10/12/2019 Dragon Magazine Archive
1— The Magazine of Fantasy, Swords & Sorcery, and Science Fiction Game Playing — Because this issue had to go to press much earlier than usual, the return of Out On A Limb has been delayed one month. We are trying to get back on what we once called our schedule, and we are gearing up with a new printer with a longer lead time. Sorry for any inconvenience or disappointment.Features Search for the Nile Revisited — The Designer Replies. The Hall of Mystery — A do-it-yourself D&D Module. Rail Baron — A Future Classic Dissected. That “Other” Dungeon!
Dragon #274: Special Collector's 3rd Edition Issue Wizards of the Coast: Dungeons & Dragons 3 (2000 ).
— an old favorite rejuvenated. Monty Strikes Back — The Return of Monty Haul.
Finieous Fingers. Design/ Designer’s Forum3 14 16 24 26 28The Other Humorous Side of D&D— Killer DMs. What Do You Call A 25th Level M-U?
— lofty appellations. “Same Old Monster” Blues — a quick cure. Encounters with Personality — livening up your game.6 7 8 11Variants Inflation in D&D — burning up excess loot. Prophet Proofing — Warding off the evil eye. Boot Hill Encounters — what to do between bank-jobs. Sensible Sorcery — some limits on spell research. Reviews9 9 10 10The Dragonlords.
King Arthur’s Knights. The Silmarillion.7 13 22 25Art Dept. Dave Sutherland Publisher E. Gary Gygax David A. Trampier Managing Ed. Kask Tom Wham TD Editor T.J.
Kask LW Editor Joe Orlowski Circulation Mgr. Joe OrlowskiThis issue contains an article sure to arouse the ire of many fantasy purists. I’m referring, of course, to the RAIL BARON piece. It is sure to set off howls of anguish in some quarters, and yet, even knowing that, I feel it should be published, and have done so.
The big question now must certainly be WHY? The reason is more substantial than the fact that I really enjoy playing RB any chance I get (regrettably too seldom): I feel that RAIL BARON will prove to be a classic game, and deserves exposure.
It is certainly no less a fantasy to become a railroad magnate than to fight monsters, or explore outer space, though admittedly the scope is less sweeping. After all the bad news in last month’s RUMBLES, I have even more this month. It seems the paper situation is worsening, and supplies are getting even tighter.
If that isn’t bad enough, the news that paper prices are going up an additional 13% in December was not heartily received. As over 60% of our costs are for paper, you can surmise what that does to us. Just after we are forced to raise our prices for the first time in two years, another inflationary broadside has belted us, eating up our entire margin of safety. We are vigorously exploring all avenues of recourse in light of the staggering news. We have some “good stuff,” as Chuck Barris would say, coming up in future issues for your delectation. Next month will see the publishing of the first International DM List. The response was somewhat less than expected, but a good one nonetheless.
We have a new Gardner Fox tale that will be published in Feb.; another saga of Niall of the Far Travels, created especially for TD. In a more general vein, we have a number of kettles boiling for future issues, including another odd game or two, and some more outrageous songs, as well as some as-yet-unpublished charts and tables for Adv D&D. I urge all of you reading this that consider themselves pretty good dungeon or encounter designers to enter the Module Contest. We are giving a lot of valuable prizes, and the winner, and perhaps others, will appear in TD. The staff of TSR Periodicals wishes you all a pleasant and safe holiday season. AIf your mailing label says TD 21 — this is your last issuePublisher’s StatementTHE DRAGON is published monthly by TSR Periodicals, a division of TSR Hobbies, Inc. Box 110, Lake Geneva.
It is available at better hobby shops and bookstores, or by subscription. Subscription rate is $24 per 13 issues. Single copy and back issue price is $2.00, but availability of back issues is not guaranteed.
Subscriptions outside the U.S. And Canada are $28 per 6 issues, and are air-mailed overseas. (Payment must be made in U.S. Currency or by international money order.) All material published herein becomes the exclusive property of the publisher unless special arrangements to the contrary are made. Subscription expiration is coded onto the mailing list. The number to the right of the name, prefixed by “LW” or “TD” is the last issue of the subscription.
Notices will not be sent. Change of address must be filed 30 days prior to mailing date. Unsolicited material cannot be returned unless accompanied by a stamped return envelope, and no responsibility for such material can be assumed by the publisher in any event. All rights on the entire contents of this publication are reserved, and nothing may be reprinted in whole or in part without written permission of the publisher.
Copyright 1978 by TSR HOBBIES. Second-Class Postage paid at Lake Geneva. WI 531472Search for the Nile Revisited:Designers Notes, Addenda, Clarifications & Response by David Wesely ED.
NOTE: As soon as he had finished his article on Search for the Nile, (Published in TD last month) Gary Gygax mailed a photocopy to Dave. Because of press-time, the inherent delays in using the U.S. Mails, etc., Mr.
Wesely's reply was not in time for the last issue, and it came in the form of a letter. However, it makes an excellent follow-up article and provides some fascinating ideas and insights. Having been infected with “SftN Fever' by my publisher, I am now among the ranks of admirers of this fascinating game.& direction of rivers when it became obvious that the only playtesters who wanted us to include these diagrams were the computer-trained ones who could read them! The “main sequence” format breaks down when there are topics that must be referred to from several other rules, e.g., NATIVES: POISONING EXPLORER could follow NATIVES: NEGOTIATION, EXPLORER SPECIALTIES: EVANGELISM or EXPLORER SPECIALTIES: MEDICINE. To handle this the rules do have a TABLE OF CONTENTS which gives the location of any rule to which one is referred.Length As we say on page 2 of the rule book exploring the whole of Africa at one sitting is a marathon task. Our playtesters found it to take about 8½ hours.
