Again this feels like a transition issue, but I am not sure if that is the natural feel of it or because I know what sort of changes are coming up. An aside, though I have mentioned this before. At this point in my life I was a HUGE Anglophile. Still am, but not like I was back then. If it was English, British or somehow associated with the UK then it was gold in my mind. My music collection of the time reflected this and so did my tastes in RPGs.
We get an interesting cover of blaster wielding centurions fighting giant war robots. Not sure what it is about, but there is no part of it that isn't awesome.
Jumping through the ads for a bit we see something new, an ad for these new Personal Computers! There was the one I really wanted back in the day, the Atari 400. Though I ended up with the Tandy Color Computer 2. Soon PCs and RPGs are going to become linked in a way that we could never have imagined back in '82.
Ian Livingstone phones in the editorial this issue by asking reader what genres of "Role-playing games" (again we are seeing this term more and more) they want to see. He correctly predicts the explosion of the next 2-3 years.
First article is Magic Jar by Andy Slack. It is a basic character conversion matrix. It is based on the premise of percentage conversions, ie what is percent does "4" account for on a 3d6 and so on. It is a nice quick and dirty way of converting characters and materials. It is also not a bad article, but it makes the mistake of assuming that normal, min and max in all games are the same. I have pointed out in conversions of my own that a Strength of 18 in D&D (max on a 3d6) is not quite exactly the same as Strength of 6 in Unisystem (human max) even if mathematically they are the same. Still though, back in the day I would have eaten this article up. I say "would have" because I have recollection of reading this issue when it was out.
Starbase includes a quick Traveller scenario designed to cure trigger happy players.
Open Box has a treat for us, the Fiend Folio. Jamie Thomson gives the hometown publication a solid 8/10. ICBM is a nuclear war mini-game that is described as too easy and only gets a 4/10. Ley Sector is a Judges Guild Traveller add on. It only gets 6/10 due to many typos. There are two new Traveller books from GDW, Marooned/Marooned Alone (adventure 4) and Library Data A-M (supplement 8). They get very high marks for novices earning a 10/10 and 9/10 respectively. Experienced players will find them useful, only not as much so, dropping their scores to 9 and 7 respectively. Steve Jackson has a new mini-game out Undead that follows the story of Dracula and gets an 8/10.
The War Smiths are the new class from Character Conjuring. A subclass of the fighter these guys excel making armor, shields and weapons of war. They even have some minor magic to allow them to perform their trade better. While I don't think it makes for a very good class, it does make for some interesting background. The War Smiths could be an esoteric order that learns magic and fighting skills to make better weapons.
Steve Cook presents On Target, a critical hit system for Traveller, but easily adapted to other systems.
Operation Counterstrike by Marcus L. Rowland is an AD&D scenario that blends fantasy and sci-fi and inspired by War of the Worlds. It is longer than most scenarios and the font is tiny. So this one is a long one. A very interesting idea. What your characters do if they were suddenly invaded by alien technological lifeforms.
Letters and then Treasure Chest. Someone was watching the old Spider-man cartoons, we have Web devices and boots of sticking to walls.
Fiend Factory has an assortment of woodland beasts including a black unicorn and an undead Dryad.
There is a recap of the Games Day and then ads.
One of the ads is for the TSR mini-games including Vampyre. I think that for the longest time I confused Vampyre and Undead. Both were mini-games focusing on Dracula. I never owned Undead, but I did buy Vampyre. One day I should see if I can get a hold of both of them.
1 comment:
My first ever issue!
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