Last year I collected 143 most recommended Dragon articles into a reading list. Given the size, I divided them into three collections: Player Advice, Judge Advice, and Setting Advice.
Now I'll begin reading the first collection, Player Advice, with the intention of noting anything interesting and worthwhile. I plan to share my notes as I go, since others might benefit from them.
Here is the table of contents for the Player Advice collection:
For the last month and a half I've been scouring the web for peoples' favourite and most useful Dragon Magazine articles.
Once I've noted all the recommendations, I went through each magazine and skimmed it. This step was to mark the articles I'm curious about and would like to read closer, potentially implementing them in my game or simply reading them to become a better player and judge.
So, without any further ado, the 143 articles that made my reading list are:
Dragon Magazine 13 – Demon generation
Dragon Magazine 13 – How heavy is my giant
Dragon Magazine 13 – Notes From a Semi-Successful D&D Player
Dragon Magazine 20 – It's a good day to die
Dragon Magazine 23 – Random generation of creatures from the lower planes
Dragon Magazine 28 – The Politics of Hell
Dragon Magazine 39 – Good Hits & Bad Misses
Dragon Magazine 49 – Historical Names make for Better Games
Dragon Magazine 52 – Basic DnD points of view from the editors old and new
Dragon Magazine 52 – Knock, knock – The history of siege warfare
Dragon Magazine 53 – How to give disease a fighting chance
Dragon Magazine 53 – Some Universal Rules Making Your Own Campaign And Making It Work
Dragon Magazine 53 – Understanding Armory
Dragon Magazine 54 – Ruins Rotted & Risky, But Rewarding
Dragon Magazine 58 – Swords Slicing into a Sharp Topic
Dragon Magazine 59 – Gypsies A curse or a blessing or both
Dragon Magazine 59 – Make monsters, not monstrosities
Dragon Magazine 59 – Poison The toxins of cerilon
Dragon Magazine 63 – For the sake of change
Dragon Magazine 63 – Plan before you play
Dragon Magazine 63 – The humanoids – Goals and gods of the kobolds, golbins, hobgoblins, and gnolls
Dragon Magazine 68 – Weather in the World of Greyhawk – A climate for realistic AD&D adventuring adaptable for use in your world
Dragon Magazine 68 – You've always got a chance
Dragon Magazine 69 – Runes
Dragon Magazine 72 – Gems galore
Dragon Magazine 72 – The real barbarians
Dragon Magazine 73 – Non-violent Magic Items
Dragon Magazine 73 – The solo scenario
Dragon Magazine 74 – A player character and his money
Dragon Magazine 75 – All games need names
Dragon Magazine 75 – Beyond the rule book
Dragon Magazine 75 – The Nine Hells Part I
Dragon Magazine 76 – For NPCs Only – The Death Master
Dragon Magazine 76 – The Nine Hells Part II
Dragon Magazine 77 – Curses – Twenty good ideas for bad tidings
Dragon Magazine 77 – Tarot of many things
Dragon Magazine 78 – Mind Games
Dragon Magazine 78 – Spells can be psionic, too
Dragon Magazine 78 – The ecology of the mind flayer
Dragon Magazine 79 – Be aware and take care
Dragon Magazine 79 – Blame it on the gremlins
Dragon Magazine 79 – Magic resistance – What it is, how it works
Dragon Magazine 79 – The fights of fantasy
Dragon Magazine 80 – Five keys to DMing success
Dragon Magazine 80 – New charts, using the 5% principle
Dragon Magazine 80 – Who lives in that castle
Dragon Magazine 81 – Taking the sting out of poison
Dragon Magazine 82 – Rings that do weird things
Dragon Magazine 82 – Spells between the covers
Dragon Magazine 82 – Wounds and weeds
Dragon Magazine 87+88 – Beyond the Dungeon
Dragon Magazine 91 – Realistic vital statistics – A new system for figuring heights & weights
Dragon Magazine 91 – The Nine Hells Revisited
Dragon Magazine 93 – Short hops and big drops
Dragon Magazine 93 – The making of a milieu
Dragon Magazine 94 – An army travels on its stomach
Dragon Magazine 94 – Same dice, different odds
Dragon Magazine 95 – Credit where credit is due
Dragon Magazine 96 – What good PCs are made of – Play characters with more substance than statistics
Dragon Magazine 98 – Dragon Damage revised
Dragon Magazine 98 – Tailor-made treasure
Dragon Magazine 99 – A sharp system for swords
Dragon Magazine 99 – History of a game that failed
Dragon Magazine 99 – Tables and tables of troops
Dragon Magazine 99 – That's life in the big city
