White Dwarf: Issue #77

Issue #77 of White Dwarf (May 1986) features an immediately recognizable cover illustration by Chris Achilleos. The image is probably best-known for its appearance on the September 1981 issue of Heavy Metal, though it has appeared in many other places over the years. I've noted before that, compared to Dragon, WD more regularly used re-purposed artwork for its cover illustrations, though I've never come to a satisfactory conclusion as to why this was the case. My best guess is that it was a matter of simple economics, reprinted art being perhaps cheaper than commissioning original art, but I honestly don' know if that's the case. In any event, this particular cover induces a bit of cognitive dissonance in me, since I so strongly associate it with Heavy Metal, not White Dwarf.

Issue #77 is also the last issue under the editorship of Ian Marsh. Marsh only took over in issue #74, so his departure so soon after his installation comes as a bit of a shock. In his final editorial, Marsh states that "the other staff of the magazine" would also be leaving, though he doesn't specify which ones. He seems to obfuscate on the reasons for all these departures, simultaneously reminding readers that Games Workshop was moving to Nottingham and that he and the others "have decided not to accompany it on this move," while also couching their decision as being for nebulous "reasons of our own." The next issue will have a "fresh team" headed up by Paul Cockburn.

The issue proper begins with the reviews of "Open Box." The first of these is Mayfair's DC Heroes, which receives a quite favorable (8 out of 10) review by Marcus L. Rowland, who continues to be the workhorse of the magazine. The Stormbringer adventure Stealer of Souls likewise scores 8 out of 10, while The Sea Elves, a supplement for the Elfquest RPG gets 7 on the same scale. Another Chaosium product, Alone Against the Dark for Call of Cthulhu earns 9 out of 10, but Yellow Clearance Black Box Blues for Paranoia receives only 7 – another example, I think, of where the numerical scores don't quite align with the text of the review itself. Finally, there are reviews of two supplements for FASA's Doctor Who RPG: The Daleks (7 out of 10) and The Master (6 out of 10). 

Dave Langford's "Critical Mass" is mostly forgettable to me, as usual, but he does take note of the death of Frank Herbert, opining that Chapter House: Dune, to which he gave a "mildly favorable" review back in issue #65 might be the end of "galactic power-politicking" in the Dune universe. How I wish that had been true! Colin Greenwell's "2020 Vision" reviews a few movies, most notably Young Sherlock Holmes, a forgettable, even laughable, Steven Spielberg movie that nonetheless does feature one of the earliest examples of a computer-generated character in the history of cinema – a dire portent of things to come.

"The Crazy File" by Peter Tamlyn provides a handful of new "crazies" – zealous devotees of social fads – for use with the Judge Dredd – The Role-Playing Game. The article contains no game statistics; it's pure background information intended to give the referee something inspirational for use in his own adventures and campaigns. "Spellbound" by Phil Masters looks at "magic in superhero games." Again, there's nothing mechanical here. Instead, it's an overview of how magic has been used in comics over the years and then offers advice and examples of how to make use of it in one's own original superhero RPG adventures and campaigns. It's well done in my opinion and helped by the fact that it's not geared toward any particular superhero RPG. 

"The Final Frontier" by Alex Stewart does something similar for Star Trek gaming: it's an overview of the unique characteristics of Gene Roddenberry's science fiction setting and how they can best be used to create enjoyable adventures and campaigns. As a fan of Star Trek – or at least I once was – I think the article is pretty well done for what it is, though I do find myself wondering about its intended audience. White Dwarf used to have lots of these introductory articles in its early days. To see them return so late in its run strikes me as odd, though I'm sure there's a logic to it that eludes me. 

Graham Staplehurst's "A Secret Wish" is an adventure that's written for both D&D and Middle-earth Role Playing. The scenario itself assumes the players take on the role of hobbits and deals with the disappearance and return of Glorfindel. How well it jibes with the actual history of Middle-earth as laid out by Tolkien, I can't rightly say, though, to me, it reads a bit like a work of fan fiction rather than something that could have come from the mind of the Professor himself. "A Cast of Thousands" by Graeme Davis is yet another look at NPCs and how to give them "personality." It's fine, though, as is so often the case with articles like this, I find it difficult to sift through the conventional wisdom repeated for the hundredth time from the genuine insights.

"The Cars That Ate Sanity" by Marcus L. Rowland is a set of car chase rules for use with Call of Cthulhu. Is this something anyone needed? I don't mean to be flippant, but I cannot recall any car chases in Lovecraft's fiction. Maybe my memory is failing me again. Chris Felton's "Gaming for Heroine Addicts" – a clever title – is about how avoid "sexism" in one's games and make them more enjoyable to women. As you might expect, the article is a very mixed bag of topics, not to mention perspectives. I'm not sure the article offers a coherent viewpoint on any of its topics, which range widely and make many assumptions about RPGs, men, women, and everything in between. I've already spent more time thinking about it than it probably deserves.

