White Dwarf Wednesday #52

White Dwarf #52 is a big issue. Not just in terms of size; it's now 56 pages, or price; it's now 85p, but there are color pages now inside.  Not all are full color, but we are getting there.

Let's start with the cover.  Pretty cool stuff, alien spaceship lands in front of a couple of barbarians. That's everything you need to know about gaming in April of 1984.
We start out with more ads with the editorial starting on page 11.
Ian Livingstone talks about the new changes, welcoming old and new readers. He discusses one of the new features, The Name of the Game, and some of the regular content.

The aforementioned Name of the The Game is a Beginner's Guide to Role-Playing Games by Marcus Rowland.  There are the basic basics. These are dice, this is what you do.  Then he covers "The Big One" D&D.  Reading him cover how AC works though makes me wonder why we didn't see the 3e way of doing things sooner.  This article also features one on the new, nifty full color pages. Looking forward to future installments of this one.

Speaking of 3e an predecessor of the Clerical Domain spells appears next.  Out of the Blue covers specific spell lists for various types of gods.  It is Clerical Domains is all but name really.

Open Box gets the full color treatment too.  Good place of it really.  Reviewed this issue are Talisman (a game I always wanted to try out) and Battlecars, both by Games Workshop.  Alan E. Paull only gives Talisman a 6/10  noting that it would be better if it were shorter. Ian Waddelow gives Battle Cars an 8/10.
Dragon Riders of Pern from Mayfair  gets a dismal 4/10 (Enjoyment 2/10!) from Nic Grecas siting rotten art work, unclear rules and complex and unwieldy game mechanics.  Ian Waddelow is back with the Lost Worlds books from Nova Games.  He gives them 6/10.  I liked the idea of a character book with all the rules you needed to play.  I later adopted the idea after getting 1 (and only 1) Lost Worlds book and realizing I couldn't play it but really liking the concept.

Machines and Magic is the subject of this issue's Critical Mass.  One book covered is Vonda McIntyre's Superluminal.  I read this book about this time and I enjoyed it, but it left me feeling like there should have been more.  The article also mentions something I was certainly feeling in 1984.  The Xanth joke had gone on long enough.

Thurd is up next with the beginning of a cycle of adventures.

Fiend Factory has some low level monsters for D&D.  The Spider Dragon looks neat, the rest I am not thrilled about.  FF seems to have lost some of it's spark if you ask me.

Microview gets expanded.  Now it also reviews software ala Open Box and still has some BASIC code for you to enter.  Software is rated on terms of Graphics, Instructions, Long-Term Interest, Playabilty, and Value for money.

Andy Slack discusses living forever in Traveller.  So make your own 40K Emperor now.  The long article also includes some methods of staying alive beyond your years and some associated scenarios.

Castle of Lost Souls is the first part of a Choose Your Adventure.  You have a basic character sheet and plenty of scripted options. You just need a single d6.   There are 104 entries, not sure how many combinations.

Liz Fletcher gives us The Serpent's Venom for 1st to 3rd level AD&D characters. Three pages and some better than average art work.

Letters covers some the style changes of WD, with most happy with the changes.  In a nice touch that would have amused me then as much as it does now, the letter image has a Dalek stamp.

RuneRites covers Magic Rings. Most are adaptable back to D&D.

Travellers is next.  I wasn't into it then, can't get into it now I am afraid. I hate to say it, but when it comes to comics Dragon was the superior magazine here.

Treasure Chest has a bunch of random magic items. The amusing one is "Troll Dust" which is basically an instant troll, just add water.

The News section is now  "The Midgardian". Of interest is coverage of Mayfair releasing the Role-Aids line.

Tabletop Heroes covers fighter figures. Some nice full color images to go with it.  Certainly a shade of things to come.

We follow with a number of ads and classifieds.

This was a big issue.  8 more pages and full color ones at that.  I felt there were some more ads (maybe four pages) and four pages of new content, but I have not counted to be sure.  I never owned this issue back in the day.  It was one of the ones I picked up much later. Again also at this time my purchase of White Dwarf was waning in favor of Dragon.  I also hate to admit it, but I am kinda on a "death watch" now.  How much longer with Livingstone stay on as editor? When do the comics disappear? What happens to Fiend Factory? When is the last of the D&D, RuneQuest and Traveller content? These will be answered soon I feel.

More Mykal Lakim

So there is more going on in the saga of Mykal Lakim.  I am probably giving this guy more attention than he deserves to be honest.  I am also aware that by doing so I going to inevitably send someone to his site that sees his stuff and buys it.  If so then I just ask that you come back here to let me know what you honestly think of it.  If you hate, tell me why, if you love it, also tell me why.

Wil Hutton over at Aggregate Cognizance has also been following this drama and has a number of posts on it. http://rivetgeek.blogspot.com/search/label/mykal%20lakim.

There is also this thread over at White Wolf talking about it.
http://forums.white-wolf.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=67770

The new claim (new to me) is that Lakim is now saying that White Wolf ripped him off.
No. Really.

Wil Hutton has also been doing some digging into his posts over at Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Mykal_lakim
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Mykal_lakim
In particular all the pages he created for his own games and their near immediate deletion.  That's not the issue really, RPGs get deleted all the time from Wikipedia.  It's the drama he brings after the fact.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_deletion/Vampire:_Undeath_v.1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_deletion/G.A.M.E (love the "P.S. White Wolf blows)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_deletion/Dark_Phoenix_Publishing,_Inc.

