is your last issue . resubscribe not promising) the next installment of Finieous Fingers. Kindly Editor Tim Kask will be back with a report on the HIAA trade show in Anaheim, CA. See you in March. —Jake The Dragon Vol. IV. No. 8 The Premier Magazine Because of the weirdness of writing for a money, preparing ads and such takes a lot of of Games and Gaming magazine deadline, I find myself writing this staff time and effort. installment, which will be read during the first If successful, we will achieve the growth Vol. IV, No. 8 week of February, on the 27th of December. we need to enable us to go back to an all- February, 1980 It’s like living in your own private timewarp... enamel format, with color throughout, in- By the time you read this, we will have stead of only on 16 pages, and continue Publisher implemented some changes that will have increasing both the size of the magazine as E. Gary Gygax been in effect for almost a month, yet we well as the amount of money we can pay can’t announce them yet in case some last- contributors. All of these considerations Editor minute consideration throws them all askew. serve to make the magazine more desirable T.J. Kask To make temporal matters more confusing, and will enable us to continue leading the what we are working hardest on as I write field in which we broke the first ground some Assistant Editor this, aside from the issue in which it appears. four and a half years ago. Jake Jaquet will have become history by the time you As if all the foregoing were not enough to read it. To think that some people wonder keep us busy, we have yet another project— Editorial Staff why it takes me so long, on occasion, to the 1981 Days of The Dragon Fantasy Cal- Kim Mohan answer letters. endar. The ’80 version is already destined to John Baillie One further irony: all the warm holiday be a collector’s item. As late as we were, with Circulation & Sales gemutlichkeit that influences my thinking as I the meager amount of advance publicity, Corey Koebernick write this will have fled before the “February we’re still assured of breaking even on this bleaks”.... year’s effort, at the least. Far better than that, Art Staff Right now, all of our endeavor is being tho, is what happened for next year. We are Dave Sutherland funneled into preparations for the Hobby going to be distributed nationally next year, Erol Otus Industry Association of America show in by at least two big non-games distributors. Greg Fleming Anaheim, CA, in late January. This is our first Our initial print run is going to be at least ten Darlene Pekul participation in a big trade show on our own, times bigger for the next edition than it was THE DRAGON is published monthly by as a division of TSR Hobbies, Inc. for our maiden effort. That is gratifying in the TSR Periodicals, a division of TSR Hobbies, In the past few months TSR Periodicals, extreme. Inc., P.O. Box 110, Lake Geneva, Wiscon- particularly The Dragon, has enjoyed steady, The next calendar promises to be even sin 53147. Phone 414-248-8044 moderate growth. In the past, the magazine better. In addition to the seven artists who THE DRAGON is available at better hobby has done its most significant growing in did the first one, we will have six more artists shops and bookstores, or by subscription. spurts and surges. This tendency has been involved.

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