Of course fans of Drag Nach Osten will find this to be nothing - but for people with more moderate gaming tastes, we recommend a 20-turn limit. That is, each player is given 20 turns to get organized, get into Africa, make some significant discoveries and (if he survives) to publish them. (Knowing when to quit is the most important skill in the game. The greatest killer of expeditions is STUPIDITY. In a 20-turn game one is forced to pick an objective that can be accomplished in a reasonable time - e.g.
Finding the source of the Benue, not the Nile.) A 20-turn game, with a full six players ( 120 turns in all) can be played in about 2 hours, once the players are used to the rules. While some turns can be much longer-with mapping, discovery of natives, negotiations, battles, more negotiations, trading, and hunting all happening in a single turn - the average player turn will run about 1 minute in length. I wish we had been more specific in our recommendation as to time-limit games. In the rules we left limits to players’ discretion; this has evidently left a number of players with the impression that you have to try to explore the whole map in each game. After playing a 20-turn game, we recommend that the players leave its results on the map, and treat the unerased, published hexes from the first game as preprinted, known territory in the next. If effect, while the map as printed shows Africa as known in 1821, and the players first game will start in 1821, the next game will start at some later date, say 1831. As a result, starting with the first 20-turn game, every player’s mapboard will develop its own unique history which will be passed on from game to game, and the exploration of Africa becomes a “campaign” rather than a “monster game”.Completeness of Rules As you remark, the rules are reminiscent of the original In part this is because both attempt to leave room for imagination and creativity on the part of the player.
This similarity also arises from the fact that both sets of rules had to be cut down to be published, with the hope of releasing further material as suppliments. Our first suppliment, called “Tributary” is being prepared for release around December 1, '78 and will answer a good many questions that other people have asked us.Clarifications DISASTERS: O.K. Although I prefer to make retribution for being too stingy to hire a guide more certain, your suggestion is more realistic.
EXPLORING: MOVEMENT. As you point out, through a combination of rules, Jungle Swamp hexes are impossible. They were intended to be impassible. However, there are two exceptions. First, canoes can follow the coast thru a jungle-swamp hex (or any other kind of hex, for that matter).
Secondly, where guides can be hired in a jungle swamp hex, they know ways through the hex that may be used by either canoes, men or horses. A related question is what happens if an expedition moves into an unknown hex and finds terrain it cannot enter (i.e., an expedition on camels finds jungle or one with no canoes finds a lake). Basically the expedition either reorganizes to eliminate the conflict (e.g., abandons/sells/shoots its camels) or goes back to the hex it came from. Even if the latter choice is made, however, the expedition will poke around on the border of the new hex for the rest of the turn - long enough to “explore” it. Map it, find natives, etc.
For hunting purposes, the expedition gets to hunt in the better of the two hexes. If natives are found, the expedition may succeed in negotiating with them, hiring guides and/or canoes, camels, etc., needed to enter the hex and thus overcome the obstacle. If the expedition is attacked and takes prisoners, it cannot find the native village if it cannot enter the hex.
If the explorer is taken prisoner by the natives, however, and eventually escapes, he will know the paths through the hex. EXPLORER SPECIALITIES: We developed each of the explorer specialities as branches off of the basic explorer stock. Each would have its advantages in terms of enhanced opportunities to score points (e.g., the Zoologist or Geologist who can score points by doing research in any unpublished hex. He does not have to take chances with Unexplored hexes; he can just slide into nice safe (well, less dangerous, as least) hexes with lots of rocks or bugs and flowers that someone else has mapped and rack up point). Each would have its disadvantages in the terms of demanding a certain devotion to one’s calling (the Geologist has to risk death by thirst to stop and look at rocks in the desert. Knowing this, his player had better have him take plenty of water to avoid possible desert hexes.
“Neither rain, nor sleet, nor Waziri’s on the warpath will keep us from knockin’ rocks”). Thus the basic explorer has quite a few advantages over his specialized competitors in the simple matter of STAYING ALIVE.
You propose several “bennies” for non-specialist explorers, explorer-explorers, etc., but I would be a little afraid that these (especially in combination) would make the other specialities unattractive Most playtesters settled in non-specialists as it was (of course, most players would rather be Conan than Gandalf, too, so this may have more to do with the Macho image than with one’s chances of winning with a given character type).Survival It is important to note that players, not explorers, score points, while explorers, not players, die. Of course the explorer must survive each expedition to score points for his player but the death of an explorer will only prevent the player from scoring points for the expedition in progress; he will not lose points already scored for previous expeditions. Thus the players are immortal; you can think of them as being newspaper editors or heads of scientific societies sending out expeditions while they stay safe at home, or you can assume that each player is “reincarnated” as the heir of the deceased explorer, ready to pursue the family tradition of African exploration. Rationalization aside, we found that “bang, you’re dead and out of the game” rules discouraged vigorous play and made sheer cowardice the best strategy. Thus, players are encouraged both to stick their necks out and to “retire” dud explorers in favor of new ones as the game goes on.Organization of Rules We debated the layout of the rules, being familiar with the Strategy & Tactics/ Moves discussions of narrative versus outline versus order of play versus grouped by subject, etc., formats. After six drafts of the rules we settled on the present set as being the most acceptable to playtesters who had previously not seen the game.
