White Dwarf Wednesday #89

It's the end of the 80s for White Dwarf. Not the 1980s, but the issues.  White Dwarf 89 takes us to May, 1987.  Our cover art is another Chris Achilleos one. But unlike the past ones that invoked a strong Heavy Metal feel this one is pure Warhammer to me.  Of course this is tied in with their big Citadel Miniatures give away.

Mike Brunton discusses the give-away in the editorial.  They giving out £2,000 worth of minis, a grand prize of £1,000 and four £250 prizes.  The details are in the center pages, more on that when we get there.  In other editorial news WD will celebrate it's 10th anniversary (they say birthday) and they are raising the price to £1.25! Ok to be fair there has not been a price increase in a while and we are just under 70 pages. They are promising an extra 16 pages of articles. We are already at a lot more cool than the previous few issues.
There is also an apology to West End Games for the tone and content of their remarks made in WD87 about "The Price of Freedom".

Open Box covers a few of the "home team" games like the Rogue Trooper board game and supplement for Judge Dredd ("Slaughter Margin").  The one that interested me then and I'll admit now, it the slick new Traveller 2300 game.  I remember playing this one in college a bit my freshman year. I remember a lot of talk about merging it with Twilight 2000, but I never saw it happen.  In their token D&D review Graeme Davis takes on module X11 Saga of the Shadow Lord.  He was disapointed by it, claiming it was just like the like the adventures they were doing 5 years ago (1982) which I guess would make it a big seller now.  I also didn't care for it, but for different reasons.  My reasons were it wasn't what I thought it could be; a nice tie-in with Death's Ride.  Again it would not be for another year or so till I got my hands on this one.

Awesome Lies, the news/gossip column (if I can call it that) is next. But there are some tidbits here of interest. The mention West End Games grabbing the Star Wars licence. A note about the post-TSR career path of EGG at New Infinities with Frank Mentzer and Kim Mohan.

Critical Mass covers some of then new books. Fredick Pohl's The Coming of the Quantum Cats is reviewed and I ate that book up. Wow. It was one of those books that went right into my game playing.  My then DM and I, already big on the idea of the multiverse, went all out gonzo on it.  In fact a lot of what makes up my Mystoerth world had its beginnings here and with this book.  It's funny how even sitting here now more than 25 years later how much of the book is coming back to me.  Though this review seems rather down on all the titles.

Thrud battles the Ramones from Space. Or something. Can't tell and don't care.

Be Afraid Be Very Afraid covers phobias in Call of Cthulhu. It is a laundry list from the DSM.  Hell maybe even from the same DSMIII-R I still own.  Generally speaking I don't like how most games handle insanity, madness and mental disorders.  I was a QMHP for years working in a center for schizophrenics. Most games get it so horriblly wrong as to be laughable. Call of Cthulhu is a notable exception even if it is simplistic and hand-waves a lot of the details; it works for the game.  This article is neat reading, but not much in the way of good game content.  By that I mean that one gaming group might use 2, maybe 3 of these, ever.

Next is a Paranoia scenario, Do Troubleshooters Dream of Electric Sheep.  Is it me or do all of these look the same? I think it must be me.

On Ealden Bergen is an "Adventure" or is is a supplement from Iron Crown Enterprises about Robin Hood. It is designed to be a "system-less" system but obviously based on Rolemaster. It reminds me in many ways of the their later Nightmares of Mine horror book.   It could be adapted and used with other systems, but a working knowledge of MERP or Rolemaster is really needed.  So much for "Systemless".

No we get to the middle and the contest, Ravening Hordes.  Simple, write a Warhammer Battle scenario and send it in by August 3, 1987.  I'll update when the winners are announced.

Friends in High Places is a generic fantasy RPG article about deception and intrigue in your games.  It is a pretty good read really. It discusses who the npcs are, what are their motivations and then what are their means of getting to them. Heavy on court intrigue, I think it is a good thing to try out.  Granted, Vampire will come along in a few years and take this to the Nth degree, but this is a cool look at the state of FRPGs in a post AD&D world.

An ad for the Snarf Quest book. Which is interesting given that Larry Elmore is just now starting a Kickstarter for a new Snarf Quest book.

'Eavy Metal covers painter Phil Lewis. I know a couple of the guys that are big into painting these days and they have their own "stars" and "rogues" just like all sorts of other fandoms.  Me. I am lucky if I can draw a straight line with a ruler and laser guide.

Character advancement in Warhammer Fantasy.  I can't but help think that many of the topics that were covered for D&D 8 years ago, RuneQuest 6 years ago and Rolemaster 4 years ago are now being recycled for Warhammer now.  Still. If you are using secondary skills in your flavor of D&D today then there is some ideas here.

Three pages of Unearthed Arcana errata is next.  I am of the mind that if I didn't read it and my players never read it then the errata didn't matter.  Sure it made for some weird ass rules, but often we would house rule them away anyway.  The bits about Method V is a laugh though. It's like reading some grognard blog posts today about D&D4/Next.  More proof that gamers never really change.  If the pages were falling out I'd consider sticking them into my UA, but they are still in there.   Did any of you ever care about the errata for UA?

Letters are next. Do you  remember the old Monty Python skit where they read letters that were supposedly sent into the show? I recall one from Richard Nixon...that is the feeling I get here.  I think at this point people where writing in just to get their name published; the 1987 version of "First!".

Small ads and then more ads.  There is a great Citadel miniatures ad for Daleks and Cybermen.  I have a few of the Daleks still myself.

A big issue, but not really full of anything I found interesting for gaming, just nostalgia.  We will see where the next 10-11 issues take us.

White Dwarf Wednesday #88

April 1987 brings us White Dwarf #88 and thankfully very little of the silliness that plagued Dragon mag in the month of April.  Mike Brunton even parodies this (a little unsuccessfully) in the editorial page.  But before that let's get to the cover.  I like it.  It is named "Dragonlady" by David Gallagher.  I can't see a date on the cover, but it looks older than 87.  Love the whole punk rock look of the Dragonlady.

So there is a fallacy in many gaming circles that "older" = "better" for some games.  That is certainly not true with this issue.  There are a some stylistic changes that bring it closer to the modern WDs, but time wise it is still closer to the WD of the late 70s early 80s than it is with the ones of today.

Briefly in things that interested me:

Open Box covers H2 The Mines of Bloodstone module.  I have the H series. And I desperately wanted to make them work, but they really don't.  Everything that is disliked in the adventure is magnified in the last of the series, H4.  I went through H4 and I might run it again someday with some the information from the previous modules (H1, 2 and 3), but I wont use this module for many of the reasons listed here (time wasting encounters, killer funhouse style dungeon, ill-planned Battle System tie-in, way too much treasure).

Some reviews on various books for the big tie-in Supers games, DC Heroes and Marvel Super Heroes.  This was a golden age for Supers games in my mind.  I wish I had played them more, but at this point I was wrapping an epic AD&D game and working all the time for extra money for college.

The Paddington Horror is a scenario for Call of Cthulhu by Marcus Roland.  It doesn't seem bad and I do seem to remember this one begin planned when I checked out the SIU Strategic Games Society.  I remembered because it was an example of an adventure I knew I could get my hands on.  Plus I always thought it would be funny if the cover had that kids  book Paddington Bear only with tentacles.

Hm..some Judge Dredd stuff.  Miss the days when the ads were all at the end of the magazine.

Fate Points in Warhammer.

New cards for Chainsaw Warrior (also reviewed in Open Box) my issue does not have the cards.

A RuneQuest III adventure.  Not dual or multi-stated.

There are some pages about assassins for AD&D.  Not too different than things I have read elsewhere.  Must have been something in the water back then.  My favorite character at the time was an assassin.

A little on Blood Bowl. A game that looked really stupid to me in the past, but now I kinda want to play.

Ending with Letters and ads.

Ok so. Not a great issue by any means.  It's only saving grace in my mind was it did not fall into the stupidity that Dragon did every April.  But I'd take Nogard over boring any day.

White Dwarf Wednesday #87

White Dwarf Wednesday takes us to issue number 87 from March 1987.
Again we are graced with another rather "Heavy Metal"-esque style cover. It is another Frank Brunner cover, this time from 1982.

Mike Brunton tells us that there are more changes coming to WD in the future. Including a 16 page adventure format that was introduced previously with the RuneQuest adventure.

Open Box covers the new and cheaper RuneQuest rules. The rules do not have a "proper" GM section according to the reviewer Peter Green.  The change would be regarded as a "money grab" in today's circles. But other games seemed to be immune to the edition wars that plague D&D and it's clones.  
Green and Pleasant Land is the long awaited British source book for England and Great Britain.  
The other interesting tidbit here are the reviews for the AD&D adventure modules "Day of Al'Akbar" and "Ravenloft: House on Gryphon Hill" two adventures I went through then and have run since.  The reviewer, Carl Sargent, makes note of Jeff Easley's cover of DaAA, calling sexploitation and "soft core". er. ok. Frankly my biggest issue with the image was would harem girls have 80s hair?  He also thinks Gryphon Hill is a worth successor to the original Ravenloft.  It is fun, but not quite up to the same quality in my mind.

