The chaotic nature of Dragon continues in issue 23 which is again back to 30 pages and seems to have gotten rid of most non-fantasy and Sci-fi game coverage. Tim Kask had warned that it might skip an issue as they decided what to do, so let’s see if issue 24 returns to the larger format magazine. 

We get an article on Psionic battles which actually serves to complicate and already unwieldy Psionics system, so I think it can safely be ignored, then Gygax gives us an article on how to randomize inhabitants from the infernal planes, which can be quite useful as it does help plug a gap in the Monster Manual. 

There’s also an interesting article on how to give characters permanent damage when they get all the way down to 1 hitpoint or something like that, including losing an eye, getting brain damage, getting a limb hacked off, etc. Although this is an interesting idea it could also really incapacitate characters in ways that are probably not that fun for players. Another article that can be quite punishing for players is one which tells DMs to just imprison high level characters to avoid “superman” problems… I mean it’s not that much better than outright killing them, but I suppose…