White Dwarf 40 was the first issue I brought back in the
day. It was released in April 1983 so I would have been 13. (I honestly thought
it was earlier than this, I must have been in secondary school when I got this,
much to my surprise.)
I have recently decided to rebuy my collection of White
Dwarfs (Dwarves?) and make a dedicated effort to read through them all and
understand what I saw in them back in the day. So what follows is a review of a
35 year old magazine based on my 2018 eyes.
First things first, the cover. I’m not an art guy so
pictures pretty much pass me buy, so whilst this cover is very familiar to me,
I have never really looked at it. So it’s pretty dull really; 2 long headed
alien type figures, looks like one male and one female. Fairly basic stuff, an
inauspicious start.
Inside we’ll look at the layout. At this time all of the
articles were sandwiched between pages of ads at the back and front. So we have
a full page ad for the Judge Dredd boardgame – dull but having something of a
renaissance at the moment. Then we have a page of ads featuring Games Workshop
Mail order and Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks. The FF books are only up to number 3
and the GW ad has special prices on a couple of items – Scorpion Hall for £4.95 and Tomb of the Lizard King for
£3.95. (This will not be the last time I wish I had a time machine!).
Next up, ads for a couple of game stores (One of which was
my LGS, Not Just Stamps – see a previous blog post) – both long gone I’m
afraid.
Followed by a full page Car Wars advert – includes both
Sunday Drivers and Truck Stop. Next 2 pages are more ads – for the new magazine
from TSR called Imagine as well as Otherworld Artefacts and for a Mail Order
Site, Poison Dwarf Games. For completeness I should say that I had all of the CW
stuff and played a little, I bought Imagine up to about number 10 back in the
day (I have subsequently had 2 full sets and sold them on – I’m thinking that
after my WD phase I might have to go back to Imagine again!). Poison Dwarf
games was actually a company I used a bit – their prices were very competitive
indeed. Don’t know if Otherworld is still going but there are, oddly, a few of their sets on ebay as we speak
Then a full page advert for a Citadel Miniatures Catalogue –
no glossy photos back then.
Then to the real content. Ian Livingstone does the brief
editorial, a brief comment over Fantasy or Science Fiction as inspiration for
books and games. ( I prefer fantasy games and Sci-Fi movies fwiw).
Dave Morris writes a 2 page Runequest article Zen and the
Art of adventure Gaming. Not very interesting to me but lots of nuts and bolts
stuff mainly about weapons and combat. Doesn’t really add a lot to the game but
I think this was when Ninjas etc were getting more frequent in popular culture.
3 page article on The Dungeon Master General – Mass combat
in D&D – sort of a rules system but frankly you would be better going
freeform on it – food for thought but not much else.
Critical Mass by Dave Langford – typical book review column
which I always really liked. Langford has a very dry writing style and gave me
a few pointers over the years for reading matter. (DL is still going strong – https://ansible.uk/
– well worth following). Foremost review is for White Gold Wielder the 6th
Thomas Covenant book from Stephen Donaldson (Could never read them.) I did read
the Myth series from Robert Asprin following this column though, yes I agree
the Pervect joke was overused but good fun
nonetheless.
Next up, Open Box, a 2 Page reviews column – good stuff here. Scorpion Hall – awesome,
bought it!
C1/C2/S2/I1 – a review of 4 classic AD&D modules – had
them all too. Scores of 8 all round except for I1 Dwellers of the Forbidden
City which got a 5 – Jim Bambra does give reason for this low score – I would
personally have given it a 7 but maybe that’s a lot of nostalgia coming to
bear.
Illuminati from Steve Jackson – no idea about a lot of these
pocket games but they always seemed to sell well.
Last, but by no means least, with an overall score of 9 we
have Starstone by Paul Vernon, enough said – if you can get hold of one do so,
I simply cannot recommend it highly enough – though why the map was oversized
to the book was always a mystery to me!
Letters page – Quite dull today – sorry not much in the way
of meat here. (Over the years some of the ongoing debates in these pages was
quite caustic – possibly some thoughtful editing coming in to play but
interesting al the same).
6 Page scenario from
Marcus Rowland – Eagle Hunt. This is a classic – I really don’t know how so
much information is squeezed into such a short space. MR wrote any number of
solid adventures but this really is good stuff – the Detective aspect of it is
a little forced but a great scenario.
Runerites – all about trading – nothing new here but a very
workable system – It could get abused by an Issaries guy though just out to
make Lunar if this was the way your campaign was going.
Assignment:Survey has a new ship for Traveller by Andy Slack
– a nice thing this – a bit of a step up from the usual Type S Scout – well
laid out and very usable. (There is a
scenario in issue 41 featuring this ship
- Off topic but the Snow Bird Mystery is another top drawer scenario for
a magazine – frankly better than most of the Traveller LBB range.)
Inhuman Gods part 2 – Dull – all you need to know about the
gods of Firenewts, Flinds, Flymen and Frog Folk – as pointless as you might
imagine it to be.
Wowser – 2 pages of a computer program in BASIC to enable
you to generate Runequest characters – how times have changed! I really don’t
think many of us would sit at a keyboard and input this now. At least it’s for
an Apple though – lord knows it could have been for a ZX81.
Magic Items – Standard fare – I can’t think of anything
pithy to say here – I feel though, that back then I should have sent in magic
item suggestions – I couldn’t write adventures but I think I could have got my
name in print for an enchanted item – sadly a missed opportunity.
News page – Some Chronicle Hobgoblins – like these sculpts
along with a set of treasure items from Torchlight.
Also is the news that Citadel Miniatures will be releasing a
product that “marks a completely new direction for the company” – Warhammer!!!
(Nuff said).
The news page - Truckstop is coming as is Scorpion Hall,
Battlecars and yet more Fighting Fantasy books – the humanity, where will it
end?
Small ads – I would buy all of the second hand stuff and
would also be up for the fanzines; Quasits & Quasars, Journal of the
Senseless Carnage Society, Wyrms Claw anybody? I tried the number of the guy
selling WD 1-20 but it doesn’t seem to work!!
That’s the real content over with, the rest of the mag is
filled up with more adverts – anybody
know anything about the PBM Vorcon Wars?
Ads for Salute at the Kensington Town Hall, Starstone as
well as a game shop in Wales and the PBM Crasimoff’s World(Think this was one
of the longest running PBMs).
There are full page ads for Star Fleet Battles, RQ and
Traveller and miniature companys Chronicle and Denizen.
Game shops – 1/8 page crap ad for the Gameskeeper Oxford –
still going and Esdevium, now trading as Asmodee as a game distributor.
Oh and Games Workshop only had 5 branches!!
So that’s it, in all its ancient glory. I really enjoyed
re-reading this and it brought back some fine memories. I brought this months
WD recently – side by side the 2 don’t really compare, though I have enjoyed
both, for very different reasons – Warhammer really did catch on didn’t it?
Back soon
Carl
