Cool cover art this issue with some weird bat-like creature.
This issues' Ian Livingstone editorial talks about the new Dungeons & Dragons electronic labyrinth game from Mattel and the Intellivison video game. I had the post of the dragon from the electronic board game (till my ass college roommate ripped it up) but I never owned the game itself till a few years back.
Roger E. Moore gives us another of what I consider the "Classic" Traveller articles for me. That is, this one of the ones that we had access too as a big xeroxed packet. Androids in Traveller tells us all about artifical humans, replicants and your plastic pal that's fun to be with.
Designing a Quasi-Medieval Society for D&D is back. Paul Vernon presents Part 2: The Economy Mercenaries and Resource Owners. Again, this is quite in-depth (for a gaming magazine) and has a lot of useful information. What is most useful though were the presented incomes of NPCs. In our age and in 1982 I think it was hard for everyone just to understand how little people lived on. A group of adventures coming in to town after slaying a dragon is likely to throw the local economy totally out of whack.
E. Varley writes about Unarmed Combat in RuneQuest.
Open Box has some items that gamers today still love. First up is Thieve World from Chaosium. It gets a 10/10 for very good reason. I was a huge TW fan back then and I still have my copy of this. Champions from Hero games makes it first appearance here along with a scenario/adventure The Island of Doctor Destroyer. Dave Morris likes the game, but doubts anyone will run a Champions campaign. He gives it 7/10 and 8/10 for game and adventure. Adventurer from Yaquinto Publications gets a solid 8/10. Anf finally another Traveller board game that convinced me I'll never understand Traveller, Invasion: Earth gets 8/10 from Andy Slack.
"Griselda Gets Her Men" is the sequel to Lucky Eddi from last issue. I have been told they are worth the. Maybe I'll give them a try. After all it is only a page long.
Letters follow next.
Phil Masters presents The Curse of the Wildland, a cool looking adventure for 4-7 characters of 1-2 level in AD&D. A couple of pages long and featuring a new monster, the Hsiao.
Starbase looks far a field for more ideas for Traveller Referees.
In what was/is one of the more interesting articles from the time we had "The Apocrypha According to St. Andre" by Ken St. Andre himself. He explains a bit about himself and his game Tunnels & Trolls. A very interesting read about one of the early pioneers of the gaming world.
Fiend Factor is back again. This issue's theme are creatures that are often found with other creatures. The Stirge Demon, found with Stirges has no treause but his Stirge Summoning necklace. There is also the Weresnake. The Muryans are giant ants that walk around on their hind legs. The next page the monsters improve significantly. The Sprite Knight is a larger sprite that protects other sprites. The Vampire Wolf (or Coacula) is an undead wolf that serves a vampire. Other wolves are mentioned, but not detailed. Finally the Minidrag is a minature dragon like creature.
Treasure Chest has a collection of spells.
We come next to 10 pages of ads and the back cover.
Again, not a stand out issue, but certainly a fun one. The Ken St. Andre article is a great highlight and the AD&D adventure is a good one too.
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