Drmg072, Dragon
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DRAGON
1
Contents
Vol. VII, No. 10
Publisher:
Mike Cook
Editor-in-Chief:
Kim Mohan
Editorial staff:
Marilyn Favaro
Gali Sanchez
Roger Raupp
Patrick L. Price
A new direction
April 1983
As we sit here, month after month,
looking over our vast domain from our
ivory tower, it gets tougher and tougher
to keep all the citizens of the realm
happy at the same time.
SPECIAL ATTRACTION
Business manager:
Debra Chiusano
Office staff:
Sharon Walton
Producing a magazine isn’t so much
fun any more —
not when we know
ahead of time that thousands of people
aren’t going to be satisfied with it, no
matter what we print. “More of this!
Less of that!” our subjects shout. Well,
we’ve decided we’re just not going to
take it any more.
Pam Maloney
Product design:
Eugene S. Kostiz
Layout designer:
Kristine L. Bartyzel
Contributing editors:
Roger Moore
Ed Greenwood
National advertising representative:
Robert LaBudde & Associates, Inc.
2640 Golf Road
Glenview IL 60025
Phone (312)724-5860
FILE 13 — The game of games . . 39
by Tom Wham
OTHER FEATURES
The ecology of the piercer . . . . . . 12
Inside and out
Reducing the size of the magazine is
one way to cut down the complaints we
get. If we only publish 32 pages a
month, no one will expect us to cover
everything. So, effective next month,
32 pages it is.
Gems Galore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
For richer role-playing
This issue’s contributing artists:
Clyde Caldwell
Mike Carroll
Keith Parkinson
Phil Foglio
The Real Barbarians . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
And that’s the way it was
Roger Raupp
Edward Atwood
Tim Truman
E. B. Wagner
It’s about time, we’ve decided, to
broaden our readership base — we
need to get more people interested in
the magazine to take the places of
those who get disgusted and stop buy-
ing it. So, also starting next month,
we’re going to devote a few pages in
each issue to the other kind of dragon
— you know, those funny-looking cars
with the big fat tires.
Tom Wham
Dave Trampier
The PBM scene.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
To help you pick what to play
DRAGON Magazine (ISSN 0279-6848) is pub-
lished monthly for a subscription price of $24
per year by Dragon Publishing, a division of TSR
Hobbies, Inc., P.O. Box 110, Lake Geneva WI
53147.
April comes and April goes. . .
. . . but fools live on forever
The true story of FILE 13 . . . . 47
Valley Elf.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Duh Jock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Spells for everyone . . . . . . . . . 51
Everything we think you need
to know about - - - . . . . . . . 52
DRAGON Magazine is available at hobby
stores and bookstores throughout the United
States and Canada, and through a limited number
of overseas outlets. Subscription rates are as
follows: $24 for 12 issues sent to a U.S. or Cana-
dian address; $50 U.S. for 12 issues sent via
surface mail or $95 for 12 issues sent via air mail
to any other country. All payments must be in
advance.
A limited quantity of certain back issues of
DRAGON Magazine can be purchased directly
from the publisher by sending the cover price
plus $1.50 postage and handling for each issue
ordered. Payment in advance by check or mon-
ey order must accompany all orders. Payments
cannot be made through a credit card, and
orders cannot be taken nor merchandise re-
served by telephone. Neither an individual cus-
tomer nor an institution can be billed for a sub-
scription order or a back-issue purchase unless
prior arrangements are made.
The issue of expiration for each subscription
is printed on the mailing label for each subscrib-
er’s copy of the magazine. Changes of address
for the delivery of subscriptions must be received
at least 30 days prior to the effective date of the
change in order to insure uninterrupted delivery.
All material published in DRAGON Magazine
becomes the exclusive property of the publisher
upon publication, unless special arrangements
to the contrary are made prior to publication.
DRAGON Magazine welcomes unsolicited sub-
missions of written material and artwork; how-
ever, no responsibility for such submissions can
be assumed by the publisher in any event. Any
submission which is accompanied by a self-
addressed, stamped envelope of sufficient size
will be returned if it cannot be published.
DRAGON™ is a trademark for Dragon Publish-
ing’s monthly adventure playing aid. All rights
on the contents of this publication are reserved,
and nothing may be reproduced from it in whole
or in part without prior permission in writing
from the publisher. Copyright © 1983 by TSR
Hobbies, Inc.
Second-class postage paid at Lake Geneva,
Wis., and additional mailing offices.
