Welcome to October 1985 and we start off, as usual, with that month’s issue of Dragon magazine. Centred around an adventure for players of 4th to 6th level, called Valley of the Earth Mother, the main points of interest are actually a couple of really good (or at least interesting) articles that are worth your time.

The first of these is an article where Gygax lets his inner Grognard flag fly by criticising what was then the recent move from a focus on combat to a focus on acting and roleplaying… I wonder what he would make of today’s D&D scene. I don’t necessarily agree with him here, but I get his point, he is warning of a need to return D&D to its “gaming” origins rather than the amateur theatrics that it was quickly becoming. However, it’s not like it isn’t his company leading to this, the shift towards more narrative intensive adventures, such as the modules by the Hickman’s (Ravenloft and Dragonlance, for example) demand a less hack and slash and solve the puzzle approach, and a more “role playing” attitude by part of players. You have no one to blame but yourself Gary, and I do think it was a good move, while agreeing that a balance must be struck between those two sides of the game.

Other cool articles include a long one on Dragonlance’s Gully Dwarves, with loads of info on those disgusting but also kind of cute beings, another article by Ed Greenwood on magical item this time bringing us Nine magical Wands from the Forgotten Realms and finally an article on how to populate your campaign worlds. Good stuff.