White Dwarf Wednesday #25

White Dwarf #25 puts White Dwarf into it's 5th year of publication.  It is the summer of 1981 (June/July) and let's get into it.

Again, another really cool cover.  Maybe artistically not as good as last issue, but I have always liked this one.
Ian Livingstone celebrates WD fifth year with an editorial of basically saying we are going to keep doing the stuff you like and stop with the stuff you don't.  he mentions another survey on page 27.

Again in "Must Read Again" articles we have Lew Pulsipher's Part III of an Introduction to Dungeons and Dragons.  This time it is on the magic using classes.  Frankly

I'd love it if these were sent off to the D&D Next team as critical essays on what the game was.

Page 10 is a fun little item.
Called the Creature Quiz, it is a quiz on various elements of "S/F and Fantasy Gaming".
An aside: Was it purely a British thing to call this S/F & F games rather than RPGs?  Anyway the quiz is fun. Answers are not given but you need to send your completed quiz to WD no later than July 1, 1981.

Probably good I missed the date, I am sure I did poorly on this one.

Click to see bigger version

After that we are back in Traveller land with Optional Skill Acquisition. 


Open Box only has three reviews for us.  For Traveller we have "Double Adventure 2: Across the Bright Face/Mission on Mithiril"  It gets are (although less so these days) 10/10 from Trevor Graver.  He liked Across the Bright Face a little more of the two but thought both were great.  "Plunder" and "Runemaster" both from Chaosium are play aids for RuneQuest. Oliver Macdonald gives Runemaster 9/10 saying it contains a lot of useful material and is well worth the cost.  Plunder though only gets a 5/10 stating it's limited usability and redundancy. Finally we get the classic "Space Opera" from Fantasy Games Unlimited reviewed by Andy Slack.  This is the first real competition we see for Traveler and it is Science Fantasy (more or less) and not Science Fiction.  It gets an 8/10, partially for it's complications and a long time to properly set up, but otherwise a fantastic game. 


We get a new series called The Dungeon Architect.  Part 1 is about designing an interesting dungeon.  To begin with we start out with the typical "lather, rinse repeat" style dungeon.  The one where you open door 1, kill monster A, open door 2, kill monster B.  And so on.  The author deconstructs the entire dungeon raiding experience into why and how and for what reason.  Very interesting take on it really.  While we in 2012 have had this discussion before in 1981 it is an interesting new point of view and the start of the growth of D&D in the minds of gamers as something more than just killing monsters underground.  Looking forward to the next two parts.


The Letters page covers various AD&D rule questions.


The Lower Canon Court is an AD&D "Skirmish for a large number of players."  The idea here is a cleric was found guilty in a court and wants revenge.  The characters are all members of the court when the pandemonium breaks loose.  There are a lot of NPCs and a map of the court room.  It's different idea and I like the attempt but I can also see it only appealing to a small crowd of gamers.


Treasure Chest has some new magic items like the Bowl of Everlasting Porridge and Bell of Watchfulness.  Some are still a little silly, but all can be played straight.  


Andy Slack has Traveller rules on Vacc Suits. 


Fiend Factory continues its run of themed monsters.  This time a mini-scenario (more of a plot really) called the Black Manse.  We get Dream Demons, the Incubus, Brain Suckers and a Guardian.  The monsters all designed to challenge a party of levels 5-6.

Starbase is back and celebrating their first year with some suggestions for reading.  Interesting really.

In Character Conjuring Lew Pulsipher talks about what makes a good AD&D character class.  He makes the case that classes should be internally balanced. That is weaknesses to set off strengths.  A wizard can't use armor or swords for example. He is also talkas about between class balance and that not all characters of say 3rd level should be the same power.  Another issue he brings up are the serious use of joke classes (like the Jester and Idiot from Dragon a few years back, but oddly not any of the WD joke classes are mentioned).

The new questionnaire follows on the other half of the page. Results are promised in a future issue.
Again, get yours in by July 1st, 1981.

This is followed by the Classifieds/Small ads, and a few more pages of ads.
In the end we get an ad for the AD&D lead figure line.  Back when they were lead and you had to pain them yourself.  I loved those as a kid.  AND I might add I just acquired a bunch of these in fantastic shape.  Pictures soon.

WD ended up being 4 pages less this time around.  Not really sure why.
After a period of growth WD seems to be content to keep on with what works, though the gaming world is now showing unprecedented growth. It will be interesting to see what happens in the next few months.

My Kids are Awesome!

With the new reprints of 1st Ed AD&D now out my kids want our next game to be a 1st Edition one!

How freaking cool is that?

We have done just about everything we have set out to do in 3rd Ed and our 4th Ed game is still moving right along.

So what should we do then for 1st Ed?
I know I am going to throw in some house rules.