In so far as possible the rules are written in a “main sequence” format. That is, everything a player could conceivably do in one hex in one turn is covered in the order it would occur. Alternate activities that would branch off of this pattern are listed after the main sequence and the reader is directed to them by title.
Within each major activity, i.e., Natives: a similar pattern is employed. We deleted a graphic “decision tree” representation of these relationships along with a “flow chart” for determining the presence 3the good doctor fails to hald an epidemic. The natives are (understandably) disappointed by this phony, and the tribal attitude (which influences his chances of escape, if he is a prisoner and of friendly relations, in any case) goes down one point. The second part of the question arises from a confusion between SCORING POINTS for medical success and ADJUSTING ATTITUDE LEVELS. In short it says that the doctor gets 1 or 2 points for every disease he can report a cure for (when he gets back to Europe) but that he doesn’t lose SCORE just because he failed to cure somebody.
and made the natives unhappy. He also can sit at one tribe and keep treating them rather than having to find new tribes after every success, the way a missionary does.(a comment on 19th-Century Medicine’s success rate).(and/or racial attitudes).
PRESERVATION OF RATIONS: Playtesting revealed that the game is surprisingly sensitive to changes in the food supply. Allowing players to save some or all of the food they shot made it too easy to live off the land.
However, if this was coupled with a requirement to sit still for 1 turn while the meat was being smoked and cured, maybe it wouldn’t get out of hand.NATIVES: AMBUSH Hey you caught us here! We edited out the line that stated “Natives deciding to attack an expedition which is following policy number 2 will only be able to catch it if they take it by surprise”. The effect of this rule is to make it nearly impossible for the natives to catch the explorer if he runs for it at first sight. NATIVES: REACTION to EXPLORER POLICY You add together the following factors: EXPLORER POLICY NUMBER BONUSES FOR GUIDES BEING UNARMED, etc. DISTANCE FROM COAST TRIBAL ATTITUDE (initially zero) And compare the sum to the roll of three dice.
The natives are hostile if the sum is less than the die roll. Therefore, an increase in the ATTITUDE LEVEL will make it more likely that the tribe is friendly, as we said. MAXIMUM NUMBER OF NATIVE WARRIORS PER HEX The system given in the rules to generate size of tribe can give anywhere from 1 to 216 warriors-however, with the adjustment for distance from the nearest port of entry (slave trade) the maximum and average number of warriors is significantly reduced. Since minimum and maximum sized tribes (rolling triple ones or sixes respectively) are quite uncommon, the average number of warriors per tribe is the most significant factor: max 72 average 16 2 hexes from PoE 3 4 5 6 or more23 31 38 43Naming Tribes I am really taken with your native tribe facts sheet and your TRIBAL NAME GENERATOR. We thought about using real tribal names on our countersheet, but abandoned it as too expensive and/or confusing to the players and just used numbers. Ideally, one could give a chart showing what tribe was in each hex in 1821.
However, your table serves admirably to dress up the game. Being attacked by the 19’s or trading with the chief of the 37’s just doesn’t hold a candle to encountering twelve heavily armed Ru’ug at an oasis or preaching to the YoGowauku deep in the heart of darkest Africa!108 144 180 216This produces fewer warriors than the system you propose.
Actually neither our system nor yours comes close to reality (the Zulus were largely confined to one hex of our map but they could easily field 6000 warriors). However, the typical native nation was not so centrally organized and the explorer would have only had to deal with it one village at a time. If we did this “realistically” with one-day turns and ten-kilometer hexes. So what we are doing is giving the explorer bout one encounter per week with a typical village of the tribe in the hex and letting this take the place of a lot of dull, repetitious, encounters with every village in the hex. Although we have generally played that one can wipeout a tribe (remove it’s marker) by capturing or killing all of it’s warriors, this is really not a reasonable result. No explorer is going to have enough Askaris to wipe out the kind of populations we are talking about.
Victory over the inhabitants of one village isn’t going to dent the total population in the hex. Therefore, what we should be doing is interpreting the “number of warriors” as the number in an average village in the hex (as a result of kinds of crops raised, local geography and militaristic tendancies or lack thereof). This number can change temporarily during combat, but only because only one village is being fought. Explorers moving into/remaining in the hex on subsequent turns will find that the defeated village has been brought back up to strength by immigration from other villages, or, to put it another way, they will have to take on a different village every turn. Looting and trading will be limited by the size of the village (since one must waste a lot of time traveling from one to another we limit this to one village per hex per turn). However, no amount of repeated looting will eliminate all the natives from the hex-one just keeps looting different villages. By the way, for those who have not played the game, I want to state that the games does not endorse this kind of policy towards the natives.
Although it is an available activity one can engage in, we have tried to discourage morally reprehensible conduct. NATIVES: TRADING I like your proposed modifications to the limits on looting and trading. We do need to add something like this to control the “buy your way across Africa” strategy that can be overwhelming late in the game. NATIVES: POISONING EXPLORER Good point. Probably should be a break for Zoologists here too, since they are liable to notice that their mushrooms are different from everyone else’s at the dinner. NATIVES: ATTITUDE LEVELS As previously stated the adjustments are NOT reversed. EXPLORER SPECIALTIES: I would incline to lump the Botanist advantages you cite into the Zoologist specialty.
