Consequently, when I first came across issue #60 of Dragon (April 1982) and read its contents, I was taken aback. Sure, the article contained a further installment of Roger E. Moore's magisterial demihuman "Point of View" series (focusing on elves this time), along with more cantrips from Gary Gygax and other interesting stuff, but what really caught my eye were a pair of articles that played off longstanding Dragon columns, specifically "Giants in the Earth" and "Dragon's Bestiary." I say "played off," because neither installment in this issue was quite right, as I'll explain.
"Giants in the Earth" was replaced by "Midgets in the Earth" and, rather than presenting D&D stats for characters from classic fantasy and science fiction literature, what we got instead were write-ups for goofy original characters, like the kobold dictator Idi "Little Daddy" Snitmin, Morc the Orc, and master halfling thief Eubeen Hadd. Written by Roger E. Moore and accompanied by artwork that looks like it could have been drawn by Jim Holloway, "Midgets in the Earth" was clearly intended as nothing more than silly fun in honor of April Fool's Day. Please bear in mind that I read this article long before I'd come across the regular April Fool's issues of Polyhedron, so the concept was still somewhat new to me at the time.
The issue's "Dragon's Bestiary" was in a similar vein. Instead of the usual assortment of dangerous and unusual new monsters for use with D&D, we were given entries inspired by various pop culture "monsters," like Donald Duck or Marvin the Martian or the Bad News Bugbears. Like "Midgets in the Earth," these were clearly intended to be silly, but I found them irritating – all the more so because they were written by designers like Tom Moldvay and David Cook, who could have been writing really useful stuff. Why were they wasting effort on such nonsense, I thought? I'd much rather have had more serious content that I could drop into my ongoing AD&D campaign.
Yeah, I was a little tightly wound in those days. Go figure! In time, I came to be a bit more accepting of such silliness, but it took some time – and more April Fool's issues of Dragon to do it. I never fully embraced it, but I did become less uptight about it and the way I enjoyed my hobby. Or at least that's what I keep telling myself ...
This issue's game "Flight of the Boodles" wasn't exactly a dead-serious wargame to compare with Europa or Rise & Fall of the Third Reich either. Then again, quite a few Dragon games were pretty tongue-in-cheek, although almost all of them were quite playable even if some didn't have much replay value. A few (all Tom Wham IIRC) even outshone the best efforts of Avalon Hill and SPI back in the day. Rather play Planet Busters or King of the Tabletop than Panzerblitz any day. :)
ReplyDeleteI tend to identify Dragon issues by what (if any) game they had in them, probably because I re-read those issues more often since I invariably wound up with a "spare" so I could mutilate it to use the game inside. "Boodles" wasn't very good, but I will forever associate that lovely cover art with the game - which isn't really fair to the cover artist. :)
I never warmed to the April silliness. They were never very funny, or at least not to me, and eventually the amateurish antics would come to dominate in too much of TSR's catalog, with offerings like Orcs of Thar or Top Ballista vying with Castle Greyhawk for stupidest way to trick customers into wasting their money. To be fair, Orcs of Thar was at least useful and perhaps even interesting if the Holloway art and other artless buffoonery were skipped past, and maybe Top Ballista wasn't an entire waste of money, time, and effort for the right campaign. In the end, the April issues were a major factor in keeping me from ever subscribing to a TSR periodical. I wanted the option to skip them if there was nothing else in the issue worth looking at, as was often the case.
ReplyDeleteI generally hate april fools issues, especially when it is a monthly or more, and you lose that entire section of your life
ReplyDeleteWhat is happening in that cover image? I can't figure it out at all.
ReplyDeleteMaybe some representation of a Leomund's Tiny Hut type spell? I can see a magic user and a bard, but the building doesn't seem that magical.
DeleteI think it's a vignette of someone visiting a wizard or sage, being welcomed by his apprentice, and with an assistant looking on around the side of the door frame. In broad content, it's not dissimilar to a scene from Dragonslayer.
DeleteThe guys in the barn are showing blondie a globe. Do a search for Dragon 60 and you'll find a better version.
DeleteThe cover is an early piece by Dean Morrissey (he was 31 at the time of publication), who passed away in 2021. He's fairly well known as a cover artist and published a handful of lavishly illustrated books back around 2000 - usually categorized as children's books but there's some there an adult can appreciate as well. If you look up examples of his work online you'll find that this Dragon cover is a sample of a subject he revisited quite a bit over the years - a white-bearded wizard/sage/artificer in his workshop, often along with some fantastical invention. Also drew a nice Santa Claus - go figure, right?
DeleteI had (and still have) this issue. Morc the Orc's power of "delayed blast halitosis" was all I and my fellow 11-year-olds needed to think this issue was funny, but we also liked the description of how when hit by a fireball(or whatever it was) Donald Duck will be charred for a moment, blink, and then be healed in the next frame.
ReplyDelete30+ years later, when my partner saw my color printout of the Flight of the Boodles map and counters, she immediately wanted to play. I didn't tell her about the delayed blast halitosis.
It's not my favorite Dragon game, but Flight is perfectly playable and even has some replay value. Easy to teach/learn, too.
DeleteOut of curiosity, what did she think of Elefant Hunt, assuming you had a copy to show her? I've found that one to be an easy sell for SOs (both my own and others') in teh past. These days you probably need to emphasize the animals are going to zoos as part of ongoing conservation efforts rather than being shot, safari-style. Maybe follow up with a game of Zooloretto - I kept my copy of EH in the Zooloretto box once the latter came out.
I think this was the first issue I acquired.
ReplyDeleteI know it was '82 and that past is a different country and all that, but I am astonished that that Idi Snitmin design made it through. Woof.
ReplyDeleteNot sure how useful the enemies from the issue's Bestiary are, but I do kinda want to use Marvin as an encounter one day.
As a kid, I always felt like the April Fools issues were a waste of what could be perfectly good gaming material. Yet when I think of the effect Dragon had on me and my friends, it's always the April Fools issues and the jokes they inspired that come to mind.
ReplyDeleteIn any case, I've found that one of the joys of growing older comes from the gradual, but persistent, unwinding of a once high strung soul.
That's an interesting perspective and one I can relate to. I know I regularly quote from many of the comics, like What's New.
DeleteI have never liked the silly April issues. The comics in the back of each monthly issue are humor enough (and funny, unlike the April articles).
ReplyDeleteA lot of those April Fools issues were awful. Both because most of the gags weren't very funny but also because they wasted scarce pages on material you were never going to use Iin your game.
ReplyDelete