Open Box X-tra goes into detail on Warhammer Fantasy.  Similar to what they did last time with the Dragonlance modules.  The article would have been more interesting if it hadn't been full of "this is the way D&D does it and its wrong! we do it like this!"  Yeah, ok, it is not as bad as that and comparisons are inevitable, but the game should stand on it's own.

The comics are next, the new acquisition, Derek the Troll and Thrud the Barbarian.

The highlight for me is the treatise on Zombies in Call of Cthulhu.  A bunch of different zombie types are covered including the common one found in D&D, the "voodoo" zombie and parasitic infection.  We are still few years out yet from GURPS Voodoo or Eden's "All Flesh Must Be Eaten" but this works very well.

We get three adventures up next.
Night of Blood for Warhammer Fantasy, Taurefanto for MERP and Happiness is Laser Shaped for Paranoia.  All in all a lot of pages devoted to adventures.

We wrap it all up with letters, ads and some coming attractions in the various Warhammer lines.

The Call of Cthulhu bit on Zombies is neat and there are still a number of games still be supported, but the issue itself leaves me feeling a bit flat to be honest.

White Dwarf Wednesday #86

February 1987 gives us White Dwarf #86.  The cover looks like it is an older style than the others.  Closer look shows it is from 1978.  Mike Brunton gives us a long editorial on how WD is made.

Open Box hits us up with The Price of Freedom from West End Games.  In my mind this was the golden age of WEG, or just when they get the Star Wars game.  The Price of Freedom is one their big games, though I never cared for it.  For starters it has the same problem that the movie "Red Dawn" had, that the idea of Soviets invading America was crazy at best.  Ashley Shepherd likes the game, but hopes it is tongue-in-cheek.  Other items include Paranoia HIL SECTOR Blues and Hawkmoon.  I have talked about Paranoia before.  Hawkmoon the game suffers the same problems that Hawkmoon the novels has. Namely, the problem is "it is not Elric".   Hawkmoon is played as a game, but it can be played as a supplement to Stormbringer. Hawkmoon, like the books, deals with more tech than magic.
For D&D we have Adventures in Blackmoor adventure DA1 and for AD&D The Book of Lairs, the revised Player Character Record Sheets and Night of the Seven Swords for Oriental Adventures.   I can honestly say I still have a number of my original sheets left over.  I never owned DA1, but I have always wanted run it.  I picked it up just recently, but have not read through it all.

Critical Mass has an interesting book among all the others.  The Vampire Lestat is reviewed and enjoyed.  About this time I also read The Vampire Lestat and I thought it was brilliant. Right here folks is the start of the Vampire the Masquerade.  Some where around this time Mark Rein·Hagen would form his first company and the RPG market would soon change forever.  Interestingly I read "Lestat" before I knew about "Interview with a Vampire" so I always had a better opinion of Lestat than my friends that had read it.
People have complained that this was the start of the "pretty boy" vampire craze.
Well. They would be wrong.
Lestat is still a monster, he kills and he relishes in being a hunter.  Eight years prior we had Frank Langella on stage and in the movies as uber-sexed Dracula, so the evolution of vampire as monster to sex object had been going on a while. Arguably since Stoker and even Carmilla.  Saying otherwise is ignoring the facts.
Now Twilight...yeah that is garbage.  But that's not Anne Rice's fault.

Curse of the Bone is a modern Call of Cthulhu adventure for 2-5 investigators. It looks fun and I like the modern twist to it.  For some reason the "used car dealer/cultist" made me laugh.  But it is also a good adventure in showing that relatively "minor" monsters can make for a great story.  "Lovecraftian" does not always mean elder gods and tentacles.

Open Box is back for some more, this time talking about all 14 of the D&D Dragonlance Modules. Dragonlance gets a bad rap among the Grognards out there. Some of it earned, but most of it is typical "get off my lawn" crap.  Yes they were rail-roady, but the were, as this article points out, epic.  Gordan Taylor does mention that classical role-playing is limited in these modules and no character development outside of what the modules dictate.  But I don't recall Grognards being that interested in character developemnt in the first place.   The modules can be played as "Strict AD&D" as the author mentions, but they are deadly and don't expect things to end well.  Maybe that is what we need (and it must be due to my 6.5 hours of meetings yesterday and my migraine today that I am even suggesting this) is a Grimmdark Dragonlance.  Instead of the Heroes of the Lance, run your typical Murder Hobos through it.  Go all out and use Dungeon Crawl Classics.   I never played these modules back in the day, but my younger brother's group did and they had a great time.  Maybe that is the selling point of these to my generation (and the generation before me) "Dragonlance, it is great for your little brother".

Illuminations is a new feature. It features the art of a particular artist.  This month is Ian Miller.  I would have loved to have seen this in earlier issues to be honest.  But with my impression of WD's art budget I am not sure they could have done this before now.

In what seems like a contradiction on the order of "Grimdark Dragonlance" Phil Gallagher gives us Warhammer Fantasy player character stats for Gnomes in Out of the Garden.

There is a new team for Blood Bowl, the Skaven Scramblers. They are the mutant by-blows of giant rats. The background information on the Skaven is actually kind of cool.  Think of a society of giant rats, like Splinter from TMNT, only warped by religion and placed into strict castes. And plenty of random mutations. So more like the twisted child of Splinter and the Rat King from The Nutcracker.  They would be fun for AD&D/OSR.

It's a Kind of Magic tries to bring magic and tech closer together in your FRPGs. Interesting the article advises against bring magic into technological games and gives a number reasons why it is a bad idea.  It is as if the designers of ShadowRun read the article, laughed and then broke all the rules.  Though this article really concerns itself with tech in a magic world.

'Eavy Metal has a number of great looking minis.  I took a look at a much newer WD recently. I am not sure if the painting of minis has gotten better or the photography is better.  I am not saying that the ones here in issue 86 are bad; far from it.  But they don't look as polished as the ones from newer issues.  I am guessing there is some Photoshop involved too.

Dogs of War covers mercenaries for AD&D (or any FRPG). The article is an interesting one because it not only instructs how to use them, but how they were used. For example you won't see mercenaries randomly killing people; that's bad for business.  I think the trouble is that what most players think of as mercenaries is more defined by fantasy novels and comic books than history.   The authors suggested reading Fredderick Forsyth's "Dogs of War" for more insight.

We get an article on time travel in Judge Dredd.  The article is mostly fluff.

Letters. Followed by Gobbledigook and then ads.

Not an inspiring issue, but set off for me with the CoC adventure and the extended product review of the Dragonlance modules.   While I expected my interest in these later magazines to drop off after issue 80, I am still finding tidbits I like and can use.

White Dwarf Wednesday #85

White Dwarf #85 takes us to start of 1987 and a new editor.  Mike Brunton, the new editor, talks about the scope of the each issue. How if they dedicate too much space to a particular game some people will love it, others will feel left out.  This issue in particular is a RuneQuest focused one.
The cover art is interesting. Not the Heavy Metal fare we have been getting, but something that looks like a RuneQuest cover (it might be for all I know).

Briefly in Open Box we get Bloodbowl, a game I always thought was interesting looking but never tried, and some D&D books.   The D&D books covered are the Wilderness Survival Guide, the D&D BECMI Creature Catalogue (sic) and the first mega-module GDQ1-7 which combines the previous Giants, Drow and Queen of the Demonweb Pits adventures into one and looses something in the translation. The WSG is enjoyed by Carl Sargent. He claims that any FRPG could use it. I think he is correct, I remember that most of the tables were straight percentages. The Creature Catalog is also enjoyed by Tim Brinsley with special note given to Frank Mentzer's guide to balancing encounters.  It is worth it for that alone I think. Note this is the AC9 version and not the DRM 2 version, though I would not be able to tell you the differences except for publication date.
We also get a brief review of the Bard Games supplements, The Arcanum, The Lexicon and The Bestiary. These were the must have books back when I was in college and had discovered college town used books stores.

20-20 Vision covers some movies. Perennial gamer favorite, Labyrinth is reviewed. Though Colin Greenwood says that Bowie looks too much like his 1973 version, but lacks the style of Ziggy Stardust. I rewatched this a while back. While I get a nostalgic joy from it, and the songs are still maddeningly catchy, the story is weak.  Though it was not till someone pointed out that "Requiem for a Dream" works as a sequel to this, continuing the story of Sarah and her guilt for the loss of her brother Toby, that I got some new joy from it.

Critical Mass covers some then new books.  Though I don't recall reading any of these save for the reprint of the Chronicles of Corum.  This was the time I was leaving fantasy, having already left sci-fi, and had moved on to horror.  By the end of 87 I wasn't reading anything at all unless it was somehow tied to the Cthulhu mythos.

