Drmg007, Dragon
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Vol. I No. 7
June ’77
It’s an extraordinary experience to be writing this, on the start of our second year of publication. THE DRAGON has come a long way
from Vol. I, No. 1, and-the-less than excellent cover that “adorned” it. (The trouble with that first cover was not the original black and
white rendering of our logo, but rather with the wretched lithes cut by our old printer.) The overall average on our artwork has improved
dramatically. The increased circulation is elequent testimony to the improvement of the material presented herein. What editor can be dis-
pleased by 300% growth in a year’s span? Not yours truly, certainly.
I fully intend to someday say again that I’ve achieved 300% growth, so don’t assume that THE DRAGON will grow complacent, or be-
come stagnant. Such an assumption would be far off of the mark. TD will continue to bring you the best in gaming material. Even now,
plans are underway to broaden the scope of coverage in TD; while it is true that TSR created the field of Fantasy gaming with first
Chain-
mail
and then D&D, it has never been the policy of THE DRAGON to
be a house-organ. The overwhelming preponderance of material deal-
ing with TSR games is the result of one of the unwritten maxims of
publishing: you can only publish what is submitted. I have been solicit-
ing material on non-TSR games for some time now and only recently
Contents
have received any material of quality.
While it is true that the readers have increased threefold, and our
.................
5
schedule for TD has been increased to eight times yearly, the staff re-
The Origins of D&D
...............................
7 mains the same: me. I have received invaluable help from Gary Jaquet,
Mapping the Dungeon .............................. 7
as best as he has been able to assist, but he lives four hours away, and
therefore serves to help me weed out the junk and locate the good arti-
Mystery Hill — America’s Stonehenge? ................. 8 cles. Dave Sutherland is so busy with work for TSR Hobbies that I
The Journey Most Alone — a saga of magic . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
don’t get access to nearly as much of his time as I’d like, nor do I get to
Military Formations of Tekumel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
use as much of his work as I’d like to use. Submissions have increased,
Alternate Number Generation Methods
and I’m seldom caught up with all of them. A good rule of thumb if
Bonus Figure Plate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
23 you choose to submit an article is this; if you don’t get it back right
Featured Creature — The Prowler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24
away, it has passed first reading, and is being further evaluated for pos-
sible publication. I have finally found someone that can transcribe let-
Editors Library —
OGRE
and
The Judges Guild
reviewed . .
.26 ters from tape, so my correspondence is getting faster. I try to answer
Gnome Cache . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28
as much of the mail as possible; I ALWAYS read every single piece. I
read and mentally file every complaint, as well as the compliments,
which are far more numerous than the former, so we must be doing
something right. I have resisted using form letters far longer than I
should have, but no more.
One recurring theme in the letters we receive bothers us. There is a
misconception that publication in THE DRAGON makes something
“official”, whatever that means. PUBLICATION BY THE DRAG-
ON DOES NOT BESTOW ANY SANCTION OR APPROVAL TO
ANY VARIANTS, VARIATIONS OR RULES INTERPRETA-
TION.
The purpose of this magazine is the dissemination of information.
Editor: Timothy Kask
Staff Artists: Dave Sutherland
THE DRAGON serves the field of Fantasy, Science Fiction, and
Swords & Sorcery Gaming and the enthusiasts of same, in the capacity
of information source. If an article is to be considered “official”, it
Ton Wham
Cover by Elrohir
will be marked as such. There are many forms of designation: DE-
SIGNERS FORUM is one such, an Editor’s Note is another. Common
sense will tell you that if a piece is written by an author of a game, the
game being discussed in the article, you can assume it to be “official”.
Continued on page 6
THE DRAGON is published 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. Single copy and back issue price is $l.50, but availability of back issues is not guaranteed. Sub-
scriptions outside the U.S. and Canada are $20.00, and are air-mailed overseas. (Payment must be made in U.S. 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.
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 1977 by TSR HOBBIES, INC.
Application to mail as second-class postage rates is pending at Lake Geneva, WI 53147 and additional entry points.
3
Strategists Club Ballot
..............................
