For some reason this Dragon cover has two pictures of British comedian Bill Bailey meeting in a forest (look him up). And we start off 1981 with what is a pretty useful issue, not only does it have a bunch of interesting articles it also has a Dungeon Design Kit which includes graph paper (both squares and hexes) as well as plenty of things you can use to populate the dungeon, from furniture to walls and so on. In fact it’s a version of the recent “Campaign Case: Terrain” being sold by Wizards but made of paper and for free with a magazine.

In terms of other D&D relevant content we get an article on how to use poison gas, how smoke, gas, magical clouds and so on work differently, how ventilation works and all kinds of detail surrounding smokes and gases. We also get a couple of newish NPC classes, an astrologer and a new take on the alchemist which has appeared early in Dragon’s run. 

An article on how to distribute magical items to newly created higher than first level characters is also pretty useful and we get two columns on how to play D&D creatively and how a DM should get rid of high-level characters… not just by randomly killing them off, of course. Leomund’s Tiny Hut covers missile attacks and archery, and another column covers the topic of evil player parties. You get the usual Bazaar of the Bizarre and Bestiary as well as an article about jumping! Welcome to 1981! Coming up, the new Basic D&D Set!