Drmg003, Dragon
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Vol. I No. 3 October ’76
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Vol. I No. 3 October ’76
DRAGON RUMBLES
esp: the free play of creative imagination 3) a
creation of the imaginative faculty.
It defines imagination as;
the act or power of forming a mental image of something not present to the
senses or never before wholly perceived in reality.
2) FANCY,
As is obvious from the above, the two are integrally interconnected.
The Dictionary goes even further into that fact because it credits
imagination, fancy and fantasy with a “shared meaning element”;
the
power to form mental images of things not before one.
T
O
ask a
Bushman of the Kalihari to describe a clipper ship would be folly. Even
if you told him how it worked and what its purpose was, he wouldn’t be
able to describe anything that you would recognize as a clipper ship. He
would be able to describe it only in terms of or comparisons to things he
knew. Even the concept of an ocean would be unbelievable to him.
As the preceding example illustrates, imagination is dependent
upon background, at least in terms of visualization. To a 14th Century
AmerIndian, a ship that sailed from the East Coast of North America to
Europe was just as fantastic as a ship that sailed to the specks of light in
the night sky. Everything we perceive is subconsciously compared to
what we’ve seen before.
All of these points have been made in defense of including “fiction”
within the pages of THE DRAGON. The complaints have not been
numerous by any means, but most are marked by their vociferousness
and vehemence.
All the games we play are fiction; historical battles are historical
fiction at best. I include fiction in TD so that the reader’s fictions will be
better: fuller, more complete and better founded. Some of the fantasy
campaigns now extant rely entirely upon the work of one author, or are
centered around only one cycle or mythos. If
note, I will be printing a new Gardner Fox-Niall story in TD #6 —
Beyond the Wizard Fog.)
You can see the new format in this issue that I will use for fiction. I
feel that THE DRAGON should and will be more than a variant
magazine, as it is meant to deal with all aspects of Fantasy, Swords &
Sorcery and Science Fiction Gaming. If a reader adopts just one idea,
gimmick, concept, etc., from a story, or adopts a measure in opposition
to one, then it will have served the purpose of furthering fantasy gaming.
Contents:
suits you, fine. As for
myself, I’d rather play in a campaign that blends many cycles, mythos’
and authors’ work. It seems to have a richer flavor.
Subconsciously or consciously, every bit of fantasy, s-f or S&S you
have read has contributed to how you perceive and deal with fantasy
gaming. Even if you read a concept that you violently dislike, it has
affected your perception of gaming; chances are you will overreact in the
opposite direction.
The more concepts you explore, regardless of
whether you agree with/accept them, or not, the more raw material you
have for your own imagining process.
In response to these letters, fiction will no longer take up nearly as
much space. The Niall story in the last TD took up so much space
because of a lack of communication between myself and the typesetter; it
was set too large. In the future, though, I will still include what I think is
worthwhile fiction. A good proportion of material printed is submitted
by the readers, and occasionally I’ll print something that might not be
top-flight writing, but contains worthwhile ideas or concepts. (As a side
that
War of the Empires PMB Space Game..
.......................... .4
Women & Magic Ladies in D&D..
.............................. .7
Search for the Gnome Cache ......................................
11
Birth Tables for D&D..
........................................ 14
Wargaming World .............................................
19
Mapping the Dungeons. ......................................... 19
Out on a Limb letters .........................................
20
Plethora of Obscure Sub-Classes ................................... 22
A New View of Dwarves ..........................................
26
Two Penultimate Sub-Classes ...................................... 28
Strategists Club Awards for 75.
................................... 30
Editor — Timothy J. Kask
Staff Artist — Dave Sutherland
Circulation — Neil Topolnicki
Cover by Seaton/Janci
THE DRAGON
is published bi-monthly by TSR Periodicals, a division of TSR Hobbies, Inc., POB 756, Lake Geneva, WI 53147.
It is available at better hobby shops and bookstores, or by subscription. Subscription rate is $9.00 per 6 issues (one year). Single copy and back issue price is $1.50, but availability of back issues is not guaranteed.