4
Vol. I No. 7
THIRD ANNUAL STRATEGISTS CLUB AWARDS
The Nominees
OUTSTANDING GAME OF 1976
CAESAR
(at Alesia) — AH
FIGHT IN THE SKIES —
TSR
KINGMAKER —
AH
LANKHMAR —
TSR
METAMORPHOSIS ALPHA —
TSR
RUSSIAN CIVIL WAR —
SPI
STARSHIP TROOPERS —
AH
SORCEROR —
SPI
TERRIBLE SWIFT SWORD —
SPI
WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR
*1066* — TSR
OUTSTANDING PROFESSIONAL
WARGAMING PUBLICATION
vote for any one publication
n
FANTASY GAMING HALL OF FAME
**posthumous induction**
OUTSTANDING
MINIATURES RULES — 1976
Lord Dunsanay
C.S. Lewis
A. Merritt
Fletcher Pratt
Clark Ashton Smith
CLASSIC WARFARE —
TSR
LEGION —
FGU
ROYAL ARMIES OF THE HYBOREAN
AGE —
FGU
SWORDS & SPELLS —
TSR
VALLEY FORGE —
TSR
n
**living authors**
Poul Anderson
M.A.R. Barker
Lin Carter
L. Sprague DeCamp
Gardner F. Fox
Katherine Kurtz
Fritz Leiber
Michael Moorcock
Andre Norton
Jack Vance
Roger Zelazny
OUTSTANDING
GAME DESIGN — 1976
Richard Berg
(TERRIBLE SWIFT SWORD)
E.
Gary Gygax
(SWORDS & SPELLS)
Fritz Leiber & Harry Fischer
(LANKHMAR)
James McMillan & John Clemente
(WM. THE CONQUEROR — 1066)
James Ward
(METAMORPHOSIS ALPHA)
OUTSTANDING
MINIATURE SERIES — 1976
FIGHTING SAIL
— Valiant
NORMAN/SAXON
— MiniFigs
PANZERTROOPS
— Heritage/Der
Kreigspeilers
STARDATE
3000
— Valiant
WIZZARDS & WARRIORS
— Grenadier
HOW TO VOTE ON THE
THIRD ANNUAL SC AWARDS
FOR
CREATIVITY IN WARGAMING
The SC Awards started a couple of years ago, and were solely the
function of the SC (STRATEGISTS CLUB). The presentation of the
awards was an excuse for the club to get together at the banquet each
year. Details on this year’s bash are elsewhere in this issue.
This year it was decided that the awards would be more meaning-
ful if the balloting was open to more people, so we decided to offer the
opportunity to the readers of LITTLE WARS and THE DRAGON.
This is your best chance to tell the producers of the games what you
think, to honor those deserving of recognition for an outstanding con-
tribution to wargaming.
The nominees on this ballot were selected from a much larger list
of possibles sent to and compiled by the members of the Club. They are
listed in alphabetical order. Those that failed to make the final ballot,
due to insufficient nominating votes are as follows:
GAME
— Battle For Midway
(GDW),
Russian Campaign
(AH),
Cita-
del
(FGU),
Bunnies& Burrows
(FGU), and
War In the West
(SPI).
DESIGN — Jim Dunnigan (Russian Civil War), and Andrew Baird
(Lords of Valetia)
MINIATURES SERIES
— NAPOLEONETTES, AIRPOWER,
CHIVALRY, WESTERN GUNFIGHTER,
GHQ
— Modern Micro
— and CinC
— Modern
Micro
RULES — WRG Ancients (5th Ed.) and AIRPOWER
select any publication of your choice.
(I also didn’t want the flack that
would surround nominations on this award).
All ballots must be on ei-
ther a 9 c postcard, or an index card. All ballots must be sent to the ad-
dress listed
by themselves:
ballots sent with orders or other correspond-
ence will not be counted. Simply list your choices in a column on the
post/index card. To prevent multiple voting, we ask that you include
your return address on the card or envelope. All ballots must be in our
hands by June 30th, 1977. The awards will be presented at the SC Ban-
quet (details elsewhere in this issue).
DO NOT SEND IN THIS BALLOT. DO NOT XEROX THIS
FORM.
FANTASY GAMING HALL OF FAME
This is a brand new innovation by TSR (Hobbies and Periodicals)
in recognition of the contributions by the inducted members to the field
of fantasy gaming — they make our intangible worlds tangible. The
Hall of Fame has two categories for induction: Posthumous, and, Liv-
ing Authors. In recognition of their positions in the pantheon of fan-
tasy pioneers, we have inducted Robert E. Howard, Edgar Rice Bur-
roughs, H.P. Lovecraft and J.R.R. Tolkein. You are asked to vote for
one in each category.
Mail all ballots to:
“SC” Awards
c/o The Dragon
POB 756
Lake Geneva, WI 53147
RULES FOR VOTING
Any reader of LW or TD is eligible. You are asked to cast one vote
in each category. The Publication category is left open so that you may
4
n
n
n
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June ’77
WHAT TO DO WHEN THE
DOG EATS YOUR DICE,
or Some Other Calamity Befalls you Twenty Minutes
Before the Game Club Gets To your Place
of dice to do the job efficiently.
Its twenty minutes before the members of the U.B.A. (Union of
Bold Adventurers) are due to arrive on your doorstep, fully primed for
a rousing adventure in your ruins. The fridge is full of soda and beer,
the kitchen table is groaning under the weight of a veritable horde of
munchies, the chairs are all set out, Rick Wakemans
lots
Myths and Legends . . . of King
Arthur . .