Allan Miles gives us Only Skin Deep which talks about the human-centric view in AD&D and how the various demi-human races get short changed on a number things.  For starters he says, and I agree, that there should be no level limits on many of the classes. In particular fighters.  Honestly while this is interesting for the time today we live in a post 3.x world where every race can advance in any class.  Level limits on demi-humans are now imposed in OSR games purely out of nostalgia and not really for a game-balancing mechanic.  Back in the day we never bothered with level limits. We kept class restrictions though.  Still, the article is a fun read since it is not as dogmatic about the rules of the game and instead tries to find good reasons to do the things it does. Often the answer is "that reason doesn't make sense".

A brief bit on playing the FASA Star Trek game.

A Tale to Tell is a RuneQuest III adventure and the main feature of this issue.  At 16 or so pages it is the largest adventure I can recall to date.  It's a big adventure.  I have a hard time though judging if it is any good. It reads fine and it is the sort of adventure I have come to associate with RQ as opposed to the dungeon crawls of D&D.

The color pages are saved for some ads and 'Eavy Metal. Dragons this issue.

Swords of Pendragon is not for the Pendragon game, but rather a system agnostic bit of fluff about the various swords that have appeared in the King Arthur tales.  No stats, just some background info.

An ad disguised as an article, "Illuminations" covers fantasy art. This time all from the new Warhammer Fantasy game.  It is good art though.

Letters is next.

Fracas covers the last parts of the Reader Poll.
Some of the polls that are of interest to me today are the one about computer use in games. 65% said they have one and use it in gaming. By this point I was using a combat simulator that sped up combats for my AD&D game. It was written for the old TRS-80/Tandy Color Computer and yes I still have it. Just no CoCo to run it on.
The vast majority, 4,121 respondents vs 1,177 say they use miniatures in their games.  Granted there is a larger proportion of Warhammer readers here than say the national or even worldwide average.  Still this goes a bit against the idea that the use of computers and minis are somehow something new to gaming.
Men outnumber women in this poll 86 to 1.
The top four RPGs according to the poll are MERP, AD&D, CoC and Warhammer.
The average age of the responder is 16 and has been playing 3.8 years.

So what does this issue give us?  Well there is obviously a change in the air at WD.  We have gone through more editors in the last few issues than the 60 issues prior.  The focus is shifting, though unless you know the future you really can't say what. Yes there are clues, but this seems to indicate that we will see more MERP as well.

White Dwarf Wednesday #84

December 1986 issue of White Dwarf seems a little smaller that I thought it was supposed to be.
That is is explained by the new editor Mike Brunton.  The 8 new pages are being held till later and Paul Cockburn seems to be out.
The cover art by the way can best be described as Lovecraft's Night Before Christmas.  "Sanity Clause" by Ian Miller.  Cute.

Again we have 4 pages of Open Box.  Of note to me: the Children of the Atom for Marvel Super Heroes and the Advanced set is up.  This is about the time I was getting out of Marvel, both the game and the comic.  I still have some of the books and might revisit it one day.  I said that a WDWs back, but I haven't got around to it yet so I am not thinking I will any time soon.   Likewise DC Heroes, a game I wanted to like but never got into, has The King of Crime and Internity Inc.  Pete Tamblyn reviews all four books and enjoys them.  Graeme Davis doesn't care for the new Immortals module for D&D, Immortal Storm.  I can't say I disagree with him.  Though my experience with it comes much later and through the eyes of nostalgia.

Simon Nicholson has an interesting article on how to get messages across to or from player characters (and players) to other parts of the world in "Don't Call Us".  We tend to forget that the instant communication that we enjoy today is not the way it has been for the vast majority of human civilization.  I remember going to Epcot once at Disney World and going on their World of Tomorrow ride or something.  They showed us a world where communication was instant. My son, who must have been 6 or 7 at the time told me "Dad, we can do all this stuff now."  One of the things I think Ebberon does well that other campaign settings don't is show how magic is used in place of technology.  Communication is just another facet of that.

Shadow Magic is an adventure for AD&D for 8th to 9th level characters by Carl Sargent. It features some dragons in a domestic fight and some of the newer demons from MMII.  It is short and can work well as one of those "on the road" sort of adventures.

There is a trivia game made up to look like a Miskatonic U exam booklet.  Cute.

Wolves of the Sea is a bit more ambitious. It covers sea going adventure for role-playing games. Again there must have been something in the aether then since there seemed to be a lot of sea going adventures in magazines and the few groups I knew.  It is an interesting read and adaptable to most Fantasy RPGS.

A Paranoia Adventure. These all look the same to me.

Couple pages of letters...
Finally in Fracas we get the results of the Reader's Poll.
Gobildegook and Thrud are the most popular, 2020 Vision is the least.  I had the exact opposite opinion.
Best Cover was 79, the one I disliked.
Most people replying approve of the choice to do away with the departments.  If you recall I lamented that.
Most people liked Multisystem scenarios/adventures.  At least we agree!

I question my biases on continuing reading WD at this point!

I have to admit this issue seemed rushed.  Like they had a bunch of odds and ends at the end of the year and needed to use them.

White Dwarf Wednesday #83

White Dwarf #83 comes to us from November 1986.  Just to put things into my gaming perspective we were running our final end-game game.  The war that would change our game forever. Why? Well we were all going to college and though we didn't know it at the time 2nd Edition was on the way.
The cover art to me always looked like a painting of miniature figure than the typical fantasy painting. Not sure why.
Paul Cockburn discusses how hard at work the WD staff have been and how next month will be bigger magazine, 8 more pages, with no extra ads and no extra charge.

Open box kicks off with the D&D Immortals set. Graeme Davis calls it an interesting and well thought out addition to the D&D rules, but not an indispensable one.  The infamous Warlock of Firetop Mountain Boardgame is reviewed. Infamous at least to me since I have always wanted to try it out but can never get my hands on one and they go for big bucks at my local auction.  Spawn of Azathoth for Call of Cthulhu is next. Peter Green says it has some nice ideas but lacks the "Oommph" that would make it a classic.  The 2nd Edition of ICEs Middle Earth Role-Playing is also covered.  Graham Stapplehurst calls it a better introduction to new players.  I will admit to not knowing very much about the 2nd edition.  Continuing on the 3rd page we get a new idea, GURPS Basic Set from Steve Jackson games.  Marcus Rowland calls it ambitious but can't recommend it.   We also get a number Open Box "Quickies": Cities by Chaosium, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures, Revised Recon, Talisman the Adventure and Introduction to Star Fleet Battles.

Big two page ad for Warhammer Fantasy.

Critical Mass covers the Postman before Kevin Costner got a hold of it.  More interesting to me is the review of William Gibson's Burning Chrome. Funny how Gibson's work is looked at these days.  28 years ago it was science fiction, today the review sounds more like the review of a modern day spy novel.

A Day in the Life Sector 255 is a Judge Dredd "Patrol Adventure".  Reading this over I get a much better idea of how the game should work.  I have no idea if this is a good adventure or not, but it is unique and it tracks with what little I know about Judge Dredd. Followed by a strategically placed ad. I might need to give this game a try one day.

20/20 Vision covers some movies.  In particular is a favorite of mine, Big Trouble in Little China.  This would make for a great game and I have though so for years.  Of course the best system to use for this is the Army of Darkness RPG with Jack Burton taking the "Schmuck" Quality.  Aliens is also reviewed. Saw that movie a hundred times at least.  Vasquez and Hudson would late make appearances in my big end-game mentioned above as Katrine and Kiev, two fighters that hated each other in the roster of NPCs I created for the war.  They died fighting side by side and were recorded as having loved each other.  The idea was I'd use them to haunt other characters as ghosts until their bodies were separated in their shared tomb.

Up next is a Paranoia adventure.  Paranoia is a game I can only take in small doses.  After a while the jokes get really thin with me.

Carl Sargent goes over the costs and the role-playing of training between levels. The central thesis here is that with the advent of the "new" proficiency system that training between levels is more important than ever before.  I get what he is saying here and it was certainly something "in the water" back then.  I remember our group suddenly becoming very aware of training and no longer leveling up midst-game, but only after games.  We did spend some time seeking out trainers, which became interesting when our characters were in the 30th level range (it was the 80s) and we did not know anyone higher level.  Sargent's system is very detailed but for me these days I prefer something a little simpler.

The Crude, The Bad and The Rusty is a Warhammer Battle and it is up next.  I have no experience to judge this one by.  It has a set up and a map.  Maybe that is all you need?  I think it is.  I do *GET* why games like Warhammer are popular and by that extension any war game with minis.  Then I never had the money to put into these games properly and now I don't have the time or the skills at painting to do it right.

Everything Went Black has some rule options for Call of Cthulhu.  House rules mostly.

