Drmg078, Dragon
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DRAGON 1
Publisher:
Mike Cook
Editor-in-Chief: Kim
Mohan
Editorial staff: Roger Raupp
Mental souvenirs
Patrick L. Price
Mary Kirchoff
Roger Moore
The sixteenth GEN CON® Game Con-
vention was pretty much the same as the
other four Ive been to: same location,
same wall-to-wall humanity, same events
(essentially), same job (for me), and many
of the same faces every year. But thats
kind of like saying that every baseball
game you watch is identical: same loca-
tion, same faces, . . . yet every game is still
distinctive, and so is every convention.
The 1988 convention has been over for
about three weeks as I write this, and two
thoughts linger in my editors memory.
The first is that were bound to disap-
point a lot of people, no matter what we
do, because of something we
didnt
do.
We didnt print a whole lot of extra
copies of older issues, and our supply of
those issues has sunk to zero a lot faster
than the demand will. Like it says in the
letters column on the next page, were
looking into how we can satisfy the
demand for older material as a direct
result of letters like Index errors, plus
the feedback we got at the convention.
The second memory is an offshoot of
the first, but the one I like to dwell on the
longest. The many people I talked to
showed me that our readers
you
appreciate what DRAGON® Magazine is,
and what it has been. You expect it to
keep being as good as it is, if not better.
Now, this is not exactly new information;
many of you express these same opinions
to us through letters all the time But its
good for us to
hear
these things once in a
while
it helps keep us fired up so that
youll stay fired up about us.
Like it says in this columns title, were
going to keep both of those memories as
mental souvenirs for as long as we can,
and we hope well be able to keep produc-
ing a magazine that bears out the confi-
dence youve shown in us.
Vol. VIII, No. 4
October 1983
Business manager: Mary Parkinson
Subscriptions: Mary Cossman
Layout designer: Kristine L. Bartyzel
Contributing editor: Ed Greenwood
SPECIAL ATTRACTION
Citadel by the Sea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
41
Contest-winning AD&D module
National advertising representative:
OTHER FEATURES
Robert Dewey
1836 Wagner Road
Glenview IL 60025
Phone (312)998-6237
MIND GAMES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
.6
A set of articles on
psionics in the AD&D world
This issues contributing artists:
Denis Beauvais Phil Foglio
Roger Raupp Dave Trampier
Timothy Truman Larry Elmore
Psionics is different . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
7
An overview and examination
Sage Advice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
.16
Mind-boggling questions & answers
DRAGON Magazine (ISSN 0279-6848) is pub-
lished monthly for a subscription price of $24 per
year by Dragon Publishing, a division of TSR,
Inc. The mailing address of Dragon Publishing
for all material except subscription orders is P.O.
Box 110, Lake Geneva WI 53147.
Overhauling the system. . . . . . . . . . . .
.22
The problem and a solution
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 an address in
the U.S. or Canada; $50 U.S. for 12 issues sent via
surface mail or $95 for 12 issues sent via air mail
to any other country. All subscription payments
must be in advance, and should be sent to Dragon
Publishing, P.O. Box 72089, Chicago IL 60690.
And now, the psionicist . . . . . . . . . . .
26
Psionics as a class specialty
The Deryni . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
34
A magical race of NPCs . . .
Heroes & villains of the Deryni . . . . .
.38
. . .
and the ones who made it famous
A limited quantity of certain back issues of
DRAGON Magazine can be purchased from the
Dungeon Hobby Shop. {See the list of available
issues printed elsewhere in each magazine.) Pay-
ment in advance by check or money order must
accompany all orders. Payments cannot be made
through a credit card, and orders cannot be taken
nor merchandise reserved by telephone. Neither
an individual customer nor an institution can be
billed for a subscription order or a back-issue
purchase unless prior arrangements are made.
The ecology of the mind flayer . . . . .
.66
An illithid does no one any good
Spells can be psionic, too . . . . . . . . . .
.70
Similarities of magic and mind power
Be thy die ill-wrought? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
.62
How to tell if its really random
The issue of expiration for each subscription is
printed on the mailing label for each subscribers
copy of the magazine. Changes of address for the
delivery of subscriptions must be received at least
six weeks prior to the effective date of the change
in order to insure uninterrupted delivery.
