White Dwarf Wednesday #50

Wow. 50 Issues.  We are half-way through my collection now, give or take a couple of Best of's.  The staff of White Dwarf is just as excited in this February 1984 issue.  Let's go!

Now this issue I have some pretty fond memories of.  First I enjoyed it when it came out and it was also one of the first one I sought out in the 90s when I wanted to get back into Call of Cthulhu.  The cover art represents the main feature of this issue, a new CoC adventure.

There is a big ad for Warhammer which includes some game bits about Dark Elves.  I liked how "elf maidens are a as cruel and murderous as their menfolk."

Ian Livingstone starts out my also being amazed at 50 issues. It's a pretty big milestone really.  He lets us know some more changes are on the way by Issue #52.

Garth Nix is up first with Red Tape in Traveller.  Almost as exciting as red tape in real life.  Glad he went on to bigger things.

Open Box has the first set of reviews in a long time that do not have any D&D or RuneQuest books.  Marcus Rowland reviews GW's Steve Jackson's Socrcery for use with Fighting Fantasy. He liked it but didn't think it brought anything new to the game, 7/10.   A bunch of ICE Middle Earth RPG supplements are also reviewed.  Back in 84 ICE's Middle Earth was a big deal for me.  I loved the books, but no place local had them and no one around me would play it.  Reviewed by Jonathan Sutherland are: Guidebook and Gridded Map (6/10), Angmar - Land of the Witchking (7/10), Court of Ardor - In Southern Middle Earth (7/10), Umbar - Haven of the Corsairs (7/10), Northern Mirkwood - The Woodelves Realm (8/10), and Southern Mirkwood - Haunt of the Necromancer (8/10).    Rereading this review still makes me want these books, even if I never play MERP.  Finally Tarsus for Traveller is up. It is called an "Adventure module"; scenario having been dropped. Andy Slack, Traveller expert in residence, gives it 9/10.

Critical Mass reviews some Brian Aldiss.  Aldiss gives me a headache sometimes. I get why he is liked, I just don't share it.

Fiend Factory self-indulges in stating up the various personalities from White Dwarf in both RQ and AD&D versions.  Included are The White Dwarf, Gobbledigook, Thrud the Barbarian, Agaroth the Unwashed (guy from the ads), Ugbash Facesplitter,  and Ian Livingstone (??).  Also included are Griselda and Wolfhead for AD&D, their RQ stats having premiered earlier.  While I normally am cool to these sort of things and don't care for the stating up of real people as themselves in game, I like this because of the dual stating.

Jim Bambra has another look of Clerics in Divinations and the Divine.  I remember using some of this for my cleric classes.

The Watchers of Walberswick is the aforementioned CoC adventure.  I was excited for this adventure back then, and it is fine, but it doesn't stand up to the tests of time and memory.

Dean Aston has some "hardware" for RuneQuest characters.  Again this one is generic enough to be used anywhere.

Part 2 of the The Key of Tirandor is next, picking up right where Part 1 left off.  It is quite long at 5 pages.

Thrud is messing things up on the next page.

Microview is still chugging away, this time with two short programs on vehicle capacity and costs for three different games.  I liked this one becuae it ws using the flavor of BASIC I was using at the time, so no need to convert.  Though I seem to recall that the ' for comment didn't work on my CoCo and I had to use REM afterall.

Letters has some quibbles about the survey.

Lew Pulsipher has an alternate view of leveling up in AD&D in Going Up.  The same idea would end up being reused in True20 and D&D4 (for the most part).

Counterpoint covers ICE's The Fellowship of the Ring board game.

Treasure chest has weapons for the Assassin: Garrote, Two-Stage Poison (used a lot of that!), The Killing Cup and Dagger of Slaying. I don't recall this article per se, but I do recall these items.

Another attempt at a gossip, rumor, small news page is rolled out.  This time it is "KaLi Presents: Baelpen Bulletins".  Still under the "News" header.  Nothing jumps out at me in this one save that TSR is working on a "Spider-man" game.

Travellers is next, followed by Small Ads and Gobbledigook.

We end with ads.

All in all a great issue.  I remember using quite a bit of these things back in the day so this issue holds up for me.  Funny that the reason I re-bought it turned out to be the least interesting to me now.

White Dwarf Wednesday #49

White Dwarf #49 opens up 1984 for us.  A big year in gaming for me personally.  Let's see what this issue has in store for us.  A sci-fi inspired one, no doubt for the multi-system adventure later on.

Ian Livingstone comments on the Orwellian overtones, or lack thereof, of today's gaming.  Honestly it seemed like a weak linking to me.  It's 1984 and you need to say something about 1984.  Interestingly enough I read 1984 just the year prior.  Never really thought there was much for RPGs in it.  Computer gaming yes, but not TTRPGs.

Up first is Shuttle Scuttle by Thomas M Price. This is the mentioned multi-system adventure.  This one supports Traveller (natch), Space Opera and Laserburn.  I'll admit, I have never heard of Laserburn and I am sure it is not one I forgot.  Now as a general rule I love multi-system products.  I like them for their own value but also for the insight they give on conversions. The adventure is 4 pages, so not a bad deal really.

Open Box has reviews.  Up first is the Monster Manual II for AD&D by TSR.  Megan C. Evans gives it a 7/10 stating that there too many high level monsters and no "good" aligned monsters.  Up next Marcus Rowland reviews a couple of  solitaire adventure books by Puffin Books/Steve Jackson, Starship Traveller and City of Thieves.  They get 9/10 and 8/10 respectively.  We get some Traveller expansions by GDW,
Supplement 12 - Forms and Charts, Supplement 13 - Veterans and Adventure 9 - Nomads of the World Ocean.  Again Andy Slack is on Traveller duty, but he gives the first two a rare 2/10 and 3/10 claiming that most of this is available elsewhere.  Adventure 9 gets a more respectable 9/10.  Jon Sutherland takes on the classic Mercenaries, Spies and Private Eyes.  Though he doesn't seem to think so giving it and it's adventure, The Jade Jaguar, a 4/10 and 3/10.

Critical Mass has a bit on the book The Neverending Story.  The upcoming movie is mentioned, but honestly could anything prepare us for Limahl?

Chris Felton has Clay to Marble: Construction in AD&D. A neat little article with guidelines for constructions times. I seem to recall reading this years ago since some of this sounds very familiar.

Thurd the Barbarian goes up against the evil Necromancer.  Not sure if this is the Necromancer from #35 or not. ;)

Dave Morris has some variant rules for RuneQuest in Runes in the Dungeon.  Skills groups and other rules to help build D&D-like characters.  In particular I like the "witch" rules.  I would expand it into a 120 page book, but that is just me.   RuneRites is up next with various questions and answers.

StarBase has more fleets for your Traveller game.
Letters covers mostly praise for Irillan and the new look of WD.


The Key of Tirandor Part 1 is a new campaign for levels 6-9 by Mike Polling.  This part is five pages and includes 6 PCs.  It looks quite interesting to be honest.

There is more of The Goblin Cult of Kernu for RuneQuest, but like I mentioned before it is interesting enough and flexible enough to use in D&D.

Travellers is next trying to fit in any and every sci-fi in joke and reference it can.  I am not sure I can even find the story here to be honest.  There is though an 2000 AD comic feel to this one. 

Super Mole is back as an RPG "gossip" column.  Normally I like these sorts of things. Much for the same reasons I like previews in the movie theaters, I like to know what is coming up.  Reviewing a 30 year old gossip column though is odd to say the least. What is interesting is not what was going to come out, but what didn't.  Though there are some bits that are interesting.  Such as Rose Estes leaving TSR. There is a bit about Mayfair vs. TSR and the eventual fate of what will become the loved BECMI sets.  Mole does not predict I at all.

Fiend Factory features Insect World this month with the Skullcatcher, Giant Praying Mantis, Giant Moth and the Golden Beetle.  Serviceable, but nothing special.  

Treasure Chest covers Illusions and Illusionists. I can't help but feel a lot of work was being put in to making the Illusionist interesting and cool and having it all sort of fall flat.  I did have an Illusionist character back in the day.  As much as I liked the guy I still felt and feel that he was really nothing more than a weak Wizard.  Obviously I thought the Witch was a better choice as a class.  I think I was even getting all my materials together at this point for my very first witch class.

The survey results from #45 are in. Long story short, most people like most things about WD.  There are not a lot of surprises here really. Microview and Counterpoint were the lowest rated articles.   Of the recent features, The Dungeon Architect was #1, followed by Irilian, the Town Planner, Dealing with Demons and The Necromancer.  Lew get's his revenge.

