White Dwarf #92 comes to us from August 1987. About this time I was headed off to college and my game playing took a slight hit. It would pick up again soon, but my game went for a change after this. Interesting for me is the change White Dwarf was also going through as well. Something due to the time or just my perceptions? Likely just me.
The cover is by David Gallagher. It has a vague Warhammer feel to it. The editorial is a rambling affair about how demons in RuneQuest are not real. I may sound a bit glib here, but this was big deal here in the states just a few years before this. Later in this issue we discuss more demons in RuneQuest.
Open Box covers the new Stormbringer RPG and RuneQuest (Advanced RQ). Going back to my idea of "Plays Well With Others", Elric, Stormbringer and RuneQuest were always games I liked mixing up and together. The reviews are positive, as expected. Also reviewed is the Ghostbuster adventure Scared Stiffs. I liked the idea of the Ghostbusters game, I just never got the chance to play it much. Graeme Davis enjoyed it. Also reviewed is the Miskatonic U. Graduate Kit, which is a product I always thought was fun but never used as much as I like. DA3 City of the Gods for D&D continues the Blackmoor series. I13 Adventure Pack I is not actually part of the I series, more of the REF series. The general tone here is that WD is bored with D&D in general at this point. I can't say that I blame them. TSR at this point was in a bit of a rut.
Awesome Lies gives us the latest rumors. The draft of West End Game's new Star Wars game is discussed. It is fast to play and the play-testers hummed Vader's theme while playing. Cute. Also covered is the new non-TSR D&D adventure from Gary Gygax's new company New Infinities. I am not sure if this ever came out or not. I am pretty sure it didn't and my 20 second Google Search found nothing. I do remember the dust up over Gary's and GDW's "Dangerous Journey" and TSR.
Three page article on how to work for Games Workshop. Sorta tongue in cheek, sorta serious, has me scratching my head. Was GW needing a lot of people at this time?
For the Warhammer Fantasy article we cover familiar ground; the psychology of Elves, Dwarves and Halflings (and Gnomes). Long one and and an interesting read, but there isn't anything new here. Dwarves are stereotypical drunks and so on. A load of missed opportunity here if you ask me, especially if you consider the page count given to it.
Clarifications and Errata for the game Chainsaw Warrior. Anyone play this? I have never heard of it.
The "Featured" article is Demons and it is for RuneQuest 3rd Edition. I always rather liked the demons in RQ, they felt a little different than the ones in D&D and therefore
had to be better. At 12 pages it goes into some detail. Most of the demons presented are unique and could be ported over to any game. Back in the day I would have worked out every detail of them to make sure their power was on par with their RQ counterpart. Today I am likely just use Balor stats and work from there. A lot of interesting creatures though.
Rescue the Paladin is an AD&D adventure for 5-8 players with characters level 6-8 by Carl Sargent. Interestingly enough it states it is NOT designed to use Unearthed Arcana. Though it is the first mention of "THAC0" I have seen in WD. Instead of classic rescuing the princess, this is rescue the Paladin, Sir Lawrence Le Bon (I didn't make that up). The antagonist is of course a woman named Janni who is a "witch in all but name". The PCs have to defeat her before she "violates Sir Lawrence's vow of chastity". This one would have been a hard sell to my group back then. AS can be expected I find Janni far more interesting than pretty much the rest of the adventure. But hey. That's me.
A couple of pages of Warhammer errata.
'Eavy Metal gives painting advice.
Thrice Upon a Time in Mega City 1 has three mini adventures for Judge Dredd. Again they look good in fact with a little tweaking they could work as hooks for a Mutant & Masterminds game. It also had me thinking that a Judge Dredd / ShadowRun crossover might be fun to try. Not that there is anything like ShadowRun in these to be honest, but it got me thinking all the same.
Letters and Small ads end this issue.
So the romance between D&D and WD is very much over and WD is just still mentioning D&D because they still have all the same friends. Still a lot of interesting things in this issue and the new style is really starting to come into it's own here.
