The November 2009 issue (Vol. 33, No. 9, Issue 255) of Games Magazine is out. Much to my surprise, on page 65 of the issue is a review of D&D Insider by Thomas L. McDonald, one of the magazine's "Editors at Large". While it opens with reference to the failure of Wizards to produce the D&D Game Table, it overall gives a favorable review. I don't want to quote too much of it, both for copyright reasons, and because I think everybody should go out and buy a copy (it is a bunch of great puzzles, DMs could inflict on -- er, use to entertain -- their players). Here's the gist:
D&D Insider does an excellent job of supplementing the D&D experience in ways both small and large. * * * Wizards of the Coast hasn't quite created the electronic DM screen, but it's come very close by producing a functional set of tools to speed adventure creation and play. Naturally, it comes at a price. . . Still, if you're into D&D, having all that extra material at your fingertips may well be worth the cost.
The article also calls the Character Builder "flexible and fun" and singles out the current Adventure Path in Dungeon Magazine as "intriguing". Overall, MacDonald seems quite happy with the tools given, although, like many of us, he really wants a virtual game table.
Seeing D&D in Games Magazine (the magazine also eulogized D&D co-founder Gary Gygax in its August 2008 issue) caused a lot of nostalgia for me. You see, I was introduced to Dungeons & Dragons through Games Magazine.
The year was 1978 and I was 10 years old and in summer camp. It was a hot afternoon and we had an hour of free time after lunch before afternoon activities began. It was way too hot to play outside, and there wasn't enough time to head to the lake or pool, so I was hanging out with some older kids, who were looking at an issue of Games Magazine that was reviewing a brand new game called "Dungeons & Dragons", where you could apparently pretend to be a dragon slayer! I was immediately intrigued and borrowed the magazine. The article described the game in very general terms and gave a sample encounter where a lone adventurer had to elude a patrol of orcs, and a giant rat to get to a treasure hidden in a dungeon. I was mesmerized. The game was free-form in a way my usual games of Sorry! and Monopoly were not.
After camp ended, the idea of this game stuck with me. I found a set of the Blue Box set of D&D (the one where they gave you chits rather than dice) in my local Waldenbooks and nagged my parents until they got it for me. I was hooked. I forced my kid brother to go through Keep on the Borderlands. I had no idea what I was doing. I bought every little D&D thing I could find. (I bought the Blackmoor supplement not realizing it was for "Original D&D", and had no idea how to use it.)
The next year I got chicken pox, and was able to parlay my parents pity for my agony (I had it bad!) into buying me the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Players Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide. As soon as I saw the PHB cover with Trampier's immortal portrait of that statue of Orcus, my pains and itches melted away. I devoured the books from cover to cover. Eventually I roped a bunch of neighborhood kids to spend perfectly fine Spring days in my basement rolling up characters and dying repeatedly in the Tomb of Horrors. I was hooked and I've never looked back.
So thank you, Games Magazine, for introducing me to this game. Here's hoping this article entices a few new ten-year olds to give it a try!
