Most Missed Defunct Gaming Magazines?

[ColonelHardisson]

Total hijack here...

Does anyone else recall when Steve Jackson Games acquired Traveller and the ad they ran in gaming magazines for it?

Layout-wise, it was identical to the box cover of the old black Traveller set (a simple black background with a transcript of the Free Trader Beowulf's mayday tansmission).

Only this time it was a transcript of a response coming from a Naval Patrol vessel

"...Hang on Beowulf, help is on the way"

It gave me goosebumps. SJG was saving Traveller!

Best. Ad. Ever.

Hell, dude, not only do I remember it, SJG sent a half-sheet movie poster-style version of it in my order when I bought GURPS Traveller upon its release. I had it hanging on my wall, framed, for a few years.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

And another vote for Journal of the Traveller's Aid Society.

Mayday... Mayday... We are under attack...

Yeah, I loved JTAS. One of my favorite dedicated game magazines.

I miss the Dungeon/Poly melding, for the minigames, as so many have mentioned. It'd be sweet if they'd collect those minigames into a single volume...

I also miss White Dwarf from when it covered RPGs in general.

I miss the type of magazine Dragon was around 1980-1984 or thereabouts. I first started reading it in 1980, and looking back, it had a wide variety of stuff - my favorite article for years was from issue 50, which included a long article, illustrated by Rogar Raupp, about bringing Kzinti into your campaign world. I also loved a scifi issue they did which had, among others, an article about customizing ships in Traveller.

I like the current incarnation of Dragon, don't get me wrong. I just miss the variety of articles the magazine had way back when. But, I have the Dragon archive, so I can always read the old ones whenever I want...

 

[Allensh]

The gaming magazine I miss the most is the Steve Jackson Games version of The Space Gamer. It was just a great magazine to read.

Sadly, "general purpose" gaming magazines simply don't make money. I'm not even sure Dragon actually makes a profit, but then I don't actually know.

Allen

 

[kenobi65]

I've been sifting through the wreckage of a divorce for a long time now, but I'm starting to feel it again. I've got some ideas rolling around and some folks have offered text and images. So who knows? Maybe my New Years Resolution will be to get off my dead ass and pen a 33rd ish of S'works.

Oooh, sorry to hear about the divorce. If you get Scrollworks back up and running, I'd surely want to re-subscribe.

Oh, and I like the "Location" on your profile. Why *did* Constantinople get the works?

Mike Mistele

 

[dpmcalister]

In order...

White Dwarf (before it game a miniatures magazine)
Polyhedron UK
Dragon (before it turned into a D&D only magazine)
Imagine
Arcane

 

[Plane Sailing]

White Dwarf - I realize that there is still a magazine by that name, but the old issues where they covered everyone's games was a completely different beast.

White Dwarf was the first and best. I collected about the first 70 issues and it was truely awesome. Some of the adventures were inspiring and I've not seen their equal ("rise of the dark" particularly comes to mind), their variant classes, their treatment of other RPGs. It was so good. Tragedy it all had to end.

I still have about half a dozen issues of Different Worlds which I enjoyed at the time, and a couple of issues of the Space Gamer (particularly associated with the Ogre microgame).

Fanzines that I really enjoyed included Alarums & Excusions, Trollcrusher (a UK equivalent), Underworld Oracle and Illusionists Vision. The latter had some wonderful adventures in it (I can still remember the utter frustration caused us by "the legend of the Leshy"!) plus ended up with many illustrations done by my brother, which was cool.

Cheers

 

[Plane Sailing]

(As a side note, the bitterness left in the UK roleplaying scene by Games Workshop's withdrawl from roleplaying is still so great - nearly twenty years later - that all discussion of it in uk.games.roleplay is officially banned by the newsgroup's charter).

That is an interesting note. I remember that I was gutted when they withdrew from the general RPG market in favour of their warhammer stuff, since they had effectively been my introduction to RPGs. I'd bought Greyhawk from their shop in a basement near crystal palace, I queued for the grand opening of their shop in Hammersmith and bought the last copy of the 400 1st edition DMG's which had made it to the UK.

Rationally I could see that they were in the business of making money, but I felt jilted

Cheers

 

[MulhorandSage]

Interactive Fantasy from Hosgshead.
Different Worlds from Chaosium
The Space Gamer from SJG
and yes, even Hero's much abused Adventurer's Club (though their webzine, Digital Hero, is damn good).
And White Dwarf as it was back in Ye Olden Days.

 

[grodog]

Interactive Fantasy from Hosgshead.

Another fine magazine, and one that the rpg industry has never replicated....

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Interactive Fantasy from Hosgshead.
Different Worlds from Chaosium
The Space Gamer from SJG
and yes, even Hero's much abused Adventurer's Club (though their webzine, Digital Hero, is damn good).
And White Dwarf as it was back in Ye Olden Days.

Hogshead's magazine for Warhammer Fantasy Role Play was also pretty good. Warpstone.

The Auld Grump