Wednesday, May 8, 2013

White Dwarf Wednesday #63

White Dwarf Wednesday is back!  Ok, I only took a week off, but hey.
We are up to issue 63 now which is from March 1985. So let's put on some old Cult, grab a New Coke jump into our Deloreans and have a go. The cover takes me back to some of the older WDs. Some orcs attacking courtesy of Gino D'Achille.

Ian Livingstone covers a lot of ground in his editorial on licenses and licensing.  The gist I get from it all. D&D is more or less a "brand" at this point (look at today in fact with Warner buying the D&D rights for a new film).

First up an article on Traveller vehicles, a follow-up to an article all the way back from Issue 43.

Open Box comes next with reviews of The Runemagic series, a game I have never heard of (there is an Obscure RPG!) from a company I have never heard of, Triffid Software Research.  Mike White gives it 8/10 but for the life of me I can't see why.  Not that the game sounds bad, it reads like RuneQuest Lite, but I can't figure out what the game is about beyond that.  This is followed by the classic Toon from Steve Jackson Games.  Interestingly enough the first RPG I ever knew about that did not have character death. Cause as we all know, cartoons can't die.  Stephen Kyle gives it a deserved 9/10 (10/10 for enjoyment).
We also get a couple of Starfleet Battles books (Star Trek III 8/10 and SFB Vol. II 7/10) and some D&D modules, B6 (9/10) and XL1 (4/10).  Graham Staplehurst saying the module XL1 is like everyone's first dungeon and this one seems to want to sell toys to you.

Part 5 of Eye of Newt is next. More on magic item creation for AD&D. This one focusing on Miscellanea.  I like this idea, but it also robs magic items a bit of their mystery.  Maybe the secret to crafting a Wand of Wonder is lost.
Part 3 of The Dark Usurper is after some ads.

The best entry in the issue is "Draw the Blinds on Yesterday" a Call of Cthuhlu adventure. A nice little adventure that draws together some neat ideas from the 1920s COC and modern age.

Tabletop Heroes covers doing settings for your minis.
Fiend Factory has some mountain encounters, only 4 creatures.
Starbase introduces "Imperial Trooper" to Traveller.
And Treasure Chest has some advice for the travelling Halfling in AD&D/D&D.

With the exception of the Call of Cthulhu adventure this was only a so-so issue. If you were not following some of the past issues then this one of Part 5s and Part3s would be lost on you.

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