Pop the clutch and roll! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
76
Car chase rules for TOP SECRET® play
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.
The thrill of the hunt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
.84
DragonQuest game variant
Of all the sections in our Module
Design Contest, category A-l attracted the
most entries. For that reason, Citadel by
the Sea takes on special significance: it
had to beat out a
lot
of other designs to
win. Our congratulations, along with
other more tangible rewards, have been
sent to the designer, Sid Fisher of West
Des Moines, Iowa. Your reward the
module itself is inside this issue.
The runnerup in a very tough category
was James Adams of Austin, Texas, who
wrote The Fallen Paladin, Third place,
also no small feat, went to Gerald P.
Upton of Willowdale, Ontario, Canada,
for his Festung Schwartze. Congratula-
tions to the winners, and thanks to all of
you who entered category A-1 and forced
the winners to be as good as they were.
King of the Tabletop
revisited . . . . . . . . . .
.96
Rules questions cleared up
REGULAR OFFERINGS
Out on a Limb
.........................
.3
Letters from readers
DRAGON® is a registered trademark for
Dragon Publishings 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 permis-
sion in writing from the publisher. Copyright ©
1983 by TSR, Inc.
Figure Feature. .......................
.58
Convention calendar ..................
.60
Gamers Guide .......................
.88
Second-class postage paid at Lake Geneva,
Wis., and additional mailing offices.
Whats New ..........................
.90
POSTMASTER: Send address changes to
Dragon Publishing, P.O. Box 110, Lake Geneva
WI 53147. USPS 318-790. ISSN 0279-6848.
Wormy ...............................
92
Snarfquest ............................
93
DRAGON, DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, ADVANCED D&D,
TOP SECRET, BOOT HILL, and GAMMA WORLD are registered trademarks owned by TSR, Inc.
TM designates other trademarks owned by TSR, Inc., unless otherwise indicated.
2
OCTOBER 1983
electing articles for publi-
cation has something in
common with the use of
psionics: in both cases, first
impressions are usually
accurate. A mind reader, Im not. But
when I first laid eyes on the pages upon
pages of manuscript that Arthur Collins
sent us on psionics in the AD&D game,
I had the impression it was all going to
end up inside this magazine.
We looked at a lot of submissions on
psionics after putting out the word a
few months ago that we were planning
a special section on the topic. In the
end, we accepted Arthurs material,
stirred in a few other manuscripts, and
put them together in a super-sized sec-
tion called Mind Games.
Arthur contributed the opening piece,
an overview of the subject with some
suggestions for shoring up the rules
structure. He follows with an original
creation, the Psionicist character class.
Then, thanks to Arthurs efforts and the
kindness of author Katherine Kurtz, we
offer an adaptation for the AD&D game
of the Deryni race and some of the more
famous personages from the novels
about the Deryni written by Ms. Kurtz.
Woven in and around those articles
are four other psionics features: A Sage
Advice column; a short article by
Robert Schroeck on solving some prob-
lems in play; a glimpse at The ecology
of the mind flayer; and a piece of writ-
ing by yours truly (revised and
expanded since its first publication in
issue #13 of the POLYHEDRON
Newszine) on the resemblances between
magic spells and psionic powers.
This issues cover painting has
nothing to do with psionics, except that
it probably blew your mind when you
saw it. The artist is Denis Beauvais, the
title of the painting is Motherhood,
and we hope to print more of Denis
work in the months to come.
The next in our series of contest-
winning modules,
Citadel by the Sea,
occupies the center 16 pages of this
magazine. Its only an adventure for
low-level AD&D characters but at the
same time, theres a lot more to it than
those characters might think.
Mathematics and physics have a lot to
do with two of our other features. In an
article thats a statisticians dream,
author David Weeks explains how to
use the chi-square test to see if those
tried-and-true dice of yours really are
true. After all that mental exercise,
youll need something physical, and you
cant get much more physical than a car
chase or a car crash. Ed R. Teixeira is
the author of an article that describes
rules for moderating car chases and
their after-effects in the TOP SECRET®
game. Now, can someone tell me if a
tower of iron will is any good against a
76 Chrysler? KM
Down with change
Dear Dragon:
I am greatly disturbed with your new policy
change as expressed in #76. In the past, when
readers would write in asking for more articles
on one topic or another, you would always say
that
Dragon
was and would be a magazine
which would cover the whole gamut of role-
playing games.
