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Retro Review-Dragon Magazine #96 (1985) oh and post 20k  [RSS] Share on facebook Share on Twitter Submit to Reddit
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Made in in
[MOD]
Otiose in a Niche






Hyderabad, India

So this is my 20,000th (!!) post on Dakka, or at least this iteration of Dakka, and not counting my extensive comments in the gallery and oh, whatever, it's post 20k so there. Which does not even put me in the top 50 Dakka posters, but at least I'm close to passing Gwar who was banned 10 years ago so there's there.

ANYWAY so I figured this was a good time one of my award-seeking Retro Reviews and this time I'm doing Dragon Magazine 96 from April 1985 (as always be sure to chime in if you weren't born when this came out). Why a random issue of Dragon from 34 (!!) years ago?



Because it was the first issue of Dragon I ever got and in many ways my introduction to the larger world of table top games and what was out there. I had started playing basic D&D the year before I picked this up for some summer vacation beach reading and remember reading it several times, laughing at the jokes and studying the ads of what else was out there. It was a pretty significant milestone in my gaming and hobby career.

I still have my copy somewhere in storage, minus the cover and several pages but I found it on ebay for $5 so why not?



As it happens it was an April issue (not sure why I got an April issue for summer vacation, maybe it was on the shelf? or maybe I just didn't get to reading it for a while) and Dragon had a tradition of doing parody articles for April Fools.

What a great idea.

Someone really ought to keep that tradition up.

So alongside the usual content there were things like the Quazar Dragon and Nogard, the ultimate adventure. And my respect and regard for the gaming hobby has never been the same since.



So the magazine plugs 'Ginny's Delight' on the cover and the table of contents which is, I mean OK I guess. It turns out to be deck plans for a smuggling ship for the Star Trek RPG. And certainly not what I would have led with. But hey better than the Dragonquest (tm) swimming rules I guess...



The issue also has the usual features of the time.



You have to remember (or imagine I guess...) this was a time when the only places to talk about your hobby were with local friends, random folks you might meet at a store or a con. OR in the pages of a monthly magazine! So things like the Forum, letters pages, monster ecologies were the only place to share your sage ideas on how Harpies reproduce (don't ask, this is a family wargame site) or thoughts on Elven Druids this was it.

And some early ads.



Talisman, nice art, I wonder what ever happened to it. maybe I can get it one ebay, how much could a 30 year old board game possibly go for anyway.



No idea what Loremaster is, but for years this was the magazine's cover for me after the original tore off.





The humor ("humor") starts early with this editorial. I'll save you some eye strain, it's the editor wondering if anyone ever reads these things.

 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut




Central California

You and I seem to share a lot of the same gaming background and timeframe. I also have this issue (and about a hundred random ones from slightly before to decades after.
The comment about how times have changed, and how much a magazine like this and the Forum etc meant to early RPG'ers cannot be understated. I waited for my store bought copy eagerly. I understand change is change, but still sad to see this type of thing gone.
Watching for the continuation of this...

Keeping the hobby side alive!

I never forget the Dakka unit scale is binary: Units are either OP or Garbage. 
   
Made in gb
Fixture of Dakka






1985 isn't before I was born, but it is several years before I began gaming. It might even have been before I started playing with LEGO, although I think the two Tonka toy vehicles in my mum's loft date that far back ...
   
Made in us
Inspiring SDF-1 Bridge Officer





Mississippi

Ah, Loremaster - one of the many books for the Rolemaster RPG (also used for the Middle-Earth Roleplaying Game - or MERP for short).

I started my own Dragon collection with #98, though a friend let me borrow an earlier copy - it too was missing the cover and started with a Rolemaster ad (for the Arms & Equipment book, I think)

It never ends well 
   
Made in in
[MOD]
Otiose in a Niche






Hyderabad, India

And we're back with more!

As noted places like Dragon were the only real space to throw around ideas about game systems and this month's Forum starts off with a heady topic, the nature of good and evil.