Joe Dever's "Tabletop Heroes" looks at the best techniques for photographing one's painted miniatures. I found it fascinating and very much appreciated the little diagrams that accompanied the article. They showed the placement of lighting, camera, and background and did a great job of illustrating the principles Dever discusses. "The Travellers," "Gobbledigook," and "Thrud the Barbarian" are all here as usual. "Thrud" pokes fun at superheroes by having the tiny-headed barbarian face off against the All-American Legion of Incredibly Stupid Heroes, such as

After reading Ian Marsh's farewell editorial, I now feel an obligation to read at least a few more issues. I'm genuinely curious now to see how much will change under a "fresh new team" at the helm of White Dwarf. If nothing else, it'll be fascinating purely from a historical perspective. Till then!

White Dwarf: Issue #57

Issue #57 of White Dwarf (September 1984) features a cover by an artist credited only as Tweddell. The image is certainly an eye-catching one that, for me at least, evokes some of the pre-vanilla strains of fantasy that flourished prior to the 1980s. Perhaps it's the weird mounts of the two warriors that does, I don't know. In any case, I find myself strangely fond of this particular cover, more so than I would have expected. 

Ian Livingstone's editorial uses Games Workshop's release of its Judge Dredd and Doctor Who games as an opportunity to ponder the matter of licensed RPGs. He wonders why there are now so many games based on pre-existing characters and settings when Dungeons & Dragons, a generic and open-ended game without a direct media antecedent, remains the best-selling RPG. The matter of roleplaying games based on media properties is something I've thought a lot about over the years and re-reading Livingstone's brief comments on the matter have brought them to mind again. I may need to write a post about it in the coming days, if only to attempt to organize my own inchoate thoughts on the subject.

 "Mind over Matter" by Todd E. Sundsted tackles the ins and outs of psionics in AD&D and other fantasy RPGs. By and large, the article's intended as advice to the referee and, on that level, is fine if uninspired. Dave Langford's "Critical Mass" is the usual collection of snarky reviews mixed with occasional praise, with the latter being heaped on Frederik Pohl's Heechee Rendezvous and Gordon Dickson's Lord Dorsai. Langford also takes the opportunity to tie his reviews into roleplaying games, when he uses the "Neanderthal ethics" of E.E. Smith's Subspace Encounter as a springboard for discussing the "moral bias" of adventure scenarios. He doesn't dwell on the topic at any length, however. His intent seems merely to have been to get referees (and players) to consider the matter rather than simply ignore it.

"Open Box" starts with a quartet of (mostly negative) reviews of Mayfair Role Aids releases: Elves (3 out of 10), Dwarves (3 out of 10), Dark Folk (3 out of 10), and Wizards (6 out of 10). While there's no question that most Role Aids books weren't very good, I can't help but feel the reviewer, Robert Dale, is being unduly harsh here. Much more positively reviewed is The Traveller Adventure, which receives a well-deserved 9 out of 10. Powers & Perils, a game whose mere existence continues to baffle me, is given a very generous 8 out of 10, largely, it seems, on the basis of how much of its contents might be adapted to other fantasy RPGs. Finally, James Bond 007 is given a mediocre 6 out of 10.

"Sky Rig" by Paul Ormston is a Traveller scenario with a classic set-up: the characters are tasked to investigate why contact was lost with an orbital refinery in a gas giant. It's a fun little adventure in an unusual locale and I made good use of it in my youth. "For the Blood is the Life" by Dave Morris offers up an alternative to the traditional Gloranthan vampire in the form of the vampyr (and demi-vampyr). Morris's complaint is that, mechanically, there's no good reason for Gloranthan vampires to drain blood, which he considers an important part of the lore of the creature, hence the alternative version he offers, whose continued existence depends on blood. 

The second article in the "Night's Dark Agents" series by Chris Elliott and Richard Edwards provides game mechanics for better integrating ninjas AD&D, RuneQuest, and, believe it or not, Bushido. Once again, I note how quintessentially 1980s it is to have an article like this in a gaming magazine. "The Life of a Retired Wizard" by Lewis Pulsipher is a consideration of what magic-users, whatever their level, might do with themselves after they stop adventuring. Though short, it's a thoughtful article whose intent seems to be to encourage referees to give some thought to the question of how magic works and is used in his setting. 

Part 2 of "The Sunfire's Heart" AD&D adventure by Peter Emery is as good as the first part. The scenario has some excellent maps and challenging encounters, as well as some delightfully old school elements, such as riddles that provide clues to the adventurers. This month's "Thrud the Barbarian" introduces readers to Eric of Bonémaloné and his demon sword Stoatbringer, while "Gobbledigook" and "The Travellers" continue to chug along somewhat less memorably. "The Staurni" by Andy Slack presents a version of the aliens from Poul Anderson's The Star Fox for use with Traveller. 