Issue 44 had the best art work proving once again that near-nudity sells.  Dragon and Imagine are the two other magazines most often read/bought in addition to WD. AD&D, RuneQuest and Traveller are the top 3 games played. Followed by D&D, T&T and Call of Cthulhu. Home computer ownership is about 50/50 and most of the ones that do own them do play games on it.  98% of the readership is Male and the median age is (was) 15.  Yeah. That was me.  

Gobbledigook gets deep. And we end with the normal small ads/classifieds and ads. 

A good issue. Not an inspired one to be sure, but solidly good.  

We are going into the 50s now where my memories of them are less solid.  I was not reading WD much into and past 1984.  I was solidly into Dragon at this point, but I still enjoyed WD and picked it up again in 1987 or so with some of the back issues going back to the 60s.  

White Dwarf Wednesday #48

White Dwarf Wednesday takes us to the end of 1983. For Christmas I got a copy of the Police's Synchronicity and I believe the Monster Manual II (and check out the ad for it at the end...if you have a copy).  Out of the shelves was White Dwarf #48.

This one of the cooler WD covers. Brought to us by Alan Craddock I for years thought it was a Chris Achilleos.

Ian Livingstone talks about bring out some RPGs to play with the family this Christmas, wondering what Granny might think of Orc stomping.

Up first is Open Box with a ton of items.  For AD&D we have UK1: Beyond the Crystal Cave, EX1: Dungeonland and EX2: The Land Beyond the Magic Mirror. For D&D X3: Curse of Xanathon. Jim Bambara likes the modules for the most part giving them 9/10, 9/10, 9/10 and 7/10 respectively.  Andy Slack tackles the new version of the Traveller basic rules. This is the cover I remember most about the mid 80s.  It is also the version of the Traveller I never tried having ended with the Blue Book. He gives it an 8/10 overall, but still states that neophytes are better served with one of the other sets.  Jon Sutherland takes on the two Call of Cthulhu adventures (and they are called Adventures now, not Scenarios). Death in Dunwich and The Arkham Evil.  He gives them 7/10 and 8/10 respectively saying these are not for fool hardy players used to hack and slash.  Finally we have the Autoduel Champions and Car Wars Reference Screen.  Autoduel gives us Car Wars for Champions.  Marcus Rowland gives them 8/10 and 6/10.

The book reviews focus on the then recent batch of sci-fi/fantasy books. The Complete Book of SF and Fantasy is one that jumps out at me.  I think I owned this at one point, but the title is so generic I could have owned something very similar.   There is also a review of Moorcock's  Dancers at the End of Time, which I have not read.  A couple of Trek books are also covered including what is likely to have been the first time I had ever heard of what is now known as Slashfic, called Kirk-Spocking here.

Lew Pulsipher's  Lew's Views is back this month and covers Gods, Magic and FRP battles.  He discusses the nature of Gods and Magic in fantasy battles.

Rick Priestly has an article on using Giants in Warhammer.  There are some interesting and mostly game agnostic rules about giants getting drunk.  I might try these out.

The Dark Brotherhood is an alternate system for Assassins in AD&D by Chris Felton.  I remember reading this way back when and it influenced the assassin guilds I had made for my game. The Brotherhood (no relation I am sure since I was big into acronyms then and wanted it to spell out BEAST) and the Red Assassins were two rival guilds in my games.  I never made characters in either guild sign contracts.

Counterpoint discusses boardgames derived from books. The big ones are discussed; LotR, Dune, Call of Cthulhu and Asimov's books and the varying degrees of success they achieved.

Ian Bailey has some RuneQuest crunch and fluff for us in the form of Crom Cruach, a Goblin Cult.   It is interesting enough to use anywhere.

Tracing Errors is this issue's Microview article and Gareth Williams covers how to find and debug errors in your programming.

Letters covers level limits in AD&D, Marc Miller and Thomas Price praising the coverage of various Traveller articles.

Marcus Rowland covers computers in Traveller.  By this time the concept of what a computer could do had changed in the world since Traveller had been published.  Computers had always been one of Traveller's weakest area in terms of future tech.  This article helps, but doesn't quite get it there.  My smart phone laughs at the idea of 1 ton batteries powering a computer for only 12 hours.

RuneRites has a double feature for us today. Monsters and a new scenario.  The monsters are listed (nothing jumps out at me), we break for a Thrud the Barbarian strip and head into the scenario.  The Lone and Level Sands is dual stated for AD&D AND RuneQuest.   New monsters are given both RuneQuest and AD&D stats (or at least where you can get them).

Fiend Factory returns the favor and converts the RQ demons from the last few issues into AD&D demons.
Treasure Chest follows with some demon related spells for D&D/AD&D.

The Travellers get into more trouble. And the Victoria Gazette is another attempt at a news article.  No jokes this time, just straight news.

Classifieds and Small ads follow.  Gobbledigook shows us how to handle Illusionists.
Ads end the issue including full page ones for James Bond, Games Fair 84,  Games Workshop and TSR for the Monster Manual II.

In general I feel that once again the layout and general design of the magazine was turned up a bit.  The page count is now up to 52 and still only 75p.

You can get a better look at that cover art here:

White Dwarf Wednesday #47

NOTE: Looking for the Beginnings Blogfest Post? Go here.

White Dwarf Wednesday today takes us all the way back to Issue #47 from November 1983. The first thing we should notice is this combination Bushido/Iron Maiden cover.  That's pretty much 1983 in a nutshell right there.  We also get our first add for Talisman, a game I never played.

Ian Livingstone talks about analysing the reader feedback given in the Reader Strikes Back.  He also praises Alan Craddock for the cover of WD 44 stating it is the most popular cover so far. Wonder why.

Up first is the Demonist class for D&D by Phil Masters. This class, a sub-class of the Cleric summons up demons to do it's will.  The class in not bad and there are some new spells.  While the class is neat, I doubt I'll use it.

Open Box has four books this week. FGU's Privateers  and Gentlemen gets a respectable 9/10 from Ian Waddelow. He enjoys how it can be played as a pure RPG or a pure War Game or some combination of the two.  The Asylum and Other Tales for CoC from Chaosium is next.  Jon Sutherland is also not cheap with the praise, saying not to be put off by the price (£7.95) and gives it a 9/10 as well.  I talked a little about Star Fleet Battles last week, well this week (and in 1983) the topic is Fighters and Shuttles from Task Force Games for SFB.  Jim Sizer gives it a 7/10 liking the increased numbers of ships and the 5 scenarios, but not liking that some combat is not made easier.  Chaosium is up again with The Big Rubble about the ruins of Pavis for RuneQuest. Oliver Dickinson likes it and gives the best parts 10/10, most of the areas 8-9/10 and some only 5-6/10.

Critical Mass details some more books including masters Asimov and Clarke.  I find this article harder to review.  There are a couple of reasons. One, the books are dated.  I mean anything I review here has been reviewed hundreds of times in the last 30 years.  Also the article itself, the layout, makes it look like one huge paragraph.  Maybe my eyes are getting old.

Zine Scene is next and it is described as an occasional article dedicated to the "street level" news of going ons in RPG and fandom.  I am sure this has a lot to do with adding Mike Lewis to the set of editors.
Interestingly enough there is some news in here about other Zines opening up. I guess WD didn't consider them as competition at all.  They shouldn't, but I am not sure I ever recall seeing such "openness" in Dragon.

There is a two page article about Goblins in RuneQuest.  It's an interesting read.  Interesting because is sounded very familiar to me.  I am sure I had read this one back in the day and my goblins of today can trace their lineage back to this.

Letters is next with general praise and asking for clarifications.

Starbase is up with a bunch of Aliens for Traveller.  Anyone use these in a Traveller based "Bug hunt"?

The last part of Irilian is posted with a big map and brief adventure.  I am not sure if any updates were ever made to this city or not.  But there really should have been.  What I would like now is too take all six parts and do a retrospective on them.  Maybe later.

RuneRites has Morale. Neat, but nothing I could use back then.

Kwaidan is next and it is a big deal.  Big because for the first time have an adventure for Bushido.  The RuneQuest/D&D/Traveller lock is broken!  Ok yeah we have had some others, but to me this is a bigger deal.

Treasure Chest goes Dorian Grey on us and gives us a great painting for the Necromancer character that everyone hated. Well. I liked it, but it raised a fuss.

Fiend Factory gives us some mini-monsters for D&D. The Diabolo is kinda neat if you think of it as a devil-kobold cross breed.  The Trollkin, is a combination of brownie and troll and one I used a couple of times. The others, the Trist, Krowks (demonic crows) and Gromits (Wallace no where to be seen).  I took this article an ran with it creating my own "Trobbits"  which were a cross between a troll and a, um, er, halfling.  I should post those sometime.

Pitbits is another news column. With "Demogorgon" as editor and "Orcus" as Advertisement Manager.  :rolleyes:

We get some Thrud and some Travellers. Gobbledigook was up there somewhere; head butting an orc.

