Which Dragons are Worth Having? • Collecting General • The Acaeum

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Which Dragons are Worth Having?
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sauromatian
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Posted: Fri May 02, 2008 12:35 am

I've seen a few opinions here before, but would like to have a more definitive answer. The magazine is frequently described as petering out in content & collectible value after about #50.

Contentwise, which Dragons do you see as being really classic? I'm quite fond of the Boris Vallejo or Vallejoesque covers of the 50s, particularly the attempt to depict Stevie Nicks in fantasy setting with a gnome. How I've longed over the years to be that gnome.

#67 is I think the last of the solid-color frame covers, & has some good demonological bits, plus an ad for the D&D school notebooks. #68 has the jester PC class. After that the covers become cleaner-looking & maybe that's the point where stagnation set in? Or not?

#154 1990 has the last truly significant article I'm aware of: "A look at the Angry Mother Syndrome and how it affects the games we make." It also has the coolest ad ever:

"CRYSTAL POWER From the moment you put it on...it's the source of beauty & power. The symbol of a New Age. And a new tradition of well-being and personnel consciousness.. Wear the Pendant. Feel the Power."

The illustration photo for this quartz pendant by The Franklin Mint is an Stridex-fresh early-teens young lady who is wearing the pendant & apparently nothing else. The ad speaks volumes to me.

I can just imagine the earnest young lad who would see this & believe it the perfect thing to express his feelings for the cute girl three rows ahead in Geometry class. Five equal monthly installments of $39* would be just barely manageable by making pizzas at minimum wage, $3.35 per hour.

Then comes the day of stuttering conversation with the object of his affections at her locker. Except this was 1990, so the gift results in a sexual harassment accusation.

When the school counselors learn that the offending pendant has occult associations & was ordered from one of those occult dungeon pagan games, a whole new armada of angry mothers write to the beleaguered Dragon Magazine editors. Those were the days...

zdaddyo
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Posted: Fri May 02, 2008 12:52 am

132 is the last Wormy and 145 is the last SnarfQuest if you like that one. One of the first things I always did with the magazine was go to the comic section.

122 is the last Gygax article. I always thought that the articles were hit and miss from when I started reading the magazine which was in the early teens.

The games were always amusing though.

gyg
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Posted: Fri May 02, 2008 1:10 am

#37 (IIRC) - From the City of Brass to Dead Orc Pass - excellent article on Gates and the like - I believe Ed Greenwoods first Dragon Article (Might also be in ome of the Best Of Dragons - possibly #2)

#148 - popular for the collectors due to the Deck of Many Things

You can never have too much of something you didn't need in the first place.

Alexander
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Posted: Fri May 02, 2008 3:31 am

In my own collection issue 200 is the finishing point...

Sea-to-sky-games
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Posted: Fri May 02, 2008 6:24 am

122 is the last Gygax article.

Really? He was in at least some of the Dragon's in the 200's, as I recall.

Mouse Police
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Posted: Fri May 02, 2008 2:26 pm

The first issues that I ever bought were 58-62, because they featured the "demi-humans", including their deities.

I think that's good for a "classic period".

FormCritic
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Posted: Fri May 02, 2008 6:21 pm

I would rate:

1-50 "Primordial"

51-100 "Classical"

101-200 "Late Classical"

201-359 "Dark Ages"

Of course, one could also rate Dragons as:

1-50 "Old Kingdom"

51-100 "Middle Kingdom"

101-200 "New Kingdom"

201-359 "Late Intermediate Period"

One could also date the end of the "classic" Dragon period to the day that Dungeon #1 was published.

"But I have watched the dragons come, fire-eyed, across the world."

guerret
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Posted: Fri May 02, 2008 6:28 pm

FormCritic wrote:I would rate:

1-50 "Primordial"

51-100 "Classical"

101-200 "Late Classical"

201-359 "Dark Ages"

Use "hellenistic" instead of "late classical".

Thunderdave
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Posted: Fri May 02, 2008 6:35 pm

One could also date the end of the "classic" Dragon period to the day that Dungeon #1 was published

Bingo.

