White Dwarf Reflections #35

Ian Livingstone takes a moment to compare sales with popularity on the RPG scene. Recent sales data shows the most well selling games are: D&D, AD&D, Traveller, The Fantasy Trip, Top Secret, Chivalry and Sorcery, Tunnels and Trolls, Runequest, Space Opera and Arduin Grimoire, in that order. Interesting to see Basic D&D outselling Advanced D&D. He says this is at odds with the results from the Games Day awards, and although Runequest takes the best scenario there, D&D is still the top RPG. So I’m not seeing much to compare there. However, the list of top selling games for 1982 is interesting, and impressive to see The Fantasy Trip and Top Secret in the top half as they haven’t had quite the staying power of the others in the top ten. There is also a big announcement in the shape of an advert calling for writers for a new monthly UK gaming magazine to be called Imagine. The magazine will mainly focus on D&D and is to be produced by TSR’s UK branch. Budding writers need to print out their work, double spaced and include a stamped addressed envelope. A far cry from emailing in a word document! The magazine will appear in April 1983, and run for sadly only about 31 issues but they may well be worth “reflecting” on too sometime!

On the Cover​

A magician (perhaps a necromancer) stands in the centre of a protective circle in a dark basement laboratory, his thin staff gripped firmly in hand. He is surrounded by statues, braziers, bottles and books, all readily on hand for the magical working he is crafting. In front of him a golden bowl lights the room and casts frightening shadows as it prepares to reveal its secrets. This cover is by Les Edwards, his third after issues 16 and 19.

Features​

• Games Day ’82 A quick pictorial review of the day and a listing of the winners of the Games Day awards. The attendance was 7000, not much by today’s big con standards, but very solid for 1982. Award winners were all the usual, D&D, Citadel miniatures etc. But Stormbringer won the best new game category which pleased me.
• Green Horizon (Marcus Rowland) An interesting Traveller adventure reminiscent of a few Star Trek episodes. The PC’s ship ends up stranded near a strange planet that turns out to be Earth in 1943. I thought the Imperium was very specifically in the future, but it doesn’t really matter. A Norwegian factory may have the vital chemicals the PCs need to get their jump drive working again, but it’s occupied by Nazi forces! The allies are planning to attack the place too. Alien characters will also need more than a woolly hat over their pointed ears to pass for human!
• A Guide to Dungeonmastering Part 2: Monsters and Magic (Lew Pulsipher): Lew Pulsipher continues his look at DMing with how to put monsters and treasure in the dungeon. It does repeat the message of the last article that you are not just putting monsters in to kill off characters. But he also adds some things to consider that will turn the place into a working ecology instead of just random rooms.
• Lashing Out (Phil Masters): You don’t see a lot of people using whips as a weapon, and they don’t easily conform to just doing some HP damage. This article sorts that out, detailing what they can and can’t do and adding some bonus effects on a successful hit. If you’ve just watched Raiders of the Lost Ark, you might need this article to hand.
• The Necromancer (Lew Pulsipher): Possibly one of the most contentious character classes White Dwarf ever made, but also one of its best. Necromancers work much like Clerics rather than Magic Users, and instead of spells have abilities they need not learn and cast but can only use a limited amount of time. However, they must do an awful lot of sacrificing people to their dark powers to maintain these skills.