So we agree that (for the purposes of a tabletop role playing game) killing a bunch of orc raiders to save a village is 'good'. But what happens when you track them to their lair and find a few hundred orc young (and yes, rules at the time would actually include bits about how many young you can expect to find)? Is spreading oil on them and setting them on fire also 'good'? Isn't sparing them just condemning the villagers to death later on? This is a lot to take in!

GW was probably wise to say orcs are fungus who just emerge full grown and ready to fight.



Then no less than Gary Gygax himself chimes in with some pretty major rule revisions. D&D at the time was balanced (well "Balanced"... ) by giving elves, dwarves etc superpowers, but limiting what classes they could enter and what levels they could achieve. Which of course made no sense. Don't the elven gods have priests? And don't they have champions too? So Gygax reverses himself by opening up new classes in a limited way.



Hurray! At last I can play a dwarven cleric of Thor!

But why are Halflings (who have the worst superpowers of the demihumans) limited to level 4? Reasons! How come Gnomes (who no one in recorded history has ever wanted to play) are much better clerics? Reasons!

The article also includes a rehash of his long-standing position that if you ain't playing by the book (which he wrote and he sells) you ain't playing D&D you're playing something else. A position which endeared him to so many fans



What? Novels? Based on kids games?

That will never catch on.



Warbots, the ultimate weapon! I have a good feeling about this game, looks a lot better than that Battledroids thing they were advertising last month.



Maybe somewhere there was a group where players sat down and generated characters with rich, detailed backgrounds and histories rather than roll some dice, cheat, and try to max out for combat efficiency. I suppose anything is possible. I never saw it.

So this article offers a system for determining your character's social class, up bringing etc. A cool idea.



By rolling randomly.



Because why would you want to have a say in what sort of person your character is?
Better yet is the assumption that somehow fighters are inherently middle class, unlike say, priests or wizards. Because, well, picking up a blunt object and smashing someone's head is apparently much more bourgeois skill than spending years of schooling learning how to channel the cosmic energies of the universe.



And it goes on...

Now sometimes things like this can be a good tool for writers, if you treat the rolls as suggestions and inspiration rather than God's will. So you envision that Derrick the Dashing is a gentleman robber always well dressed and armed with a rapier-like wit. But you roll that he's a lower class serf/slave/beggar (I like how they're lumped together even though they are quite different). Which can actually add to the character, because now he's a poser. And maybe he keeps pronouncing words wrong or making obvious mistakes then going into a rage when someone calls him on it.

So yeah. An annoying system. But not entirely useless.



Yes. Daredevils do have adventures.



Now with expanded rules for dysentery and leukemia!



I always liked Ed Greenwood's ecology articles. He took random creatures of myth, folklore and imagination and tried to give them a logical place in the world. Gulguthra (like the Otyugh and Neo Otyugh) are basically walking trash piles with tentacles and eye stalks. Think hentai monsters without the charm. But he does a respectable job bringing these random encounters to life.



My goodness I wanted these SO MUCH! Make your own heroes? Mix and match weapons and arms and heads? Yes please!



It would be another few years before I bought my first miniatures but these really convinced me what minis should be about.

I wonder if RAFM still makes them?

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2019/06/18 23:33:01


 
   
Made in us
Inspiring SDF-1 Bridge Officer





Mississippi

O...M...G

I never realized in original AD&D you couldn't play a demi-human Cleric. I'd started with "basic" D&D where your race was a class, but I came into AD&D with Unearthed Arcana and the thought that "Advanced" D&D didn't let you play non-human Clerics flattens me.

As for the background article, in it's defense most Wizards require schooling or apprenticeship - which takes money, so having an average higher chance of coming from a more prestigious background makes sense. Likewise, traditionally, Christian clergy* were often second sons of nobles or such and needed to be skilled in reading and writing - a talent generally found only in more well-to-do families.

Of course, what's hilarious is that even if your fighter character came from a beggar family or was a noble, he only started with 5d4 x 20 gp - you could easily have a peasant fighter with more cash on hand than his noble counterpart...