I sent in my last renewal to Dragon / first subscription to Dungeon at the same time... and didn't renew Dungeon. End of an era for me...

benjoshua
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Posted: Fri May 02, 2008 7:40 pm

My era of preference has to be from issue 39 (The Anti-Paladin) to about issue 100. I hung on to my subscription for a long time after that (about 170 or so) but never enjoyed them as much. I really liked Wormy and never got into Fineous Fingers or Snarfquest that much. The art for Wormy was vastly superior and the plot was great fun. My major complaint was the strips off again, on again appearance and then it never finished! What a shame.

Truth is worth finding and life is too short to work for money.

grodog
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Posted: Fri May 02, 2008 10:57 pm

Sea-to-sky-games wrote:Really? He was in at least some of the Dragon's in the 200's, as I recall.

EGG wrote his "Up On A Soapbox" column for Dragon during the tenure of Erik Mona as editor/publisher; for details, see my page @ http://www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh ... apbox.html

I'm not at all sure that I still have it anywhere, but I wrote a letter to Roger E. Moore during the latter 80s or so, complaining about the downhill quality of Dragon vs. the issues from the 50s and 60s and 70s, and in response he sent me writers guidelines

In general, I find that I've used the content most from issues earlier than 100, but in reality I think that really starts to trickle off around issue 75 or so: up through 100 or so I think there was still good content in the magazines, just less that I could/did/will use in games, vs. being good content to read (which stopped in general not to long after Wormy ceased, if not well-before in the case of many issues....).

Allan Grohe (grodog@gmail.com)
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Editor and Project Manager, Black Blade Publishing
https://www.facebook.com/BlackBladePublishing/

ExTSR
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Posted: Fri May 02, 2008 11:08 pm

Landmarks:

Dragon #6: v1#6, April-77 GenCon X (Playboy Club)
Dragon #8: v2#2, July-77 GenCon West 1 (San Jose CA), Origins II
Dragon #10: v2#4, October-77 Snit Smashing game
Dragon #11: v2#5, December-77 Snits Revenge game
Dragon #15: v3#1, June-78 Wormy Backgammon
Dragon #20: v3#6, November-78 -- the "First Typo" issue, incorrectly marked as v3#5
Dragon #26: v3#12, June-79 Mugger game
Dragon #28: v4#2, August-79 tAGTfOS game
Dragon #30: v4#4, October-79 Editorial about James Dallas Egbert
Dragon #31: v4#5, November-79 -- contains ad for staff; Moldvay & Mentzer were hired thereby
Dragon #34: v4#8, February-80 Divine Right issue
Dragon #38: v4#12, June-80 Ringside boxing game (by Brian Blume)
Dragon #40: v5#2, August-80 Runngus Game; ad for RPGA Administrator
Dragon #43: v5#5, November-80 Top Dungeon Mentzer article ::blush::
Dragon #45: v5#7, January-81 Dungeon Design Kit
Dragon #46: v5#8, February-81 First RPGA Ad
Dragon #47: v5#9, March-81 Crimefighters game (Zeb Cook)
Dragon #48: v5#10, April-81 GenCon South review (1st RPGA events)
Dragon #51: v6#1, July-81 Search for the Emperor's Treasure game
Dragon #60: v6#10, April-82 Flight of the Boodles game
Dragon #64: v7#2, August-82 Planet Busters game, Sumo Wrestling game
Dragon #65: v7#3, September-82 Monsters of the Midway game
Dragon #68: v7#6, December-82 Greyhawk Weather System (by Dave Axler, player in my '70s Philly campaign)
Dragon #72: v7#10, April-83 File 13, the Game Inventor's Game
Dragon #75: v8#1, July-83 Snarfquest arrives
Dragon #76: v8#2, August-83 Dragon Index (issues 1-74)
Dragon #77: v8#3, September-83 King of the Tabletop game
Dragon #82: v8#8, February-84 Baton Races of Yaz game
Dragon #86: v9#1, June-84 TSR 10th Anniversary
Dragon #88: v9#3, August-84 Elefant Hunt game
Dragon #92: v9#7, December-84 -- oddity; Volume number never mentioned
Dragon #94: v9#9, February-85 -- the "Second Typo" issue, incorrectly marked as v9#8
Dragon #100: v10#3, August-85 3D cover; numerologically significant?
Dragon #101: v10#4, September-85 Game Buyers Guide in Coming Attractions (by yours truly)
Dragon #103: v10#6, November-85 the last 'regular' Gygax article
Dragon #108: v10#11, April-86 the first April issue without "April Fool" items
Dragon #115: v11#6, November-86 Roger Moore becomes Editor in Chief
Dragon #117: v11#8, January-87 -- the "Third Typo" issue, marked as Jan. 1986 on all pages
Dragon #122: v12#1, June-87 the last Gygax article, news about NIPI
Dragon #125: v12#4, September-87 Clay-o-Rama game rules
Dragon #131: v12#10, March-88 the last Wormy
Dragon #145: v13#12, May-89 the last Snarfquest
Dragon #148: v14#3, August-89 Deck of Many Things
Dragon #200: v18#7, December-93 Hologram cover
Dragon #236: v21#7, December-96 last TSR issue (shifts to WotC)

