They have also had a good response for more articles and expect to go monthly next year (1982). Games Day 81 was also a lot of fun and continues to grow, as does the new store in Birmingham.
This month’s reviews are:
On the Cover
A group of soldiers take defensive positions around the landing ramp of their spacecraft to defend it from an assault. Their unseen enemy has already taken out one of the fighters and are probably trying to capture the woman in an unfeasibly tight (or just painted on) spacesuit they seem to be defending. The piece is by Alan Craddock, his first but not last for White Dwarf. Craddock began as a comics illustrator in the early 1960s so is already well established by 1981. He will go on to illustrate the covers for several Fighting Fantasy game books as well as the covers for the original six books of the Dragon Warriors RPG.Features
- The Dungeon Architect, Part 3: The Populated Dungeon (Roger Musson): In this final part, Roger Musson looks more at the style of your dungeon rather than the population as the title implies. Essentially, now you have rooms, how do you populate them? Monsters, traps, treasure? He considers how much comedy you might add, as well as how you might manage the balance between challenge, monsters and treasure.
- The Dungeon at the End of the Universe (Marcus Rowland): This rather mixed bag finishes off Marcus Rowland’s series of AD&D in space articles. He looks at melee in space, ship to ship combat, new space equipment and what spells might be useful in such a campaign.
- The Imperial Secret Service (Robert McMahon): A new career for Traveller characters. It’s a very solid entry and slots into the rules pretty easily. Being all about spies, and how they never really retire, the various assignments are also a good source of background.
- An Introduction to Dungeons and Dragons, Part 5 Characterisation and Alignment (Lewis Pulsipher): Lew Pulsipher finishes his introductory articles on controversial ground tackling alignment. This might be one of the first times we’ve seen anyone really address the idea of your character being something other than a heroic version of yourself to face the dangers of a dungeon. So its solid advice for the time, even if much of this might be included in more modern games.
- Hell’s Portal (Wil Stephenson): A pretty standard dungeon set in an almost abandoned tower that was once a prison. The PCs are sent to find the ceremonial armour of a rebel leader once held there to inspire their forces before their enemies find it. There is a lot you might do with that background but sadly this is mostly a pretty standard dungeon where the various parts of the armour are hidden around the place.
Regulars
- Character Conjuring: We’re back to new classes this issue, presenting the Summoner by Penelope Hill. Again, it’s a specialist magic user, but one with a few more tweaks than just bonuses for summoning and conjuring. Most notably the option to use leather armour and a broader weapons mix. Mainly their spells are ritual based though so not good at improvising solutions.
- Letters: This issue there are comments about Lew Pulsipher’s article on DMing styles in his Introduction to D&D, with a reader mostly saying “players get the dungeon (and DM) they deserve” which is somewhat true. There is a question about the use of jump drives in Traveller as well that the editor can clear up. But for me the most interesting letter is a problem many DMs may have come across, where a player character gets turned into a vampire, and freed of the sire’s control when the rest of the party kills the original. So now the player has a vampire PC, thinks it’s really cool and is dominating the group. These days most GMs would just say “sorry dude, you just became an NPC” but I still feel for this DM whose players insist that any attempts to balance out the challenges is somehow targeting the “poor innocent” vampire player unfairly. It’s an interesting story and the editor offers a good response.
- News: Again, the new news format doesn’t have as much news as I’d like. We have some reports on the opening of the GW Birmingham store and the winners of a recent wargame and painting competition at Dragonmeet. FGU will be releasing a new game “Aftermath” for the growing post apocalypse genre. More third-party Traveller releases are on the way from Paranoia Press, who will manage a decent selection of Traveller products before fading away. There are more figure releases from the usual suspects of Citadel and Ral Partha but no big news there. Finally, university lecturer Bruce Galloway will be releasing a book on the “D&D Phenomenon/Cult” called “Fantasy Wargaming”. This might mark the first book about hobby games we’ve seen, and more will follow.
- Starbase: This issue it’s a quick column on making flash cards for rules references, especially weapons. Not much to this except “put some detail on flash cards like in the illustration” but a good idea if you’d not thought of it.
- Treasure Chest: We have a mixed bag of seven spells this time, all for a broad selection of classes, including the Houri (see WD#13). My favourite being the illusion spell “Leprosy” that makes the party look so horrifically diseased no intelligent creature will come anywhere near them.
Fiend Factory
No mini-adventure this week again, but one with a theme of a sort. With the Fiend Folio finally out, these are more of the “near misses” that were due to be included but got cut at the last minute. Commiserations to their creators, but I didn’t find these especially great:- Cold Beast (Dean Lockwood): While this creature doesn’t like a cold climate, it does have many ice-based abilities. It is an ice white lion creature with a rather stand offish attitude, who is always hungry enough to eat an adventurer.
- Greenman (Brendon Bulger): A four armed rather bug eyed, tusked, tribal ape creature. Not much more to it but not very friendly. Likely a thark analogue from Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Barsoom series.
- Spikehead (No Author): Exactly what it says on the tin, an ape-like creature with a big spike on its head.
- White Ape (Bendon Bulger): A companion species for the Greenman, the White Ape is another creature that looks like its name implies, but this time with four arms. They and the Greenmen have many skirmishes over particular ruins they share. Also inspired by Barsoom, these guys will be banished from Dungeons & Dragons for a while and then return as the girallon.
- Wirrn (Ian Beckingham): Almost based on the Doctor Who monster of a similar name, this worm grapples a target and lays eggs in them with an injector when it has them on the ground. If the target doesn’t get the eggs purged their hatching will not be a good day for the character…
This month’s reviews are:
- Asteroid, Board Game (GDW): In this two-player game, one player runs the plucky heroes trying to stop a rogue asteroid, the other plays the evil computer driving it towards Earth.
- Deluxe Edition Traveller, RPG Core Set (GDW): The mayday call from Free Trader Beowulf is heard across the universe at last. In something of a “finally!” GDW releases a boxed set for the first three Traveller books, including an adventure, a map and a new Book 0 that introduces role playing. I do wonder why there isn’t a “mega” version that includes Mercenary and High Guard as since their release pretty much every Traveller adventure and supplement will say it requires them!
- Griffin Mountain, Campaign, Runequest (Chaosium): This huge campaign will be a benchmark until Masks of Nyarlathotep for Cthulhu arrives. It covers a huge area, detailing the towns and cults within and offers several scenarios and adventures.
- ISS Ship Files, Supplement for Traveller (Games Workshop) and Traders and Gunboats, Supplement for Traveller (GDW): Both of these books are reviewed together as they basically do the same thing, offer deck plans and details of starships for Traveller (one from GW, the other from GDW). Of the two, the reviewer prefers the GW product, but only by a whisker and you can buy both if you like as they cover different ships.
- Star Fleet Battles, Wargame Core Set (Task Force Games): The first edition of this old favourite for hardcore wargamers (it can take over an hour to just move into range and fire a single shot). But if you love assigning energy points, this is the game for you. Actually a very solid game as its longevity will attest (especially with CBS and Paramount breathing down its neck).