Up next our Warhammer Fantasy/AD&D adventure. The Black Knight is an interesting beast. As a Warhammer Fantasy adventure it seems to have more dungeon delving than I normally associate with WF.  As an AD&D adventure, more fighting.  I guess that is fitting when you think about it.  Course it has me wondering was a Warhammer/Tunnels & Trolls adventure might be like.

Psionic Combat expands on the Psionic articles from WD #79. I have always wanted a good psionic or even magical battle system.  This one is good, but no where near simple.  D&D combat is simple really, even AD&D. Roll your d20 and see what happens.  That is a feature of the game. Psionic/magical combat should be the same.  This one isn't but it certainly works with the bolted on psionics system in AD&D1.  I will admit I am not a fan of mixing my psionics and magic.

Ads...Thrud...'Eavy Metal. The pages for Eavy Metal are not in color which strikes me as odd.  Granted nothing is painted in this one so maybe they were saving the color pages...for the Wilderness Survival Guide ad.

More ads.  The letters page has a splash of color. Odd.
Fracas covers Games Day 86.

We end with ads.

Again, not a terrible issue, and actually a good one.  We are getting into the age where the complexity of AD&D is beginning to weigh it down.  More books, more optional rules more opinions.
Not a mention of Traveller or Runequest really.  Though AD&D and Call of Cthulhu rule the roost still, other games like Judge Dredd and Warhammer are seeing more and more space.  While I knew players trying out Warhammer and Paranoia at this time, not really anyone one in my little corner of the world was playing Judge Dredd.

White Dwarf Wednesday #82

White Dwarf #82 is one I do remember well.  I was not immune to all the Warhammer ads I saw and I remember picking this one up.  I just don't remember if the copy I have now is my original or one I got with the majority of these magazines.  Either way I still have the Warhammer pullout and I recall this was one of the very, very few times that Thrud the Barbarian made me laugh.

Ok the cover.  This one is obvious and it might be the watershed issue of WD.  The cover is the same as the then new Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying game.  Personally I always thought that was an awesome cover and really colored what I thought the game was all about.  I don't think that has changed much really.

Paul Cockburn's editorial is interesting since it reads more like a press release for Games Workshop rather than an editorial for the magazine.  Now to be fair, Dragon was doing the exact same thing at this time.

Getting right to the reviews of Open Box we have the Dungeoneer's Survival Guide. I have to admit I am little surprised to read about how much the reviewer Jim Bambra liked it.  the DSG and WSG get derided a lot but I always enjoyed them. For Call of Cthulhu we have an adventure, The Statue of the Sorcerer/The Vanishing Conjurer. Also liked.   At this point I am really feeling the loss of the old scaled 1-10 reviews.  There is a Paranoia product (Orcbusters) that I didn't like then and still don't.  Not that it is a bad product, just gets on my nerves.  Skyrealms of Jorune also is favorably reviewed.  This was another game I always wanted to try, but never did.  It also always seemed to be about 180 degrees away from Warhammer to me.

Win a copy of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay on page 5! Just answer the quiz and get it back to WD by October 17...1986. Damn.

Critical Mass covers the newest Stephen Donaldson book, The Mirror of Her Dreams, which I always though looked cool. But I never read it.   I did read With a Tangled Skein by Piers Anthony.  I actually liked but Dave Langford didn't.  Yeah, I read all the Incarnation of Immortality books.  Like many TV shows series' it was great for 5 but too much at 7.

A Dwarves on the high seas game is next. Interesting idea. But you need to basically buy or build your own ships. Mine would have been cut outs or stolen from a toy set.

Another ad for the Immortals Set.

The Light Fantastic is a short story sequel to Terry Pratchet's The Colour of Magic and an introduction to the Discworld article later on.
The article, A Stroll Across the Discworld for AD&D.  There is a bit on how different the Discworld is from an AD&D world and how magic is different. There are some new monsters, including Death. It has some interesting ideas, but nothing is gone into detail.  I think there is a GURPS Discworld.

Mercy Mission is our Traveller adventure for the issue. It is actually quite long.

It is interrupted by the Warhammer Fantasy insert.  I have to admit it looks pretty. Not a word you normally use with Warhammer, but there is a lot of good use of color here.  GW really put out the cash for this one.

The aforementioned Thrud is next.

'Eavy Metal features painter John Blanche.  I like the Mona Lisa he painted on one of the shields.

Letters complains about the adventures.

Fracas has nice picture of Up the Garden Path another one of those ultra-rare D&D books that I other people pay too much for on eBay.

Graham Staplehurst discusses how maps are used in RPGs.

Narks is about informants in Judge Dredd.

We end with ads.

So the overall themes with this issue are "Games Workshop is our Lord and Master" and every article is about a page too long.  Most of the three page articles could have been two pages and the two page ones should be about a page and a quarter.

Well. Lets see what next week brings.  We should be getting the results from the reader polls.

White Dwarf Wednesday #81

White Dwarf #81 takes us to September 1986.  The cover is Chris Achilleos' "Eagle Rider"  which had appeared on "The War of Powers" Part 2 cover prior to this.  Never quite got how they recycled covers like this, but they really, really liked Achilleos.
Paul Cockburn's editorial covers some of the new staff and their duties.  More Warhammer is promised. Two anniversaries are also mentioned.  Issue 100 and 10 years of WD.  Though they are still under 2 years for issue 100 (and my terminus for these retrospectives).

Open Box covers Paranoia, Clones in Space. One of the very few Paranoia adventures I ever played in.  The reviewer called it fun, I just never got into the frame of mind for Paranoia I guess.  West End Games gives us a Star Trek boardgame, the Enterprise Encounter.  After playing around with FASA Trek I kind of avoided Trek games for a number of years. Also included here is "A Doomsday Like Any Other" for FASA Trek. Griffin Island for Runequest is reviewed.  I owned it at one point and thought about a Runequest/CoC crossover, but never did anything with it.  West End also has out, Ghost Toasties for Ghostbusters.  Never played it.

For the truly curious an overview, review of Play By Mail is next in "How Mighty, the Pen".  I think by 1986 I was getting online (at 300 baud!) so the death knell was not ringing yet for Play by Mail, but it was near.

The next two articles are interesting, jousting rules for Pendragon and then again for AD&D.  Together they give a bit better of a picture of what you can do this Medieval past time.  I have to admit. I never had a Joust in my games.  I have been in games where they have occurred, but never ran one myself.

Letters is now two pages long.  Didn't see anything there that caught my eye except for someone complaining that Gobbledigook is smaller.

Critical Mass covers some SciFi.  Reviewed are Songs of A Distant Earth, which I absolutely enjoyed.  It was a book I just could not put down.   Also mentioned was Dragons of Autumn Twilight which my son just started last night.
20-20 Vision talks about Highlander. Again.  Though this time it is the British cut (pardon the pun) of the movie which is better than the American.  I recall seeing different versions back in 88 or so while in college, but nothing about an American vs. British version.  But it was almost 30 years ago.   Also reviewed is The Karate Kid.  Here is you brain buster for the day.  Pat Morita was 51 when The Karate Kid was filmed.  How old is Ralph Macchio?  He will be 51 on his birthday in November of this year.

Part 2 of the Call of Cthulhu/AD&D adventure Ancient and Modern is next.  Sad to say, but part two doesn't live up to the promise of part one.  It's still a great idea and I'd love to try it out.  I took it to work yesterday to xerox so I could mark up a copy as I like.

Brian Lumley gives us some short fiction. A rarity in White Dwarf.

A horror themed Paranoia adventure is next.  Like all Paranoia material is sounds interesting, but quickly devolves into farce to me.  Hard for me to judge this one.  Though the horror cliches are fun.

'Eavy Metal gets a facelift.  More color pages and the photography seems better.

Fracas covers some new releases, D&D Immortals, Wildernees Survival Guide AND an interesting rumor of Unearthered Arcana II.  Anyone know anything about that one?  WD mentions that is was on the schedules for early 86 to be replaced by Dungeoneer's Survival Guide.

Next is an article on Time Travel in RPGs.  I have a pretty strict rule.  No time travel in RPGs unless I am playing Doctor Who.  I have fudged that rule a bit more recently, but I stick to it.

We end with small ads and ads.

Overall a less satisfying issue than last month. The jousting article is neat and I like the idea behind "Ancient & Modern" The magazine is looking more like it's modern incarnation, but it was it's older incarnation that I found so pleasing.  Still though, some more issues to go.  Cheating and looking ahead a bit (I try not to read ahead) there are still a couple of gems waiting.

White Dwarf Wednesday #80

White Dwarf kicks of the 80s in this August, 1986 issue.
The cover seems to be a bit of a throw back to earlier issues, or at least earlier themes.
The new editor and staff waste no time and hit us up with a new reader survey.  More on that in a bit.