Zoologists and Geologists were generally not popular with our playtesters who hated to waste time “rock-knocking” or “pickin’-posies”. As remarked earlier, the specialist is supposed to be a dedicated professional who is going to do heroic (i.e. Stupid) things for his calling be it science, medicine or religion. MEDICINE: On a roll of three, after telling the natives how great he is, 4THE OTHER HUMOROUS SIDE OF D & D®: or, You Don’t Kill Too Many Characters, Do You? By Mike Crane A while back in TD, there was an article entitled “They shoot hirelings, don’t they?'
This article told of the many humorous things that the players did in the author’s area, to the amusement of the DM. Well, here in my area, exactly the opposite is true. The DM, instead of the players performs many humorous stunts, every adventure, without fail. On one such adventure we set out, complete with 4 player characters, 10 or so non-human guards, and 3 dancing girls (I never found out why they came along). Our mission was to rescue a mighty King’s daughter. Why, I asked, why is this mighty king (who had legions at his command) sending a bunch of clods like us after his daughter (our highest character was level 3)? But of course our DM had an answer, “Well you see, he doesn’t like her very much”.
On approaching the site of her captors’ stronghold we found that it was a solid block of marble, without any visible doors. Immediately on arriving we were also chased by 30 bandits. Picking the better part of valor, we ran, only to be chased.
Knowing how bandits like dancing girls we shouted back that we’d give them one if they’d stop chasing us. They agreed, and we told the DM we were throwing the dancing girl down. The DM then informed us that she hit her head on a rock when we dropped her from the high altitude of 4 feet, and so the bandits were still chasing us. Luckily we lost them, but the DM informed us it took our group 1 day to cover 600 yards because the bandits had left 1 man. Of course if we attacked, his yell would then summon the rest of the bandits (in their camp 7 miles away).
After coming back to the marble block he informs us that he decided that it was now 600 yards high-no it didn’t grow, he just decided it should be 600 yards high. We then finally found a secret door and entered. But, of course, it wasn’t a regular door — most of us took damage when we went in (why, I never found out). Going down the hall, one character was burned to ash by some type of ray. Finally coming to another door we tried to open it — the result was burned hands. We again tried it and it opened, revealing 20 beds. Of course it was too dark to see the 6 inches into the beds unless we lit torches, although the rest of the building was magically lit.
We did however, and found 8 men sleeping in the bunks. Only problem was we couldn’t slit their throats or their blood would drip down, setting off the sensors. Could we inject air into their veins? “Sorry, you left your needle at home.” Quietly leaving the room, we were informed that one of the players1st Prize $25 TSR Gift Certificate & 13 Issue Sub 2nd Prize 13 Issue Sub 3rd Prize 6 Issue SubRules 1. Entries on postcard only; must contain name & address. Printed or typed. 20 words or less.
One entry per card. Postmarked prior to March 1, 1979. 6fell down a pit and was impaled on the stakes below. Fine, now the trap is sprung, right? But the DM, of course, changed his mind and changed it from a pit to a ray machine that reduces people to ashes.
Needless to say, we were captured by 80 warriors in the next room. Later we found out that there were magical swords but we were Clerics so he decided it wasn’t important to tell us. We were then put into cells, only to be attacked by hordes of hungry rats. One character protested that he was in full armor and the rats couldn’t bite through iron. But the DM had an answer, “Well, these rats are the special ones that had their teeth capped with steel”.
After escaping from there, we were attacked by 70 guards, who killed all but 2 of our characters. The DM was a big help during the battle, however: none of the players were armed and our mercenaries would not loan us weapons.
And of course, none would attack unless we led them. He also helped us by having the slaves along with us throw one of the players onto the swords of the guards. Needless to say, only myself, another player, and the princess happened to escape. Going down the stairs we found our weapons and were looking for a way to depart, so we listened at several doors, all but one sounding like they were filled with an army. Going into that one we found a box, complete with 4 buttons. Pushing one, the other player character started a security alert.
Pushing another one he was teleported home. Attempting to do the same thing, after I said this I was informed by the DM that the box had dropped and I did not know which button to push. After a short, fruitless debate with the DM I said I would push button #1. Upon saying this he told me that the box had then disappeared. He then told me “20 guards are outside the door”. Knowing this, having no other exit, and alone with the princess I said I gave myself up. He then told me that I was dead and the princess had escaped.
Upon inquiring on how that happened he informed me that the guards were outside the door 70 feet away and that while I gave myself up she escaped through another passageway that we never found. He never did tell me how 1 could hear guards 70 feet away through a marble door! We then had a good argument about his statement that the guards were outside the door. To this he cooly replied that I had assumed that he meant my door, which was incorrect. This was then topped off by him boosting the single remaining character 2 levels instead of one. So, as you can see, the DM is often funnier than the players!from column five, insert the person’s name after column five, add one item from column six, one from column seven and add a few descriptive words. For example, consider Rogor, the 20th level Paladin.
His title might be: The Captain General, His All Triumphant Magnificance, The Duke Rogor, The Colossal, Destroyer of Evil. It is also possible to delete certain columns, and to embellish others. For example, delete column one and column five, and embellish others. For example, delete column one and column five, and embellish columns three and seven. Thus we have His Most Glorious, Sublime, Superior Excellency Rogor the Splendid, Victor of the Fields of Kor, Slaughterer of the Minions of Evil and Lion of Mondra. Let your imagination run wild.Q: WHAT DO YOU CALL A 25th LEVEL WIZARD?
A: Whatever he wants. By Brian Blume Is your D&D® game (or whatever role playing game you play) lacking that certain something? Are your players duly impressed when they encounter the local wizard? Below is a do-it-yourself titles kit which is guaranteed to impress any player with the splendor and might of your nonplayer characters. Simply consult the following chart.