• 1st level HP will be equal to Con scores for all characters and NPCs include 0-level humans.
• I will be using bards, I am just not sure which one yet.
• Double damage on a natural 20.
• Will use strict multi-class and dual-class rules.
• If it is written down somewhere and it works with AD&D1, 2 or Basic D&D then it will be considered for this game.

I know I am going to use ideas from ALL the retro-clones where appropriate.  So it will be less of a 1st Ed game in rules, but certainly one in terms of tone and spirit.

Here are the adventures I want to use.  Again, I like sticking with these old school modules.

T1 Village of Hommlet, levels 1-2 (IF I don't use it in the D&D4 game)
B1 Into the Unknown, levels 1-3 (my go to starting module)
B2 Keep on the Borderlands, levels 1-3 (how can I NOT do this?)

L1 The Secret of Bone Hill, levels 2-4
X2 Castle Amber, levels 3-6 (love this freaky module, though it sticks out as the only Non-Greyhawk one)
A1-4 Slave Lords, levels 4-7
C2 Ghost Tower of Inverness, levels 5-7
S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, levels 8-12
G123, Against the Giants, levels 8-12 (I also have the Stone Giant one from Dragonsfoot)
D12,3 Against the Drow, levels 8,9-14
Q1 Queen of the Demonweb Pits, 10-14
S1 Tomb of Horrors, levels 10-14 (IF I don't use it in the D&D4 game, it is an AD&D classic)
CM2 Death's Ride, levels 15-20. (Again, unless I use it in my current 3.x game which the boys want me to do)

AND if their 4.e group does not get to the end, then I could use the Bloodstone H series too.  But that is getting WAY ahead of myself.

If you look over my previous plans here and here, you see I am sticking with the modules. 
I am running the HPE Orcus ones for 4e, and used many of the other classics in my 3.x games.

So far the boys have gone through B3, B4, S2, S4, WG4, I1, and X1 for 3.x (and a bunch I made up when they were younger like "Cave of the Rainbow Dragon" and "The Stinky Cave"), and H1 Keep on the Shadowfell for 4e.  So they are getting, as my youngest put it this morning, a full Dungeons & Dragons education.

Again.  This is going to be a lot of fun!  I am not expecting this one to start anytime soon, I still have a 3.x game to finish with them. 

The Complete B/X Adventurer is Mine!

NOTE My updated review is here:
http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-complete-bx-adventurer.html

I got my copy of the Complete B/X Adventurer in the mail yesterday.

It certainly lives up to it's hype and to it's predecessor the B/X Companion.
You don't need the B/X Companion to use this, but it certainly helps.

It reminds me a lot of the old Bard Games "The Compleat ______" books. That is a good thing in my book.

I will get a proper review up soon.  But here is the brief one.
I like it.  I like the witch class but the summoner might end up being my favorite.
Can't wait for the PDF so I can have it on my tablet.

Adventures in Oz

With the Christmas in July sale going on I thought I would point out that one of my favorites games is on sale.

Adventures in Oz

Ever since I was little, I mean really little, I have enjoyed "The Wizard of Oz".  I can recall being about 4 or so and being frightened of the flying monkeys, the Winkies and of course the Wicked Witch.  I also remember we had this old copy of the Wizard of Oz book in the house and I remembered how different it was than the movie.

Oz is a fascinating place really, and I was amazed the first time I learned how much of it was there beyond Dorothy and her friends. I learned about names like Mombi and Ozma.  I will admit I have always wanted to put a "pumpkin head" in my games largely in part due to "Journey Back to Oz".  In my WitchCraft games we also used to call witch hunters "Dorothies".

I think Oz is a bit under rated to be honest.  It's not the drug referenced lands of Alice or even the purely fantasy of Peter Pan, it is, in a way, pragmatically American.  But it is fertile land as well. It gave us "The Wiz" and "Tin Man" and of course, "Wicked".

So I was thrilled when I heard of F. Douglas Wall's Adventures in Oz RPG.
It is, like the literary Oz, a great game for the younger set. The rules are fast, simple to learn and you can be up and playing in no time at all.  They game is also really, really fun. If you never play it, the book offers a good resource to using Oz in your own games.

The game is simple, fast and fun.

If you have kids and want to introduce them to the world of Role-playing then this is a great bet.  Just like Oz you get a fantastic land that is kid friendly with characters we all know (or at least, mostly know) and like Oz there is a lot more to this game than seen at first glance.

This is also a great game for adults.  I would recomend a game of Oz as a palette cleanser.  There are no Tolkien dwarves or elves in this game, but plent of Muchkins, Winkies and Gilikins.  There is magic, but it's not the same as all the other games you have played.  Plus it is rules lite so Narators and players can get up to speed fast.

All in all this is a great game and worth picking up.

DriveThruRPG Christmas in July

I know it has been 100+ degree out, but DriveThruRPG is thinking cool winter thoughts.
They are having their annual Christmas in July sale again.  The sale begins today (at 9:00am Central) and continues for a week!