And did you know that...
Volume 1 has 6 issues, Volume 2 has 8, Volume 8 has 11; the rest have 12

gyg
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Posted: Fri May 02, 2008 11:19 pm

ExTSR wrote:Landmarks:

Dragon #31: v4#5, November-79 -- contains ad for staff; Moldvay & Mentzer were hired thereby

One of those fellas wrote the classic Isle of Dread - but who was the other fella :lol:

You can never have too much of something you didn't need in the first place.

Xaxaxe
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Posted: Tue May 06, 2008 12:27 pm

I'll never part with issues 30 through (roughly) 80. Only part of that is nostalgia, too; I really do feel like, editorially, those issues offered the greatest value in the history of the publication.

Collection-wise, I use the well-known "final Wormy" method, so I stop at 132. Some individual issues beyond that are worth seeking out, but I can't help but think the period from (roughly) 120 to (roughly) 250 was just a wasteland. I actually began enjoying Dragon again in the 270s and on into the early 300s, so I've saved those, too.

copycat
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Posted: Tue May 06, 2008 12:31 pm

For me, there are certain articles I find useful. Generally not the entire magazine. This is one reason I am glad I have the Archive - I can print out only those I find useful, and leave the "dross" out.

Those who can, don't. Those who should not, do.

FormCritic
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Posted: Tue May 06, 2008 3:22 pm

Xaxaxe wrote:I'll never part with issues 30 through (roughly) 80. Only part of that is nostalgia, too; I really do feel like, editorially, those issues offered the greatest value in the history of the publication.

Collection-wise, I use the well-known "final Wormy" method, so I stop at 132. Some individual issues beyond that are worth seeking out, but I can't help but think the period from (roughly) 120 to (roughly) 250 was just a wasteland. I actually began enjoying Dragon again in the 270s and on into the early 300s, so I've saved those, too.

Interesting...back in the mid-80's, I was trying to collect Dragon.

Collecting required a lot more effort (about the same money) back then because there was no internet to bring things to you. You had to go out and find stuff.

In the mid-80's was when the last of the classic game materials were fading out of game stores....which is funny, because it was also just right before the internet started to kill off the game stores themselves.

#80 specifically was hard to find for some reason.

#30 - #80 would roughly coincide with my early years of gaming.

"But I have watched the dragons come, fire-eyed, across the world."

Busman
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Posted: Tue May 06, 2008 9:04 pm

Xaxaxe wrote:I'll never part with issues 30 through (roughly) 80. Only part of that is nostalgia, too; I really do feel like, editorially, those issues offered the greatest value in the history of the publication.

Totally agreed. These were great issues. The articles, the comics, the inserts. things were really clicking. I might even narrow it down to mid 40s to late 70s. Though great value still happened even up through about 100 and less frequently thereafter; these 3 years, '81-'83, were simply amazing.

Charles G.
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Posted: Tue May 06, 2008 11:21 pm

FormCritic wrote:I would rate:

1-50 "Primordial"

51-100 "Classical"

101-200 "Late Classical"

201-359 "Dark Ages"

Of course, one could also rate Dragons as:

1-50 "Old Kingdom"

51-100 "Middle Kingdom"

101-200 "New Kingdom"

201-359 "Late Intermediate Period"

One could also date the end of the "classic" Dragon period to the day that Dungeon #1 was published.

I might modify this to be:

SR 1-8 "Hyborian Age"
1-26 "Pre-Dynastic" (with the funky serpent style "The Dragon" title)
27-38 "Proto-Old Kingdom" (title was still "The Dragon" but block style)
39-50 "Old Kingdom" (title became "Dragon" from this point forward)

etc....

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