Drmg011, Dragon
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It is with the greatest personal pleasure that I welcome the distinguished Fritz Leiber to the pages of
THE DRAGON. SEA MAGIC,
be-
ginning on page 17, is the next story in the Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser cycle following the latest book,
-SWORDS & ICE MAGIC.
In fol-
lowing with our recent policy of bringing you fiction from the top authors, Fritz Leiber joins Gardner Fox, who has already had two stories
in our pages. (Incidentally, the first Gar Fox story has been anthologized by Lin Carter in his newest collection of
World’s Best Fantasy
or
Year’s Best Fantasy;
the exact title escapes me at the moment and my copy is nowhere at hand.) Next month we have an excerpt from Andre
Norton’s new “D&D” novel, to be published either in the spring or fall
of ‘78. Without tipping off the entire story line, I can say that for some
D&D
players, the game becomes a shade too real for their tastes. It is
some of the most intriguing fiction to flow from Andre Norton’s pen in
some time.
Feature
View from the Telescope Wondering Which End Is Which —
a guest editorial on TSR policies and critics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
How Do You Stop That Thing —
Metagamings OGRE;
tactics, tips, etc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Sea Magic —
SNIT SMASHING
has proved popular beyond our wildest dreams
here at TSR Periodicals. The game has proven popular virtually every-
where in the country; we have even gotten excellent comments from
outside the U.S. Tom Wham, designer of the game, still doesn’t believe
me when we discuss it. It was a very popular tourney at the con in
Schenectady, and we heard many good things about it at
Wintercon
in
Detroit. All you “SnitFreaks” should be ecstatic with this month’s se-
quel/companion game —
SNIT'S REVENGE.
We have also included a
SNIT ERRATA sheet with some playing tips and such. We will also be
having two giant snit tourneys at Winter Fantasy here in January (see
Con sked).
SNIT’S REVENGE
can be played by itself, or in conjunc-
tion with
SNITS MASHING.
The biggest news around Periodicals is the fact that we are now a
two man operation. Joe Orlowski is the new Editor of
LITTLE WARS,
while I remain Managing Editor. This means that LW is now primarily
Joe’s responsibility, while TD remains primarily mine. Actually, both
of us work on both ‘zines, just in differing amounts on each. Joe has
brought some much needed organization to our operation here. We are
almost current on our mail. though I may never be current in responses;
our books are in order, and we are trying to locate everyone owed
money on either magazine. Right now, we have a giant stack of checks
going out to artists and authors, and are missing some addresses. Next
issue, we will publish a list of checks for which we have no mailing ad-
dresses.
The increase in staff is going to have one salutary and immediately
visible effect on TSR Periodicals: our publishing schedule is increasing
this coming spring.
LITTLE WARS
is going back to bi-monthly, and
THE DRAGON
will be coming out monthly!
Next issue, #12, will contain the winners from our first “Name
That Monster” contest, as well as Contest #2. We had an extraordinary
response to the contest, and it has taken some time to judge that many
entries. Prizes include a $25 credit with Ral Partha Miniatures, an auto-
graphed copy of the new
MONSTER MANUAL,
and a twelve issue
subscription to TD. There are also some smaller prizes for Honorable
Mentions.
As of this writing, we have reached an agreement in principle, ver-
bally, with L. Sprague DeCamp to reprint the missing Harold Shea
story from the “Incomplete Enchanter” series. Titled
The Green Ma-
gician, it was last printed in a now defunct s-f magazine in the early Fif-
ties, and excluded from the collection published under the title of
THE
COMPLEAT ENCHANTER.
The story is rooted in the mythos of Ire-
land and to all the countless fans of the team of DeCamp and Fletcher
Pratt (with whom DeCamp collaborated on the Harold Shea stories)
the prospect of reprinting this seemingly lost story is tremendously ex-
citing. Even the most expert of Dungeon Masters can learn from this
amazing collaboration series how to set adventures within an entire
mythos. Any
D&D
player that has not read
THE COMPLEAT EN-
CHANTER
is missing out on a sure bet. We highly recommend it.
the newest Fafhrd & Gray Mouser tale. . . . . . . . . . . . .
17
what to get your beloved wargamer. . . . . 22
Quarterstaff Fighting Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Snits Revenge —
another weird game.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . R1-R4
A non-fatal method
for PCs or NPCs to settle their differences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Design/Designer’s Forum
The Play’s The Thing —
in praise of fantasy roleplaying . . . . . . . . . 10
EPT column by the author . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Snit Erratz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15
The Sorcerer’s Scroll —
a new D&D column. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
16
Dragon Mirth
“On the Derivation of Snit Sub-species”. . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Wormy...............................................28
Finieous Fingers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29
Westfinster Wargamers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30
Reviews
NBC’s The Hobbit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27
Managing Ed. —
T.J.
Kask
TD Editor —
T.J.
Kask
LW Editor —
Joe Orlowski
Art Dept. —
Dave Sutherland
Dave Trampier
Tom Wham
Circulation Mgr. —
Joe Orlowski
Cover
— by Elrohir
If your mailing label says “TD11”
this is your last issue . . . resubscribe today!
Timothy J Kask
Editor
Publisher’s Statement
THE DRAGON is published by TSR Periodicals, a division of TSR Hobbies. Inc.. POB 110, Lake Geneva, WI 53147 eight times a year.
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 guaran-
teed. Subscriptions outside the U.S. and Canada are $120.00, and arc air-mailed overseas. (Payment must be made in US currency or by international money order.) All material published herein becomes the ex-
clusive 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 dare (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 con-
tents 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.
