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rambly game related stuff
Aug. 18th, 2012 10:09 amI collect old Dragon magazines. One of the weird things about growing old is that magazines I wanted and which were out of my impoverished reach as a kid are now really cheap because they're effectively worthless as anything other than collectors' items (do you know anyone playing AD&D these days?).
I used to be really focused on issues 60-100, issues from before I ever played a tabletop RPG. I feel at that point the magazine really had a nice balance between earlier issues, when Dragon had the good and down sides of being basically a fanzine, and later issues, which got to be D&D focused and incredibly polished at the cost of energy. In particular I really like the inclusion of scenarios in those issues, since it sort of gives you a "feel" for what you could do with these games you've been reading about.
A serious windfall - a friend getting rid of magazines from their childhood - got me all of those issues except for #75, which they wanted to keep because that issue kicked ass. I was okay with that, since I already had issue #75, and because I already had #75, I understood just how much ass it kicked. #75 has some neat articles about devils, adventuring in the Hells, languages, and a scenario about saving a trade route, and it might be pretty much the best issue of Dragon in the magazine's 31 years of existing in print. I don't say such things lightly since a lot of issues were really fun. (After 2007 Dragon became online, throw-money-at-WotC, which really discourages browsing the shelves of the FLGS and going, huh, this issue looks cool, sure.... or having something you don't feel too bad about getting banged up a little to read in the bathroom, on public transit, or at the gym. I've read the article about Yeenoghu, Demon Lord of Gnolls, and that's pretty much it for the last five years. Make mine Pathfinder.)
Occasionally I'm interested in Dragons after 1985 but before 2001 or so. Which is kinda weird I know - I got introduced to AD&D in the late 80s. Issue 128, which I just got, is almost like a snapshot of what gaming and heck, maybe a little of what life was like for me in 1987. Space devoted to computer games for folks with computers in '87 - including a game about saving the heroic SDI program from rogue KGB agents and another about the evils of drug use. A not particularly funny humorous article, some unfunny Dragonmirth, and a pretty nice "Snarfquest" followed by an achingly beautiful "Wormy." An incredibly dull chart-focused article on resisting illusions, and a Marvel superheros article which, like a lot of what I can figure out of Marvel canon especially in the 80s, proves that enough issues of bodybuilders in spandex having fistfights adds up to plotlines more convoluted than a big C.H. Cherryh novel. And despite all this, ads and a few articles here and there which really make me want to go out and play games right now. Which at the time would have indicated that someone out there - in fact lots of someones - were having a 'way more fun and imaginative 1987 than me. That there was something much nicer out there, y'know?
I was also gonna talk about pregenerated characters, how I've come to like them and especially how much I love West End Games' oop Star Wars, but this is running long and it can wait.
I used to be really focused on issues 60-100, issues from before I ever played a tabletop RPG. I feel at that point the magazine really had a nice balance between earlier issues, when Dragon had the good and down sides of being basically a fanzine, and later issues, which got to be D&D focused and incredibly polished at the cost of energy. In particular I really like the inclusion of scenarios in those issues, since it sort of gives you a "feel" for what you could do with these games you've been reading about.
A serious windfall - a friend getting rid of magazines from their childhood - got me all of those issues except for #75, which they wanted to keep because that issue kicked ass. I was okay with that, since I already had issue #75, and because I already had #75, I understood just how much ass it kicked. #75 has some neat articles about devils, adventuring in the Hells, languages, and a scenario about saving a trade route, and it might be pretty much the best issue of Dragon in the magazine's 31 years of existing in print. I don't say such things lightly since a lot of issues were really fun. (After 2007 Dragon became online, throw-money-at-WotC, which really discourages browsing the shelves of the FLGS and going, huh, this issue looks cool, sure.... or having something you don't feel too bad about getting banged up a little to read in the bathroom, on public transit, or at the gym. I've read the article about Yeenoghu, Demon Lord of Gnolls, and that's pretty much it for the last five years. Make mine Pathfinder.)
Occasionally I'm interested in Dragons after 1985 but before 2001 or so. Which is kinda weird I know - I got introduced to AD&D in the late 80s. Issue 128, which I just got, is almost like a snapshot of what gaming and heck, maybe a little of what life was like for me in 1987. Space devoted to computer games for folks with computers in '87 - including a game about saving the heroic SDI program from rogue KGB agents and another about the evils of drug use. A not particularly funny humorous article, some unfunny Dragonmirth, and a pretty nice "Snarfquest" followed by an achingly beautiful "Wormy." An incredibly dull chart-focused article on resisting illusions, and a Marvel superheros article which, like a lot of what I can figure out of Marvel canon especially in the 80s, proves that enough issues of bodybuilders in spandex having fistfights adds up to plotlines more convoluted than a big C.H. Cherryh novel. And despite all this, ads and a few articles here and there which really make me want to go out and play games right now. Which at the time would have indicated that someone out there - in fact lots of someones - were having a 'way more fun and imaginative 1987 than me. That there was something much nicer out there, y'know?
I was also gonna talk about pregenerated characters, how I've come to like them and especially how much I love West End Games' oop Star Wars, but this is running long and it can wait.