Ending up with the small ads.  There seems to be more items for sale in this one.  People unloading their collections.  The first wave of gamers moving on?  Who knows.
Ads for the James Bond 007 game, Battlecars and Knight Hawks.
There is an ad for a "Truly British" Victorian Adventure game to appear at Games Day 83.  Anyone know what that was for?

We have been fluctuating between 44 and 48 pages (counting covers) for a bit now, but we seem squarely stuck on 48 now.

In 1983 I don't know it yet, but we are leaving the Golden Age behind. Maybe those gamers in the small ads knew this and sold off their copies of RuneQuest, Traveller and White Box D&D knowing that the hobby was about to change again.  Nah. They didn't know anymore than I did really.  I was clueless, sitting there waiting for the next supplement or module, listing to my cassette copy of Chart Action '83 from K-Tel.  I had no reason to know either.  My 13/14 year old self doesn't care what my 43/44 year old self has to say.

White Dwarf Wednesday #46

Happy New Year everyone!  Welcome back to the Other Side and my weekly feature White Dwarf Wednesdays. Every Wednesday I take an issue of White Dwarf and run through it both with an eye towards what the issue meant to me then and what it means in the scope of my gaming today.

This Wednesday we are going back to October 1983 and Issue #46.
Let's start with the cover.  An improvement over last week I think.  Futuristic flying city with jet fighters. Cool idea. I wonder if this was supposed to be taking place in 2013!

We have the usual pages of ads including a new one for Battlecars from Games Workshop.
Our editorial this month comes once again from Ian Livinstone. He discusses the latest landmark reached by White Dwarf, 20,000 copies per month. He credits this to the rise in the  RPG hobby, which at the time was nearly 10 years old and the inclusion of WD in WHSmith stores.

First up in the articles we have Phil Palmer trying to bring some logic to wandering monsters.  This is territory that has been well covered.  I am not even sure if games today even talk about wandering monsters anymore.  I still use them out of habit, but they have to make some sort of sense. I am not sure if it was reading this article that got to me to that point, or it just seemed logical.

Open Box is next with the RuneQuest Companion as reviewed by Oliver Dickinson. He gives it an 8/10. Mentioned as the first of the series, I'll have to go back and check to see if they kept up with that.   The next item up is the re-issue (as they call  it) of FGU's Chivalry & Sorcery.  Marcus Rowland gives it high marks all around with an overall score of 8/10.  I am a touch surprised that no one has tried to retro-clone this game.  And finally the Sanctuary Board Game from local guys (local to me now that is) Mayfair Games.  It gets a 7/10 from Allan E. Paull.

Critical Mass has some reviews of new books.  One that always grabbed my attention, but I never read was "Golden Witchbreed" by Mary Gentle.  I have to say that going back over these Critical Mass articles have made me want to go back and revisit some of the classics of my youth.  It is 100% nostalgia, but I know I missed some good ones from back then.

Counterpoint is back with a new board game, Dragonhunt.  These articles were always very detailed affairs. Which begs the question.  Was there a greater connection to RPGs and Boardgames in England than here in the US or was I just not that interested in Board Games?

Part 3 of the 3 part Dealing With Demons focuses on the Demonic Nobility.  There is a lot of good advice here for any game that has demons.  The demons themselves do not inspire me, but they are certainly usable.

Phil Masters has some world governments for Traveller.
Lew Pulsipher goes over some non-fiction sources for use in RPGs.

Letters has a letter complaining about the cover for WD 44. 30 years later we still haven't gotten the chainmail bikini worked out of our system. A later asking people to leave D&D for "newer and better" games.  And some alignment squabbles.

Part 5 or 6 of Irilian is up.  I don't recall this one as well but there is a ton of detail.

Play by Mail is the subject of Microview.  Using the computer to handle the PBM turns and then print out and send the GM responses to everyone.   This is a rare window on a time when we knew computers would change everything, we just didn't exactly know how.  While I would say that at least 80% of WD is still usable today,  with 10% of the remainder either needing updated or in use already.  The last 10% or so is something like this.  Artifacts of the hobby that have been left in the past.   PBM would be a foreign concept to many new players and the idea that you would print out something and mailing it makes very little sense.  This is also one of the cases where computers have really improved the experience in my opinion.  A Play By Message Board (PBMB) does allow for the same sort of interaction that MMORPGS only sort of do, but also the ability to connect to other players around the world.  Google+ Hangouts are the current ultimate evolution of these.

Thrud the Barbarian gets hungry and the Travellers leave hyperspace.

Fiend Factory has been lacking a bit for me lately.  The crazy monsters are thankfully something of the past, but now I find I miss the creativity that came along with them.  This one features a collection of woodland monsters and an associated mini adventure. We get some intelligent plants like the Ivyix, Crimson Carpet, the Puffbal Plant and the Acrophids which are a bit like Triffids. We also get the Vily (woodland spirits) and Dame Vertes (green lady), which are a sisterhood of protectors.

RuneRites has some combat related ideas for RuneQuest.

Lew Pulsipher devotes a page to a single spell, but to be fair it is a big one.  The Hellwalk Spell sends victims to a pocket universe where they must defeat monsters. It's a neat idea and one that would work with any game system or edition.  In D&D4 terms this would be more of a Ritual than anything else.

There is an odd page, Pirate Eye, that is attempting some humor.  I like gamer and geek humor as much as the next guy, but this one seems too out there for me.  Maybe it is too British and I am not grounded in the same culture.  There are bits of news here too.  I guess it is trying to come off as a gossip column for gamers.
Though I will admit that the use of Steve Jackson was amusing. As in "Steve Jackson-not-of-Car-Wars" and "not-this-Steve Jackson".

Some small ads and Gobbledigook. More ads. An ad and sign up for Games Fair '84 featuring E. Gary Gygax. Color ads for RunwQuest and for the new Star Frontiers set, Knight Hawks.

All in all this issue didn't wow me.  I enjoyed Irilian as usual, but the rest didn't do much for me.  Ah well.  There is next issue!

White Dwarf Wednesday #45

Have a good Christmas/Yule/Festivist?  Good.  While we are all sleeping off the day and recovering from presents and Doctor Who and how ever much food we all ate let's sit back and cast our minds back to a simpler time.  The date is September 1983 and the Magazine is White Dwarf #45.

The cover is interesting.  I am sure she is supposed to be a demon of some sort, given the contents of the issue.  I don't really like it to be honest.  Something about it rubs me the wrong way.

Normally I don't comment on the ads very much and that is shame really.  The ads are always a good way to pulse of the gaming trends.  I should mention though that on page 6 is the first time we see the Mentzer edited D&D Basic Set, AKA the Red Box in pages of the White Dwarf.  To some this is the signal flare of the end of the Golden Age, to many others this was their start with D&D.  For me it was the first D&D product that I made a choice not to buy.  I felt I didn't need it.  I have the Holmes and Moldvay Basic sets, why did I need this?  Plus I was heavy into AD&D at this point.  Moving on.

Ian's editorial mentions this issue is the last phase of the changes that had begun a while back with the addition of two new comics to the pages of WD.  He reminds that there is a read survey.

Open Box gives us yet more classics.  The Avalon Hill classic Wizards is reviewed.  To me this game was what I really liked about gaming in this era.  All sorts really cool games that I could mine for ideas.  I loved the idea of Wizards and shameless mined it for ideas for my own Wizard Schools and Druid Groves.  I really should find a copy of this again someday.  Alan E. Paul gives is 7/10 total.   We have a collection of the new I Series from TSR.  I2, I3, and I4 plus M1, TSR's first solo module.  The "M" stood for the "Magic" of revealing the hidden text.  Or so I always have thought.  I always thought T&T did better with the solo modules, so I never cared for this one.  Jim Babbra gives them 9/10, 10/10, 10/10 and 6/10 respectively.   Oliver Dickson reviews Pavis: Threshold to Danger for RuneQuest.  I have never heard of this one before, but it sounds interesting (I am sure one you knows about this one).  It gets a 9/10.

Critical Mass reviews some more current Sci-Fi and Fantasy books and some outside of that.  I'll ignore the SStephen R. Dondalson poetry and move right to the 1982 Hugo award winning Downbelow Station by C.J. Cherryh.  He struggles to like the book, but somehow it just does quite get there.

Dave Morris has Part 2 of Dealing With Demons.  This time the Lesser Demons. Like a lot of articles written for other games I ported them over to to D&D, with the Porphyrs becoming Astral Vampires in my games.

Starbase has an Introduction to Traveller Scenarios.  I had finally thrown in the towel on Traveller at this point, but I still enjoyed reading the articles.

Marcus Rowland has an article on Thieves tools.  Interesting read, but not something we ever used.

