We end 1978 with some bad news for Dragon magazine in the form of some economic history, the inflation of the 1970s is making itself felt and the prices of paper keep going up and up, the magazine had already raised prices but now it is also reducing size, so instead of the usual 40 pages we get 30 pages this issue. They also have a backlog of stuff to be printed that will have to wait for the next issue.

This is also an unusual issue because it dedicated its largest article to a game which is not at all fantasy or science fiction: Rail Baron. I am not sure they will do that again too often, but I am pretty sure this will have been a controversial move at the time. Still there’s plenty of D&D stuff to keep readers entertained, including an article on D&D inflation to keep with the theme. This being about the inflation that takes place in the game as characters level up and start getting more and more cash to the point that prices have to be raised or else become meaningless. 

Other useful articles include one on how to deal with divination spells in case the DM doesn’t want players to know everything, another on how to make some variety among monsters, some humorous articles on developing long and pompous titles for characters, the return of Monty Hall adventures, a short one page dungeon setting with some cool ideas, and so forth. So a slightly different issue but still plenty of stuff in here, even if nothing world-shattering.