1— The Magazine of Fantasy, Swords & Sorcery, and Science Fiction Game Playing — Because this issue had to go to press much earlier than usual, the return of Out On A Limb has been delayed one month. We are trying to get back on what we once called our schedule, and we are gearing up with a new printer with a longer lead time.
Sorry for any inconvenience or disappointment.Features Search for the Nile Revisited — The Designer Replies. The Hall of Mystery — A do-it-yourself D&D Module. Rail Baron — A Future Classic Dissected. That “Other” Dungeon!
— an old favorite rejuvenated. Monty Strikes Back — The Return of Monty Haul. Finieous Fingers. Design/ Designer’s Forum3 14 16 24 26 28The Other Humorous Side of D&D— Killer DMs. What Do You Call A 25th Level M-U? — lofty appellations. “Same Old Monster” Blues — a quick cure.
Encounters with Personality — livening up your game.6 7 8 11Variants Inflation in D&D — burning up excess loot. Prophet Proofing — Warding off the evil eye. Boot Hill Encounters — what to do between bank-jobs. Sensible Sorcery — some limits on spell research.
Reviews9 9 10 10The Dragonlords. King Arthur’s Knights. The Silmarillion.7 13 22 25Art Dept. Dave Sutherland Publisher E.
Gary Gygax David A. Trampier Managing Ed. Kask Tom Wham TD Editor T.J. Kask LW Editor Joe Orlowski Circulation Mgr.
Joe OrlowskiThis issue contains an article sure to arouse the ire of many fantasy purists. I’m referring, of course, to the RAIL BARON piece. It is sure to set off howls of anguish in some quarters, and yet, even knowing that, I feel it should be published, and have done so.
The big question now must certainly be WHY? The reason is more substantial than the fact that I really enjoy playing RB any chance I get (regrettably too seldom): I feel that RAIL BARON will prove to be a classic game, and deserves exposure. It is certainly no less a fantasy to become a railroad magnate than to fight monsters, or explore outer space, though admittedly the scope is less sweeping.
After all the bad news in last month’s RUMBLES, I have even more this month. It seems the paper situation is worsening, and supplies are getting even tighter.
If that isn’t bad enough, the news that paper prices are going up an additional 13% in December was not heartily received. As over 60% of our costs are for paper, you can surmise what that does to us. Just after we are forced to raise our prices for the first time in two years, another inflationary broadside has belted us, eating up our entire margin of safety. We are vigorously exploring all avenues of recourse in light of the staggering news. We have some “good stuff,” as Chuck Barris would say, coming up in future issues for your delectation.
Next month will see the publishing of the first International DM List. The response was somewhat less than expected, but a good one nonetheless. We have a new Gardner Fox tale that will be published in Feb.; another saga of Niall of the Far Travels, created especially for TD. In a more general vein, we have a number of kettles boiling for future issues, including another odd game or two, and some more outrageous songs, as well as some as-yet-unpublished charts and tables for Adv D&D. I urge all of you reading this that consider themselves pretty good dungeon or encounter designers to enter the Module Contest. We are giving a lot of valuable prizes, and the winner, and perhaps others, will appear in TD. The staff of TSR Periodicals wishes you all a pleasant and safe holiday season.
AIf your mailing label says TD 21 — this is your last issuePublisher’s StatementTHE DRAGON is published monthly by TSR Periodicals, a division of TSR Hobbies, Inc. Box 110, Lake Geneva. It is available at better hobby shops and bookstores, or by subscription. Subscription rate is $24 per 13 issues. Single copy and back issue price is $2.00, but availability of back issues is not guaranteed. Subscriptions outside the U.S. And Canada are $28 per 6 issues, and are air-mailed overseas.
(Payment must be made in U.S. Currency or by international money order.) All material published herein becomes the exclusive property of the publisher unless special arrangements to the contrary are made.
Subscription expiration is coded onto the mailing list. The number to the right of the name, prefixed by “LW” or “TD” is the last issue of the subscription. Notices will not be sent.
Change of address must be filed 30 days prior to mailing date. Unsolicited material cannot be returned unless accompanied by a stamped return envelope, and no responsibility for such material can be assumed by the publisher in any event. All rights on the entire contents of this publication are reserved, and nothing may be reprinted in whole or in part without written permission of the publisher.
Copyright 1978 by TSR HOBBIES. Second-Class Postage paid at Lake Geneva.
WI 531472Search for the Nile Revisited:Designers Notes, Addenda, Clarifications & Response by David Wesely ED. NOTE: As soon as he had finished his article on Search for the Nile, (Published in TD last month) Gary Gygax mailed a photocopy to Dave. Because of press-time, the inherent delays in using the U.S. Mails, etc., Mr. Wesely's reply was not in time for the last issue, and it came in the form of a letter. However, it makes an excellent follow-up article and provides some fascinating ideas and insights. Having been infected with “SftN Fever' by my publisher, I am now among the ranks of admirers of this fascinating game.& direction of rivers when it became obvious that the only playtesters who wanted us to include these diagrams were the computer-trained ones who could read them!