Dragon Magazine 101 – Charging isn't cheap How to make and fix rods, staves, and wands
Dragon Magazine 101 – For king and country An alignment system based on cause and effect
Dragon Magazine 101 – Plain it by the numbers A system for tailoring challenges to characters
Dragon Magazine 104 – Assessing, not guessing
Dragon Magazine 106 – The way we really play
Dragon Magazine 107 – A new loyalty base
Dragon Magazine 107 – Economics made easy
Dragon Magazine 107 – Revised reaction, loyalty, and morale tables
Dragon Magazine 107 – The six main skills
Dragon Magazine 107 – When the rations run out
Dragon Magazine 109 – Blades with personality
Dragon Magazine 109 – Fighters for a price
Dragon Magazine 109 – Giant-sized weapons
Dragon Magazine 109 – Locals aren't all yokels
Dragon Magazine 110 – Dragon Damage revisited
Dragon Magazine 110 – The Cult of the Dragon – Dracolich
Dragon Magazine 111 – Good stuff, for a spell
Dragon Magazine 111 – No campaign ever fails
Dragon Magazine 112 – Revenge of the Nobodies
Dragon Magazine 115 – Elven Armies and Dwarves-At-Arms
Dragon Magazine 116 – By Tooth and Claw
Dragon Magazine 116 – Hello Your Majesty Communication in history and fantasy
Dragon Magazine 116 – High Seas
Dragon Magazine 118 – A Hero's Reward
Dragon Magazine 118 – Gladiatorial combat in the AD&D game
Dragon Magazine 123 – The Mystic College
Dragon Magazine 125 – Armies From the Ground Up
Dragon Magazine 127 – In Defense of the Shield
Dragon Magazine 127 – Two Hands Are Better Than One
Dragon Magazine 133 – The Wild Warriors
Dragon Magazine 136 – A Room for the knight
Dragon Magazine 136 – Building Blocks, City Style – A city-generation system for fantasy campaigns
Dragon Magazine 136 – Fifty Ways to Foil Your Players
Dragon Magazine 136 – The Long Arm of the Law
Dragon Magazine 137 – Weathering the Storms – A new weather system for fantasy game campaigns
Dragon Magazine 137 – What's for lunch – A detailed hunting system
Dragon Magazine 143 – The Highs and Lows of Fantasy
Dragon Magazine 145 – A Castle Here, A Castle There
Dragon Magazine 145 – Bazaar of the Bizarre
Dragon Magazine 145 – Holding Down the Fort
Dragon Magazine 145 – Strongholds Three
Dragon Magazine 145 – Your Home Is Your Castle
Dragon Magazine 148 – Always Wear Your Best Suit
Dragon Magazine 150 – The Dragon's Bestiary – All life crawls where mind flayers rule
Dragon Magazine 150 – The Sunset World – In the realm of the mind flayers
Dragon Magazine 150 – Unspeakable Secrets Made Easy
Dragon Magazine 154 – All in the Family – Heraldry, politics, and feudalism in fantasy campaigns
Dragon Magazine 161 – It's sort of like a wand...
Dragon Magazine 163 – Magic Gone Haywire
Dragon Magazine 163 – Oops! Sorry!
Dragon Magazine 167 – Curses Are Divine
Dragon Magazine 167 – Just Give Me The Money
Dragon Magazine 174 – Bugged About Something
Dragon Magazine 179 – Something Completely Different
Dragon Magazine 184 – The 7 sentence NPC
Dragon Magazine 184 – The Referee's Code of Honor
Dragon Magazine 187 – The Wild, Wild Wilderness
Dragon Magazine 191 – Different Totes for Different Folks
Dragon Magazine 199 – Crude but effective – Simple tactics for humanoids
Dragon Magazine 200 – The Color of Magic
Dragon Magazine 201 – Seven Steps to a Successful Castle
Dragon Magazine 202 – Even Wilder Mages
Dragon Magazine 211 – Sight in the Darkness
Dragon Magazine 211 – The Ecology of the Dungeon
Dragon Magazine 216 – Paths of Power
Dragon Magazine 228 – Real Jungles
Dragon Magazine 234 – The Draconomicon – The lesser evils of the draconian undead
Dragon Magazine 239 – 101 Dirty Orc Tricks
Dragon Magazine 241 – Al-Quadim The Roof of the Wolrd – Yak-Man Homeland
Dragon Magazine 242 – Mage Construction
Dragon Magazine 242 – The Laws of Spell Design
Dragon Magazine 243 – Enchanting Weapons
Dragon Magazine 252 – 101 Hauntings
Dragon Magazine 271 – Creating Word Puzzles for Your AD&D Game
Dragon Magazine 271 – Riddles of the Rhyming Sphinx
Dragon Magazine 282 – Logic Missiles
Dragon Magazine 284 – Run For Your Lives How To DM A Dragon
Dragon Magazine 330 – Enter the Far Realm
Now to print 'em, punch 'em, and then scribble into the margins... When I'm done I'll share which I've kept and which I've discarded, with a few sentences about each.
Got a recommendation of your own? Write to me to let me know.