We come to our first new comic Thurd the Barbarian.  Amusing liitle tale.
Next page is out next new comic, the Travellers.  I enjoyed what they were trying to do here, but never got into it.

Part 4 of Irilian is next. 6 more pages of urban goodness. I still think TSR missed the boat on doing an Urban Survival Guide.  I wish I still had all my notes for mine.

More letters. More people disappointed in Lew Pulsipher.

RuneRites has some clarifications on Divinations.

Thistlewood is a first, and certainly not the last, Warhammer Adventure in the pages of WD.  I hate to sounds all maudlin but this here is the signal of the beginning of the end.  I stopped reading WD regularly around issue 50.  It was harder to get by me by then and any extra money I had for magazine went to Dragon and the new Dungeon later on.

Fiend Factory, our constant companion here, has some monsters from the elemental planes, with focus on the "new" para-elemental planes.  Very interesting ones too.   To follow up on this there is the next article on various items from the elemental planes.

Ok this next article is an odd one.  Under the title of Super Mole it is an RPG industry gossip column.
I have no memory of this and I am not sure if it survived much after this.  There is a con report and then on to the gossip.  It is reported that 100 of TSR's 300 staff were laid-off (they don't use those words) and Kevin Blume is now President of TSR while Gary is out looking for that D&D movie.  Wow. I guess I have a right to be maudlin.  This issue reads more and more like an obit for the Grognards of the Golden Age of D&D.  Reports that 3 companies want the Marvel Super Hero license, TSR, Games Workshop and Mayfair. I wonder who is going to get it?  Games Workshop will publish their Golden Heroes with out the Marvel Content anyway it is claimed.   We get an overview of the Red Box D&D and promises of an Expert Set.  The HeartQuest books are mentioned as a means to get more girls into the fold.   And some rumors of Marc Miller's Traveller hardback not seeing the light of day anytime soon.

The page concludes with Gobbledigook.

The next page has the new reader survey. They are still offering a prize draw if you can get it back to them by October 1, 1983.

We end with more ads.

I don't want to say this is the beginning of the end for WD. It isn't. Nor did I feel so then.  But retrospect is a funny thing.  Know what I know now and knowing when things began to happen it is hard not to look at this issue as a transitional one.  At this time in 83 I was in my own personal Golden Age of gaming.  Things were great and they were going to get better. I had a job and I could buy the things I wanted, for the most part, or save for the things I really wanted.  The next five or so issues will be very interesting to revisit.  Some I have not reread since I picked up this box of White Dwarfs at a Garage sale so many years ago.   Some I will wager will be like reading them for the first time.  Once we get into the 60s and 70s I know there will be more like that.

White Dwarf Wednesday #44

White Dwarf #44 was one of my favorite issues.  I am not sure why that is exactly.  Maybe something to do with the cover.  Needless to say I love her totally 80's hair. And I am not sure that her armor is actually doing much.   This cover is like a combination of Tolkien and Heavy Metal Magazine.  Tolkien that is if this some alternate 80's reality version of Middle Earth.
I would though like a better copy of this art for my game room.  I have to admit I am a bit confused.  I am unsure if this cover was done by Alan Craddock (as I assumed) or Jim Burns (who is listed as the cover artist).  Like a lot of art from this time it seems to pop up in other places.

Cheesecake aside there are a lot of things in this magazine I used; so page for page this was the most useful issue for me.  This was  the height of White Dwarf's golden age for me.

This is also the issue that almost got me back into Traveller with it's nice big full color ad.
Let's jump in and see what August 1983 has in store for us.

In the editorial Ian Livingstone talks about the changes that will conclude come issue #45.  Among other things we are getting the first comic of Thrud the Barbarian.

Marcus Rowland has a new idea for moving the plot along in Traveller with ICE, the Interstellar Charter Enterprises.  Nice idea for some independent operators in Traveller that beats the stand by "You all met in an inn a spaceport when...."

Open Box gives us some classics.  First up is the The Shadows of Yog Sothoth. Which gets a rare, but in my mind deserved, score of 10/10 from Ian Bailey.   Steve Jackson continues the mini-game line with a company defining game. Not GURPS, but Illuminati.  Phil Masters only gives the first two sets a 6/10 each, disliking some of the rules and complexity.  Marcus Rowland steps away from Traveller to review two Endless Quest books and is not impressed. Reviewed are Revolt of the Dwarves and Revenge of the Rainbow Dragons, each only getting a 5/10. Finally Jim Bambra reviews what is destined to be some of the last of the "Golden Age" of the TSR modules.  He gives high marks to S4 (9/10) and WG4 (9/10) which I agree with.  He also likes N1 and U2 (8/10 each).

Critical Mass has a bunch of new books to review, or at least mention.  This was the great age of 80s Sci-Fi and the OtherWorlds club.  I remember then not begin able to read enough.  Oddly enough the article bemoans the lack of good Sci-Fi and fantasy, or at least the lack of attention on new good books.  I know that at age 14 I did not have a very advanced or sophisticated palette but I don't recall it like this.

Lew Pulsipher is up next with an article I have read and reread hundreds of times.  True Sight is all about realism in your games.  In the time following this I was all about realism.  I wanted to know where the arrows hit, what the GDP of a country was in GP  and how did adventurers factor into that.  All that.  I have since given all that up and now just enjoy the moment of the play.  But this is still a great article. Not on realism, but what realism means to you and your game.

Charles Vasey is next with the bi-monthly Board Games column, Counterpoint.  This one cover the Sanctuary Board game based on the then uber-popular Thieves World books.  I loved Thieves World and gladly grabbed anything I could. But this gem never made to my stores (which were still just book stores).  Vasey also covers the Consulting Detective game.  Interestingly enough at the time that had no interest for me.  Today it is the other way around.

Dave Morris has Dealing With Demons in RuneQuest.  I cannibalized this article for all sorts of ideas for D&D.  There have been better articles on the subject since, but none grabbed my attention quite like this one.  Yeah at 14 in the middle of the Satanic Panic in the Midwest I was devouring articles about summoning demons in D&D.   The article is long and only the first part, but I used every bit of it.

Microview has more software for us.  A Zx81 BASIC program for AD&D or T&T combat.  At only a couple score lines it doesn't really do much.  Still though I loved it.

Irilian is back with part 3.  Only 3 more to go for the complete town.

RuneRites has some new monsters for RuneQuest, a first really.  Only two, a Kirin and a Golem. But since they had analogs with monsters in D&D it gave me my first taste at converting some monsters from one system into D&D.  Since I didn't have any other monsters these both became a demon type for me to use with the Dealing with Demons article.

Fiend Factory is back with Tribal monsters.  We have an odd dragon/centaur like race call Wodennians.  Never used them because I thought they looked silly.  We have a race of "Evil Halflings of the Underworld" called, of all things, Blacklings.  I liked the idea but HATED the name.  Even then it struck me as stupid.  I used them, but I made them pale like what you would expect a race that lived underground to be like.  Some of those ideas later were worked into my ideas for Drow.  Intitally I hated the next creature, the Wohk, because they seemed dumb and I didn't like their spontaneous regeneration.  But over the years I have come to like them as something so odd it could only work in D&D.  Yelgs are like Green Orcs and some of my first orcs of my world were green.

It may surprise some but my first character was a cleric and I enjoyed the hell out of playing him.  So when I got a copy of Graeme Davis' Seeing the Light article I went about trying to convert everyone to my cleric's religion and gaining XP for it.  I did it so much in fact that if you read my witch books now you will notice that one of the things about witches is they DON'T try to convert you.

More ads and classifieds.  Another Gobbledigook strip.

Again, it is not understating it that I milked this issue for everything it had back then.

I mentioned above that this particular bit of cover art had been reused.  Here are a couple of examples that appeared after this cover came out.

Here is one for an Irish 80s Metal Band Blackwych..  Which of course begs the question "Why have I not heard of these guys before??"

And the cover for "Fires of Azeroth" by C. J. Cherryh. No. It has nothing to do with WoW.

I have no problem admitting that I created a character solely based on this cover. Ok I gave her better armor.  Also she was a character that most everyone else hated in my games, but changed the course of not only my 80s D&D game, but also my 2000s Buffy/Willow & Tara games.  Yeah, that image was the source of my inspiration for Morgan Ebonflame, the Hunter of the Dead and the Daughter of Death.  She was a PC in games I played and an NPC in games I ran in my group's shared world.  
I find it interesting that the C.J. Cherryh's book was part of the "Morgaine" series and my character was named "Morgan".  That is one of those weird happenstances, but I don't rule out that I had seen this cover sometime in the mid-80s.  I would have rolled up Morgan around 1985 or so.