Open Box gives us Call of Cthulhu 3rd Edition. I do not recall any edition wars around this.
We have reviews for the FASA Doctor Who advnetures "The Hartlewick Horror" and "The Legions of Death".  I just picked up Legions of Death last Friday.  The Hartlewick Horror gets the edge, but I fear it was because of the inclusion of the 4th Doctor's stats.   Palladium is breaking into the gaming scene more and more with The Mechanoids.  Yes I know they were around before this, but two issues in a row of product reviews is still better than they had been doing.  And the AD&D module Destiny of Kings is reviewed.  I blame my braces at the time but I always called this one "Density of the Kings". Realms of Magic for MSH and OA1 Swords of the Daimyo are also reviewed.    Three TSR products with two of them AD&D. Not so bad really.

The Doctor Who RPG gets some love with a section on Combat.  Ok. So the irony here is that there actual little combat the characters should be doing in Doctor Who.  The FASA game though was a little more combat focused than the current C7 RPG is.  The biggest problem comes from the author's own point of view that he normally runs a D&D game. Ah well.

Critical Mass bemoans the recent injection of so many Lovecraftian elements in the recent batch of Sci-Fi books.

Some more Abilities for the Judge Dredd game.

"Clouding the Issue" by Chris Barlow covers detection powers in a game and how to make it more difficult or easy depending on your tastes.  This is one of those articles that were common at the time; adding more realism to your game or at giving the game another layer of complexity.

Graeme Davis has an article on crime in the 20th Century.  Focus is on the Pulp Era with such suggestions as Call of Cthulhu, Dardevils, and Indiana Jones.

The star of this issue though is "Ancient & Modern" a scenario for AD&D and Call of Cthluhu. Each player gets two characters, one for each system and they run through the linked scenarios.   I love crazy stuff like this. The adventure is long (10 pages and nicely done) and it is still continued next week month.  The interplay between the two is nice and build on each other.  Frankly I love it.  I might just have to run this one sometime.

'Eavy Metal covers painting various textures.

The Back to the Readers Poll is up.  33 questions. Notable are the inclusions of questions about computers and LARPing. Of course there are also more games.

Letter is next and now two pages long.

There is an article about leveling up in MERP.  Again, another example of adding a level of "realism" to the games.  Or if you would rather role-playing.  I get where this is coming from, you get your points from leveling up and they should be spent with some sort logic.  By the way to keep this topical the article could just as easily work for Superbabes or any other game where gaining a level gives you points for buying new skills, powers, magic and so on.

Fracas, the rumors and news column covers the new wargame coming out for the Trek Universe/Star Fleet Battles.  A plug for Dagon 13, a magazine for Mythos fiction is made.  The Immortals set from TSR is announced as well.

We end with ads.

Ok so there is something a little sterile about the recent couple of issues.  Sure the content of the last two has been better than the content of the dozen or so issues before it, but it is lacking some of that White Dwarf charm.  For a lack of a better word it feels a lot like Imagine.

White Dwarf Wednesday #79

July 1986 gives us White Dwarf #79 with one of the most ridiculous covers ever.  I had always thought that this was a Chris Achilleos cover, but no, it is listed as Amazonia Gothique by John Blanche.  Let's be honest there is nothing practical about this armor even by White Dwarf's standards or even by John Blanche's standards. This of course has to be the ultimate evolution of the 80s big hair.  No surprise then that this cover would later be voted as one of the best.

Paul Cockburn takes over the helm of the editorial page. There is a notice that a warning label will now be attached to ads for lead miniatures.  Is there anything less old school than a warning label?  Don't know, but I am sure there isn't.  Cockburn promises more changes but already there seems some Imagine has leaked into my White Dwarf. If I had actually had a plan when I started this I should have alternated with issues of Imagine so I could better comment on this, but I didn't so we just have to go with it.

This is most evident in the Open Box reviews which look like the reviews in Imagine; reviews running across a span of pages.  Among the reviews, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (a game I have never played), Secret Wars II for MSH, Blacksword for Stormbringer, Terror from the Stars for Call of Cthulhu, Ghostbusters and Acute Paranoia for you guessed it Paranoia.  First I have to admire how gaming is diversifying at this point.  Outside of Stormbringer there are no FRPGs in the lot and only one TSR offering.

Where and Back Again? covers starting up a Middle-Earth game.  Graham Staplehurst spends four pages covering this well trod land. The focus here is on the ICE game of course, but a lot of it can be used with other incarnations of the game.  It is still a desire of mine to play a game here, maybe using the D&D Basic rules (or ACKs), the only thing I am lacking is time.

Critical Mass and 2020 Vision cover reviews of books and movies respectively.  There is a certain pathos in providing reviews to something review nearly 30 years ago.  Though the highlights are their review of Highlander.

The special feature of the issue is next, a alternate view on Psionics in AD&D.  Steven Palmer creates different "classes" of psioncs to help group the powers.  A potential psion has access to 1 to 3 of these classes.  He also gives characters an additional 3% if they have psions in their family line.  It is a clean up and clarification of the rules in the AD&D1 Player's Handbook, but not yet at the Psionics as a strange magic seen in later editions of D&D.

Graeme Davis has an adventure for the Call of Cthulhu game, Ghost Jackal Kill, which among other things features some new monsters.  I am afraid though the overall feel is one of a D&D adventure.

Phil Masters has an article on using the intelligence monsters have. Novel for the time, old information in todays games.

'eavy Metal is the new(ish) Miniatures feature.

Letters page gets a facelift.

The last part of the "brains" featured articles are Psi Judges for Judge Dredd.  Reading these I might actually give the game a go sometime.  But only if I can play them as very Big Brother or as Babylon 5 Psi Corps.

Fracas is the revamped Rumors section.  Notable the introduction of the Zochi 100 sided dice.

We end with ads.

Now to be honest this was a good issue. I felt the featured content on powers of the mind fit together rather well and even went across a few game lines. There were some good advice in the articles and it did the one thing I really want a game magazine to do; get me to play the games they are talking about.

We could be closing out the 70s here (issues, not decade) on a positive note then.  I know my opinion will change over the next 20 issues, but that is for another Wednesday.

White Dwarf Wednesday #78

Big changes are in store for White Dwarf in issue #78.  But first a point of reference.  When I started these so long ago they were meant as a retrospective.  That is going to get harder here on out since I didn't own any of these issues when they first came out and some I didn't even own till I started doing this and found the gaps in my collection.  So that makes a retrospective a little harder to do really.  So instead of out and out reviews or "read mes" I am going to focus on what I know was going on at the time.  These last 20 or so issues might even go by pretty quick if I choose to double up on them near the end.
So let's get into it.

Issue #77 takes White Dwarf to their new address and new team.  The cover is different too. Still the same price, but now it reads "GAMES WORKSHOP PRESENTS" instead of "THE ROLE-PLAYING GAMES MONTHLY".  Not a subtle reminder.
The editorial/toc page is resigned as well.  While Paul Cockburn, late of Imagine is the new editor, it's a familiar name on the editorial, Ian Livingstone.  Said editorial is just saying what I have said here.

Open Box gets a facelift and some color.  Among other things the */10 rating is now gone.
Covered is B/X1 Night's Dark Terror module for D&D and DL11 Dragons of Glory Play-aid for AD&D.  The treat in this batch is a look at Cthulhu by Gaslight by Chaosium for Call of Cthulhu.  This book became something of a Holy Grail for me back in the late 80s.  I loved Victorian gaming even then so this seemed like the perfect game to me.

Dave Langford takes over a redesigned Critical Mass.  Notable is the review for Gygax's own "Artifact of Evil".  Noting that it is nothing more than an adventure writeup and commenting on the "brutalities visited on the English language.

Graeme Drysdale looks into coming back from the dead in AD&D.
Wow. a bad review for Gygax and bringing characters back to life? This is not the Grognard's White dwarf anymore.

The Pilocomayo Project is an adventure for Golden Heroes.  I can't comment on the adventure but the NPC "Powerchord" a rocker turned super could be fun to use.  Mr. Magic is just a poor-mans Zatara.

After that we get an adventure for Judge Dredd, The Sprung Ones.

Fracas is the new rumors or news department.

The rest are mostly ads.

Ok. Not a great issue by any stretch of the imagination.

White Dwarf Wednesday #77

White Dwarf #77 does nothing whatsoever to change my impression that White Dwarf  shares a lot with Heavy Metal Magazine.  The cover is the famous Heavy Metal magazine cover of September 1981 and movie poster by Chris Achilleos.

The editorial mentions the magazine's movie to Nottingham...and how the staff is not moving with them.  What?  Paul Cockburn will be running the magazine from the new offices.  Paul is ex of Imagine Magazine.  Interesting time of change here.