And this rant on users' pages:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Nishkid64&direction=next&oldid=190786257
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Alexf&diff=prev&oldid=393979249, i love how all his "fans" will be boycotting Wikipedia.

Why bring all this up?
Well obviously this guy has some stones on him if he thinks he an stand up to White Wolf or that Wikipedia cares about his temper-tantrum.

I think the only reason that WW has not sued the guy is because he is too small for them to have noticed yet.

New Book: Darwin's Guide to Creatures, Mythical and Mundane

My current big project is "Darwin's Guide to Creatures, Mythical and Mundane" a creature book for the Gaslight RPG (OGL and Savage Worlds)

I got on this since it covers many of my interests well.  I love old bestiaries, the Victorian age and my interest in Darwin himself.

I thought that since today was Darwin Day, Id spend some time talking about this book.

For starters it is a monster manual.  Creatures mythical and mundane to pit against your Gaslight characters.
It is circa 1888 and we are at the height of the Late Victorian Empire.

The book is written as a naturalist guide, similar in some respects to Darwin's work on the Galapagos Islands in his study of finches.  I tried to put myself into Darwin's shoes and write about orcs and trolls as if he had seen them himself.  Not an easy task.  I also tried whenever possible to avoid any supernatural agencies.  That was particularly difficult.   I rather like what I did about elementals, but less so about undead and will have to edit them a bit.

To prep for this book I reread Darwin's greatest work, "On the Origin of Species".  If you have never read this, then please do.  It is a masterwork and so ahead of it's time.  This man, through careful and painstaking observation put together this theory of common descent and change of species over time.  I know from reading his autobiography that this was not an idea he took lightly.  He knew that this would not sit well with the clergy and especially his religious wife.  But he also knew it had to be done.

Reading his autobiography got me to one of the key conceits of the book.  The book is "published" in 1885 or thereabouts.  Darwin was of course dead by that time.  It is edited from years worth of notes by his son William Erasmus and his daughter Etty.

I wanted to stay true to the spirit of Darwin, if not the letter, but I also wanted to stay true to the game system and world.  Gaslight is a world where Dracula preys on maidens in their bedchambers while Sherlock Holmes peruses Jack the Ripper and Mr. Hyde in the streets of White Chapel.

This is also giving me a chance to stat up some monsters that I have not had the chance to try out yet.  In particular some dinosaurs.

Looking forward to getting this one out there too!

Cross posting this to The Freedom of Nonbelief.

Unearthed Arcana

Was going to play some 1st Ed AD&D yesterday.  Didn't quite get around to it, but I did get to my FLGS and pick up a copy of the new limited reprint of Unearthed Arcana.

As with the first reprints, these are very similar.  Though these new ones are supposed to include all the errata.  I have not looked closely enough to be able to tell.

The only main difference outside of the covers and errata is the copyright page.

It fits in well with my other reprints.
Unlike the PHB, DMG and MM there isn't a page for the Gygax memorial.  I don't think and have not heard if any money from this is being donated.

In any case this is a nice book to have.  Unlike others of the old school mindset I don't hate UA. In fact I rather liked it. I loved all the new spells and class options.  The cover is not quite as iconic as the others, but it looks fine here.

Useful Links

Good morning all.  Lazy Sunday here at the Other Side today.

Might get some 1st Ed AD&D today.  Might not.  No idea yet.

But here are some links for you to enjoy.

First is AnyDice.
I have seen this on a few blog posts.  But you can use it to figure out any dice distribution.
Here are the AnyDice calcs for my own "Chicago Way" of running Unisystem games.
As a stats geek (actually former stats professor) I like this site and can appreciate the work that went to it.
I you can, take the time to send them a dollar or two.

Another is Pulp-O-Mizer.
This comes to me courtesy of Rebecca's Dystopia.
Create your own Pulp magazine cover.  I saw this and immediately thought of Call of Cthulhu and Amazing Adventures.
In my mind adventures for pulp games should look like pulp magazines.

Natural History of Dragons

Just saw this over at one of my favorite blogs All Things Urban Fantasy.

A Natural History of Dragons. With some kick ass art by Todd Lockwood and written by Marie Brennan.

I need to get this for my son!

I have been following the books of Marie Brennan for a bit.  I have some, but have not read them yet.
I am looking forward to this.

And they are also giving away 3 copies.

Zatannurday: World's Finest

This image is floating around the various game blogs this week.
It comes from Kyle Latino and it is pretty cool.

http://kylelatino.deviantart.com/#/d5t9pg6

All my favorite DC characters playing a game of D&D.  And to further make this more about me (!!) I also worked at Pizza Hut in college.  The Mt. Dews are a nice touch.

Kyle has a lot of cool stuff on his Deviant Art page and his own webcomic.

So what characters do you think everyone is playing?
I'd like to think Zee would try out something like a Barbarian like Dresden did when he played "D&D" in the books.  Batgirl plays the cleric, Black Canary plays the Wizard (to irritate Zee) and Hawkgirl plays the thief, but she is not enjoying it as much as she might like.

He also a cute retro Zatanna.


Zatanna by ~kylelatino on deviantART

Stop by his DeviantArt page and comic and have a look!