Now what will become of games which
aren’t either SF or fantasy? In the interest of
keeping genres separate, you will have to start
a magazine for
Top Secret, Boot Hill,
and all
of the other role-playing games on the market.
I really feel bad about writing this letter,
because
Dragon
is one of the loves of my life,
and I always thought that if I were to write to
you, it would be in praise of something. I
would think that if
Dragons
main concern
was with its readers, then it might have sent
out a questionnaire to its loyal subscribers,
asking for their opinions on this issue.
I’m sure that the overall quality of your
magazine will remain high, but to me there
will always be a great hole where articles on
Traveller
game, and only one article on the GAMMA
WORLD® game. All our policy change does is
make official a trend that had already devel-
oped over the years: DRAGON Magazine is no
longer a steady, abundant source of SF gaming
material, and we figured it made sense to put
all of our SF between one set of covers.
Why didnt we ask our readers before chang-
ing things? Well, when we think something
makes sense, we just go ahead and do it. That
applies to selecting articles, in particular, for
an issue of a magazine, and it applies to decid-
ing what sorts of articles, in general, each of
TSRs magazines will cover. Were glad that
many of you were pleased to hear about the
change, and that you wrote in to tell us so. (Its
nice to know we didnt alienate everyone. . . .)
And, to those of you who dont see it the same
way we do, I can only say were sorry and ask
you to give us a chance to show how we can
make the change good for you, too. KM
Phantasmal plea
and
Gamma World
used to be.
David Sann
Dear Editor:
I am surprised that Mr. Gygax has not given
an official ruling on the illusionist spell
phan-
tasmal force.
All the controversy it has
received, on such things as illusionary clerics
healing people, walking over illusionary
bridges, real damage being taken by the recip-
ients of the spell, etc., should have signaled
Mr. Gygax that there is a recurring and serious
problem with this spell. An official article, or a
letter in “Out on a Limb,” would be greatly
appreciated by me and many other AD&D
players.
Randallstown, Md.
Davids letter touches on most of the points
raised by the people who have objected to our
shifting of science fiction from DRAGON®
Magazine to ARES Magazine. We are
genuinely sorry that not everyone agrees with
what we thought was a good idea. At the same
time, we werent naive enough to expect all of
you to be happy with us for doing it.
If you feel betrayed for the reason mentioned
in Davids first paragraph, we are especially
sorry. But, in fact, we havent tried to be all
things to all people for quite a while now
ever since the hobby of adventure gaming and
role-playing got so multi-faceted that no single
magazine could hope to keep an eye on all of
it. The last words we had to say on the subject,
in issue #70, went like this: Wed like to be
able to completely satisfy everyone, but we
realize we cant do that. We havent claimed
to be the magazine for everyone, or anything
like that, for a long, long time.
Our apologies for not clearly spelling out in
the policy statement exactly what games would
be covered where. Science fiction games,
including superhero games, will henceforth be
covered in ARES Magazine; fantasy and other
types of non-SF role-playing games will be fea-
tured in DRAGON Magazine. This is still the
place to look for material on the TOP
SECRET® and BOOT HILL® games, as well
as other non-SF products.
As far as the great hole David mentions
(and many of the rest of you used similar
wording), its not all that great. In the year of
publication just before the policy change was
announced, DRAGON Magazine contained
just two feature articles on the Traveller®
Clifton Jessop
Rochester, N.Y.
Index errors
Dear Editor:
The Dragon Magazine Index in issue #76
was both timely and well done. Nevertheless,
there were a few errors in it. Under the heading
“Monsters (New),” gem vars should be listed as
in issue #56 and not in issue #46. In addition,
the “Finieous Fingers” heading is incomplete.
Also, I could not find the Random Magic
Items article (#57) or the Little People of the
Iroquois (#61) listed anywhere in the index.
The only error in the format of the index is
the lack of inclusion of the articles in the two
Best of Dragon anthologies. Although I realize
that these articles are listed in the index, I still
think they should have had a separate listing
under a “Best of” title.
The introduction to the index says, “Unfor-
tunately, business and economic reasons make
it practically impossible for us to consider
reprinting earlier issues in their entirety.” I
understand why Dragon Publishing cannot
DRAGON
3
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