The Dragon, Strategic Review, and finally Dragon Magazine were printed periodicals aimed at sharing ideas related to the hobby of gaming, especially the rapidly growing role-playing game hobby. Early on, the folks at TSR saw the role of such a magazine as supporting and expanding the hobby. Gary Gygax had been active in amateur publishing of "fanzine" products for other gaming and was supportive of the idea. Over the years, he contributed many pieces to the TSR magazine.
The type of article likely to find its way into the TSR magazine varied considerably. Commentary from TSR president Gary Gygax, opinion pieces and editorials, advice on how to play the game, supplemental rules material, fiction and humor all appeared in the pages of Dragon and its predecessors. The above pictured "Best of" contains a selection of articles from the Strategic Review and The Dragon's first two volumes.
This "Best of" contains several articles of particular interest to me. "D&D Is Only As Good As The DM" is a nice advice piece written by Gary Gygax warning potential referees against handing out experience too quickly and too many magic items. This is a period in the game's history when PCs were not defined by the stuff they carried, rather by their in-game accomplishments which largely reflect player skill (and luck). Mr. Gygax notes "it will require considerable skill, imagination and intellectual exercise to actually gain from the course of an adventure." In the same article, Mr. Gygax suggests that playing 50-75 sessions should gain a fair player a 9th to 11th level character, provided character death doesn't intervene. That works out to roughly one level per six sessions.
Gary Gygax also writes on the "Origins of the Game" in which he again recounts the events leading up to the publication of the White Box. Like many of these accounts, this one contains both widely known facts and some trivia which may only appear in print this once. Mr. Gygax states clearly, that the game as published was not Mr Arneson's game system "by any form or measure, he was given co-billing as author for his valuable idea kernels." I am not sure if this was written before or after lawyers for the two got involved.
Many of the early Gygax articles seem to be aimed at helping explain how the game was envisioned by it's creators and are quite informative and helpful in this regard as White box is a bit thin with respect to actually explaining "how to play". I think here-in also resides the beginnings of the idea of "bad-play". As Mr. Gygax points out in his article "The Dungeons & Dragons Magic System", "D&D is, if nothing else, a free-form game system, and it was designed with great variation between campaigns to be allowed for - nay, encouraged!" He goes on to advise that logic must be applied, else the game becomes something other than intended. He speaks at length in several articles about "game balance", a term which he seems to use somewhat differently than it is used in later Editions and other systems. So termed "bad -play" can be assumed as that which is the opposite of desirable play, play which unbalances the game with regard to making a single class all-powerful, that which advances the PCs at a rapid pace and spoils players with too many riches, too powerful magic items and too easy challenges.
In "The Meaning Of Law And Chaos...", Mr. Gygax admits that in the formative days of White Box, he was mostly thinking in terms of Law equals Good and Chaos is the same as Evil. Now this is not the way I prefer to interpret the three alignments, but it explains some things as Mr. Gygax was thinking. The article goes on to lay-out an alignment system separating good and evil from law and chaos, an alignment system which combines these separate concepts in a manner very similar to what is presented in the Advanced game.
Three new character classes or sub-classes as they would come to be known in future publications are presented in The Best of... The Illusionist and Ranger classes would make their way into the Advanced game as standard subclasses of the Magic User and Fighter respectively. The Ranger is a favorite of mine representing a hero based on a combination of Robin Hood, Aragorn, Daniel Boone and all the woodsmen types found in James Fenimore Cooper novels. The Bard class is introduced here as well and although it appears again in the PHB where it remains "supplemental", it will eventually become an "official" character class.
A magazine to publish rule ideas, advice on playing the game, inspiring articles many by the game author himself, clarifications and answers to questions, a magazine with game related art, humor and advertisements, a magazine such as Dragon Magazine really helped the new hobby to get its feet under it. Today internet resources serve many of the same functions and can reach an even broader audience.
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