Regulars​

• Letters: This month the letters page dives into reader’s questions rather than pedantry and argument (for the most part anyway). One reader asks why Clerics can only use blunt weapons as smashing someone’s face in will certainly shed blood, which is the supposed prescription. The editor has some interesting points but also adds the real reason which is to limit their effectiveness in combat so it’s still worth playing a fighter! There is praise for Paul Vernon’s excellent town series, and a long rant about Zytra Lord of the Mind Flayers (Fiend Factory WD#33) being Chaotic Evil and not Lawful Evil like other Mind Flayers. There is also a certain amount of rage for the news column in the way it referred to the upcoming Recon RPG set in Vietnam. The article seemed to infer that making a game of the war was to ignore its real world horror and an inappropriate setting to be entertainment.
• Microview: After a strong start, no Microview this month as it’s every other month, so back next issue.
• News: A lot of mew figure releases this month, including a crew of “space hitchhikers” that look very familiar. There are more floor plan accessories from GW, this time for mapping the wilderness, and Judges Guild (who seem to have been very quiet for a while) are back with a new selection of adventures. GDW reveals the location of Earth in the Solomani rim with a new sourcebook on the area and releases another collection of the best articles from the Journal of the Travellers’ Aid Society. TSR focuses on Gamma World with a new module called Famine in Far-go. Mayfair games releases its excellent game of brutal mob gang warfare, Family Business. The new Runequest release “Soloquest” has suffered a delay in its UK print run after the discovery of too many glitches in the 3rd adventure “McGuffin Hunt”. It will still prove popular though with another two solo Runequest books on the way.
• Runerites: It’s time for some new weapons and a few rules clarifications. Caltrops, Flails and Morningstars get a Runequest make over and Steve Perrin offers answers to some Rune magic questions.
• Starbase: “We have a referee malfunction” is one of the best Starbase, or even White Dwarf articles ever written, and it applies to every RPG. You are the GM, you’ve forgotten your notes, so how do you run a game without letting the players know you have no idea what you are doing? Very funny and vital advice.
• Treasure Chest: A very mixed bag this issue with a competition wordsearch, an addendum to the armour damage rules in WD#33, a note on the use of marbles, a talisman for turning undead, a cloak that bursts into flame, as well as a zombie that does the same and finally a new spell that turns someone into an illusion, making them subject to being dispelled!

Fiend Factory​

Just as I’d given up hope, the mini-adventure returns! In the village of Kanu, everyone is happy with their new lord, especially after eating at the banquet he offers them every week. Are they just impressed with his largesse or is something else going on?

• Beggar-Louse (Alan Heaven, et al): A rather dangerous woodlouse with large pincers that comes in several different varieties.
• Dark Bat (Christopher Kirk): A form of dire bat that can create darkness around it.
• Spidron (John R Gordon): A rather nasty liquid creature that can hold a human shape for a while as long as it wears a helpful supporting robe. It uses a cabinet to drain life force to allow it to hold a shape for longer (and is based on a villain from the Tomorrow People.)
• Undead Rats (P M Rhodes): Skeletal or zombie rats, exactly what you’d expect.

Open Box​

This month’s reviews are:

• Judge Dredd, Board Game (Games Workshop): A very popular board game, matching simple rules with a popular setting. You basically wander Mega City One dealing with random crimes and arresting perps. Exactly what you want in a Dredd board game.
• Borderlands, RPG Supplement for Runequest (Chaosium): I could easily be wrong, but this might be the first campaign boxed set for an RPG. This set offers 7 adventures set in a particular area, which is also detailed extensively. Chaosium are really knocking it out of the park with Runequest releases, easy to see why the game is still going!
• U1 Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, L1 The Secret of Bone Hill, G1-3 Against the Giants, B3 Palace of the Silver Princess, X2 Castle Amber, D&D Adventure Modules, (TSR): A very solid collection of adventures, with a couple of well-loved classics and some controversial ones. All of them are AD&D except Palace of the Silver Princess and Castle Amber although I ran Amber (quite a few times) in AD&D and barely noticed the difference. Nice to see the giants series already become a classic at this point, this being the first reprint collection as far as I can see. Bone Hill is excellent as well, although works best as an introduction to the superior L2 The Assassin’s Knot (although my lot never did try the third in the series, L3 Deep Dwarven Delve). I have to be controversial and say really did not like Saltmarsh. We spent nearly a whole session just walking around an empty house expecting something to happen and finding nothing, door after door after door. Then it’s just a fight at the end when you find smugglers. Never been so bored in a module, so sadly never got to the others in that series. Finally we have the controversial Palace of the Silver Princess, famously recalled in its orange covered version (1980) due to some risqué artwork. Looking at the picture in the magazine, this review is for the green version revised by Tom Moldvay (1981). The review makes no mention of the recall though. I can’t find a previous review of the orange version, which may have vanished so quickly White Dwarf never saw a copy!

 

[David Howery]

I had this one way back in the day. Not sure why it was for sale in a toy store in Montana, but back then, I was grabbing about every D&D thing I could find. Alas, I lost it somewhere along the way...