. albums are cued on the stereo, all your rules and levels are
neatly arranged behind your screen of WS&IM boards (best use found
for them to date), when that first flash of panic sets in your brand
new chamois/suede/velvet/whatever bag containing all your dice is
missing! Your shouts of anguish elicit from your wife/mother/room-
ie/whatever the horrendous news that they were last seen in the slobber-
ing jaws of Rover/Fido/Spot/Killer/whatever, and he was last seen
heading for his favorite spot under/behind/in back of/the stairs/-
stove/couch/porch/whatever. After locating the miscreant, and drag-
ging him forth from his lair, you are horrified to find shards of dice-
plastic all over his face, and an unrecognizable pile of multi-colored
plastic junk amidst the remains of your bag, which seems to have been
mistaken for his chew-toy.
After the air changes back from blue to invisible, and youve al-
ready considered and rejected at least three dozen fiendish and hideous
indignities that could be committed to/on a dog, the real horror sets in.
At any minute, 4/7/9/however many fully primed UBA members
will be clamoring to explore your ruins. The mere thought of having to
tell them that the game is off would have caused Audie Murphy to
pause and consider the possibilities a group of rampaging UBAers
could make the group that stormed Baron Frankensteins castle look
like a Sunday Tea at the Methodist Ladies Club.
If the preceding tale of woe sounds familiar then this article is for
you. After months of painstaking research, a number of alternatives to
dice have been compiled. Herewith are a few of them:
and
Journey to the
CHITS IN A JAR
All that is needed is a jar with a wide mouth, (lest we find ourselves
in the position of Aesop’s monkey and the coconut) or some other suit-
able container, and the appropriate number of blank counters, poker
chips or slips of paper marked with the numbers you need to generate.
Players blind-draw for results.
CALCULATORS
Many of the newer and more complex calculators, such as the TI-
SR51-A have various function switches that will display random num-
bers when pressed either singly or in certain combinations. Because of
the great diversity in calculators, you are advised to check the instruc-
tions to determine how, or if, yours will do it.
CUTTING CARDS
A standard deck of playing cards can be used to generate nearly
any number; 1-4(suits) 1-12(ace low and Kings draw again), 1-6(same as
preceding, divided by two), 1-10(faces don’t count), and so on.
NUMBERED STRAWS
Rather self-explanatory, don’t you think?
WATCH WITH SECOND HAND
A watch with a second hand can generate the following sequences:
1-4(quadrant method), 1-6(divide by 10), 1-12(read numeral that sec-
ond hand is closest to), 1-15(divide minutes by four), 1-20(divide by
three), 1-30(divide by two), and 1-60. A stopwatch is even better for
this purpose.
SPINNERS
There are any number of children’s and family games that use a
spinner, using many different ranges.
USING SIX-SIDERS FOR HIGHER NUMBERS
One six-sided die can be used to determine any number range divis-
ible by two, three or six. (I.E., for 1-100, first roll determines if it is be-
tween 1 and 50, or 51-100, the second 1-25 or 26-50 (assuming first roll
indicates 1-50), the third determines in which group of five (discarding
rolls of “6”), and the last the actual number.)
COIN FLIPPING
Similar to the preceding.
NOTE: in an obscure study financed by a
government grant, it was conclusively proven that the dime is the ideal
coin to flip. The heavier coins have a greater incidence of injuries to the
nail-bed on the thumb after 40,000 flips or more. Of course. this ex-
cludes the silver and half dollar. which can bung-up your thumb much
sooner than that.
PERCENTAGES GENERATED
WITH TWO STANDARD DICE (D6)
The following table is from FIGHT IN THE SKIES. The column
on the left is percentages and numbers needed to get them, while the
figures on the right are the actual probabilities. (I.E., if there is a 10%
chance of an encounter, a roll of “9” indicates that it occurs. The actu-
al percentage chance of rolling a “9” with two standard dice is 11.1% .)
5%
11
5.6%
10%
9
11.1%
15%
6
13.9%
20%
7,12
19.4%
25%
4,7
25.0%
30%
30.6%
7,8
35%
2,4,5,6
36.1%
40%
5,6,8
38.9%
44.4%
45%
6,7,8
50.0%
50%
4,5,67
55%
5,6,7,8
55.6%
61.6%
60%
3,5,6,7,8
63.9%
65%
4,5,6,7,8
69.4%
70%
3,4,5,6,7,8
75%
all except 2,3,4,10
75.0%
80%
all except 2,4,10
80.6%
85%
all except 3, 11, 12
86.1%
90%
all except 9
88.9%
95%
all except 11
94.4%
5
Omar Kwalish
As anyone that has ever played D&D or EPT can tell you, you
must have dice,
Center of the Earth
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