Open Box is up. One of my favorites is reviewed, DC Heroes by Mayfair Games. Marcus Rowland like the game (8/10) but laments the limited supply. I had played a bit of DC Heroes around this time as well. My DM was huge into Teen Titans (as was pretty much everyone), but interesting enough I was more into Marvel and X-men at this time.  Another fave, though I wasn't playing it much, is the Stealer of Souls scenario from Chaosium for Stormbringer it gets a 8/10.  I mentioned a bit ago I found my old FASA Doctor Who game.  This issue has supplements The Daleks and The Master, neither of which I owned but had wanted at one time.  I was a bit cautious of FASA's material after this when I picked up the Officers Manual for Star Trek the Next Gen and it was just all over the place. These feel similar, though I would still like to read them someday. They get 7/10 and 6/10 respectively.

Critical Mass is back covering Anne McCaffery and the then current Stainless Steel Rat book (Stainless Steel Rat is Born). I tried to get into both of the these series but they never clicked with me.  I felt I just wasn't getting something that every else got.  Now I just see it for what it was.  I was drifting into horror at this time so SciFi and Fantasy wasn't going to interest me for much longer.

2020 Vision covers Jewel of the Nile, Enemy Mine, The Evil Dead and Young Sherlock Holmes among others.  All really fun movies.

The Crazy File is a new article for Judge Dredd. It details the latest Crazes for the Judge Dredd RPG.  There might more here than I am getting, not being all that familiar with the comic (just the game and the bad Sly Stallone movie. No I have not seen the Karl Urban one).  But it also looks like something that might work for Traveller.   It occurs to me that Dredd + Traveller might equal Cowboy Bebop.

Ok this one is close to my heart.  Spellbound discusses magic in superhero games.  It's a good read talking about the nature, and a little bit of the source, of magic.  How it works in the game, both rule wise and narratively, and how it can be used.  The author, Phil Masters, has a the "street cred" in my mind to discuss this.  Reading this I am struck with the similarities of a review on Harry Potter's use of magic.
There are rules to comic book science, and magic seems to violate those. Doesn't matter that supposedly being born under a red sun gives a man super strength, the ability to fly and to shoot laser beams from his eyes. That's science. (supposedly). Cast a few spells and you are breaking the game. Or at least you shouldn't have to break it.  Years before Aberrant made it their thing the article also discusses how to run a Supers game without any magic at all.

Another good article, and one I wish I had back then, is The Final Frontier: Roleplaying in the Star Trek Universe.  The article briefly touches on the massive cultural impact of Star Trek (and this is still 25 years before George Takei would take to the Internet) has, but it focuses mostly on the new FASA game. IT talks about how, maybe more than any other game, how the players can come to it with more knowledge than the GM.

A Simple Wish is another really interesting adventure for AD&D and MERP.  This one strikes me less as Middle Earth and more of MERP. Yeah there is a slight distinction.  Like the distinction between Star Trek and Star Fleet Battles.  It uses the trappings of Middle Earth; even my current favorite The Silmarillion.  But  it plays like an AD&D adventure and could take place in the Realms just as easy.   It still has the problem of the PCs being "lesser players" to "Big Names", but not as bad as past MERP adventures WD had published.  Dual stat anything and I am going to be interested.

A Cast of Thousands covers NPCs and their motivations.  It's not a bad article, but we live in a post World of Darkness world were every NPC has a huge backstory.  Heck, the MERP adventure in this same issue has this issue.

Treasure Chest has an article ripped from todays' blog posts.  How to run non-sexist Heroines.

Tabletop Heroes has more photography tricks.

Fracas, the new rumors page, has a bunch of news.  Most interesting is a new game based on Ghostbusters.

We end with ads.

Ok. So if this is the last of the old guard issues, then they did great job. This is one of the better recent issues.

White Dwarf Wednesday #76

White Dwarf #76 takes us back to April 1986.  The magazine feels a bit larger than past issues (68 pages now) and there is more color.  The cover features a could of eagle riders in a tie in with the AD&D adventure.The cover artist is Peter Andrew Jones, who I do not recognize.

The editorial covers the demise of such columns as Fiend Factory, Star Base, Crawling Chaos, Rune Rites and Heroes & villains.   But we knew this.  Also, and maybe they are taking a page from Dragon, they planning more "theme" issues.  This one is all about the AD&D thief with two articles and and an adventure.

Open Box opens up big this issue with 3 pages and 7 reviews.  Iron Crown Enterprises has some MERP offerings. The Riddle of the Ring board game (6/10) and Erech & The Paths of the Dead Scenario (9/10).  Alone Against the Wendigo is a CoC solo adventure. Surprising there are not more of these to be honest.  (8/10).   Send in the Clones is also reviewed. This is the only Paranoia adventure I have ever played myself, so I have nothing to compare it too.  Marcus Rowland gives it 6/10 and that matches my memory of it.  Graeme Davis LOVES Lankhmar, City of Adventure for AD&D (10/10), I'll admit it has made me want to read the Fafhrd and Grey Mouser books more than once.  Two Doctor Who RPG adventures are covered The Iytean Menace and the Lords of Destiny. I loved the Doctor Who RPG from FASA but I never played these. They get a collective 8/10. Finally Hero games gives Fantasy Hero, it gets an 8/10.

The first article on AD&D Thieves is up.  How to Make Crime Pay is for players in the form of a lecture from a guild master.  Once upon a time I would have eaten this up. In fact in 86 my favorite character was a thief turned assassin.  There is nothing in this article that screams "D&D only", it could be used with pretty much any fantasy game.

Accounting (no joke) is covered for Judge Dredd.
A scenario for Warhammer is up next.

The second article on thieves is up, this time for the DMs/Referees.   Again, useful, game-agnostic advice.  This one is more in the form of tips and tricks and advice rather than a narrative. Actually this would have been a good article to have back in 86 when I was working up the details of the various guilds in my game world.  Today I just hand wave that sort of thing away.

An article on running Golden Heroes is next.  There is also a lot of good advice here too for any supers game.  I think the next supers game I run there will be a tabloid, ala The Sun, involved.

Castle in the Wind is the next article on thieves and takes the form of an adventure.  This one in pure AD&D and the thief connection is a touch thin.  It's long and detailed and with a dash of Hayao Miyazaki it could be really, really awesome.  I might have to xerox this one for later use.  Plus I love floating castles in my D&D.

Treasure chest is still around, at least for now.  It has half-a-dozen new spells. Never can have too many of those.

There is this interesting ad for "Labyrinthe" LARP (it's not called a LARP but that is what it is) taking place in the London Underground.  At first I had to double-take cause it looked like an ad for Labyrinth Lord!

Not exactly, but you can see what I mean.  Granted EVERYONE used that Old Style font back then.  It was the Morpheus of it's day.

This followed by a lot of ads.
Tabletop Heroes covers painting with oils, part 2.
Large ads continue with some Doctor Who minis, the D&D Master Rule Set and the Tunnels and Trolls paperback fantasy/rule books.

The theme is nice for issue but it makes it feel like there is less content than there really is.  I used to think the same about Dragon when they did themes as well.  Though to be fair, when they did themes I enjoyed then the issue seemed much more full.
More than any other issue before it, WD#76 is the dividing line between the new and old White Dwarf.  

White Dwarf Wednesday #75

White Dwarf #75 takes us back to March 1986 with new(ish) Editor-in-chief Ian Livingstone.
The cover is a very Call of Cthulhuesque one with Buckaroo Banzai and Elvira battling a creature on a chees board floor.  Just out of curiosity I wonder if One Night in Bangkok had be released in the UK at this point? (yes...almost a year before.)
Ian Livingstone gets right in and talks about the changes that have been happening and more are on the way.  But we knew that really.  The changes we are seeing here are not really abrupt; they have been happening for a while now, but they do become apparent in later issues.

Open box is getting into a wider variety of games, but a lot of them seem to come from Games Workshop:  There is the Supervisor's Kit for Golden Heroes (8/10), Terror of the Lichemaster for Warhammer (9/10), Judgement Day for Judge Dredd (9/10) and Cosmic Encounter Boardgame (8/10).  The only non-GW game this issue is Fragments of Fear by Chaosium for Call of Cthulhu (7/10).  Detecting a trend here.

Critical Mass is back.  I only want to touch on a couple of things here.  Dave Langford talks about how long C. J. Cherryh's Forty Thousand in Gehenna is.  I agree. But that didn't stop me from using it and going back to it time and time again for ideas for my AD&D games (despite it being Scifi).  There is also a title I have never seen before, "Sex Secrets of Ancient Atlantis".  Looks fun.

2020 covers some mid 80s horror  movies. The Return of the Living Dead and Fright Night are featured.  I enjoyed the heck out of Fright Night despite (or because of) the gruesomeness that reviewer Colin Greenland seems to disdain.  Word of advice, if you don't like gore, don't review horror movies.  He also mentions Teen Wolf which is horror only in the way that connecting puberty to lycanthropy in the hands of Micheal J. Fox can be.  Which is to say, not at all.  Granted it isn't a horror movie.  To see a much better take on this idea see Ginger Snaps.