POSTMASTER: Send address changes to
Dragon Publishing, P.O. Box 110, Lake Geneva
WI 53147. USPS 318-790, ISSN 0279-6848.
Lessening the amount of space we
devote to game articles isn’t going to
make any of our really loyal readers
very happy. But we aren’t worried about
losing any of our really loyal readers.
We figure they’ll keep buying the maga-
zine, no matter what we put in it, just to
keep their collections intact.
A new name? It’s elementary!. . . . 56
REGULAR OFFERINGS
From these two drastic changes will
emerge a better magazine. Our cover-
age of funny-looking cars will enable
us to get wider distribution, which will
enable us to get advertising from plac-
es like carburetor companies and man-
ifold manufacturers.
Out on a Limb ................... 3
Letters from readers
From the Sorcerer’s Scroll ....... 6
The chivalrous cavalier
Figure Feature: Dragons ........ 44
Our revenue from those advertise-
ments will make it possible for us to
afford more expensive production tech-
niques- like, maybe, full-color photo-
graphs of your favorite AA Fuel drag-
sters in every issue.
Up on a Soapbox ............... 54
Spy’s Advice ................... 60
Castles by Carroll .............. 62
IV: The Tower of London
Or, maybe we could afford to put a
complete dragster accessory in each
issue —- a lug nut one month, a roll bar
the next — and all of our brand-new
really loyal readers could build their
own dragsters after collecting enough
issues in a row.
Convention schedule ........... 63
Off the Shelf ................... 66
The Role of Books, Part 3 ....... 69
QUESTWORLD review .......... 72
Looks like we’re almost out of space,
so you’ll have to wait till next month to
hear about the rest of our exciting
plans. Or, if you can’t wait that long, put
together the first letters from each of
these nine paragraphs— that’ll tell you
what you really need to know.
What’s New .................... 75
Dragon Mirth ................... 78
Wormy ......................... 79
DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, ADVANCED D&D, and TOPSECRET are
registered trademarks owned by TSR Hobbies, Inc. ™ designates other trademarks owned by TSR Hobbies,
Inc., unless otherwise indicated.
2
APRIL 1983
ow many of you out there
have always wondered how
a game company works?
Okay, how many of you out
there have sometimes won-
dered how a game company works?
When you play FlLE 13, the latest game
to come out of Tom Wham’s creative
cranium, you may not learn an awful lot
about how a real game company oper-
ates, but you’ll be having so much fun
you won’t care any more.
For something in a less lighthearted
vein, check out Gary Gygax’s official
presentation of the new cavalier sub-
class for the AD&D’” game; just like
paladins are inclined to do, cavaliers
take themselves very seriously.
All that glitters is not a gold piece — a
point that’s made emphatically in “Gems
Galore” by Ed Greenwood. You’ll find
dozens of gemstones and other goodies
described in the space of a few pages —
and you don’t even need a hammer or a
chisel to dig ‘em out.
The barbarian, as a character class for
use in AD&D play, has been the topic of
much discussion on these pages in re-
cent months. Now, Katharine Kerr has
come up with a new twist on an old sub-
ject: “The Real Barbarians,” an account
of what the folks who originally earned
that name were like.
It had been our policy, for lo these
many issues, to not publish an article
that had previously appeared in another
publication. But when “The Ecology of
the Piercer” showed up on our doorstep,
we suddenly decided that policies are
made to be changed. Why? Because it
was too good to pass up.
As a followup to his essay on play-by-
mail games in issue #68, Mike Gray has
put together an overview of “The PBM
scene.” If you’ve been agonizing over
which game to spend your hard-earned
turn fees on, this article won’t make that
choice for you, but at least you’ll get a
good idea of what to choose from.
Names, of one sort or another, are the
topic at hand in two short pieces: John
Sapienza’s Up On a Soapbox essay,
concerning his low opinion of the level
titles used in the D&D® and AD&D rules,
and Jay Treat’s description of how to
combine elements of Old English into
names for FRP characters that are both
authentic and meaningful.
Agents and administrators alike may
find their missions in life a little less con-
fusing after perusing the latest install-
ment of “Spy’s Advice,” wherein master
spies Merle Rasmussen and Allen Ham-
mack unravel some of the more myste-
rious parts of the TOP SECRET® rules.