They are featuring 25% off hundreds of titles (I found nearly 11,500).

This might be your best chance to get that game you want before GenCon.

Review: Wizard's World (1983)

What can one say about Wizard's World?

Well for starters it could be easily dismissed as yet another fantasy heartbreaker, but I don't think that would be fair really.
Yes it's AD&D roots are showing and there is a lot about the this game that is derivative.  But that is looking at it in 2012.  To look at this game as it was meant to be seen you have look at it with 1983 eyes.

This game offers some interesting twists beyond the typical D&D knock-off.  First I love the art in this book.  Sure there has been better art, much better art, even in books from the same time. But there is such an honesty about it that I enjoy.  And I LOVE that cover.
The attributes are nearly the same, enough that conversions are easy.  The charts all go to 30 which is nice.

Ok so we have a bunch of classes, many of which would drop right into AD&D, OSRIC or what ever Clone you enjoy.  There are a number of fighter-like classes, that honestly only differ a little bit from each other, but that is fine.  Some martial artists, some magic using types, 14 total.  What is cool is there is Vampire class!  Something we won't see again till D&D4 or until I did my own (link).  We have all the standard races plus some new ones, Metamorphic Dwarfs and Demon Halflings.  Honestly the book is worth it just to be able to say "Demon Halflings"!

There are 22 pages worth of spells that go all the way to level 10.
Rules follow next which is primarily about combat, weapons, poisons, potions and the like.   A little bit on magic items.
Monsters follow. There are a few, but almost no overlap between here and what you might find in a typical monster manual for a game.  There are dragons, but very different from what we are used to seeing in "D&D".
Some suggestions for play and threadbare character sheet.

Ok what is good about this game?  Lots really.  If you play D&D or some old school game you would be hard pressed not to find something here to use.  Did I mention the Demon Halflings yet?  There are plenty of monsters and lots of spells.

What is bad?  That is subjective.  If you are not a fan of old-school play or expect full color art then you will be disappointed.

What did I like? Nearly everything really.  I have to hand it to Dan Procter and Goblinoid Games for becoming an old-games preservation society.   This game isn't going to win any awards now nor would it have won any then, but it is a fun trip into the past when many games were little more than a few pages, a staple and your friend's brother to do the art.

At 80+ pages this is packed.

If you wanted to play this system and say use one my of witch classes from either The Witch or Eldritch Witchery then I say you would need an INT 11 and WIL 11.  Choose spells from the witch lists and use those or the WW spell that was most similar.

Games You Never Get to Play

When people talk about influences on their games and gaming life they typically mention the works of Fritz Leiber or Jack Vance or Tolkein or the other Appendix N names.

Not me.  Well, yes I have read those, but they were not biggest effect on my games.

My Appendix N is full of Hammer Horror and In Search Of... and any more dozens of bad-wrong-fun horror and occult material from the 70s.  It should be no surprise then that I gravitate towards games that let me do that sort of thing, Chill, Call of Cthulhu and of course WitchCraft.

But just as I am a product of 70's and 80's horror, there were other things going on then.  Still lots of "leftover hippie shit" as I used to call it.  Zodiacs, crystals, psychic powers.  All the stuff that gets mixed in with magic and the occult, plus aliens, Atlantis, secret societies, Erich von Däniken and all that.

Basically all the stuff left over when you take out the horror and the magic from the big occult boom of the 70's.

What has this have to do with gaming?

Lots!

There is one game I have always wanted to play but doubt that I ever will.

It's not a game per-se but rather a campaign.

The game is one set in the 70s where all the characters are teens.  They are also, unknown to them until the game starts, the children of the first successful alien-human hybrids.  They look completely human, but each one has unique pyschic powers.  No magic, all psychic.  The drama comes in when the teens discover what they are and the government comes in to take them to a secure facility.

So you can see where this gets it's genesis.  There were a ton of shows in the 70s about kids with powers or people being chased by the government.  I want to put it in the 70s so I can avoid cell phones, gps and the like.  Plus it was the last time teens could hitchhike across the US without people calling the cops.   I'd work in mysteries of Atlantis, crystals with magic powers, strange MIB agents, aliens out to kill them all that great stuff.  Setting it in the 70s also lets me bring in "future tech" like more powerful computers and things we use today.

The list of influences of this game go on and on.  Basically I'd go to Wikipedia's Psuedoscience category and pick and choose.

My game system of choice would be Conspiracy X since I can use most of the mythos intact.  The Unexplained would also work well as would a low powered Mutants & Masterminds game.  Something like Damnation Decade, but with more danger and horror, and none of the alt-history.

I'd love to play it or even write it.  But I doubt I'll have the time.
If I were to write it all out I'd call it "Star Child" sounds very 70s.

What games or campaigns do you really want to play but don't think you will?