Eleventh Hour Shopper —
Brawling — THE “Easy” Way Out in D&D —
Seal of the Imperium —
December, 1977
Guest Editorial
VIEW FROM THE TELESCOPE WONDERING
WHICH END IS WHICH
E. Gary Gygax
It is not uncommon to read tirades in amateur press association
magazines and semi-irate letters in the letter columns of “small” jour-
nals berating TSR in general and — at times, anyway — me in particu-
lar for uncharitable (to phrase it politely) attitudes regarding use of our
copyrighted material by others. Shocking! What villians we are to re-
sent infringement on our legal rights by others! After all, all these
Good Fellows
wish to do is to
steal
from us
—
just a few crumbs or a
small
slice which we wouldn’t miss anyway. Pretty nervy, huh? What
the hell do we mean by trying to protect our rights and deny some enter-
prising plagerist a windfall, anyway?! Permit me to move backwards in
time a ways, and put the whole affair in perspective.
D&D
was designed and developed when Guidon Games was a
thriving entity. As Lowry’s “Miniatures Rules Editor”, I urged him to
immediately publish the game, for I viewed it as something really new
and different and envisioned it as having great potential — just how
great I must admit I did not conceive at that time. Don turned it down.
When Guidon ceased active publishing, I mentioned
D&D
to Avalon
Hill, but the reception was a trifle chilly. The reaction to fantasy battle
reports in such magazines as
WARGAMER’S NEWS LETTER
and
PANZERFAUST
had stirred up a good deal of controversy, and one
fellow had gone so far as to say that not only was fantasy gaming “up a
creek”, but if I had any intelligence whatsoever, I would direct my in-
terest to something fascinating and unique; the Balkan Wars, for ex-
ample. Nonetheless, I persisted, but the “establishment” was not about
to jump into something as different and controversial as fantasy —
neither
D&D
nor
DUNGEON
were salable commodities. Having as-
pirations of forming my own wargaming company anyway, rejection
did not daunt me. Tactical Studies Rules was founded, and the second
title published by that firm was
D&D.
Don Kaye, Brian Blume, and I
staked the whole of our company on this venture, for it took every bit
of capital we had to produce the game. We also spent hundreds of
hours readying it to print — hours we could not spend gaming, or with
our families, or in pursuit of some other form of relaxation and enjoy-
ment. It was long, hard work done late into the night and on weekends.
It was nobody else but the three of us who stood this hazard. One thou-
sand copies of the game were printed, and it took some eleven months
to sell those first sets of
D&D.
Although this was not exactly a “hot”
reception, we were satisfied, for it was a start. Wargarmers were not ex-
actly
flocking
to fantasy role playing, but a few came into the fold, and
we were “recruiting” players from outside the hobby. The next thou-
sand run sold out in a tad under six months . . .
From then on the events surrounding the growth of
D&D
are pret-
ty well known. We did a supplement to fill the gaps in the initial book-
lets, and more of them followed due to a very great demand.
D&D
be-
came a very hot property, for the game attracted devoted players. Play-
ers were so devoted that they would buy virtually anything with the
D&D
name on it or which might be somehow usable by them to im-
prove their campaign or playing ability. TSR is proud that it did not
take advantage of this tendency in its
D&D
players by sending forth a
stream of junk products to attract more money. We have never believed
that the sale of shoddy products can be justified by a fat profit. While
some of the material we have produced is less than perfect, the overall
content has always been as good as we could make it. Thus, more sup-
plements could have been produced, demand was there, but we thought
it better to refrain-because the content of such works would not im-
prove the game but only tend to confuse an already cluttered system.
Mind you that the profitability of additional supplements to
D&D
was
never in doubt; all of them we produce make money for TSR; the ob-
ject was to not do a disservice to
D&D
enthusiasts, foregoing profits
was not too much to expect.
Imitation is claimed to be the sincerest form of flattery, and
D&D
has ample reason to be flattered. Foolish imitations are demeaning
however, and shoddy ones are worse still in that to the extent that they
are associated with the imitated, they lower its character and repute.
Similarly,
DUNGEONS & DRAGONS
is an entity with excellent re-
pute, and we stringently protect it. This is done from both paternal
pride and profit motivation. Not surprisingly, we take the view that the
creators and publishers know best how to develop the creation. To this
end we have promoted and advertised the game. Two years ago we de-
termined to revise the whole of
D&D
in order to clean up the errors and
fill in the holes. The project is a long and complicated one, a task not
accomplished overnight. Some players have impatiently demanded im-
mediate release of such material, but we are not about to step into that
mess again —
D&D
originally came out as it did because of
demands
from those who had tested it and fallen in love with the concept.
“Basic” D&D
was the first step, and the release of
ADVANCED
DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, MONSTER MANUAL
is the next. I am
personally developing the next two volumes, and perhaps they will be
ready for release in summer. So while care is being taken, TSR is by no
means resting on its laurels. We, too, recognise
D&D
as a true innova-
tion in gaming, a game which added a whole new series of vistas to the
hobby. But we are by no means satisfied with what has been accom-
plished, and work at improvement is constantly being done. This brings
me to our detractors once again.
Quite a few individuals and firms have sought to cash in on a good
thing by producing material from, or for,
D&D.
Others have parodied
the game. For most of these efforts TSR has only contempt. For saying
so we are sometimes taken to task quite unjustly, but I suppose that is
to be expected from disgruntled persons prevented from making a fast
and easy buck from our labors — or from those persons responsible for
cheap imitations
whose work we rightly label as such. This is not to say
that we resent inspirational use of
D&D.
A notable example of such in-
spiration is
EN GARDE
by Game Designers Workshop. It is an excel-
lent game, and I personally admire the application of role playing
which they devised. Likewise,
TRAVELER
is an imaginative game,
and if it
was
inspired by
D&D,
it can be considered an imitation by no
5
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