PixlBit

I recently picked up a whole box of old Dragon Magazines at a library book sale, about 60 of them, starting with this issue #65. I started reading them a little bit and found them to be really fun to revisit. Since a lot of this stuff intersects with video gaming in many ways, I thought I'd take a few notes and share some interesting things I came across while reading them. Oh yes, and my favorite part: scans of covers, ads and artwork that caught my eye. 

                          

Note 1: Dragon #65, September 1982, has one of the best covers by artist Clyde Caldwell. The covers are what really drew me to the magazine. I never subscribed to it back in the 80's when I was playing D&D, but I had a handfull of issues I picked up for various features concerning the expansion or explanation of D&D rules and the addition of new monsters. The magazine didn't just cover D&D though. There were articles about other TSR games and computer games as well.

Note 2: The first thing that caught my eye in this issue was a letter to the editor by Nels Bruckner called "Just a Game". It complains of the criticism that D&D "gets kids into demonics, lowers their respect for life, and is anti-religious.". At the time, Sept. 1982, I was in High School and didn't hear anybody say D&D was bad for me. I must've been too busy designing castle floor plans on graph paper to even notice the criticisms in the mainstream media.

The editor, Kim Mohan, gave a long and empassioned reply that addressed all the criticisms of the game very well. It's a very interesing response, and I would just highlight her answer to the criticism that many people spend too much time on the game:

"Many thousands of people do spend a lot of time playing the D&D and AD&D games. Just as many other people spend a lot of time playing baseball or golf or tennis or watching television. Any hobby presumably carries the potential for being too absorbing and time consuming. But that doesn't mean all hobbies should be banned, does it?"

Just substitute D&D with video games and the answer is just as good.

Note 3: The articles showcasing new monsters got me thinking about the Frequency (or rarity) stat. I was always fascinated with the Frequency stat in D&D. In creating my own fantasy settings, I always spent a lot of time coming up with lists of monsters and their percentage chance of appearing in a particular area.

Called "random encounters" in video games, the computer does the calculation similarly to a Dungeon Master in D&D. I noticed this kind of thing with the Chubby and Tubby monster variants in Borderlands 2. They would appear infrequently in certain areas suggesting a low Frequency (or rarity) stat somewhere in the programming. Of other games I've played, Dragon Quest VIII and Blue Dragon both did random encounters. Things like Metal Slime or Platinum Poo Snakes were random but with clearly higher percentage chance of appearing in certain locations. I'm sure there are many other video games with random encounters, but most have very predictable, nonrandom, monsters that are always in the same place every time. I would give as example: Ys: The Oath in Felghana that I'm playing now. I guess we can thank D&D, and the war gaming that inspired it, for random encounters in video games.

 

                           

Note 4: I scanned this G.I. Anvil of Victory ad because I loved this board game back in high school and had this and all the other expansions to Squad Leader. The game put you on the field controlling small groups of soldiers and individual leaders as well as vehicles like tanks. You had to roll for morale checks and things like whether a building would catch fire after an attack. You even had SMOKE pieces that would obscure your line of sight! The level of detail and realism in this game was astounding.

I realized recently however, after reading the book Company Commander by Charles B. MacDonald, that there is much "realism" left out of Squad Leader such as: the units assigned to remove the dead from the field, the soldiers that have to repair wire lines of communication, and the large support crew that feeds and supplies the main forces (the so called "Blue Commandos"), just to name a few. These kind of things are also absent from video games about WWII or any other war for that matter. I think there is room for improvement on the "realism" front in war gaming of both varieties.

[This issue 65 was chock full of interesting things, so I'm breakin up this blog into two parts with notes 5-8 coming next. Included will be my thoughts on the video game reviews for two RPGs that perhaps mark the beginning of the genre on computers].