Ian Livingstone's editorial discusses changes, not just in the world and the gaming industry, but also in White Dwarf. We will be getting some new articles soon including coverage on Car Wars and minis. The big changes coming up though are color (excuse me, colour) interiors, more pages and a 10 pence price increase.
First up is Gifts From the Gods: Religion and Magic in AD&D by Thomas Mullen. This continues from last issue's installment. While I recalled the previous issue well, this one is drawing a blank for me.
Open Box has some more classics. First, two from Chaosium, Cthulhu Companion and Superworld. Both get a 7/10 from Jon Sutherland. CC gets downgraded because of it's use mainly for Keepers. Fantasy Games Unlimited gives us Dardevils and Daredevils Adventures 2. Marcus Rowland gives them a 8/10 and 7/10 respectively. Andy Slack turns away from Traveller to review Star Frontiers Knight Hawks. He praises the Campaign book comparing it favorably to Traveller's offerings. He gives it 8/10.
Next is Critical Mass and the lengths Thrud will go to for a drink.
Richard Hanniwell has an article about thieves in Warhammer. The cross game appeal for this article is evident in the different types of thieves. Oddly enough "Pickpocket" is not one of them.
After that is new RuneQuest story featuring Griselda.
Starbase has an article by Bob McWilliams on extending UPPs for NPCs.
The Black Broo of Dyskund is a color RuneQuest Cavern Crawl. Plenty of cults and new monsters in this one. The adventure itself looks fun, but an evil cult hiding in the caves? I think that was cliche even in 1984.
Letters is a general bunch. Some liking the new improvements, others not.
Comics Gobbledigook and the Travellers follow.
An AD&D scenario is next. Also in color (well mostly blues and greens like the Black Broo). Four pages, it is a respectable size.
Fiend Factory has Creatures in Exile Based on Julian May's The Saga of the Exiles novels: Firvulag, Tanu (human off-shoot), and Howlers.
RuineRites has an article by Russell Massey on RuneQuest Economics. There is a lot of good information here that can be used anywhere. Granted in 84 I was not thinking about Dungeon Econ 101, but today it is something I consider.
Treasure Chest gives us "A Page of Many Things" which is a bunch of small articles. A cart for pulling all that gold you clean out of a dungeon (unless your GM read the last article), a word search and drowning rules for D&D.
Ads, small ads and classifieds follow. Can you speak French, well is so then Game's Workshop is (was) looking for a salesman for France.
We end with an ad for Gamma World.
Ok, so another transitional issue. The D&D content is much lower than the past though there was hardly any Traveller content outside of Starbase. I do enjoy seeing more games being covered and right now the balance might still be weighted a bit more towards D&D, it is getting better.
Also the last issue at 75p.
1 comment:
Re your comments on the Black Broo of Dyskund, this is one of the things that RQ did well, though - taking a cliched concept and making it good. This was the first scenario where caves felt like real caves, with squeezes and sumps and strange remote caverns.
As for the article Gifts from the Gods, this was, to my knowledge, the first time anyone had mooted different spells lists for clerics of different gods (the crunch follow-up come next issue unless I miss my guess). I adopted this wholeheartedly. The first official variant of this I saw was in the Dragonlance Adventures hardback, some years later.
Finally, the AD&D adventure is, I think, Ballad of Times Past, which is a nice idea (if linear) but limited in use because the whole adventure concept requires a fundamental change in the way magic works. Could be good for spring-boarding a campaign, I guess.
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