White Dwarf Wednesday #43

White Dwarf #43 comes to us from the long ago time of July 1983.  I was 14 and getting ready to go to High School.  White Dwarf gives us this Celtic themed cover. What's inside?
Well we start off with an editorial from Ian Livingstone continuing the same thoughts he had in Issue 41. He notes that some companies have shut down and others are focusing on computer games.  Next verse, same as the first I guess.  Of course what we didn't know in 1983 was how some of the social aspects of TTRPGs would work their way into computer games, in particular online ones and MMORPG (look, RPG is right there).  Still though I think the Ian of 1983 would be happy to converse with the Ian of 2012 and see the changes that have been made, but also how people are still getting around a table to roll dice.

Marcus Rowland is up first with three (that's 3!) mini scenarios for last issue's Cthulhu Now.

Open Box is up with the game changer game for White Dwarf; Warhammer.   At this point in time Warhammer is being produced by Citadel Minatures and only gets an 8/10 from reviewer Joe Denver.   Questworld for RuneQuest is next. It gets an overall 6/10 from Oliver Dickinson, who is not impressed.
Lastly we have 9/10 review for a Play-by-Mail game, The Tribes of Crane.  Kids ask your grandpa about play by mail.

A bunch of new sci-fi books as well as some on disproving psychic phenomena (in particular Uri Geller) feature in this month's Critical Mass.

Lew Pulsipher is up with buying and selling magic items and why the "magic shop" concept is a ridiculous idea.

Oliver Dickinson is back with some Griselda fiction.   Andy Slack has vehicle combat for Traveller in this issue's Starbase.

The highlight for me is the second part of Irilian. The time the Northwest corner. We get six pages , dozens of locations and NPCs.

In the Letters section a letter complaining about having to read about Lew Pulsipher all the time was sent in by  Lew Pulsipher.  More debate over Don Turnbull and his point of view on the Necromancer class.

Thomas Price is up with Starport Design in Traveller.  Though there is not much here that couldn't be easily converted over to Star Frontiers,  in fact that is exactly what I did.

Oliver Dickinson is back, again, in RuneRites, discussing damage absorption in RuneQuest.

Fiend Factory has a collection of monsters that appear to be riding something.  We get Bug Riders (who ride on bugs), The Lich King (who is riding a Nightmare) and the Vanith-Vadiren, or heavenly elves that ride on pegasi.

Treasure Chest covers the martial art Bujutsu for AD&D monks.

At the bottom of the page we get another milestone in the publication of White Dwarf.
The first strip of the comic Gobbledigook  by "Bil" aka Bil Sedgewick.  The adventures of Gobbledigook the Goblin will appear off and on till about issue #100.

Classifieds and ads end this issue.  TSR has a new add featuring all it's Sci-Fi properties; Gamma World, Star Frontiers. Ares magazine and some minigames.

Pretty solid issue. I remember when I first got it I was hoping for something more Celtic themed inside, but not this issue. The cover art is cool all the same.

White Dwarf Wednesday #42

White Dwarf #42 was an elusive one for me.  I didn't buy it when it first came out but once I picked up WD 43 I really wanted it for the Part 1 of the city.  I finally got a copy years later.  So let's go back to that time in June of 1983 when this was on the stands.

Ian Livingstone is up first with the editorial on the changes in WD.  He mentions getting hate mail over the changes, but some were positive.  Most mail concerned the changng of the White Dwarf header title and the silhouetting of the White Dwarf.  Well the editorial page is compromise. The title remains and the white dwarf is broadly silhouetted, but filled in as well.

Marcus Rowland gives us a very interesting article on "Cthulhu Now!"  not the book that would later appear, but ideas and skills for moving CoC to 1980s England.  The art for this article is a classic one for me.  While I didn't see it at the time, when I later picked this up it fit my conceptions of England by-way-of The Young Ones and MTV; a smoking out of work punk rocker about to get grabbed by a tentacled monster.  This article seemed so odd to me.  I had Chill for modern day play CoC was for the 20s!  Still though I loved it.

Graham Staplehurst presents, in what I think is his first WD article, Anti-thieving tech in Traveller.  According to this article we have gone up at least 1-2 Tech Levels (TL) since it was printed!

We get some fiction from Oliver Dickinson, "Shamus Gets a Case".

Open Box is up with some more reviews. Soloquest 3: The Snow King's Bride from Chaosium is reviewed by Oliver Dickinson. It is for RuneQuest and he says he found varied and enjoyable, giving it 8/10.
The Citadel of Chaos & The Forest of Doom Solo RPG reviewed by Marcus L. Rowland is next.  They are "sequels" to Warlock of Firetop Mountain, but I'll admit I am not as familiar with these.  Which is too bad really because Rowland loves them giving them a 9/10 and 10/10 respectively.
Ther Grav-Ball board-game from FASA is then reviewed by Ian Waddelow. He does not like it, saying it delivers so little and gives it a 4/10.  Lastly we have the classic The Morrow Project & an adventure/scenario Liberation at Riverston reviewed by Phil Masters.  Morrow Project was one of those games that locally were played by the "serious RPGers".  I was just a a kid (ok 13-14) and I was "still" playing AD&D.  The REAL role-players were playing Morrow Project and CoC.  CoC I got, this one? Not as much.  Neither did Masters apparently.  He gave them a 5/10 and 6/10 respectively.

Report of the Hugos is up in Critical Mass.

Lewis Pulsipher should be required reading for anyone serious about D&D as a craft.   He is up with Castles in the Air or "Why Dungeons Exist".  It gives us a "natural" rationale for dungeons under castles in a world where humans can fly, teleport and become invisible. He challenges to think about the effects of magic in the world and how it changes things.

Marcus L. Rowland is back in Microview with a BASIC program for Careers in Traveller.  Man I loved these things. I spent hours typing these programs into my TRS-80 Color Computer 2. Course I had to change things since the version of BASIC licensed from Microsoft in the TRS-80 CoCo was different than the Z80 or ZX81 (Zilog 80) BASIC here (and even different from the Z80 BASIC in the regular TRS-80).  But I didn't care.  Computers were the future and knew that then too.

Ah. Irilian. I LOVED Irilian.  Daniel Collerton gives us a complete AD&D city in multiple parts.  I searched for this issue for ever just for this article.  I still get all stupid sentimental about it.  I even started what would be my first house rule book, the Urban Survival Guide because of the fun I had with this.  I really should xerox these pages and put them in a binder to use in my new AD&D game.

Up next are more letters discussing (if I can use that word) the content of the last couple of issues.

Fiend Factory is back. This time is the last of the non-human Gods.  We the Gods of Norkers, Ogrillons, Pebble Gnomes, Shadow Goblins, Skulks, Svirfneblin, Trolls and Xvarts.  Like the last batch I might re-use these as demons or devils.  Just because that seems to work for me.

RuneRites covers Horses for RuneQuest. More detail on various breeds than I would ever need.

Treasure Chest has some new Spells for AD&D.

We end with some ads.

Again a solid issue made golden for me thanks to me thinking it had so much more and searching for it for a while.  But not to understate it at all, the first part of Irilian was and still is the main source of worth for me in this issue.

White Dwarf Wednesday #41

May 1983 may very have been the beginning of the end of the so called "Golden Era" of RPGs, but it was also part of the era that would see a dramatic rise in the popularity in the public consciousness of RPGs.  It could be retrospect, rose-colored glasses or even bad memory, but Issue #41 seems to reflect this.
The stylistic changes that began that the end of 82 have hit their peak now.  Issue 41 is like picking up an old Judas Priest tape.  Not album. Not CD. Not any freaking 8-Track.  Those were the artifacts of different eras.  Judas Priest on Cassette and White Dwarf #41.

What do we have in this one?  Well lets admire that cover for a bit. Lone spaceship. Betcha that also means lone spaceship pilot. Flying over some distant planet.One man vs. the Universe.  Man that image is a freaking metaphor of the 80s.  I am sure he is listing to Judas Priest on a cassette in that thing.  No CDs or MP3s or data-tapes for that guy.  I am equally sure it is a "he" too.  Moving on.

The editorial is an interesting one.  Ian Livingstone can only be describing the beginning of the end!  Or at least as it might have looked back then.  He talks about some companies going out of business and the first great RPG boom is over.  Now I have read some reports that this boom was bigger than the d20 one nearly 17 years later, but I don't remember this time as being anything else but a boom time, but not one that was all consuming.  The warning though is clear.  No more mediocre games.

First up is Battleplan for Dungeon Master General.  This covers non-human armies such as dwarves, elves, kobolds and orcs. It is an interesting read.  The Dwarves and Elves are pretty much what you would expect. The kobolds are more aggressive and war like here, using numbers to make up for their size.  While in this post Tucker's Kobolds age we tend to see Kolbods more a little skirmishers that hit fast and run for cover.  The picture of the orcs tends to be more bleaker, that the orcs are basically cowardly, lazy bullies.  Since then we have had Orkworld and the Lord of the Rrngs movies where orcs look more like an organized, fearless military.