 

[sevenbastard]

Bone Hill is excellent as well, although works best as an introduction to the superior L2 The Assassin’s Knot

I loved the concept of Assassin's Knot, but it never really worked in play. That said failing as a kid to enjoy it still launched a ton of murder mystery D&D adventures that I ran in high school inspired by it.

. I have to be controversial and say really did not like Saltmarsh

I agree I think the whole Saltmarsh series is overrated.

 

[Starmaster]

I loved the concept of Assassin's Knot, but it never really worked in play. That said failing as a kid to enjoy it still launched a ton of murder mystery D&D adventures that I ran in high school inspired by it.



I agree I think the whole Saltmarsh series is overrated.

I ran my players through both Assassin's Knot and Saltmarsh and consider them two of the best modules ever. Because the player's choice of actions is so open (especially in Assassin's Knot), I can see how the adventures could fail to be much fun for some groups, however.

Spoilers for L2, U1, U2, U3, Ghosts of Saltmarsh below:

Spoiler

Assassin's Knot can be very deadly depending upon the DM's strategy and the luck and choices of the players. There was one nasty scene in the castle where I had one of the honchos standing on the top of a building and tossing missiles from a Necklace of Missiles down on the fairly low-level party while they were in the castle courtyard as per a strategy suggested in the module. She probably burnt up some of her underlings as well since fireballs are rather indiscriminate, but she was evil, so what did it matter? May have resulted in a TPK; I don't remember for sure. If the players had just implemented a different strategy for assaulting the castle, she would not have found herself in a position to do this. Luck was an important element in modules of the day. Once in a while, the characters' decisions would just get them the short end of the stick through no major fault of their own. I guess I'm probably in the minority here, but I kind of miss that element of the game. It kept the players on their toes and they had enough sense to just run away sometimes. Nowadays, it's more like: "Hey, that looks like a lich. Well, he must be the correct challenge rating for us to handle or else he wouldn't be in the module. Let's get him!"

I liked "U1: The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh" since it involved storming a ship at sea. This was a new and interesting idea. The player's ended up accidentally toppling the mast and burning half the ship in while battling the crew on the deck. They used the ship as a home base afterward, but only after paying for extensive repairs due to the fire damage.

As for the rest of the Saltmarsh series, I thought the 2nd module (U2: Danger at Dunwater) was a little bit boring. It' main problem was that if the players didn't figure out that they had to open negotiations with the perceived enemy, then everything falls apart. Still, it was an interesting concept. I always appreciated that the modules written by the TSR-UK staff usually introduced new ideas. The third module (U3: The Final Enemy) was interesting because a large part of it involved underwater dungeon exploration. The problem for me was that it was too challenging for a party if they started out at 1st level during U1. The module recommends levels 3-5, but I think this was a bit too underpowered. The party needed to do some additional adventuring outside the series to gain enough levels to handle U3. I assume that's why the series reprint in "Ghosts of Saltmarsh" does insert some extra adventures along the way.

 

[Von Ether]

So there was a bit of proof even from way back in the day that Basic was the best seller for a long time. In my neck of the woods, if someone was still playing D&D, it was AD&D. They would have been shocked to learn in the future, AD&D would be the less popular game in an OSR movement.

Though I think we all would have adopted ascending AC.

 

[sevenbastard]

I ran my players through both Assassin's Knot and Saltmarsh and consider them two of the best modules ever. Because the player's choice of actions is so open (especially in Assassin's Knot), I can see how the adventures could fail to be much fun for some groups, however.

Spoilers for L2, U1, U2, U3, Ghosts of Saltmarsh below:

My issues are

Spoiler

At least the way my brother ran L2 for a bunch of 11 year olds we couldn't solve it. We had fun but eventually the game would end with us giving up. I think he ran it for us three times? I also agree with you that if the DM plays the adversaries smart they will probably kill the party.

U1 the ship part is cool, the rest bland. Ive used the raid on a ship in other games inspired by U1.

U2 the whole these are not our enemies can completely fail. Also I play D&D to have fun not realize mid adventure i killed a bunch of innocent people. Thats a "gotcha" moment that isn't fun for me. I like shades of grey and moral dilemmas, but dont set out to trick me.

U3 I agree with you. Fun concept but way to hard.