The “main sequence” format breaks down when there are topics that must be referred to from several other rules, e.g., NATIVES: POISONING EXPLORER could follow NATIVES: NEGOTIATION, EXPLORER SPECIALTIES: EVANGELISM or EXPLORER SPECIALTIES: MEDICINE. To handle this the rules do have a TABLE OF CONTENTS which gives the location of any rule to which one is referred.Length As we say on page 2 of the rule book exploring the whole of Africa at one sitting is a marathon task. Our playtesters found it to take about 8½ hours. Of course fans of Drag Nach Osten will find this to be nothing - but for people with more moderate gaming tastes, we recommend a 20-turn limit. That is, each player is given 20 turns to get organized, get into Africa, make some significant discoveries and (if he survives) to publish them.
(Knowing when to quit is the most important skill in the game. The greatest killer of expeditions is STUPIDITY. In a 20-turn game one is forced to pick an objective that can be accomplished in a reasonable time - e.g. Finding the source of the Benue, not the Nile.) A 20-turn game, with a full six players ( 120 turns in all) can be played in about 2 hours, once the players are used to the rules.
While some turns can be much longer-with mapping, discovery of natives, negotiations, battles, more negotiations, trading, and hunting all happening in a single turn - the average player turn will run about 1 minute in length. I wish we had been more specific in our recommendation as to time-limit games. In the rules we left limits to players’ discretion; this has evidently left a number of players with the impression that you have to try to explore the whole map in each game. After playing a 20-turn game, we recommend that the players leave its results on the map, and treat the unerased, published hexes from the first game as preprinted, known territory in the next. If effect, while the map as printed shows Africa as known in 1821, and the players first game will start in 1821, the next game will start at some later date, say 1831.
As a result, starting with the first 20-turn game, every player’s mapboard will develop its own unique history which will be passed on from game to game, and the exploration of Africa becomes a “campaign” rather than a “monster game”.Completeness of Rules As you remark, the rules are reminiscent of the original In part this is because both attempt to leave room for imagination and creativity on the part of the player. This similarity also arises from the fact that both sets of rules had to be cut down to be published, with the hope of releasing further material as suppliments. Our first suppliment, called “Tributary” is being prepared for release around December 1, '78 and will answer a good many questions that other people have asked us.Clarifications DISASTERS: O.K. Although I prefer to make retribution for being too stingy to hire a guide more certain, your suggestion is more realistic. EXPLORING: MOVEMENT. As you point out, through a combination of rules, Jungle Swamp hexes are impossible.
They were intended to be impassible. However, there are two exceptions. First, canoes can follow the coast thru a jungle-swamp hex (or any other kind of hex, for that matter). Secondly, where guides can be hired in a jungle swamp hex, they know ways through the hex that may be used by either canoes, men or horses.
A related question is what happens if an expedition moves into an unknown hex and finds terrain it cannot enter (i.e., an expedition on camels finds jungle or one with no canoes finds a lake). Basically the expedition either reorganizes to eliminate the conflict (e.g., abandons/sells/shoots its camels) or goes back to the hex it came from. Even if the latter choice is made, however, the expedition will poke around on the border of the new hex for the rest of the turn - long enough to “explore” it.
Map it, find natives, etc. For hunting purposes, the expedition gets to hunt in the better of the two hexes. If natives are found, the expedition may succeed in negotiating with them, hiring guides and/or canoes, camels, etc., needed to enter the hex and thus overcome the obstacle.
If the expedition is attacked and takes prisoners, it cannot find the native village if it cannot enter the hex. If the explorer is taken prisoner by the natives, however, and eventually escapes, he will know the paths through the hex. EXPLORER SPECIALITIES: We developed each of the explorer specialities as branches off of the basic explorer stock. Each would have its advantages in terms of enhanced opportunities to score points (e.g., the Zoologist or Geologist who can score points by doing research in any unpublished hex. He does not have to take chances with Unexplored hexes; he can just slide into nice safe (well, less dangerous, as least) hexes with lots of rocks or bugs and flowers that someone else has mapped and rack up point).
Each would have its disadvantages in the terms of demanding a certain devotion to one’s calling (the Geologist has to risk death by thirst to stop and look at rocks in the desert. Knowing this, his player had better have him take plenty of water to avoid possible desert hexes. “Neither rain, nor sleet, nor Waziri’s on the warpath will keep us from knockin’ rocks”). Thus the basic explorer has quite a few advantages over his specialized competitors in the simple matter of STAYING ALIVE. You propose several “bennies” for non-specialist explorers, explorer-explorers, etc., but I would be a little afraid that these (especially in combination) would make the other specialities unattractive Most playtesters settled in non-specialists as it was (of course, most players would rather be Conan than Gandalf, too, so this may have more to do with the Macho image than with one’s chances of winning with a given character type).Survival It is important to note that players, not explorers, score points, while explorers, not players, die. Of course the explorer must survive each expedition to score points for his player but the death of an explorer will only prevent the player from scoring points for the expedition in progress; he will not lose points already scored for previous expeditions. Thus the players are immortal; you can think of them as being newspaper editors or heads of scientific societies sending out expeditions while they stay safe at home, or you can assume that each player is “reincarnated” as the heir of the deceased explorer, ready to pursue the family tradition of African exploration.
Rationalization aside, we found that “bang, you’re dead and out of the game” rules discouraged vigorous play and made sheer cowardice the best strategy. Thus, players are encouraged both to stick their necks out and to “retire” dud explorers in favor of new ones as the game goes on.Organization of Rules We debated the layout of the rules, being familiar with the Strategy & Tactics/ Moves discussions of narrative versus outline versus order of play versus grouped by subject, etc., formats. After six drafts of the rules we settled on the present set as being the most acceptable to playtesters who had previously not seen the game. In so far as possible the rules are written in a “main sequence” format. That is, everything a player could conceivably do in one hex in one turn is covered in the order it would occur.