Critical Mass covers the British SF Association awards for 1982 and the Nebula Awards for the US for 82. Next month they will announce the winners. If you can wait you can go here to see the winners and nominees of the SF award and the Nebula.

Open Box has an interesting mix in Traveller Supplement 10: The Solomani Rim by GDW.  Andy Slack, Traveller savant in residence, gives it a rather mixed review saying it is great for novices but terrible for experts (9/10 and 2/10 respectively).  He does mention that this is how Spinward Marches should have been done.  I have not read either supplement in over 20 years, but I tend to agree.
One game I was always curious about, but never got my hands on was Man, Myth & Magic by Yaquinto.  Three products are reviewed here, Man, Myth & Magic RPG, Adventure 1, Episode 5 - Death to Setanta and Adventure 1, Episode 6 - The Kingdom of the Sidhe. Marcus Rowland did not care for how the game was set up feeling it was too hard to find the material you needed thanks to the design of the game.  You read the rule book and adventure as you learn.  This game was never popular around my area and I didn't even know about it really till I was researching the old Man, Myth and Magic encyclopedia.  I am not sure if they are related or not. Anyway Rowland gives the RPG and adventures 5/10, 4/10 and 6/10 respectively.
Finally Star Explorer boardgame by FGU was reviewed by Alan E. Paull.  He gives it 9/10.

"A Tasty Morsel" is a bit of RuneQuest fiction featuring Griselda.  I am no judge of gaming fiction really.  So I have no idea if this is a good RuneQuest tale or not.

Phil Hine has a bit on Sorcerous Symbols, or how to use sigils in AD&D.  Interesting little article that I don't recall reading in the past.

Don Turnbull is back in the Letters section defending his point of view in the whole Necromancer affair. Oddly enough he is being coy about knowing about the Anti-Paladin.  Maybe I am giving him too much credit or overstating the effect of Dragon Mag, but I thought for sure that everyone had seen the Anti-Paladin article by 83.

Andy Slack is back with a Traveller short Scenario, the Snowbird Mystery. I do remember this one. In fact I think it might even was the last Traveller Adventure that I was ever going to go through.  I didn't, part of my odd relationship with Traveller, but I knew that this was the one that was going to be used.  We played AD&D instead.

RuneRites has Unarmed combat for RuneQuest. Or rather part II to the article that appeared all the way back in WD 30.

Up next is something very interesting, a mini-Scenario for Car Wars!  It looks fun, but I never played Car Wars to be a good judge of this.


Fiend Factory has more Inhuman Gods, Deities for Non-Human Races: Part III.   Kraada (Frostmen), Zrunta Mountainheart (Mountain Giants), Carratriatuh (Greenmen from WD 27), Klagg (Grimlocks) and for the  Lava Children, two gods Halnass (Fire-Father) and Quorggg (Stone-Mother).   They are all in Deities and Demigods format. Of the lot, I think I would like to use Klagg, and given my association of Grimlocks with Charmed, I would make him a demon.

Starbase is back for it's bi-monthly publication of readers' ideas for Traveller.  This time it is Andy Slack (his name might be familiar) covering the same Covert Survey Bureau that was featured in the Snowbird adventure.

Treasure Chest has all sorts of discs as weapons.  Hmmm. When was Tron out again?   They include the Vorpal Disc, Disc of Shock, Torus, Crystal Disc, Disc of Eyes, Disc of Dismissal, Anti-Magic Disc and the Sonic Disc.  Between this and the Man, Myth and Magic RPG you could do Xena!  I will admit I had a character that used the Vorpal Disc.  I remember it well too, he had to get it from a greater Air Elemental.  Played it one day in Jr. High.

We end with some ads.

All in all I think this was a great issue.  Nothing jumps out at me and screams "use me" but everything was quality and I enjoyed reading it again.

White Dwarf Wednesday #40

Around Issue 40 is where I really began to get into White Dwarf.  At this point, I was the only one in my gaming circle reading it regularly and I felt it gave me an edge on those "just reading Dragon".  Of course I had not experienced Imagine yet (though this issue had a big ad for Issue #1)  and it would still be a couple more years before I got my hands on Dungeoneer mag.

Let's get into Issue 40, April 1983. First off I consider this one of the more iconic covers of WD.  These odd aliens screamed SciFi/Fantasy Book Club to me, but I was 100% cool with that.  Still am.  I have no idea who these guys are, but my next SciFi game will have them as a race.  The cover artist is listed as "Emmanuel".

Ian Livingstone's Editorial discusses a very good question.  Why are Fantasy and Sci-Fi lumped together?  This is a question that a younger, 12-year-old, Otherworlds Card-carrying self would have asked. Ian mentions he prefers SciFi films over fantasy, but fantasy games over Sci-fi ones.  That fitted me to a tee. I loved Star Trek, Star Wars, and Doctor Who (83 was a HUGE year for me and the good Doctor) and I played AD&D far more than Traveller or Star Frontiers.

Dave Morris is up first with Zen and the Art of Gaming for RuneQuest.  It is some setting material for a feudal Japan-like country for RuneQuest.  Anything Japanese was all the rage in time period 82  to 85 or so. I recall reading this and thinking how cool it would be to try this out in AD&D, but never got around to it.

Alan E. Paul has an article on large scale massive battles for D&D, "Dungeon Master General".   It is three pages long and I never read it back in the day.  I never did massive battles till about 1987 and even then we used the "BattleSystem" rules.  These rules seem easy to use, but still more complicated than I like.  I would be a terrible Wargamer.

Critical Mass reviews some interesting books.  First we have everyone knows about, White Gold Wielder by Stephen Donaldson. I am one of those people that put down the Thomas Covenant book after the rape scene.  I saw no point to reading the rest.  Only occasionally I regret that, but reading this review sets me more at easy.  I am a fan of Lovecraft and of Moorcock so I like dark fantasy.  That rape scene frankly left a bad taste in my mouth for the entire series.   There is another book, Chekhov's Journey which is sci-fi but not about the Star Trek character.  No this book is really best described as an early cyberpunk book.  I will check it out based on that alone.  They also cover Robert Lynn Asprin's Myth Directions, which I loved and they didn't.

Open Box is up with some more classics from TSR.  Jim Bambra reviews C1, C2, S2, and I1.  Giving them 8/10, 8/10. 8/10 and 5/10 respectively.  He says that I1, Dwellers of the Forbidden City is rather mundane, though his own scores on the module should really put it more in the 6/10 or 7/10 region.  Phil Masters reviews Steve Jackson Game's classic Illuminati.  He praises the skill needed and the tone of the game. He says in the same breathe that the game "lacks elegance" and "Should do well in America".  I will try not to take that personally. ;)  It gets 7/10.  We also get reviews for Starstone: A Mediaeval FRP Campaign by Northern Sages (9/10) and Soloquest 2: Scorpion Hall for RuneQuest by Chaosium (8/10).   I am completely unfamiliar with those two.

Letters covers some Traveller, D&D and RuneQuest issues.  No fighting this time.  Some light critism on the Moria article a few issues back.

Marcus Rowland is back with an AD&D adventure for 1st to 3rd level characters, The Eagle Hunt. At 6-pages it is one of the larger of the adventures that WD has published to date.

RuneRites deals with Trading as a skill in RuneQuest.

Andy Slack has a new Explorer class scout ship for Traveller.

Fiend Factory is up and Phil Masters has more Inhuman Gods.  We get the gods of the Firenewts, Flymen, Flinds (sorta) and Frogfolk. Also mentioned are Dire Raiders and Dire Corbies.

In what was always pure gold for me back then was Microview.  This time we have a BASIC program for RuneQuest. Despite the fact I never played RuneQuest I typed this up.  I made some tweaks to it and then would later write my own AD&D program for characters.

Treasure Chest is looking more and more "professional"  The layout is sharp and clean and the magic items are also really good.  The items are, Arrow of the Inner Planes, Druid's Flask, Cloth of the Wind Horse, Shaft of the Spider, Wand of Locking, and Wizard's Wand.  I never used any of these to my knowledge.

We end with the Classifieds and some ads.

While there is nothing in this issue that stands out as stellar to me, the whole issue has the feel of more professionalism than previous issues.  For me this is when White Dwarf came into it's own.  The next 50-60 issues were great times.

White Dwarf #39

White Dwarf #39 is another watershed issue for the series and for me in particular.  Now typically I remember this as Issue 40 and always think of Issue 40 on as the time I began to get WD regularly.  Up to this point my exposure to White Dwarf was either via photocopy or reading it through friends.  
So this is going to be well covered ground for me.  Maybe not easily remembered ground, but I have certainly been here before.  This will continue till around the 60s or 70s.

