White Dwarf Reflections #11

This issue contains a ‘pull out and play’ game ‘Bar Room Brawl’ and a promise to include more adventures and similar scenarios in the future. Editor Ian Livingstone also calls for readers to share their opinions on the magazine and tell them what their most popular character classes are in D&D. Remember, at this point, while there were a few other systems around, most people were playing D&D, Traveller or Runequest, with a little Chivalry and Sorcery.

On the Cover​

A thin shamanistic woman in a spacesuit, armed with a flintlock style rifle looks out onto a barren landscape and a strange domed hive ahead of her. The illustration is another by John Blanche who is already becoming the leading cover illustrator for White Dwarf at this point.

Features​

• Firearms 3000AD (Brain Asbury): A selection of types of futuristic weapons for Traveller that might spark some ideas for any sci-fi setting.
• A Barroom Brawl D&D Style (Lew Pulsipher): What is says on the tin, a bar room brawl wargame. A map of the tavern is provided, with many tokens for chairs, tables and beds that might be thrown around. It’s a fun game with a good selection of different characters all itching for a fight.
• Humanoid Variations (Charles Eden): A listing of some more humanoid species for use in Starships and Spacemen (an RPG by FGU). Some nice ideas but a little unclear if you don’t know the game.
• Valley of the Four Winds, Part 4 (Rowland Flynn): The fourth part of a short story introducing the setting of a new Ral Partha figure range, where our heroes enter a pixie forest and face a terrible monster.

Fiend Factory​

A collection of new monsters created by readers:

• Lauren (Colin Reynolds) a three headed, clawed monster that attacks with its chest mouth. I can’t help but wonder if it is named after someone’s ex.
• Spook (Roger Musson) a sheet wearing undead phantom that turns you into one of its kind with a touch.
• Witherstench (Johnathan Jones) a nasty skunk-like creature you really want to deal with using ranged attacks.
• Tribe of the Stone (Jack McArdle) a tribe of lizard-like humanoids divided into different types for a mixed range of abilities. Nice to see a culture (to a certain extent) as well as a monster here.
• Berbalang (Albie Fiore) a demonic looking creature that hunts by a form of psychic projection.
• Sheet Phantom (David Wormell) an intelligent(ish) sheet that hides where it can wrap up and suffocate a victim.
• Lapidan (Roger Musson) a living rope that can petrify with a whip touch. Notes are included for stunning it long enough to turn it into a weapon!
• Devil Dog (Louis Boschelli) a shaggy arctic wolf beast with a very nasty bite.

Open Box​

This month the reviews are:

• Direct Conflict in Dimension Six, Space wargame (Dimension Six) This game is something a horde of phone game apps will try to copy in the future. You start with a planet you build up to create ships, send ships out to find resources on other planets and then use those resources to build weapons. Eventually you have to fight for further resources once you have to search further across the map. Direct Conflict in Dimension Six
• Runequest, RPG Corebook (The Chaosium) The first release of the first edition of this masterful fantasy game. Still going strong over forty years later RuneQuest (1st & 2nd Editions)
• Middle Earth Trilogy, War/Board game (SPI) Three board games in one box, Gondor, Sauron and War of the Ring. I’m not sure how related this War of the Ring is to the popular card game or the board game released by Sophisticated Games.
• D&D Modules D1-3, Adventures (TSR) These separate modules are another famous trilogy: Descent into the Depths of the Earth, Shrine of Kuo-Toa and Vault of the Drow. They follow nicely from Against the Giants in terms of level and will soon have a final part with D4: Queen of the Demonweb Pits. All renowned as some of the most deadly modules outside Tomb of Horrors. Their popularity will see them all collated as the campaign Queen of the Spiders in 1986.