Alternate activities that would branch off of this pattern are listed after the main sequence and the reader is directed to them by title. Within each major activity, i.e., Natives: a similar pattern is employed. We deleted a graphic “decision tree” representation of these relationships along with a “flow chart” for determining the presence 3the good doctor fails to hald an epidemic. The natives are (understandably) disappointed by this phony, and the tribal attitude (which influences his chances of escape, if he is a prisoner and of friendly relations, in any case) goes down one point. The second part of the question arises from a confusion between SCORING POINTS for medical success and ADJUSTING ATTITUDE LEVELS. In short it says that the doctor gets 1 or 2 points for every disease he can report a cure for (when he gets back to Europe) but that he doesn’t lose SCORE just because he failed to cure somebody.
and made the natives unhappy. He also can sit at one tribe and keep treating them rather than having to find new tribes after every success, the way a missionary does.(a comment on 19th-Century Medicine’s success rate).(and/or racial attitudes). PRESERVATION OF RATIONS: Playtesting revealed that the game is surprisingly sensitive to changes in the food supply.
Allowing players to save some or all of the food they shot made it too easy to live off the land. However, if this was coupled with a requirement to sit still for 1 turn while the meat was being smoked and cured, maybe it wouldn’t get out of hand.NATIVES: AMBUSH Hey you caught us here! We edited out the line that stated “Natives deciding to attack an expedition which is following policy number 2 will only be able to catch it if they take it by surprise”. The effect of this rule is to make it nearly impossible for the natives to catch the explorer if he runs for it at first sight. NATIVES: REACTION to EXPLORER POLICY You add together the following factors: EXPLORER POLICY NUMBER BONUSES FOR GUIDES BEING UNARMED, etc. DISTANCE FROM COAST TRIBAL ATTITUDE (initially zero) And compare the sum to the roll of three dice. The natives are hostile if the sum is less than the die roll.
Therefore, an increase in the ATTITUDE LEVEL will make it more likely that the tribe is friendly, as we said. MAXIMUM NUMBER OF NATIVE WARRIORS PER HEX The system given in the rules to generate size of tribe can give anywhere from 1 to 216 warriors-however, with the adjustment for distance from the nearest port of entry (slave trade) the maximum and average number of warriors is significantly reduced. Since minimum and maximum sized tribes (rolling triple ones or sixes respectively) are quite uncommon, the average number of warriors per tribe is the most significant factor: max 72 average 16 2 hexes from PoE 3 4 5 6 or more23 31 38 43Naming Tribes I am really taken with your native tribe facts sheet and your TRIBAL NAME GENERATOR. We thought about using real tribal names on our countersheet, but abandoned it as too expensive and/or confusing to the players and just used numbers.
Ideally, one could give a chart showing what tribe was in each hex in 1821. However, your table serves admirably to dress up the game. Being attacked by the 19’s or trading with the chief of the 37’s just doesn’t hold a candle to encountering twelve heavily armed Ru’ug at an oasis or preaching to the YoGowauku deep in the heart of darkest Africa!108 144 180 216This produces fewer warriors than the system you propose. Actually neither our system nor yours comes close to reality (the Zulus were largely confined to one hex of our map but they could easily field 6000 warriors). However, the typical native nation was not so centrally organized and the explorer would have only had to deal with it one village at a time. If we did this “realistically” with one-day turns and ten-kilometer hexes.
So what we are doing is giving the explorer bout one encounter per week with a typical village of the tribe in the hex and letting this take the place of a lot of dull, repetitious, encounters with every village in the hex. Although we have generally played that one can wipeout a tribe (remove it’s marker) by capturing or killing all of it’s warriors, this is really not a reasonable result. No explorer is going to have enough Askaris to wipe out the kind of populations we are talking about. Victory over the inhabitants of one village isn’t going to dent the total population in the hex. Therefore, what we should be doing is interpreting the “number of warriors” as the number in an average village in the hex (as a result of kinds of crops raised, local geography and militaristic tendancies or lack thereof).
This number can change temporarily during combat, but only because only one village is being fought. Explorers moving into/remaining in the hex on subsequent turns will find that the defeated village has been brought back up to strength by immigration from other villages, or, to put it another way, they will have to take on a different village every turn. Looting and trading will be limited by the size of the village (since one must waste a lot of time traveling from one to another we limit this to one village per hex per turn). However, no amount of repeated looting will eliminate all the natives from the hex-one just keeps looting different villages. By the way, for those who have not played the game, I want to state that the games does not endorse this kind of policy towards the natives.
Although it is an available activity one can engage in, we have tried to discourage morally reprehensible conduct. NATIVES: TRADING I like your proposed modifications to the limits on looting and trading. We do need to add something like this to control the “buy your way across Africa” strategy that can be overwhelming late in the game. NATIVES: POISONING EXPLORER Good point. Probably should be a break for Zoologists here too, since they are liable to notice that their mushrooms are different from everyone else’s at the dinner.
NATIVES: ATTITUDE LEVELS As previously stated the adjustments are NOT reversed. EXPLORER SPECIALTIES: I would incline to lump the Botanist advantages you cite into the Zoologist specialty. Zoologists and Geologists were generally not popular with our playtesters who hated to waste time “rock-knocking” or “pickin’-posies”.