* Despite D&D's pantheon approach, the Cleric class is strongly based off Christian archtypes - especially from the Holy Roman Empire, such as Archbishop Turpin of the Song of Roland.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/06/19 03:51:13


It never ends well 
   
Made in gb
Fixture of Dakka






 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

So this article offers a system for determining your character's social class, up bringing etc. A cool idea.
By rolling randomly.

Because why would you want to have a say in what sort of person your character is?
Better yet is the assumption that somehow fighters are inherently middle class, unlike say, priests or wizards. Because, well, picking up a blunt object and smashing someone's head is apparently much more bourgeois skill than spending years of schooling learning how to channel the cosmic energies of the universe.


Actually, fighters, wizards and clerics all have a 35% chance of being middle-class; thieves have a 40% chance. Thieves have a 50% chance of being low or very low, while fighters are less likely (15%) than clerics or wizards (25%) to be poor. Presumably that allows for indigent hedge-wizards or parish priests, while accounting for the fact that someone of low social status is less likely to be able to afford the specialist equipment - armour and weapons - used by a fighter. Wizards are the most likely to be "distinguished" (upper-middle class, what we'd call Professional, along the lines of lawyers, doctors and academics), which again makes sense to me. fighters and Clerics are most likely to be noble - think of the first sons (knights) and second sons (clergy - wealthy priests and bishops) of the ruling class.

As to doing it randomly, I've always preferred that option because I'm terrible at thinking up backstory. I'd much rather roll it all randomly (why should it be OK to roll my strength randomly but not my social standing?) to give me something to work with during the actual game. In fact I determined my character's name randomly in my last WFRP game.
   
Made in ca
Regular Dakkanaut




The thing that kills me about that RAFM add is the address.

At the time that this issue was published and I was starting to buy miniatures, RAFM was 2 minutes down the road from me.

I had no idea that they were there. I moved away about 5 years later, still none the wiser.
   
Made in in
[MOD]
Otiose in a Niche






Hyderabad, India

And we're back!

Interestingly, just after Papa Gygax reprimanded us all for not playing real D&D by using unlicensed materials and novels, Dragon Magazine gives us an article on how to to turn your favorite books into D&D campaign worlds!



And the writer even quotes an article by Gygax "A truly excellent novel provides an inversely proportionate amount of good material for a game" and goes on to refute him. IIRC Gygax also said that Lord of the Rings was a terrible idea for an RPG campaign, a viewpoint which was... controversial shall we say. Along with the mating habits of Harpies (don't ask) this was an ongoing debate in Dragon for years.

(Despite the fact the TSR published modules based on Conan and the Ffard and Grey Mouser books, AND launched a series of modules based on their own Dragonlance books, nope don't need to adopt any books here, bad idea kid!)



So we get some commonsense ideas, like make a checklist of what and where is important in the world and try drawing a map from your memory of the story. Then go back to the books and refine. And finally change what you need to make the world work for you, your group and their style. All in all pretty good stuff.

and then...

Example 1-Gor


Oh...

To his credit the author avoids the more... prurient and salacious aspects of the world (SAT vocabulary to protect innocent minds) or John Norman's... unique and clearly stated views on gender relations (no one can ever accuse Norman of being shy about this beliefs on gender, gotta give him that) nor does the article detail the rules for the Kajira character class. Instead we get...



An evil dude attacks, gets killed and, due to reasons, his death unleashes orcs, elves, manticores and everything else into the world. Because... you want to play in the author's world, but you also want it to be D&D I guess? Maybe?

So how about...

Example 2 - Barsoom


Like Gor the John Carter of Mars books had no magic or gnomes or Ropers so one fine day the gods wake up and then wake up all the D&D races too. And the world still has airships and radium guns, but they're impossible for the characters to obtain.

Yay.

A John Carter campaign with no airships or Green Martians but I can fight Owlbears.



Earthwood - Dawn of the Ancients Play By Mail Game is looking better already.

Third time's the charm? Right?

Example 3 - Middle Earth


So OK, Gygax's bizarre opinions aside D&D is just Tolkien with the numbers filed off right, so not much needed to turn it into a D&D campaign world?



