White Dwarf continues to evolve here in the late summer of 1985. We are now squarely in the issues where I have no personal connection with. I wasn't reading WD anymore at this point, though I was heavily into Dragon at this point. Also at this time I had pretty much dropped every other game I had played in favor of AD&D alone.
Our cover this time has some orcs and what could be a halfling or a small old human. They are about to get ninja'd by a dude in the background. I did say it was 1985. This is another cover from Brian Williams.
Ian Livingstone discusses the data from the last reader survey. People love the comics, which I don't get, but hey this thing is 28 years old now. They also enjoy Open Box (which I do get). Ian also mentions that WD subscriptions are on the rise.
Ok on to content.
First up is something we could use in the Old-school world now. An Artificer character class for AD&D.
It's a pretty neat little class really and can help explain why the world has so many magic items. What is nice is that was a way for dwarven characters to get some spells. I am pretty certain I would have had at least one character using this class.
Open Box has a lot of products. I think instead of talking about each one I'll focus on the ones that interest me. There is a new Fantasy RPG called Dragonroar that I have never heard of. It looks like what we call a Fantasy Heartbreaker. It only gets 5/10 for being too narrow in scope and simple. Maybe this why I have not heard of it. The other game is Twilight 2000. It also only gets 5/10. Now of course I knew about Twilight2k but I never played it. I do recall years later picking up a copy at a game auction and it only confirmed what I had known for years. I don't like Post Apoc games. I like Gamma World and by extension Mutant Future, but so much in these games feels so contrived. Plus I think I was reading it in 2002 so I rolled my eyes a lot and said "yeah. right" while reading it.
Interestingly enough there is a breakdown on what all the different aspects of the review mean. Only about 60+ issues too late, but A for effort guys!
Nest is Critical Mass, an ad for the new TSR Conan game.
Crawling Chaos, another well liked article is next. This time dealing with clergymen and hypnosis.
Beneath the Waves is a new series of dealing with aquatic adventures in AD&D.
Solo Adventures deals with running solo supers games.
The first adventure of the issue is Lone Dragon a scenario for Traveller. It includes deck plans for the Lone Dragon. These adventures are usually pretty hard for me to judge. This is followed by The Travellers which has stats for two of the main characters.
The Star of Darkness is an AD&D adventure for 3rd to 4th level characters. It uses the artificer class and would be a good introduction to the class.
Treasure chest has a lot of new spells.
While not an inspiring issue, certainly a serviceable one. RuneQuest material has dropped off considerably but we have picked up more Call of Cthulhu which is nice. AD&D continues to be popular though I despite my complaints on quality I do miss Fiend Factory.
We are about to hit the 70s and 1986. My memory of this time tells me there was a lot going on publishing wise even if the industry was in the midst of a cool down period. I'll see if the issues track with my recollections.
There was supposed to be a giant-sized poster with this issue. My garage-sale copy is missing that. Anyone know what it was?
