Also, trying a little different sort of layout for the newsletter this week, a little more "go to the site for more." Let me know if you hate it.

Mothership (2024)

This is Dragons (1986 second edition, originally 1984), part of Mayfair’s Role Aids line for Dungeons & Dragons. I am sure its existence has nothing to do with Dragonlance, right? RIGHT? Oh, wait, no, there is a dragonlance right there on the cover. And “Dragonlord” is giving off some big “legally distinct from Dragon Highlord” energy. I dig the tie-in with Grenadier’s Dragonlords (which was what they renamed their D&D line after TSR dickishly pulled the license in order to fail at producing their own miniatures) and the dragon of the month club.

The sourcebook section is great. It takes a monster everyone loves but about which not a lot is definitively known, and just fleshes out all the details. This is the best book on D&D dragons until 3.5E’s Draconomicon. You have social structures, connections to the gods, detailed aging processes, diseases, physiology, parasites, pets, creatures that live in symbiosis, magic, specific plant and geological lore known by dragons. It’s shockingly exhaustive and there is still room for detail on setting, the dragonlord sub-class and three adventures. Solid art throughout, too — Dawn Wilson on the cover, Jeff Busch and Robin Wood inside.

I can’t help but read the adventures as a direct knock-off of Dragonlance. The first one incorporates “board game” elements, there’s a civil war, someone is using magic to coerce dragon support and the whole thing culminates in a temple. It’s just the broad strokes, but it makes me laugh that they got it done in one.

Don’t Tell Mom & Dad (2022)

I love a kid adventure. The sub-genre, codified in film for the most part by Amblin Entertainment in the ’80s (but drawing on all sorts of sources, from Huck Finn to Lassie to Hardy Boys to Scooby-Doo), uses a straightforward formula: take some kids and stick them in a dangerous situation that only they can handle, because adults either don’t believe or aren’t around.

The problem with most kid adventure stories is that adults write them, are at least partially for adults, and because of that, they adhere to an adult sense of logic. This is true of kid adventure RPGs like Kids of Bikes and Tales from the Loop, for sure. You can hear an echo of Richard Dreyfuss’ Stand By Me narration in both those games. Not so for Don’t Tell Mom & Dad (2022), which delights in its own kid logic.

You’re a kid. You live in a town (a big part of DTM&D is collaboratively creating that town using the included tiles, something I unabashedly love). Something weird is going on (possibly many somethings) and you need to get to the bottom of it by the end of summer vacation. There are a bunch of cool mechanics to manage — dinner time, curfew, zzz (countered by the use of sugar), the scared-o-meter and cool points (there are also “good kid” skills and “bad kid” skills). There are summer jobs, of course, and chores. But there’s also cool stuff to buy at the corner store and endless equipment to improvise through crafting and the powers of kid imagination — they can bend reality with a successful roll.

There’s such an appeal to how these (light!) mechanics hang together to simulate the improbable twists and turns of childhood imagination. They’re poised to create off-the-wall adventures that are more dangerous than you’d expect and probably don’t make conventional sense, but that’s not the point, now, is it? Rather, the point is running around on a summer evening with your friends, having a blast (or, you know, around a table, because you’re old in body, but young at heart).

One of the myriad of Dereks in the Discord (does that air on BBC3 or 4?) bought some MERP a few months ago, which reminded me how much I love MERP, so I started picking up the MERP I was missing, as I was able to find them for not eye-watering prices. One would come in, and I'd go look for another, rinse, repeat, until only three MERPs were left, all of which were big ticket items: Greater Harad, Courts of Ardor and Raiders of Cardolan. So I stopped, and I told the Discord it was highly unlikely I would ever own the last three MERPs I was missing. Sad face.

Meanwhile, Lord Mordeth needed a hand with something, and when Lord Mordeth comes looking for help, you help. As a token of his appreciation, he said he sent me something he had laying about that was on my hunt list in the FAQ. He put it in the post the day before I publicly declared my defeat at the hands of the MERP secondary market. Imagine my surprise and joy when the package arrived the day after my declaration and it contained Greater Harad. Never been happier to eat my words. What an amazing Angus McBride cover. I refuse to believe that's not a ringwraith on camelback. Nothing you can say can change my mind on this.