The Temples of Shadow "explode" during the god wars. The result is the release of horrible monsters into Middle Earth. Someplace or Another and Some Other Joint are destroyed. A king of Middle Earth is named, and he is imbued with many powers by the gods


Look. Kid. If you're going to sit down to write Hamlet 2 - The Revenge of Ophelia first off good on you for your ambition. But maybe, I'm just spitballing here, but maybe you should make sure it's actually, y'know, good.

And you just know the King of Middle Earth inbued with many powers by the gods was one of his PCs, you just know it.



Villains and Vigilantes, I know I never accepted any imitations.

OK I spent more time on that article than I expected, so a few 'real' articles to quickly mention before we get to the humor.



D&D had no real skill system. There was something called non-weapon proficences mentioned in passing in the back of the Dungeon Master's Guide IIRC, but the fact that y'know everything your character knows besides people-killing are lumped together as 'non-weapon proficences' tells you how much attention the subject was given. So articles with bespoke rules for everything from riding, to black smithing to, in this case, forgery were staples of this era of Dragon.



Not much to say about the Play By Mail era except that it did exist for a brief while when there was enough interest in complex engaging games played against real people, but before IT advances made them obsolete. An interesting evolutionary dead end.



Swimming rules for Dragon Quest (tm). It goes on for... FIVE PAGES. I don't even know what Dragon Quest is, never heard of it and I already hate it with a passion.

And finally



The Compleat Strategist, my gaming home in New York and DC for 30 years now. Most of their other branches are gone but the ones on 33rd street and in Falls Church are still there. Love them both.

OK come back next time when we finally get the the humor!

This is a humor issue you may recall...

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2019/06/20 03:05:55


 
   
Made in gb
Fixture of Dakka






I've read precisely one Gor novel, and I may have been too young to notice, but I don't recall any of the things the books are (in)famous for, but I do remember it having psychic giant insect aliens running things behind the scenes. It was a bit of a shock when I read about all the bits I'd missed on the internet later on.

As someone who never played any flavour of D & D other than a brief foray into the original Iron Kingdoms RPG, the only issue of Dragon magazine I ever bought was Issue 352 (February 2007) for the articles about China Miéville's Bas-Lag setting. Unlike the 40k and White Dwarf retro reviews, this is all new rather than a trip down memory lane for me.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/06/20 07:57:43


 
   
Made in us
Inspiring SDF-1 Bridge Officer





Mississippi

Funny considering the ad for Dragons of Autumn Tiwlight that article on turning novels into campaigns didn’t mention DragonLance - since at least DL1 should have been out at that time.

Also - only $2.95 for the novel at that time? No wonder I got it; that’s about the price of one swivel-arm GI Joe figure back then...

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/06/20 21:43:24


It never ends well 
   
Made in in
[MOD]
Otiose in a Niche






Hyderabad, India

And we're back, finally with the humor!



Nogard! The high level adventure to end all adventures!


Literally.

This solo adventure begins with your absurdly powerful and well-equipped adventurer being teleported to a formless void.



I just love this picture. Sword, shield, spear, bow, scrolls, rings, rolled up magic carpet, magic auras, orbiting cloud of ioun stones and a wand in his teeth!

Sadly he's a bit under-equipped by today's standards.



You could easily fit two or three more swords on his back!

This solo adventure gets right to the action!

Detailing your character's level and abilities



and equipment



You follow a series of Choose Your Own Adventure type choices including this one:



Alas though Nogard offers no enemies to battle, no traps to disarm, no treasure to pillage.

Your character might even despair and consider ending it all but...



And finally...



So a cute answer to overpowered characters and Montey Haul campaigns where the Deitites and Demigods book is treated as a monster manual.



Games Workshop? Is that a spin off of Games Design Workshop? Regardless their Golden Heroes game looks interesting, I have a good feeling about it.

There can never be too many dragons right?




Then we have Phil Foglio's 'What's New' Dragon.

Created when a drunken archmage attempted to crossbreed a red dragon, a blue dragon, a cow and a small terrier dog he had handy, "Just to show 'em!"


He wanders, in, says "growf!" and incinerates the characters' possessions with a breath weapon that only affects inanimate objects. Cute one-joke monster.