Subscriptions outside the U.S. and Canada are $20.00, and are air-mailed overseas. (Payment must be made in US currency or by international money order.) All material published herein becomes the exclusive
property of the publisher unless special arrangements to the contrary are made. Subscription expiration is coded onto the mailing list. The number to the right of the name, prefixed by “LW” or “TD” is the
last
issue
of the subscription. Notices will not be sent.
Change of address must be filed 30 days prior to mailing date (first of Feb., Apr., June, Aug., Oct., Dec.)
Unsolicited material cannot be returned unless accompanied by a stamped return envelope, and no responsibility for such material can be assumed by the publisher in any event. All rights on the entire contents
of this publication are reserved, and nothing may be reprinted in whole or in part without written permission of the publisher. Copyright 1976 by TSR HOBBIES, INC.
Application to mail as second-class postage rates is pending at Lake Geneva, WI 53147 and additional entry points.
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Someone once said that all you needed to play fantasy games was a willing suspension of disbelief. This philosophy goes far to succinctly
sum up fantasy gaming, but only on the surface. What is most essential is an active imagination; without one there can be no “fantasy.”
Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, 1975 Edition, defines fantasy as
—
Vol. I No. 3 October 76
DOES ANYONE REMEMBER?
WAR OF THE EMPIRES?
by Gary Gygax
Possibly the earliest science fiction wargame was a postal of-
fering from Tullio Proni. The original version came out, I believe,
in 1966, although the copy of the rules bears no date. Both of
these early versions of WAR OF THE EMPIRES were
reproduced by the ditto process, and although the revised version
was a considerable improvement over the original, both were a far
cry from the standards demanded of amateur-produced games
marketed today.
The game itself was based on the concept of a universe-wide
power struggle between two socially hostile groups. On the one
hand was the Greatest Empire, a monarchy/aristocracy with
dreams of binding every habitable planet to the throne. Opposed
to this colonialist empire was the League of All Worlds, basically
a confederation of all planets, systems, and multi-system govern-
mental forms wishing to resist the expansion of The Empire.
WAR OF THE EMPIRES then assumed that Terrans were being
enlisted as commanders, for they represented a race which could
boast some of the deadliest fighters in the Universe (according
to THE WAR REPORT, Vol. 1, No. 1, February 7, 1967).
Pronis game was aimed primarily at postal play although
I assume that he and his associates engaged in face-to-face con-
tests also. The designer served as the Master Computor. Those
that joined the campaign opted to come in on one side or the
other, and each Greatest Empire commander was matched with a
commander of the League of All Worlds by the Master Com-
putor. Proni furnished each a set of rules for their initial contest,
and each also received a duplicate copy of a sector map. The
latter showed the starting positions of the space ships and the
location of solar systems in the sector. The two antagonists had to
use a random number system to decide who was to start at the
X or Y positions, while the player getting the second position
choice moved first.
The opponents then strove to move to the most desirable
solar systems. Desirability was stated in two ways: Each system
was given a build limit number, the number indicating how many
new ships could be constructed in that system each turn. Ad-
ditionally, the systems were all given monetary values, the num-
ber of credits the system was worth to the player retaining it at
the end of the match. Play was, in most cases, conducted postally.
At first the players had only scout ships to claim systems with
or attack the antagonist with. As systems were claimed the op-
ponents were then able to construct other sorts of ships: tor-
pedoes, cruisers, battleships and fortresses (for system defense,
non-mobile) in addition to further scout vessels. The different
types of ships moved at differing rates and had progressively
stronger attack and defense modes. Except for the torpedo, ships
could hyperspace, move three times normal movement but only
in a straight line. Torpedoes moved only normally, but their speed
was much greater than the other ships.
When the contest was decided in favor of one or the other
player, each noted their total losses in ships (and fortresses) as
balanced against their credit gains for claims of new systems.
The whole was then sent to the Master Computor for recording.
