White Dwarf: Issue #31

Issue #31 of White Dwarf (June/July 1982) marks the fifth anniversary of the magazine. Alan Howcroft provides its cover, which depicts a coastal fantasy town, perhaps intended as an illustration for "The Town Planner" by Paul Vernon. This article is the first part of a follow-up series to Vernon's previous two-part "Designing a Quasi-Medieval Society" series. Subtitled "Designing and Running Villages," Vernon asks readers to consider how villages differ from towns, especially when it comes to their economies and populations. As he did in "Designing a Quasi-Medieval Society," his purpose is not detail or historical accuracy for its own sake but as springboards for D&D adventures. It's an approach I greatly appreciate, because Vernon doesn't lose sight of the fact that D&D is a game.

"The Mad Dwarf" is a short solitaire adventure for Tunnels & Trolls, written by its creator Ken St. Andre. Content-wise, the scenario is fine; what's more interesting to me is its presentation. The adventure's various entries share numbers with the pages on which they appear, with multiple entries on the same page being distinguished by letters. For example, page 18 includes entries 15A, 15B, 15C, and 15D. I was strangely impressed by this clever use of layout and space.

"Prior Service in Traveller" by John Conquest presents an alternative character generation procedure for the Navy and Marines in Traveller. Conquest's approach seems to take the expanded possibilities of Book 5: High Guard and simplify them into a format that's closer to what's found in Book 1. There's definitely something to be said in favor of this, especially if, like me, you appreciate the finer distinctions between enlisted and officer training. "Additional Detector Systems for Traveller Starships" by Antony Cornell and Martin Barrett is just what its title suggests. Like many articles of this sort, there's nothing essential about it, but I have little doubt that many Traveller players and referees would enjoy the additional options.

"Open Box" reviews several new products, starting with Federation Space by Task Force Games, an expansion of its well known Starfleet Battles (8 out of 10). Then there are various entries in the Thieves' Guild series (rated 7–9 out of 10) and The Free City of Haven (9 out of 10), both by Gamelords. Also reviewed are four Traveller adventures, all by Gamelords: Ordeal by Eshaar, Action Aboard, Uragyad'n of the Seven Pillars, and Legend of the Sky Raiders (6 out of 10, 5 out of 10, 8 out of 10, and 8 out of 10 respectively). It's probably not surprising to note that the two most best reviewed of these four are products of the Keith Brothers, whose contributions to Traveller – and the larger hobby – are incomparable.

"Arms at the Ready" by Lewis Pulsipher is subtitled "Combining the AD&D Combat Tables," which is a very good description of what it attempts to do. Pulsipher is concerned that the rules governing combat in AD&D are complex and scattered over too many pages and books. What he does here is produce a series of compact tables that combine all the relevant details in a series of "cards" divided by weapon type. Here's one example:

It's clear, simple, and well-done. If I were playing AD&D and making full use of all its details, including the weapon vs AC adjustments, I think an article like this would come in handy.

"Crime and Punishment" by Geoff Winn would seem to be the first article in a new series, "Rune Rites," which focuses on RuneQuest. I remember "Rune Rites" well from my time reading White Dwarf regularly. Though I wasn't a player of RQ at the time (and indeed had an irrational prejudice against it at the time), I nevertheless enjoyed this series, which often contained clever ideas I'd swipe for use in my D&D games. In the case of Winn's article, it's simply a pair of tables for the referee to use to reward or punish characters who adhere to or transgress the strictures of their cults. The idea behind it is sound, I suppose, but I find the implementation a bit heavy handed for my tastes.

"Treasure Chest" introduces six new amulets and talismans for use with D&D, none of which really stands out as noteworthy. What does stand out is that none of these are credited to Roger E. Moore, who'd been a mainstay of "Treasure Chest" for many issues. This is still a year before he formally joined TSR to work on Dragon, so it'll be interesting to see if his byline returns to White Dwarf in the coming issues. Ian Livingstone reviews "Treasure Trap," which is an early LARP established in Cheshire, England. Livingstone seems to have enjoyed his experience with it and hopes that it might improve, expand, and inspire others to follow suit.

This month's "Fiend Factory" takes the form of a mini-adventure for 4th-5th level characters entitled "In Search of a Fool." The scenario involves the characters accepting a quest from a group of Leanan-Sidhe – fey vampire-like beings – to find their missing fool. The characters can either accept this quest of their own accord or be charmed by the Leanan-Sidhe. As presented, the quest is mostly an outline, leaving a lot of details up to the referee to decide. Accompanying it are three new monsters, including the aforementioned Leanan-Sidhe. One of the new monsters is written by Roger E. Moore – apparently he wasn't absent from this issue after all!

Lastly, there's "The Star," which presents itself as the front page of a fictional newspaper – "Midgard's Brightest Daily" – that reports on matters relating to the hobby. Normally, I wouldn't draw attention to articles of this sort. I make an exception in this case, because it includes a number of amusing photographs from the time, including this one, which features Gary Gygax, Don Turnbull, Ian Livingstone, and Steve Jackson.

I'm always happy to find photos like this. They're vivid reminders of past people, places, and events and I think it's vital that we not forget the past, even the past of something as relatively insignificant as the hobby of roleplaying.