And the 120,600 Km long Quazar Dragon.

The first clue that a 'Monty Haul" world is about to be eaten comes when the characters walk outside their gold-plated +8 castle walls, wearing their +22 plate-mail of prismatic invulnerability, and see the sun disappear. This is a sure indicator that the Quazar Dragon has opened its 28,260 km wide mouth and is about the swallow the planet whole.


So basically the same joke as Nogard. But it's a cute joke.

And if that ain't enough...






The killer Dungeon Master cuts out the middle man of wandering monsters and just uses the wandering damage table.



While the sleep-inducing dungeon master...



I've met both, and I've probably been both over the years. Ah well. We try, all we can do it try.



Ooo, finally I can role play being in an LRRP along the Laos boarder! And d100 tables for daily events? Sign me up!



Then Dragon Magazine bites, gnaws on and digests the hand that feeds them with some rules for Enraged Glaciers and Ghouls and the Neighborhood of Fred fantasy setting detailing Humans, Kobolds, Fairies, Biters and Boggies.



Alas we'll have to wait for the next article to get the rules for character classes - Halberdier, Arquibusier, Caveman, Sumo Wrestler, Commando, Mugger, Medic, Chaplain, Apothecary and Prestidigitator!

A bit later TSR would make their Oriental Adventures books, and Dragon would dutifully offer not one but two version of the Sumo Wrestler class. Which only goes to show... something.

Also, I'm officially claiming Enraged Glaciers and Ghouls for my upcoming Game of Thrones RPG.



The fastest growing fantasy RPG on the market?! I bet they have a system that's made to withstand the test of time! I bet decades from now people will still be using it!



No lie, these really interested me. And I'd bet cash money Palladium still has them in their warehouse.



Finally we have the Hopeless Character class. Hopeless characters flip a coin for hit points, then flips it again in the unlikely event they gains a level, discarding the earlier result.

Come back next time as we look at Ares, the science fiction section.


This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/06/20 23:20:39


 
   
Made in us
Krazed Killa Kan






Columbus, Oh

many moons ago, I (gamemaster) and friends would play Villains and Vigilantes and those freebie villains that they would publish in their ads were REALLY nice to have

I kinda wish that other publishers did that at the time, or now..

2+2=5 for sufficiently large values of 2.

Order of St Ursula (Sisters of Battle): W-2, L-1, T-1
Get of Freki (Space Wolves): W-3, L-1, T-1
Hive Fleet Portentosa (Nids/Stealers): W-6, L-4, T-0
Omega Marines (vanilla Space Marine): W-1, L-6, T-2
Waagh Magshak (Orks): W-4, L-0, T-1
A.V.P.D.W.: W-0, L-2, T-0

www.40korigins.com
bringing 40k Events to Origins Game Fair in Columbus, Oh. Ask me for more info! 
   
Made in in
[MOD]
Otiose in a Niche






Hyderabad, India

And let's wrap this up!

Dragon at the time segregated science fiction and modern games into a section called Ares, another gaming magazine they'd incorporated earlier.



Nice cover.



Gamma World and Boot Hill were the Tito Jackson and Neil Bush of the TSR family. Not much to say about it, I never played, but it does look kind of silly and fun.

No match for the d1000 mutation table though.



Ginny's Delight, a smuggling ship for Star Trek.



I kind of like that it flies 'backwards'. But I'm annoyed at how it has only one nacelle. Don't they know nacelles are supposed to come in pairs and line of sight on each other!



Car Wars, cool name, really cool ad. Played it like once, got bored.



The Marvel RPG gets into the April Fools mood with stats for Howard the Duck...



The Fabulous Frogman...



And Willy Lumpkin!


Then we move on to some of the more low rent ads.



Computers and RPGs? This will never take off, I mean you can hardly carry a Tandy TRS80 into your basement!



A homemade book of robots and monsters from 1985? I would seriously love a copy.