Finally, in case you were wondering if
we let our favorite time of year slip past
unnoticed — well, we didn’t. It just
wouldn’t be April without a
little foolish-
ness, now, would it? — KM
Chess compliment
Dear Editor:
I was very pleased to see Tim Grice’s article
on chess in DRAGON #70. Being perhaps the
highest-rated (2200+) United States Chess
Federation player who subscribes to the
magazine, I felt compelled to write.
In short, the article was superlative. The
plusses and minuses in the matrix were very
well thought out. The various methods of
cheating were interesting. Even the maximum
rate of assimilation of chess knowledge was
thought of, thereby making the system more
realistic.
I would suggest these modifications and
enhancements to the system:
1. Permit either player to play a gambit in
the opening. The gambitting player gains 10
points to his CM for 3 turns; however, he loses
10 points on his CM for the rest of the game
thereafter. If both players gambit, Black gains
15 to his CM for 3 turns, then loses 10 for the
remaining turns. (This is realistic. Gambitting
players are normally unable to handle the
psychological effects of a counter-gambit.)
2. Change the % chance to move pieces
(cheating) as follows: Must roll dex on d20
(one time only) to succeed; then, for each
observer, d% are rolled. Any roll less than or
equal to the observer’s or player’s CM indi-
cates that the cheating attempt was noticed.
(Let’s face it, you simply can’t move the pieces
on a master without his noticing the attempt.
This rule change incorporates that concept.)
If either of the dice rolls described above fails,
the attempt is unsuccessful. Once the cheater
is caught, further attempts are at a penalty
(-10 modifier to each observer’s dice roll,
cumulative per attempt).
3. Modify the intimidation “saving throw” by
+1 for each 10 points of CM. (1-10=+1,11-20=
+2, etc.) This change is suggested because
relatively good players are relatively less eas-
ily intimidated.
4. In drawn games, player with lower CM
gains half the CM he would have gained if he
had won the game.
I hope these suggestions will make the
“game within a game” more realistic.
Jim Rousselle
New Orleans, La.
seconds after dropping from rest shows some
interesting results:
Time
Velocity
Distance fallen
(sec.)
(ft/sec.)
(ft.)
1 32 16
2 64 64
3 96 144
4 128 256
Lo and behold! The object falls 48 feet dur-
ing the 2nd second
—
three times as far as
during the 1st second — yet its speed only
doubles. During the entire four seconds of
falling, the distance fallen per second in-
creased by a factor of 16, while the velocity of
the body only went up 4 times. The relation-
ship of distance to speed isn’t a geometric
progression, but a geometric retrogression!
Put in simple terms, after a fall of 64 feet, an
object strikes the ground twice as fast, and
presumably takes twice as much damage,
than it does after a 16-foot fall. In the Players
Handbook system, the object would take 4
times more damage
—
a little high, but bear-
able. However, in the “true” system put forth
in #70, damage would increase by 10 times!
This is not bearable.
On top of this, a falling object has a terminal
velocity
—
a speed at which, due to air fric-
tion, the object will not continue to gain
speed. Thus, it should not strike any harder,
or take any more damage, for any increase in
the distance of the fall beyond the point where
the body reaches terminal velocity. In the real
world, this speed is reached at roughly 250
feet. In the Players Handbook system, dam-
age and (presumably) speed top out at 200
feet
—
again, not correct but bearable. In the
“true” system, it tops out at slightly under 60
feet. This is not acceptable at all!
Therefore, in light of the facts, the acciden-
tal system given in the Players Handbook
should be used, and the system that was
really intended should be scratched.
Scott D. Hoffrage
Miller Place, N.Y.
Holes in the hull
Dear Editor:
Bruce Evry’s article “The hull truth about
speed” (issue #70) is true, but has very little to
do with AD&D or D&D.
A vessel’s best speed is its most efficient
cruising speed, rather than any sort of a top
speed. The table he refers to in the DMG fol-
lows the table he produced up to the level of
small galley, at which point maximum speed
falls off. This follows thousands of years of
experience that, as a general rule, large boats
are faster than small boats, but small ships are
faster than large.
Up to the level of a small galley, the wave
effects Mr. Evry talks about give a speed near
the top speed. Larger vessels tend to sink
more deeply into the water, so that friction
Falling followup
Dear Dragon:
After reading the article on falling damage
in issue #70, I feel it is imperative that the truth
be known about actual falling rates using the
laws of physics of the real world.
According to these laws, a falling body
accelerates geometrically. This is the founda-
tion of the “true” system, not that found in the
Players Handbook. However, a look at the
speeds of a falling body during the first four
D
RAGON
3
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