Ok let's get going.  What does March 1983 give us?  Well we have the new White Dwarf logo for starters.  This will be with us for the entire run of White Dwarf, well at least the entire run I plan on doing here (issue 100 or so).

The editorial is about all these changes and some coming up for 1983 including a new comic.  Frankly I have been happy with the fact that there haven't been any comics in WD.  We will see.

Up first is Fiend Factory with more non-human Deities.  We get the gods of the Aarakocra,  Bodachs (from WD 17), Bullywugs,   Crabmen, Desert Raiders, and Dire Corbies. Not a bad collection really.

Open Box has a bunch of reviews.  Marcus Rowland gives a mixed set of reviews to the first four D&D Endless Quest books (ranging 4 to 7/10).   Nicholas JR Dougan gives a 7/10 to Flying Buffalo's Citybook 1. He likes the book for ideas  but bemoans the lack of ready to use city.  He particularly likes the adventure ideas.  Both FASA and GDW offer a couple of books each for Traveller. Bob McWilliams gives the FASA books, Rescue on Galetea and the Trail of the Sky Raiders a 6/10 and 8/10 respectively.  Andy Slack gives the more detail to the two GD books, Prison Planet and Night of Conquest/Divine Intervention. He gives them an overall score of 5/10 and 9/10 respectively.

Dave Morris gives us a new bit for Runequest, Runeblades.  There is a lot of really cool swords here and I think we used a number of these.  For us back in 83 playing our goofy hybrid of D&D and AD&D, Runequest was "serious fucking gaming" and anything from Runequest immediately had the air of being cool to us.

An Introduction to Traveller is back and this issue Andy Slack talks about Campaigns.   I liked this article. I had my own ideas about what to do in Traveller and it usually had something more Star Treky in mind.

Marcus L. Rowland gives us something new for White Dwarf and in RPG mags in general, a new adventure for Champions.  Slayground is designed for 3-5 player characters.   The adventure is only 4 pages and I really have nothing to compare it to, but I really like seeing it here.  Love to see more than just normal D&D stuff.

Starbase is up next with Starship Security  for Traveller.  Not bad, I don't think I have ever really read it before.

In a treat we get another adventure.  This time it is one for AD&D.  The Daughters of Danu using the monsters from the Fiend Factory from WD #37 and #38.  Three pages, it is a good little adventure for a side quest.

Letters this month has a couple of letters focusing on the Necromancer debate.

A new feature is Critical Mass covers books in sci-fi and fantasy.  This issue they cover the potential 1982 Hugo winners.  Among my faves covered are Robert A. Heinlein's "Friday" and "2010" by Arthur C. Clarke.

Lew Pulsipher has more information on how to play monsters. Great stuff for the time really, but something I think we all kinda do now.  OR at least I do.

There are some Runequest monsters that can be easily adapted to D&D, which is what I would do at the time.  They are good as they are to be honest.

Treasure Chest has three new NPCs for AD&D including a neat 1/2 caveman, 1/2 frost giant barbarian like guy. Not sure how that guy came about, but he is a neat guy.

We end with a few pages of ads.

We are now in the time period I consider more "my" proper time frame of White Dwarf.  I am really looking forward to the 40s.

White Dwarf Wednesday #38

Sorry about missing last weeks WDW.  The end of October is crazy for me.

One note before I move on.  James at Grognardia is covering Imagine Magazine on Tuesdays.  Imagine is the sister magazine to Dragon that had a limited run in the UK starting in 1983.  So roughly the same span I am doing with White Dwarf now.  I had also planned on doing Imagine as well, but James is already doing it, so I'll just comment on his site.
You can read his first three entries here: http://grognardia.blogspot.com/search/label/imagine%20magazine
The nice thing about this is I noticed I had some holes in my collection so it would not have been as complete as my White Dwarf run.

On with the show!

White Dwarf #38 opens up February of 1983.

I think we see here a bit about what James might have been talking about in Imagine from June of the same year in regards to censorship.   The cover for WD#38 features a bloody sword, a severed head, and a topless woman.
We follow with seven pages of ads till we get to the first page proper. The editorial is brief one of idyll remarks on the growing popularity of RPGs and what the next year will bring.  D&D is now referred to as a "brand".

Andy Slack is back with Part 3 of An Introduction to Traveller. This time covering Scenarios.  I always thought it was interesting that most games had "Adventures" and Traveller had "Scenarios".  D&D/RuneQuest/T&T characters sought out their adventures, but Traveller characters (to me) always had something happen to to them.  I think this was my weakest point in Traveller.  I was still thinking of Traveller in terms of D&D.  Reading this article (and the next one) again made think back to all the great SciFi shows I loved at this time; Doctor Who, Blakes 7, Sapphire and Steele. They all could have been Traveller Scenarios (with some tweaks I guess).  It also made me think of another show that was popular at the time that really was, in my retrospect, the perfect model for a Traveller game; The A Team.  Think about it.  Instead of 4 guys from the Army, they are now Space Marines and instead of a van it's a small, but tricked out, space ship.  It really would have worked.

Next up is Open Box.  Phil Masters hits us up with a review of "The Traveller Book"  I have very fond memories of this book.  It was my last ditch effort to finally understand and play Traveller.  In retrospect again I actually made a good choice.  It was designed as a new game to introduce new players to Traveller.  Masters gives it 9/10.  It remains to date my favorite version of the rules.
M.L.Rowland gives us Dicing with Dragons, one of the first books about RPGs I can recall.  RPGs were finally getting big enough that there could be books talking about them.  We were on the verge of the big "Satanic Panic" of the 80s and D&D was going to get pulled into that, but we were also just fresh from seeing "E.T." where the kids played D&D (or something like it).  It was a good time for this book.  Rowland praises it for covering it's subject but downgrades it slightly for the sample game included for a total of 9/10.
Oliver Dickson also gives us some FASA books for Thieve's World. Traitor and The Spirit Stones. They get 7/10 collectively.

Fiend Factory is an interesting one this issue with Faerie Folk.  All sorts of interesting fae creatures that look like they were taken out Brian Froud's 1978 book "Faeries".  I say this with some level of conviction since I have gone to that book many, many times for my own books (notably Ghosts of Albion) and I recognize all of these creatures.  Frankly I would use any of these as is in an AD&D game now. It also seems that White Dwarf's on-again, off-again love affair with Monstermark is finally off for good.

Oliver Dickson and Bob McWilliams introduce us to Questworld for RuneQuest.

Lew Pulsipher takes on the herculean task of presenting the Mines of Moria/Khazad-dûm in AD&D terms.  Some interesting choices are made (Gandalf is a Cleric, Aragorn is a Ranger/Paladin) but what strikes me most is that outside of the trappings I am not sure "how" this is Moria vs. some other dungeon.  The sense of size I got from the books (and later the movies) is not here.

Microview is back and Noel Williams talks about some the tasks that computers can do in an RPG game.  Many of which we can take for granted these days, this was the wild west back then.  I even think back to the programs I wrote for the Tandy Color Computer back in the day that did a number of these "donkey" task Williams talks about (dice roller, rulebook, record keeper) as well as number no mentioned (monster database, combat simulator).

Oliver McDonald gives us "Monsters Have Feelings Too" which basically gives us tips on how to have monsters act intelligently.  These ideas have creeped into various games over the years till now it is sometime difficult to tell the monster stats and PC stats apart.  These are not exactly "Tucker's Kobolds" but calling "McDonald's Orcs" is not too far off.

Letters includes a couple of backlash's against Don Turnbull's letter on his distaste of the Necromancer, one of which is Lew Pulsipher. A letter asking for more adventures for other games. And a fairly detailed one on his dislike for AC equaling a chance to be hit.  Stepping outside of all of this for a bit I think we have all established that AC is an abstraction on damaged causing hits, not hits in general.

RuneRites has Lords of the Spirit worlds.  Something between mortal and man.  I think I used this for AD&D back in the day.  Demigods were humans that had been born with god-like power, "Saints" were ascended humans and spirit lords were still something else. Despite it being a "Runequest" article there is not much in the way of crunch.

Treasure Chest has some new spells. Most seem useful.  Maybe for the Necromancer.

We follow that with the Classifieds.  Nothing as interesting as last months. The final 9 or so pages are ads.
The difference in the ads between White Dwarf and Dragon is the same as I remember of UK and US television.  In the US the ads (commercials) are through out the show, in the UK they are at the beginning and end of shows.

I see what are the beginnings of the White Dwarf I remember so fondly.

White Dwarf Wednesday #37

White Dwarf #37 opens up 1983 with what will be the first full year of monthly issues for WD.
At this point in time I was DEEP into D&D and AD&D, often mixing the games as was our wont.