Regulars​

• Letters: A reasonably usual assortment with one letter pointing out an error in the Monstermark article and another pointing out another letter writer’s error in their previous letter. The pedantry remains strong among gamers. Lew Pulsipher sends in the results of a recent survey on favourite character classes. While it is limited to Magic User, Fighter, Cleric and Thief, it is pretty clear that people mostly play Magic Users, don’t mind playing a Fighter, will play a Cleric if they have to and avoid playing Thieves.
• Molten Magic: Quietly vanishes this month, but will be back in the next issue.
• News: Chaosium continues to support Runequest with a new sourcebook called Apple Lane. Traveller is being reprinted by Games Workshop for the UK market. An upcoming D&D boxed set (I’m going to assume this will be Basic D&D) will include a module called ‘Into the Unknown’. The big news is that Games Workshop and Brian Ansell are partnering to create a new company called Citadel Miniatures. Part of this partnership will distribute Ral Partha figures in the UK.
• Treasure Chest: A very odd collection this month. Three strange old man NPCs, a ring that gives you more arms and a character class, ‘The Weakling’ who is good at avoiding combat and running away.

 

[Bolongo]

D4: Queen of the Demonweb Pits.

Q1. Re: pedantry among gamers.

 

[Vincent55]

back in the day, i would buy anything that remotely had to do with D&D and roleplaying games, i picked up this one many times, but Dragon and Dungeon were always my need to have. I was working a fast food job and would spend 90% of my check on roleplay games, minis, and dice, and even got some of those dragon-forged tile sets still.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

A Barroom Brawl D&D Style (Lew Pulsipher): What is says on the tin, a bar room brawl wargame. A map of the tavern is provided, with many tokens for chairs, tables and beds that might be thrown around. It’s a fun game with a good selection of different characters all itching for a fight.

This seems to have inspired an entire subgenre of gaming that would start appearing next year. 1980 brought us both Yaquinto's Adventurer (scifi) and Swashbuckler (historical) barroom brawl games, and I'd contend that Dragon #44's Food Fight (also 1980) is a barroom brawl in high school cafeteria and falls into the same grouping.

Middle Earth Trilogy, War/Board game (SPI) Three board games in one box, Gondor, Sauron and War of the Ring. I’m not sure how related this War of the Ring is to the popular card game or the board game released by Sophisticated Games.

Completely unrelated to either the modern card game or the SG board game other than sharing subject matter. SPI put out three Middle Earth games under license in 1977, which were later bundled into this trilogy box (technically titled "The Games of Middle Earth") so you could buy them all at once. Gondor and Sauron were originally slightly smaller folio games covering the siege of Minas Tirith and and the final battle at the gates of Mordor, while War of the Ring is a much more sweeping game covering the whole of the LotR story at a strategic scale, along with a parallel "quest" game where the Fellowship is trying to get the Ring to Mount Doom for a lava bath while trying to avoid being hunted down by Sauron's minions or getting caught up in the broader war. WotR is still well-regarded and sold phenomenally back in the day, and commands very high prices on the collector's market.

The "quest" system (blending personal-scale heroics with a strategic wargame) was originally used in Swords & Sorcery (1978) as well as Freedom In the Galaxy (1979, later reprinted by AvHill).

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

We loved this bar map and used it whenever we went into a bar in a game. (I guess they franchised.) It was the first battlemap I think I ever saw and I still think it's one of the most useful ever.

Not sure if this predates TSR's Shady Dragon Inn, which is a combination of pre-rolled NPCs, stats for the BD&D action figure "iconics," and a map of the titular inn. Also a very useful product and I actually included the Shady Dragon Inn in my campaign world, although the PCs never did more than pass it by on the way to somewhere else.

Fiends that made the jump to the Fiend Folio this time: Lauren (renamed the tirapheg), spook and sheet phantom (merged into one monster that can create sheet ghouls from the victims it suffocates), witherstench, berbalang and the devil dog.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

Not sure if this predates TSR's Shady Dragon Inn...

A quick check tells me that came out in 1983, so yeah, about four years after this WD. Would have thought SDI was earlier than that myself.

 

[R_Chance]

White Dwarf had great material. To this day I have battle map / floorplans for every inn and tavern in my game. Nothing like a good bar brawl. Worked out my own unarmed combat rules and developed a complete list / stats of everything that could be used as a "weapon" including unconscious characters

 

[ilgatto]

• Lauren (Colin Reynolds) (...). I can’t help but wonder if it is named after someone’s ex.

Which, if anything, the (editor's?) explanation of the name only seems to corroborate.

Rather makes you wonder what "tirapheg" is an anagram of.