Oliver Dickinson has some thoughts on the upcoming RuneQuest 3.
Pete Tamlyn has ideas on Superhero games. There are ideas here to make Superhero games, and by proxy comics, more adult oriented (not themed) and they are not bad.  This article though fails today because it was too close, but on the other side, of the great breakout of the Graphic Novel.  Yes, the Dark Knight Returns was just out and Watchmen was on the way, it was still just a little too late (or early depending on your view) for the masses.

Gamemanship covers some idea on how to put the mystery back into AD&D.  Some of the ideas would later see similar treatments in AD&D titles like Ravenloft and eventually story-based gaming.  Most of it is still good advice today.

Mass Media by Andrew Swift covers how the news is delivered in various Tech Levels in Traveller.  My personal favorite is his predictions of the smart phone-like device in which to read the news on (TL 10) AND Google Glass (TL 11).  I mock Traveller often, and really unfairly so, for it's ideas on computers.  But this one was really fun to read.  There are ideas for characters too.  I now have a desire to play or run a bunch of intrepid reporters and muckrakers for the Galactic News Service.

Graeme Davis gives us "Nightmare in Green" an AD&D adventure for 4-8 4th-6th level characters.   There is the adventure and a few new monsters which is nice.  I like adventures that introduce a new, maybe one-off monster. Also it helps make up for the loss of Fiend Factory.

The Heart of the Dark is a Call of Cthulhu scenario.  It deals with a murder and you know it only gets worse from there.  I have always liked WD Call of Cthulhu adventures.  Actually most of their adventures for any game are rather good.

Treasure Chest has something really nice, a system for Character Backgrounds for AD&D.  Today we add a +2 to some skill that you had before you took up the adventuring life, but since AD&D is not like that this works out rather nice.

Tabletop Heroes covers oil painting.

Not a bad start to the stewardship of Ian Livingstone.  The articles and adventures are good.  Open Box seems a bit doggy to me, even given the gushing reviews gamers typically give their favorite games.

White Dwarf Wednesday #74

White Dwarf #74 is a major swan song of sorts.  Here we see the end of the White Dwarf I grew up with and the start of something new.  Of course whether that new is better or worse is a matter of perspective.
The Frank Brunner cover could be the Necromancer that caused so much of a stir a while back.  Or maybe I am seeing nostalgia where there is none.  

Ian Livingstone bids us farewell in his last editorial, though he is sticking on as Editor-in-chief for a little while at least.

First up an extended look at Super Power a game of foreign policy that could have only been popular in the 80s.  It is part Monopoly, part Risk and part Reaganomics The Game.  Its from GW so I guess that is not surprise.  I have no problems with a magazine showing off the house brands games. Dragon did it all the time.

Open Box is a big one covering all sorts of games. Dragon Warriors is up first along with The Elven Crystals and The Way of Wizardry. Robert Dale, a playtester of the game, gives it 9/10. Vikings for RuneQuest is next, though I recall using it as a system agnostic book.  It covers, well Vikings. I remember the writing being good and the attention to detail nice.  I should pick it up to see if it cleaves with my memories or not.  Oliver Dickson gives it 8/10.  Nightmare in Norway scenario for Call of Cthulhu gets 8/10.  The big AD&D release Oriental Adventures is up.  The start of what we have recently taken to call AD&D 1.5.  It gets a solid 9/10.
The Pendragon Campaign is an odd one. It has quite the reputation these days and was/is obviously a quality piece of work.  But it also repeats a lot of the material found in the main Pendragon book.  One could look at this and see the likes of Forgotten Realms on the way; fully realized campaign settings.  It gets 9/10. Lastly we have two Star Trek books, Termination: 1456 and The Outcasts. Both are lauded for their sense of belonging to the Star Trek universe and are given 10/10 each.  The reviewers must have all been in a good mood.

Terror at Trollmarsh is one of the largest AD&D adventures I recall seeing in the pages of WD at 7 pages.  It is also one of the more detailed ones.

Lycanthropy in AD&D is given another look by Peter Blanchard.

The Power of the Frog is another attempt in a long time at some game-related fiction.

Hide of the Ancestor is a 2nd Ed RuneQuest adventure. It's not very long and mentions that some things will need to be updated to 3rd ed.

Gentlemen and Players is an interesting take on Call of Cthulhu on how create unique British characters for the game. While the focus is the Pulp Era there is a lot here that I find useful for my own Victorian games.

Treasure Chest covers musical instruments in AD&D.

Some redesigned super-hero origins for Golden Heroes, but should work with any supers game really.

We end with a bunch of ads and Travellers.

It is hard not to look at this issue through the eyes of knowing what is to come.  With little fanfare and announcement we got the last Fiend Factory last issue.  This is a big deal for me and my retrospectives since FF was one of the reasons I enjoyed White Dwarf so much.

White Dwarf Wednesday #73

We start out 1986 with White Dwarf #73.  The Lee Gibbons cover reminds me of the ones from around 1983; barbarian couple fighting and stealing gems.  It's a good cover but seems like a step back.  On purpose maybe? Is WD already feeling nostalgia?  In any case this issue is now larger than the previous one.

The editorial is about the chain store Boots now stocking RPGs and Citadel miniatures. I imagine that this is something similar to when Waldenbooks and B. Daltons began to carry games, though I suppose this is actually closer to something like Target or Wal-Mart carrying games.

Open Box is up and I am beginning to doubt the "independence" of some these reviews.  First up is a scenario for Golden Heroes, Queen Victoria and the Holy Grail.  The review is a mixed bag. Pete Tamlyn likes it, but admits it is tough and weird and maybe just a little bloody He mentions gripes and dislikes the ending and still gives it 8/10.   The Judge Dred game is up next. It gets a 10/10. I can't argue with the reasons Jason Kingsley gives, but for me it was an 8/10 at best.  Both games are from Games Workshop.  We have a couple of "Advanced Advanced" game books from TSR next and reviewed by Paul Cockburn.  First the Masters Rules for what we now call BECMI. Indeed it is the "M".  It gets an 8/10, but almost begrudgingly so. Lastly is Unearthed Arcana.  Bottom line is that Cockburn hates it and gives it a 3/10.

2020 Vision is the new Movie review section.  Covered are Back to the Future, The Goonies and the Bride.  I will admit I never cared for The Goonies.  I know it is supposed to be some culture touchstone for my generation, I never liked it.  Neither did this article.  Though I will admit I enjoyed The Bride.  I might need to rewatch it this Halloween.

Power & Politics is an interview with Derek Carver about the Warrior Knights game.   IT sounds like a good game to mine if you want to add some 1400s-style realism to your FRPG.

American Dream is a Golden Heroes scenario.  It looks fun. Reading it I am reminded of some of the scenarios I wanted to run for Silver Age Sentinels.  Though the coolest thing is the use of Chris Achilleos' "Miss America".

Starbase has a great article on navigating 3D Space on your space maps.  Overtly for Traveller, but it would work for anything really.

Star Spray is an adventure for MERP and AD&D. I just finished the Silmarillion recently and I have been wanting to find something just like this since my knowledge of MERP is limited.  But this adventure feel s a little flat to me. Graham Staplehurst did his homework and knows his Tolkien.  But anytime you involve PCs with great heroes and figures out of the past they can't help but be dwarfed.  I don't know, maybe Tolkien's epic is still too fresh in my head and it is coloring my interpretation of this adventure.

RuneRites covers non-lethal combat in RuneQuest.
Cults of the Dark Gods continues with more background for Call of Cthulhu.
Treasure Chest has some ideas on Magic Items. Namely that every item found is potentially magical IF you know how to awaken the magic inside.

Fiend Factory is back with some more AD&D Monsters.  This one is back to old form with mosters found in Rain Forests. Not a bad entry really.

Tabletop Heroes covers part 2 of doing dioramas.

We end with lots of ads.  I noticed the Message Board/Rumor Board now seems to be gone.

This issue is larger than the previous ones, but again most of that has been given over to ads.  Not a bad thing mind you, just no extra content.

The content we did get was good. I feel this was a better issue than many we have seen recently.

White Dwarf Wednesday #72

This week I cover White Dwarf #72 from December 1985.  Not quite sure what I was doing at this time, I was a Junior in High School and generally speaking having a pretty good time of it.  Lee Gibbons provides the Cthulhu-esque cover for this edition.  I remember thinking it was cool when I first saw it.

Open Box has two staples of "why I thought the British were just better" when it came to games.  The FASA Doctor Who RPG was one of my favorite Sci-Fi games ever.  Despite the fact there was some wonkiness with with the timelines (wibbly wobbly) and the system was just the Star Trek one.  I loved it.  It got an 8/10 but looking back on the game now I can see we were all just starved for anything Doctor Who.
Up next is Chaosium's fantastic Pendragon. It got a 9/10 from Graham Staplehurst. It should have gotten a 10/10.  And just to really drive the point home, the only American company to have a game is one of my favorite companies, Pacesetter, delivering a game I had thankfully had forgot about, Wabbit Wampage.  It gets a generous 6/10.