The cover art is a small faerie, perfect for the article coming up.

We start off the issue with a large number of ads (more Judge Dredd) and then the editorial.  Ian Livingstone laments the lack of British RPGs, complaining that the recent downturn of the Pound vs the Dollar have made American RPGs kind of expensive.  o for myself I would have sworn there were British RPGs out at this point, but I guess I was wrong.

First up we have the aforementioned article on Faeries.  This is an attempt by the author, Alan E. Paull to bring AD&D in line with the land of Fae; or at least close to it.   This first entry is short (2 pages) but a great start really.  Faerie should be so much more than what it typically is in *D&D.  Next issue will have stats.

Andy Slack is back with An Introduction to Traveller.  This issue is Part 2: Refereeing.   He covers a lot of the published material out there and how to use it to help your game.

Open Box is next with reviews of Soloquest from from Chaosium. This little gem helps you run a solo RuneQuest game.  It has some interesting ideas (DreamQuest, Maguffin Hunt) that I think might be interesting to try  in D&D or even CoC.  Clive Bailey gave it a 9/10 all by himself.  Star Frontiers is next. I had just gotten this one for Chistmas so I was quite excited to build my own adventures from Star Wars, Star Trek and Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.  Yes my very first character was a Vrusk named Zaphod.  Andy Slack likes the rules and what you get in the box,  but does not like the lack of space travel rules, (Night Hawks was still a bit away) and gives it a 7/10.   Eventually my issue with Star Frontiers was the same as one of my issues with Traveller; it degraded into D&D in Space. Er, wait, sorry. D&D in SPPAAAAAACE!  Lastly we have a Play By Mail game, Crasimoff's world "The International game for the modern thinking mind".  Trevor Graver likes the detail and gives it 8/10 but dislikes the poor English and slow  turnaround time (2 weeks).

Marcus Rowland, of future Forgotten Futures fame, http://www.forgottenfutures.co.uk/ has a GREAT article on Vampires.  This article is a great companion piece to the old Dragon article Varieties of Vampires. This article was fodder for me and my games.  I don't think I had a single vampire that was 100% like another in my games.  Great things about this article, vampires getting more powerful with age, variations on powers and weaknesses.  Great, great stuff really.

City in the Swamp was another one of those articles that made their way into my world myths.  My Necromancer from a few issues back had his base of operations in a swamp. Actually a lot of things went into making that character, but this was one of those pieces.  Graeme Davis gives us this adventure for 5th to 7th level characters.

Letters are up next.  A reader LOVES the Necromancer, calling it the best class White Dwarf has done yet. Not so says Don Turnbull, putting on his official TSR cap, he calls the Necromancer "most distasteful".  Which gets a note from the editor reminding him (and us) that the class is an NPC class. Another reader dislikes Infravision based on what he knows about infra-red cameras. Another dislikes the constant D&D focus of everything and one more asking for better Traveller material.

Lewis Pulsipher is back with D&D Scenarios, or what we would call adventure seeds today.

Fiend Factory has some odd monsters that cross species.  Some land dwelling reptilian cephalopods that seem to worship the god Pyaray from the Elric books.  We also have chameleon cats, bird  men and ant men.  None are bad, I like I the cats, the Crestcats, but also none of them fill me with any desire to use them.  This has been the case for Fiend Factory for a while now.

RuneRites has two new Battle Magic spells from Richard Case and edited by Oliver Dickson.
Starbase has more new vehicles for Traveller.
Treasure Chest deals with AD&D encumbrance.

We follow with the ads and classifieds.  One that was brought to my attention was this one:

Help!
15-yr old male AD&D player wishes to contact very attractive female AD&D players to discuss adventures.  Please send current photo (if possible) or letter to...

I wonder if he ever got a response? I found someone the same age and grew up in the same area.  I can report he seems successful and happily married.  No I am not posting his name here.

We end with a few more pages of ads.

White Dwarf of 1983 is certainly taking a page or two from Dragon.  The layout is cleaned up more and and there seems to be a great deal of professionalism as well.  83 was a big year for RPGs for me.  Interesting to see this all again in the pages of WD.

White Dwarf Wednesday #36

It's Christmas in Mega-City One!  Well at least that what you would gather on the is December 1982 issue of White Dwarf.  The cover, an article, an editorial and at least three and half pages of ads are devoted to the new game from Games Workshop, Judge Dredd.   It was through White Dwarf in fact that I first learned about Judge Dredd.  So to me this seemed like a "comic book" game.

Jumping ahead, Ian Livingstone introduces us to the new game in the editorial.   He also mentions that we will see more RPG material in 1983.
The article on Dredd talks about the design of the game. Or rather an introduction to Judge Dredd and what process the author and designer, Ian Livingstone (ah..see how that worked out) went through to make the game.  The process is actually not all that different than what we still do, or even what I did when working on Buffy and Ghosts of Albion.  I would have to say the game was a success since a.) it introduced me to Judge Dredd, b.) I remember people being very, very excited about it back then, and c.) I still catch people talking about it today.

What else does this issue feature?  We have an odd ad of the magazine "Pssst!", which only lived for less than a year I think.  So odd that I didn't even know what it was for  till I found the name off in the corner.

Fiend Factory is up, but only has one monster, the Loculi. It is like an 8-legged, sword wielding ankylosaurus. It's stats improve with age (like a dragon) and there is a lot things you can play around with with this creature.  Unlike the dragon though I don't find it interesting enough to want to use it.

Andy Slack is up with an Introduction to Traveller.  Part 1 is about players and characters.  I have mentioned that this about the time of my decline in interest in Traveller.  I still enjoyed reading about it, but I never did much more than that.

Letters is a fun bunch this time with people coming to Ken St. Andre's defense over Don Turnbull's letter in #34.  I didn't post anything about that here, but I really should have.  Turnbull felt that T&T was nothing more than a rip off of D&D.  People this month choose to disagree. Next month also promises to be good.

Microview is back and in this month Mike Costello has two BASIC Traveller programs.  He also mentions how greaat it would be to have a character creator software for RuneQuest or D&D.  The programs are simple, but you have to type them out.  I remember typing in EVERY program I saw in a magazine just so I had the practice of doing it.  I don't recall if I ever did these on my trusty TRS-80 Color Computer 2, but I am sure I tried them out on my Jr High's TRS-80 Model 3s.   These programs would have worked on the built in BASIC of the Model 3 (or was it Model III), since it had a Zilog 80 chip.

Our AD&D contribution is The Druid's Duel by Mark Byng.  I remember being quite excited about this since I was playing a druid at the time and gave this to my DM at the time and told him he now had something for my duel before I can advance in level.  Never went through it though.

Open Box has some reviews of classic products.  Nicholas J R Dougan gives The Warlock of Firetop Mountain a 10/10.  Up next is a product I really wanted back in the day and should see if I can find it.  Tollpak was all about playing Trolls in RuneQuest, but honestly you could port the ideas over to any game that has trolls.  It was one of the first "revisionist" books (and I say that with a bit a hesitance, "revisionist" has such negative connotations and I don't mean that here.)  We would see something similar for Orc/Orks in Orkwrold and eventually even goblins and kobolds.  But this was the first. Tim Moyse gives it a 9/10.  We also have Pirates of Plunder (10/10) and some long out of print Traveller books from FASA; Merchant Class Ships (8 or 7/10), Aslan Mercenary Cruisers (6 or 8/10), and The FCI Consumer Guide (9 or 8/10) ranked for Novices and Experts.

Simon Early has some Rules Additions for RuneQuest as this month's RuneRites. Mostly realted to SIZ and climbing.

Lew Pulsipher wraps up his A Guide to Dungeon Mastering with Part III: Some Conclusions.  Mostly this is advice on how to deal with high level characters.  Not to beat a dead horse here, but this material still works today.  This is another one of my choices for my own "Best Of White Dwarf".

Treasure Chest has More Necromantic Abilities for the Necromancer of the last issue.

A couple of pages of ads.   Nothing interesting in the classifieds.
As an aside: Did anyone use classifieds in a magazine to find other gamers?  Did it work? Have any good stories?

A contest to win your very own Mattel Intellivision Advanced Dungeons & Dragons video game cartridge. The first six correct entries to their quick quiz will win.  Deadline December 15, 1982.

A few more pages of ads and finally another ad for Star Frontiers.  Described by the ad  as "the 'playable' one.  Certainly a dig at Traveller.

Remember when the future was silver lamé and hot pants? Well now it is big sunglasses/goggles.

If you are interested in how White Dwarf is doing in good old 2012, check out Lasgunpacker's post last night about the newest issue, http://lasgunpacker.blogspot.com/2012/10/new-style-white-dwarf-review.html