2020 - The Year of Blackmoor - 50th Anniversary - Day One Hundred and Fifty-Six

Celebrating 2020 - The Year of Blackmoor - 50th Anniversary of Blackmoor and of Role-Playing!

This would have been my post for the 4th of June (see here for details)

Next up are "Richard Snider's Additions." Arneson says

Richard Snider's Additions

Richard Snider has been one of the most enthusiastic players that I had. He evolved an entirely separate campaign and mythos, on a small scale for the locals to play in. In addition to that he came up with what I feel are an exceptional set of rules for Dragons that settles a few of their problems.

A 10th Level Gold Dragon has a 26 HD breath weapon, that sounds about right to me.

Then he provides an alternate method to determine damage by a breath  weapon. A (IMO) major deficiency of most rule sets is that they give short shrift to alternate methods, I want rule books and supplements that are not shy about giving multiple ways of doing things. Do not censor yourself, let the user decide what works for them. (Yeah, I feel another essay coming on, but that will have to wait, it  needs to marinate for a while).

Forget about humans trying to subdue Dragons, how about Dragons subduing and capturing humans. I also like the idea that a Magic-Using Dragon might target Magic-Users with magical attacks to assert dominance.

I like the above, partly because I think most campaigns really under-utilize Dragons mainly because people do not really know what to do with them. Also people tend to only think in terms of combat and I personally want Dragons played as very smart and crafty and a bit sneaky. I want Dragons that are evil and deceitful and I want Dragons that are generally very good and very honorable and yet, and yet very proud, touchy and easily offended. I like Dragons to be complex and above all very, very powerful. I want Dragons that you do not want to get on the wrong side of.