Choose your own Quest? Endless Adventure? Whatever they were called I remember they were head and shoulders better than anything else on the market. Well-written plots, consistency, tough decisions. I actually did a few of them before I tried D&D,



Honestly I'm curious... No wait. No I'm not. I gamed with 12 years in the 80s, after a couple of hours I'd want to spoon out my eyes and pop my eardrums.



Making and Marketing my game? Cool!

And finally some cartoons.





Kind of crude to our sophisticated 21st century eyes with our highly-advanced humor.



Mmm... perfection.

Finally two continuing strips. Snarf Quest



And Wormy



No idea what the plot was but it is gorgeous.



And in conclusion, stay sharp, trust no one, and always keep your laser handy.


 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





Myrtle Creek, OR

Thanks for this. My favorite part of that issue was the Gamma World stuff. It was a lot of silly yet hard-core serious fun.

Thread Slayer 
   
Made in us
Nasty Nob




Cary, NC

Ohhhh.... Wormy.

Wormy was Dave Trampier's comic in Dragon. You, know, THAT Dave Trampier. DAT. The one who created Emrikol the Chaotic. The one who did the iconic lizardman shrine with the demon idol with gemstone eyes. The one that absolutely enthralled me as a kid.

It was a magnificent, lushly illustrated comic, light years beyond anything else that ran in there. Dave evidently had a falling out with TSR, sent back his checks uncashed, and stopped submitting the comic. He became something of a recluse and worked as a taxi driver. He was 'rediscovered' by a student newspaper reporter in 2002 but didn't want anything to do with artwork. He developed cancer in 2013 and tried to sell some of his original art. He was being encouraged to meet with Troll Lord Games to get Wormy reprinted, but he died a few weeks before the game convention where he was going to display some of his art for the first time in 25 years.

One of the real geniuses and luminaries in fantasy artwork and just so sad of an ending. I post images from Dave every year on his birthday on my Facebook. Still wish I knew how Wormy ended.

 
   
Made in us
Knight of the Inner Circle






Da Butcha wrote:
Ohhhh.... Wormy.

Wormy was Dave Trampier's comic in Dragon. You, know, THAT Dave Trampier. He became something of a recluse and worked as a taxi driver. He was 'rediscovered' by a student newspaper reporter in 2002 but didn't want anything to do with artwork.


Rumor is the FLGS bought his the estate (artwork at least). I was from the area (Carbondale IL) years ago, people talked about meeting him and if you got fan boy on him in the taxi, he would shut you down fast or kick you out.. Don't know if any of this is true but I know
what ever TSR did back in the day for someone to hold a grudge that long was something major.

 
   
Made in in
[MOD]
Otiose in a Niche






Hyderabad, India

edwardmyst wrote:
The comment about how times have changed, and how much a magazine like this and the Forum etc meant to early RPG'ers cannot be understated. I waited for my store bought copy eagerly. I understand change is change, but still sad to see this type of thing gone.
Watching for the continuation of this...


It is interesting to look at it now. Rose colored nostalgia tells us that the content should be good it was after produced by, or at least curated by professionals. But a quick examination of the magazine shows us... no. Part of that of course is that they has a much smaller pool of contributions to draw upon, so if someone out there is passionate enough to write 5 pages of swimming rules for Dragon Quest (tm) well that fills 5 pages of your quota.

But still it's impressive how much Dragon respected its audience and showed off its editorial independence. The Great Gygax would publish and article and an article ON THE NEXT PAGE would refute him. And while the debate about the physics of falling damage became very tedious, it did have folks pulling in Newtonian physics, biology, as well as modern and historical examples to support their positions on whether it should be 1d6/10 feet, or (1d6/10 feet)! (that's ! as in factorial, 1+2+3) to account for acceleration. And how many d6 to reach terminal velocity?

People would write about the social structures of the middle ages, the history of religion and all sorts of other things to defend their positions, pretty heady for a magazine aimed at tweens and teens playing a hack and slash RPG.

And of course there were some things that I skipped over the like the book reviews which introduced me to Philip Jose Farms, Robert Lynn Asprin, George RR Martin and other greats. And the fact they devoted so much time to other game systems is another major plus. It was a Dragon article that got me interested in an obscure British game called Battleaxe in the 401st Century (or something, it's been a while). In all, it's a quality product.