"Majipoor Monsters" by Graham Drysdale details seven monsters for D&D drawn from the works of Robert Silverberg. Having never read Lord Valentine's Castle and its follow-ups, I can't really speak to the fidelity of these write-ups. "Racy Bases" by Gary Chalk and Joe Dever looks at how to improve the bases of miniature figures. I found the article oddly compelling, even though I've never been much of a miniatures user (let alone painter). "Words of Wisdom" by Kiel Stephens concludes the issue with some thoughts on a handful of new and unusual ways to make use of D&D spells, such as using levitate as an attack against an unwilling target or magic mouth as an alarm.

There's a lot to like about this issue of White Dwarf – or so I thought when I first read it all those decades ago. Even now, I think both "Sky Rig" and "The Sunfire's Heart" are well done and could easily imagine making use of them in a fantasy or science fiction RPG I were refereeing. That's more than I can say about many issues of this or any other gaming magazine I've owned over the years.

White Dwarf: Issue #52

Alan Craddock's depiction of a meeting between science fiction and fantasy characters graces the cover of issue #52 of White Dwarf (April 1984). As I've commented before, this is a common theme for WD covers and a subject near and dear to my heart. Meanwhile, Ian Livingstone's editorial is addressed to "new and old readers alike." In it, he hopes that "our faithful followers" will not object to the inclusion of content aimed at newcomers to the hobby. I imagine the inclusion of such content reflects the fact that, by this time, White Dwarf had become available at newsstands and thus might have attracted the attention of those otherwise unfamiliar with RPGs. 

This is one of those times when I wish we had better information on the growth in popularity in sales for roleplaying games. I tend to think of 1984 as just beyond the peak of the hobby's faddishness; from that point on, there is inevitable decline. That's based on very little but my own limited experiences and might well not be true everywhere. Indeed, I think there's good evidence that, in the UK, growth was still happening at this time, as the still-rising fortunes of Games Workshop would attest. In any case, it's a topic that continues to interest me and I live in hope we'll one day have more reliable data on the first decade of the hobby.

"The Name of the Game" by Marcus L. Rowland is an example of the kind of content geared for newcomers that Livingstone mentions in his editorial. It's a two-page overview both of roleplaying in general and Dungeons & Dragons in particular. It's fine for what it is, though, as I always ask when confronted with articles like this, who is this for? I have a very hard time imagining that a newcomer would buy a copy of White Dwarf without already knowing what a roleplaying game is. In that case, what's the purpose of articles like this? It's short, so it doesn't waste too much of this issue's precious pages, but, even so, I fail to see the value in it.

"Out of the Blue" by Daniel Collerton is a nice article that aims give clerics spell lists more in tune with the deities they serve. I'm quite sympathetic to Collerton's general point of view, so I'm naturally inclined to like this. At the same time, the article is simple and straightforward, making use of a combination of revised spell lists and a few new spells to give each cleric a distinct flavor based on his religion. In many ways, it anticipates the ideas developed in later TSR books like Dragonlance Adventures or in Second Edition AD&D, but without the need for spheres/domains. 

"Open Box" reviews several new products, starting with Talisman, which – surprisingly – receives a score of only 6 out of 10. The reviewer found that the game tended to drag on, which is a fair criticism, I think. Also reviewed was another Games Workshop game, Battlecars, which was scored more favorably (8 out of 10). Not so lucky is Dragonriders of Pern by Mayfair. The reviewer points out its "rotten artwork, unclear rules, complex and unwieldy game mechanics, [and] high price," giving it 4 out of 10. Finally, there's the series of Lost Worlds fantasy combat books. The reviewer likes them in general, but nevertheless finds of "limited appeal," hence the mediocre score of 6 out of 10.

Dave Langford's "Critical Mass" quickly reviews many books, including Isaac Asimov's Foundation's Edge (which he doesn't care for), Piers Anthony's Dragon on a Pedestal (which he does, in spite of himself), Fred Saberhagen's Empire of the East (thumbs up), Vonda McIntyre's Superluminal (thumbs down), along with Robertson Davies's High Spirits (the best collection of ghost stories since M.R. James). Langford is something of an acquired taste and I frequently struggle reading his columns decades after they were written. Still, there's a strange joy in remembering that, once upon a time, our little hobby still looked to literature rather than itself and its distaff offspring for inspiration. I miss those days.

"Close Encounters of the First Kind" presents four new monsters for use with D&D, including one, the spider dragon, by editor Ian Livingstone himself. "Microview" by Russell Clarke reviews two computer games, Usurper (5 out of 10) and Caribbean Trader (8 out of 10). He also presents a short program to aid in handling impulse movement in Starfleet Battles. "To Live Forever" by Andy Slack looks at immortality in Traveller. Slack focuses on achieving this through drugs, medicine, clones, and low berths, not to mention the adverse effects of each approach. He ends the article with a sample scenario that introduces some of these concepts into a campaign.