The winning player was moved up a rank. Assuming that both
players wished to engage in another game, each was then assigned
a new opponent from the opposing side, the new opponent having
a record as nearly similar to the player as possible. News of con-
cluded games, player lists by side, rules comments, scifi book
reviews, and similar material was published in
The War Report,
the game newsletter, also done by Proni, which began publication
about the time the second edition of the rules was released.
The War Report
ended almost as quickly as it began, only
two issues being published (February and April 1967). Although
Proni stated in the second issue that there were thirty postal
players engaged in WAR OF THE EMPIRES, something caused
him to drop the entire project. When his mastering of the cam-
paign went by the board the whole project ground to a halt. No
response from repeated letters indicated that Proni was quite
serious in his evident intent of dropping the game. After repeated
attempts to get the author to revive the game, I gave up, and for
some two years the whole affair was in limbo. However, in early
1969 I again wrote to Proni and asked if he would be interested in
trying WAR OF THE EMPIRES once again, or, failing that,
would he object to my trying to get it re-established and func-
tioning again. After six weeks with no reply I took the bull by the
proverbial horns and went to work on the project.
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Vol. I No. 3 October 76
sonification of the opposing factions was also included military
insignia, rank names, medals, orders of knighthood in the Em-
pire, royalty, nobility, official positions, and League offices. I had
access to limited free use of a Xerox machine, so copies of the
rules were offered for the cost of mailing them, and with them
went a one-page newsletter,
The New War Reports,
Vol II, No. 1,
28 April 1969. The second issue was published almost im-
mediately, with a cover date of 1 May 1969. It was also distributed
to the 22 players and various interested parties at no cost. It
covered social and political information pertaining to the op-
posing powers, as well as other material similar to that of the
original newsletter published by Proni. Bill McDuffie was kind
enough to take over publishing the newsletter when the Xeroxing
was no longer available to me. When the third issue of the
magazine was published in August-September, 1969, there were
over 60 active participants in the game. McDuffie published three
issues of the newsletter in 1970, the last under date of May-June,
1970. Then the whole game went into another slow death again,
as no further magazines came, and general communications
ceased. Alan Lucien attempted to revive the game again by
publishing and mailing Vol. 4, No. 1 of the newsletter in October
of 1971, but the effort was fruitless. By then, participants had un-
doubtedly lost both interest and faith.
putor, they were sometimes rather weighted against one player
not intentionally, of course. When a participant got stuck with
such a game the only ray of light would be the prospect of the next
contest where he could possibly be on the lucky end of the im-
balance if one existed. Additionally, one loss would not have
too serious an effect on the whole of the picture for the opposing
sides. Similarly, the newsletter depended upon players to con-
tribute material of all sorts not only about their games and
game-related considerations, but also about science fiction sub-
jects in general. These contributions kept interest in the cam-
paign and in the magazine at a high level. When publication was
erratic, contributions fell off, and game interest was lost. This, in
turn, meant less material for the newsletter, and a fatal descen-
ding spiral was precipitated.
WAR OF THE EMPIRES was an interesting game creation
in many ways, and although the individual games were sometimes
not much, the whole had great potential, for it offered continuing
involvement in a science fiction campaign where players could
play many postal games, become involved in authoring material
for the newsletter, cover or read about almost anything connected
with the whole genre, and so forth. If the newsletter could have
been maintained regularly the campaign would probably be alive
today, for the whole concept is basically as interesting now as it
was then. Who knows, perhaps one of these days we will see the
hobbys oldest scifi game rise once more from the ashes like a
phoenix. Then once again Sub Commander Gygax will sally forth
from the planet Arkham which circles Ankaa II, taking the
dreaded
Curse of Yig
to battle in behalf of the League.
Anyone interested in becoming involved should “War of the
Empires” be revived yet again, should write to: W.O.T.E.. c/o
THE DRAGON, POB 756, Lake Geneva, WI 53147.
The demise of WAR OF THE EMPIRES must be blamed
primarily on its total dependence upon the need for a game
newsletter to tie the whole effort into a meaningful campaign
whole. As sector maps had to be prepared by the Master Com-
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