Stormonu wrote:Funny considering the ad for Dragons of Autumn Tiwlight that article on turning novels into campaigns didn’t mention DragonLance - since at least DL1 should have been out at that time.

Also - only $2.95 for the novel at that time? No wonder I got it; that’s about the price of one swivel-arm GI Joe figure back then...


$2.95?! Where did you shop? Even at Toys R Us GI Joes were $2.97 in my day!

But yeah, those Dragonlance books. I remember nagging the book store every week until the 3rd book came out (my young mind not appreciating the idea of 'it's not written yet'). I finished in a day by staying up till 2am reading. Played the modules too but never had 8 players so everyone had to pull double or triple duty.

I have a boxed set on the shelf somewhere. I'd be afraid to look at them now.

Da Butcha wrote:Ohhhh.... Wormy.

Wormy was Dave Trampier's comic in Dragon. You, know, THAT Dave Trampier. DAT. The one who created Emrikol the Chaotic. The one who did the iconic lizardman shrine with the demon idol with gemstone eyes. The one that absolutely enthralled me as a kid.

It was a magnificent, lushly illustrated comic, light years beyond anything else that ran in there. Dave evidently had a falling out with TSR, sent back his checks uncashed, and stopped submitting the comic. He became something of a recluse and worked as a taxi driver. He was 'rediscovered' by a student newspaper reporter in 2002 but didn't want anything to do with artwork. He developed cancer in 2013 and tried to sell some of his original art. He was being encouraged to meet with Troll Lord Games to get Wormy reprinted, but he died a few weeks before the game convention where he was going to display some of his art for the first time in 25 years.

One of the real geniuses and luminaries in fantasy artwork and just so sad of an ending. I post images from Dave every year on his birthday on my Facebook. Still wish I knew how Wormy ended.


I never knew any of that! For me Wormy was the one that wasn't funny, didn't make sense but was just gorgeous to look at. Learn something every day.

 
   
Made in in
[MOD]
Otiose in a Niche






Hyderabad, India

And I should add if you enjoyed this there's plenty more of these reviews, indexed here:

https://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Kid_Kyoto_Retro_Review_Index

 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut




Central California

Thx for the time spent! I played almost every game mentioned here (and most seen in Dragon.) (Humorous Hyperbole to follow)
  • [list]Gamma World was a great Thundarr the Barbarian game (although I do not have any idea which came forst or even if they knew of each other).

  • Car Wars ruled. Build your own mad max style car, and kill each other on the map of midville...over and over and over...ok maybe it didn't rule.

  • Palladium always had super duper complex sourcebooks and a crappy game.

  • MERP or Rolemaster had an unbelievable set of sourcebooks, and an even more unbelievably complex set of rules that had one redeeming trait...critical hit tables that were amusing and lethal.

  • Villains and Vigilantes suffered horribly from zero balance. Roll your random powers guys! Player A: I have a d6 punch, stretching, and x-ray vision! Player B: I have supersonic space flight, a death ray that does d20 damage, and can turn to a ghost and be immune to all attacks! Player A; Ummm...can I reroll?
  • [/list]
    This issue somehow failed to have anything from GURPS, Champions, Star Frontiers, or Arcana...but maybe it was a few years too early.
    Anyway, variety is great in RPG's, as they all have good and bad points and if you can somehow get the best and lose the worst you have a great game.

    I too loved Wormy (the plot always seemed to revolve around the dragon and people after him, usually for the crime of WARGAMING!!!!
    I knew nothing about the artist. Somehow he deserved better and if he had been in the internet age would have I suspect.


    Edited for clarity and poor typing skills...

    This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2019/06/23 22:28:35


    Keeping the hobby side alive!

    I never forget the Dakka unit scale is binary: Units are either OP or Garbage. 
       
    Made in us
    Nasty Nob




    Cary, NC

    For anyone who would like to see what Wormy is all about (and would like to lose an hour or two on the ol' interwebs:

    https://sites.google.com/site/wormycollected/

     
       
     
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