Imagine Magazine: Issue #29

And so we come to the penultimate issue of Imagine, number 29 (August 1985), featuring a cover by Angus McKie (best known for his work on Iron Crown Enterprise's SpaceMaster). The issue kicks off with a very interesting article by Chris Barlow, entitled "For Monsters, Treasure and … other things." Its topic is experience points and the activities for which they are awarded, from the perspective of AD&D. I call it interesting, because Barlow is not simply dismissive of the standard means of acquiring XP but rather open to other approaches, including ones that award "class-based" activities. In this, he anticipates some of the options presented in Second Edition (and echoes those presented in earlier products, such as Arduin). I'm of multiple minds on this question, which is why articles like these command my attention, even if I've never reached a firm opinion on the matter.

This month's Pelinore article by Brian Garrod presents the Monument Square section of the City League, complete with maps, NPCs, and adventure seeds. Meanwhile, the issue's central feature is an interview with the science fiction author Bob Shaw, whom I must confess I've never heard of. This is followed by a short story by Shaw, "Executioner's Moon," its first appearance in print. Following both of these pieces is a science fiction RPG article, "The Sarafand File," by Paul Vernon and Sean Masterson, intended for use with either Traveller or Star Frontiers. The article is based on elements of Shaw's fiction, specifically the Cartographic Service from the novel Ship of Strangers. Never having read the novel, I can't comment on the article's fidelity to it, but it does contain some useful maps of a starship and a survey vehicle, along with multiple adventure ideas.

"The Taumet Codex" by Andrew Swift is a short adventure for AD&D that introduces a new monster, the eponymous Taumet, a magically constructed dragon of great power. Much more interesting is the "Dispel Confusion Special" (with thanks given to Carl Sargent), which discusses unusual aspects of magic-user and illusionist spells. For example, it's noted that the spell dig does damage against clay golems and that the clone spell cannot be used on non-humanoid creatures. As is often the case with Imagine articles of this sort, it's nothing earth-shattering but it's solid, practical material that highlights details of the game that might otherwise be overlooked. This month's reviews include lots of TSR products for D&D, AD&D, Marvel Super Heroes, and Indiana Jones. I was most intrigued by a review of a Traveller product I'd never heard of, Deneb Sector, written by Graham Staplehurst and David Hulks as a charity product for the Save the Children Fund. From what I have subsequently gathered, the supplement is exceedingly rare and its contents superseded by later published Traveller materials, even though it was officially sanctioned by GDW at the time.

Neil Gaiman's "Fantasy Media" reviews a number of films (Return to Oz, Cat's Eye, Night of the Comet) I'd long forgotten about, showing just how far we now are from the mid-1980s. He also review a mountain of books, the most notable of which is L. Ron Hubbard's Battlefield Earth, which Gaiman deems "un-put-downable." I guess there's no accounting for taste. This issue also marks the premier of "The FanScene," a section devoted to short articles on a variety of topics by readers (as opposed to staff writers) on a variety of topics, such as fanzines. Reading through it is quite fascinating, since it reveals  fanzines were apparently alive and well in the United Kingdom at the time, something of which I was only dimly aware. Roger Musson's "Stirge Corner" counsels against "letting fighters dominate the game," which is, at first glance, an odd thing to say. What Musson means, however, is that adventures should not focus too much on combat to the exclusion of tricks, puzzles, and social encounters – hard to disagree with that!

With that, we come to the end of another issue and, soon, the end of Imagine itself. I must admit, for all my grousing about the up-and-down quality of the magazine, I'm saddened that I'll soon be reaching the end of my reading of it. I'll have more thoughts on this topic in my post next week, but, for now, I'll simply say that I strangely feel a sense of impending loss, which is odd, given that I was utterly unaware of the existence of Imagine during its original run. Can you have nostalgia for something you never experienced?