As remarked earlier, the specialist is supposed to be a dedicated professional who is going to do heroic (i.e. Stupid) things for his calling be it science, medicine or religion. MEDICINE: On a roll of three, after telling the natives how great he is, 4THE OTHER HUMOROUS SIDE OF D & D®: or, You Don’t Kill Too Many Characters, Do You?
By Mike Crane A while back in TD, there was an article entitled “They shoot hirelings, don’t they?' This article told of the many humorous things that the players did in the author’s area, to the amusement of the DM. Well, here in my area, exactly the opposite is true.
The DM, instead of the players performs many humorous stunts, every adventure, without fail. On one such adventure we set out, complete with 4 player characters, 10 or so non-human guards, and 3 dancing girls (I never found out why they came along). Our mission was to rescue a mighty King’s daughter. Why, I asked, why is this mighty king (who had legions at his command) sending a bunch of clods like us after his daughter (our highest character was level 3)? But of course our DM had an answer, “Well you see, he doesn’t like her very much”.
On approaching the site of her captors’ stronghold we found that it was a solid block of marble, without any visible doors. Immediately on arriving we were also chased by 30 bandits. Picking the better part of valor, we ran, only to be chased. Knowing how bandits like dancing girls we shouted back that we’d give them one if they’d stop chasing us.
They agreed, and we told the DM we were throwing the dancing girl down. The DM then informed us that she hit her head on a rock when we dropped her from the high altitude of 4 feet, and so the bandits were still chasing us. Luckily we lost them, but the DM informed us it took our group 1 day to cover 600 yards because the bandits had left 1 man. Of course if we attacked, his yell would then summon the rest of the bandits (in their camp 7 miles away).
After coming back to the marble block he informs us that he decided that it was now 600 yards high-no it didn’t grow, he just decided it should be 600 yards high. We then finally found a secret door and entered. But, of course, it wasn’t a regular door — most of us took damage when we went in (why, I never found out). Going down the hall, one character was burned to ash by some type of ray. Finally coming to another door we tried to open it — the result was burned hands. We again tried it and it opened, revealing 20 beds.
Of course it was too dark to see the 6 inches into the beds unless we lit torches, although the rest of the building was magically lit. We did however, and found 8 men sleeping in the bunks. Only problem was we couldn’t slit their throats or their blood would drip down, setting off the sensors.
Could we inject air into their veins? “Sorry, you left your needle at home.” Quietly leaving the room, we were informed that one of the players1st Prize $25 TSR Gift Certificate & 13 Issue Sub 2nd Prize 13 Issue Sub 3rd Prize 6 Issue SubRules 1.
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Postmarked prior to March 1, 1979. 6fell down a pit and was impaled on the stakes below. Fine, now the trap is sprung, right? But the DM, of course, changed his mind and changed it from a pit to a ray machine that reduces people to ashes. Needless to say, we were captured by 80 warriors in the next room.
Later we found out that there were magical swords but we were Clerics so he decided it wasn’t important to tell us. We were then put into cells, only to be attacked by hordes of hungry rats. One character protested that he was in full armor and the rats couldn’t bite through iron. But the DM had an answer, “Well, these rats are the special ones that had their teeth capped with steel”.
After escaping from there, we were attacked by 70 guards, who killed all but 2 of our characters. The DM was a big help during the battle, however: none of the players were armed and our mercenaries would not loan us weapons. And of course, none would attack unless we led them. He also helped us by having the slaves along with us throw one of the players onto the swords of the guards. Needless to say, only myself, another player, and the princess happened to escape. Going down the stairs we found our weapons and were looking for a way to depart, so we listened at several doors, all but one sounding like they were filled with an army.
Going into that one we found a box, complete with 4 buttons. Pushing one, the other player character started a security alert. Pushing another one he was teleported home. Attempting to do the same thing, after I said this I was informed by the DM that the box had dropped and I did not know which button to push. After a short, fruitless debate with the DM I said I would push button #1. Upon saying this he told me that the box had then disappeared.
He then told me “20 guards are outside the door”. Knowing this, having no other exit, and alone with the princess I said I gave myself up. He then told me that I was dead and the princess had escaped. Upon inquiring on how that happened he informed me that the guards were outside the door 70 feet away and that while I gave myself up she escaped through another passageway that we never found. He never did tell me how 1 could hear guards 70 feet away through a marble door! We then had a good argument about his statement that the guards were outside the door. To this he cooly replied that I had assumed that he meant my door, which was incorrect.
This was then topped off by him boosting the single remaining character 2 levels instead of one. So, as you can see, the DM is often funnier than the players!from column five, insert the person’s name after column five, add one item from column six, one from column seven and add a few descriptive words. For example, consider Rogor, the 20th level Paladin. His title might be: The Captain General, His All Triumphant Magnificance, The Duke Rogor, The Colossal, Destroyer of Evil.
It is also possible to delete certain columns, and to embellish others. For example, delete column one and column five, and embellish others. For example, delete column one and column five, and embellish columns three and seven. Thus we have His Most Glorious, Sublime, Superior Excellency Rogor the Splendid, Victor of the Fields of Kor, Slaughterer of the Minions of Evil and Lion of Mondra.
Let your imagination run wild.Q: WHAT DO YOU CALL A 25th LEVEL WIZARD? A: Whatever he wants.
By Brian Blume Is your D&D® game (or whatever role playing game you play) lacking that certain something? Are your players duly impressed when they encounter the local wizard? Below is a do-it-yourself titles kit which is guaranteed to impress any player with the splendor and might of your nonplayer characters. Simply consult the following chart.
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