An article on Talisman and the new expansion set is up next after some ads.  It is advertised on the cover as "Expansive Coverage" and it is, but it also feels a little like an advertisement.

Fear of Flying is a short Call of Cthulhu adventure taking place on a plane.
Heroes & Villains this issue covers mad and super science.  It is written generically enough to use in any supers game, or even any steampunk one.

The Necklace of Brisingamen is next. An AD&D adventure for 7-10th level characters.  Pretty high for a magazine adventure.  It is also pretty long too.  It is generic enough to use anywhere, but I like the Nordic feel to it.  My first thought was it could be used as a nice side adventure while doing the whole GDQ series.

Pete Tamlyn covers character generation in Origin of the PCs. While there are some interesting ideas here, in particular to designing a new game, it is my experience that people come to the game with an idea of what they want to do early on.

Sliegh Wars is a Christmas themed board game for 2-4 players. Frankly it just doesn't look that interesting to me.

Crawling Chaos has a bunch of books for characters to read, not players. Too bad really.  But these are still cool and can be used anywhere to provide some color to a Victorian or Modern horror game.

Big ad for the new game Dragon Warriors.

Treasure chest offers up some tables and events for characters.  Things like "Arrested" and "rumors".  Neat idea, but takes control away from the DM and players in my mind.

Tabletop Heroes covers dioramas. I knew this guy in high school that was fantastic at doing these dioramas of the Grenadier lead minis.  I think he rather enjoyed doing those more than the actual gaming to be honest.

The last 14 or so pages are ads, including one for the D&D Masters rules, Marvel Super Heroes and more MERP.

I am happy to still be getting regular CoC and AD&D material.  The adventures are still rather good. There are still some new games being featured.  I am looking forward to seeing some Doctor Who material, if there is any, I don't remember. don't spoil me. Dragon only ever had 2 articles on it if I recall.  More Pendragon is always nice.  I always put Pendragon into that category of "Way Serious RPGs".  I hope it gets covered more in the next 20 some odd issues.

White Dwarf Wednesday #71

White Dwarf 71 takes us to November of 1985. The cover art is another one by Alan Craddock. I would say it is a cavalier and a barbarian in honor of the newly released Unearthed Arcana, but I have nothing to back that up.
Ian Livingstone is still at the helm here talking about Game Day and looking forward to more success with Judge Dredd.

Of the bat we go into Open box with two books from the Way of the Tiger. These books seem something in between an RPG and a choose your own adventure sort of book.  Chris Elliott gives it 8/10 but I can't exactly figure out way in reading his article. He says it is fun, but something like AD&D with Ninjas and Kung-fu.  We get a new Paranoia book, Vapors Don't Shoot Back (7/10), a review of the almost legendary Masks of Nyarlathotep (9/10) and Thrilling Locations for the James Bond game (9/10).  Interestingly enough this is the first Open box in a long while that does not have any D&D related material.

The Face of Chaos is another look at alignment in AD&D.  Frankly even then I was tired of alignment discussions. Still am.

RuneRites gives us a couple of water-based creatures; the Frostgrim and Neried.

Cults of the dark Gods is the start of what promises to be a new feature on a "translation of ancient texts" for Call of Cthulhu.  This one deals with the original order of assassins and the Knights Templar.  I have often said you can't have a proper conspiracy theory unless it somehow involves the Knights Templar.

An ad for the D&D Masters game.

A Box of Old Bones is an AD&D/Dragon Warriors adventure for starting characters. Five pages with map, it looks like it could be a good starter adventure or better yet a good starter adventure for someone familiar with one of the games and learning the other.

Starbase covers Avionics failures.  Honestly I thought something like this was already in rules.  Of course the biggest issue is not that, but the assumption that you could have complete failure like this with out backup systems.  Plus today we would call these Sensors and not Avionics (which are in aircraft).

Two pages of Letters this issue.  I think this was around the same time Dragon had less letters.

Tower Trouble is an adventure for 3-6 Traveller characters. It is also quite long at 6 pages.

Monsters Have Feelings Too, Two is a follow up to the article in WD38 about playing monsters as intelligent opponents and not as walking collections of XP.

Fiend Factory is back, but it only has one D&D monster, a Psychic Vampire, and a weak one at that.

Treasure chest has treasure this time, with two magic items for divination and prophesy. A card and "tellstones".  Interesting ideas that I don't think work as well on the game table as they do on paper.

Gobildegook is still a full page. The newsboard/rumor page talks about an update finally to T1.

We end with ads including full page, full color ads for Unearthed Arcana, Marvel Super Heroes and Talisman.

This issue feels bigger than the last one, though I am not sure and don't want to grab #70 to find out.  It feels larger and that is what matters when buying it at the store. Speaking of which I am pretty sure that this was the time that all my local, and not so local, book stores stopped carrying White Dwarf.  It would not be till I got to college in 87 before I would find back issues of WD on the shelves next to back issues of Heavy Metal.

A solid issue with a lot of material, just nothing that jumped out at me.  Of course my apathy was also pretty high at this time and I was strictly AD&D and nothing else from late 85 to 87.  The great thing is that this is really my first time going through these issues in depth since I got them, so really everything is new to me.

White Dwarf Wednesday #70

White Dwarf for October 1985 feels like it should be ushering in a new era in WD.  It doesn't, at least not yet, but there is change coming.  We begin with a cool cover of a barbarian of some sort fighting an undead wizard or lich and his demonic concubine/familiar/slave in front of a golden idol.  Pretty cool.  The cover is by Brian Williams.

Our editorial is interesting since it covers the demise of Imagine.  I picked up the first dozen or so issues of Imagine myself and wanted to do a retrospective of them as well.  When James over at Grognardia was doing his I was hoping that the months we reviewed would have been close together to get a good idea of what was going on in 1983-1985 gaming wise, at least from a perspective outside my own local one and my own remembrances. But like Imagine, the retrospectives stopped short of their full potential.  Pity really.  Maybe I will pick up Imagine someday.   Ian waxes nostalgic as well.

White Dwarf had been over the last few issues moving into newer games, mostly Golden Heroes.  This issue though is a pretty firm "D&D" one.  We begin with Graemme Davis discussing literacy and languages in AD&D.  The rules he suggests are more complicated than what most of us would want to use today, but I can totally see people using this.

The Coven is a group of super villains for Golden Heroes and the focus of Heroes & Villains this issue.  The members are listed, but only one is detailed.  They are a bit (ok a lot) cliched, but for comic book/supers villains they are not so bad.  There are five members and each one takes on the name of some other mytho-historic figure (Morgan, Salome, Cain, Moloch and Maximilian).  With some tweaks they could be fun.

Crawling Chaos has a great article on converting 1920s Call of Cthulhu prices from American dollars to British Pounds, Shillings and Pence (Britain was not on a decimal money system till 1971).  This article seems quaint to us now, not just because we have Cthulhu by Gaslight, but also because such things are easy to find on the net now.  Heck even in the 10 years since I wrote Ghosts of Albion this stuff is easier to find (unless of course you happen to have the rates of inflation between 1837 and 1845 memorized).

Open Box does D&D this month.  The X modules are reviewed, X6, X7 and X8 as well as the AD&D DL5 module. Graham Staplehurst reviews all four giving them 8/10, 8/10, 8/10 and 6/10 respectively.  Megan Robertson, who still reviews today for DriveThruRPG reviewed The Lost Shrine of Kasar-Khan. It is an adventure for any FRPG (coughh*D&D*cough) and gets 8/10.  The AD&D Battle System for large battles is reviewed by Graeme Davis. He says it is a good system but maybe over priced.

We get a Golden Heroes and Champions adventure next, Reunion by Simon Burley.  I was never sure why Golden Heroes was given precedence over Champions.  Must have been a local thing.

Diane and Richard John discuss Bounty Hunters as a career in Traveller.  Pretty much every character I ever conceived of in Traveller was some sort of bounty hunter.

In Too Deep has nothing to do with the Phil Collins song out at the same time but an underwater AD&D adventure for 3-6 characters. The adventure is quite detailed and I am struck by how I could work this into the whole Saltmarsh series with some tweaks.
Following up on this is Part 3 of Beneath the Waves.  This issue covers Creatures of the Depths.

Treasure Chest pretends to be Fiend Folio this issue and gives us some monstrous NPCs, a lizard man, a stone giant and an intellect devourer.

Tabletop Heroes covers customizing minis.  My favorite is the saxaphone playing T-Rex.

Gobbledigook is now a full page. The last few pages are all ads.

All in all I like this issue and I hope it is signals some positive changes in the future of WD.  Looking ahead I think I will be pleased, but I know the changes are coming.