"The Castle of Lost Souls" by Dave Morris and Yve Newnham is the first part of an extended solitaire adventure built on a model similar to the Fighting Fantasy books that were all the rage at the time. I remember really enjoying this series at the time. It's quite well done for what it is – no surprise, really, given that Morris would later go on to write the Fabled Lands series of gamebooks. "The Serpent's Venom" by Liz Fletcher is a beginning AD&D scenario that's quite cleverly done. Fletcher subverts a common trope of low-level adventures – a quest given by a mysterious NPC – to present something that looks like a lot of fun to play. 

Dave Morris returns with "Rings," a collection of more than a dozen magical rings for use with RuneQuest. "Pandora's Box," on the other hand, is a collection of six miscellaneous magical items by various authors for D&D, including the casket of troubles. Joe Dever and Gary Chalk (later of Lone Wolf fame) offer "A Hard Day's Knight," a "close-up look at fighter figures," complete with color photographs. I used to love articles like this, since I was absolutely awful at painting and never ceased to marvel at others' artistry. This issue also includes new installments of "Gobbledigook," "The Travellers," and "Thrud the Barbarian." The latter is the first part of "The Three Tasks of Thrud," a short series of connected installments that tell a longer story of the necromancer To-Me Ku-Pa's enlistment of the dimwitted barbarian to undertake the titular tasks of the title.

Issue #52 is a bit less enjoyable than its immediate predecessor but still solid. White Dwarf continues to distinguish itself for the variety of its content, as well as the slightly off-kilter approaches it took to its content. Compared to Dragon, it's a bit less professional and predictable, which is both a blessing and curse. For myself, White Dwarf gave me new perspectives on the hobby that I wouldn't otherwise have had. For that, I remain grateful, whatever criticisms I might have of individual issues.

Retrospective: Dark Folk

When I think about the most unfortunately named line of RPG products ever, Mayfair's "Role Aids" immediately comes to mind. Child of the '70s that I am, the name "Role Aids" reminds me of antacids called Rolaids, which were well known at the time, thanks to a series of TV advertisements ("How do you spell 'relief'?" "R-O-L-A-I-D-S.") Consequently, when I first encountered Role Aids in the early 1980s, the name gave me another reason to dismiss them. The other, of course, was that they marketed themselves as "Suitable for Use with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons," but they weren't produced by TSR. Back in this days, I was reflexively contemptuous of any non-TSR product that claimed compatibility with D&D. With few exceptions, if I didn't see the TSR logo on the book somewhere, I turned my nose up at it.

Eventually, though, I heard enough good things about various Role Aids products that I decided to take a chance and buy one for myself. The first one I purchased with Dark Folk, which was published in 1983. The book was edited by Paul Karczag, with material by several authors (Irwin Goldstein, Les Kay, Arthur Miller, Alan Nudelman, Steve Morrison, Susan Khas) I'd never heard of and by Robert Asprin of Thieves' World fame. Its subjects, as its name would suggest, were the evil humanoid races -- orcs, trolls, goblins, gnolls, and kobolds. Each race was got its own chapter, complete with overviews of history, culture, physiology, religion, magic items, and so on. Capping off each chapter was an adventure written to take advantage of the new material presented in the book.

As you might expect from a book with multiple authors, Dark Folk is something of a mixed bag. There are some clever and interesting sections and some not-so-clever and interesting ones. In general, the material about the various races is pretty standard stuff, its primary "uniqueness" being that it doesn't always comport with the standard presentation of these races in D&D. Thus, if your image of trolls is primarily informed by the Monster Manual, you're likely to find Dark Folk's take on them original. I remember, for example, that the presentation of kobolds felt odd to me. Dark Folk claims, years in advance of this becoming a common assumption, that they were reptiles (which makes some sense considering that even the MM notes that they're oviparous). But it was the adventures that were where Dark Folk shined brightest. Again, not all of the adventures were perfect -- which are? -- but several were well done and used the information in the book to make each one feel different. In this way, an orc lair wasn't the same as a goblin lair or a kobold one. It's a small thing, sure, but, at the time, it was a revelation to me.

I never became a huge buyer of Role Aids products, despite my fondness for Dark Folk (and, later, Dwarves). Mostly, it was because TSR and other companies were producing enough RPG material that I'd instinctively buy that I already had more material than I could ever use. And there was also a part of me that continued to recoil at the notion of "unofficial" supplements to D&D, no matter how good they were. That's a habit that took many years to break. It seems silly now, but, back in those days, there was a "cultural" divide between those of us who cared about "official" products and those of us who couldn't care less about them. It's a divide that's still very much alive and even relevant given recent events.