Tuesday, August 10, 2021

White Dwarf: Issue #4

Issue #4 of White Dwarf (December 1977/January 1978) features a cover by the incomparable John Blanche, who would later go on to become of the signature artists of Warhammer, in both its miniatures battles and RPG versions. Its opening editorial, by Ian Livingstone, bemoans the state of the British gaming industry, pointing out that, as of the time of publication, there was only one UK wargames company and none devoted to RPGs. I find this interesting, in light of the fact that Games Workshop would eventually become one of the juggernauts of the hobby and, while it no longer publishes its own RPGs, GW nevertheless remains a force to be reckoned with even in the 21st century.

"Alice in Dungeonland" by Don Turnbull is truly fascinating article in which the author describes eleven "features" of the "Alice level" of "the Greenlands Dungeon," which I can only assume was the "tent pole dungeon" of his home campaign. Equally fascinating is that, unlike Gary Gygax's Dungeonland, which directly translates people and places from Lewis Carroll's famous book into AD&D, the features of the "Alice level" are (mostly) inspired by things described in the Alice stories rather than directly imported. 

Lewis Pulsipher continues his series on "D&D Campaigns," this time discussing "some practical aspects of constructing dungeons and setting up a campaign." He notes that, more so than other articles in this series, it's intended for neophytes and "may not be of much use to veteran referees." Pulsipher is indeed correct in this assessment, as his advice, while completely sound, includes the sorts of things that most of us have reader dozens of times in many places. In fairness, some of this advice might have been genuinely new in 1977 (and, of course, it's always new to those who've never before served as a referee). 

The article entitled "Hyboria" is written by Tony Bath and provides an overview of his famed Hyboria miniatures wargames campaign. Though short, it's a terrific article for anyone interested in the process that led Bath to create his campaign setting. In some ways, it's better than Pulsipher's preceding article, even though it's far less detailed. I was also struck by his conclusions.

What are the lessons of Hyboria? Well, firstly, what you get out of a game is in relation to the amount of effort you put into it. Secondly, a well constructed fantasy soon takes on its own life, and from that point needs only minimal guidance. Finally, if you want to test the limits of your imagination and still keep the whole thing within a logical framework, there is no better medium than creating a fantasy world. Besides, it's fun!

I doubt anyone could disagree with anything he says here.

"Open Box" reviews Nomad Gods by Chaosium, Star Empires and Dungeon! by TSR, and Melee from Metagaming. Of the four games reviewed, Melee – the first part of The Fantasy Trip – is the one that receives the harshest criticism, mostly on the grounds that "there are no really original ideas in this game." The reviewer, Martin Easterbrook, seems to have felt that "anyone who has already adapted rules" would have no need of Melee, which is probably a fair point. It's a reminder, I suppose, that, in 1977, kit bashing of one degree or another was widely assumed; playing a game straight out of the box with no modifications was perhaps unusual, let alone the expectation that would could do so, hence reviews like this.

Don Turnbull returns with "Monsters Mild and Malign," where he talks about the process of creating new and unusual monsters with which to challenge players. He offers three of his own, in addition to citing examples he likes from other sources. More interesting to me was his principle of MERIT – "make empty rooms interesting too." According to this principle, the referee should set up

an array of magical effects, interesting traps, intriguing though valueless pieces of furniture, curious artifacts, new magical items or whatever strikes your fancy and which will present something of a challenge to intruders.

The question of empty rooms and the "best" way to present them remains a much debated matter. I confess that I continue to struggle with it myself, having come to no firm conclusions about it. It's a topic that's been on mind lately as I dive into the design of the main Vaults beneath the city of Inba-Iro in my upcoming sha-Arthan setting. I'll likely have more to say on this matter once I've begun play.

Brian Asbury presents a Barbarian character class that bears many similarities to the one that Gary Gygax would one day include in Unearthed Arcana, as well as many differences. This version of the barbarian is much less physically robust, having only six-sided hit dice (though it does appear to have been written for OD&D rather than AD&D), but, in exchange, it gets a variety of wilderness-related abilities, as well as fearlessness, ferocity, and the ability to catch missiles. I'm not sure I'd ever use the class myself, but I can't deny that it has a distinct flavor that differentiates it from fighting men or rangers. Meanwhile, Andy Holt's "The Loremaster of Avallon" presents an absurdly complex system for dealing with parried and unparried blows that I simply glossed over. I appreciate the value of detail in many areas, but combat is not one that matters much time, hence my preference for keeping it simple. Consequently, articles like this do nothing for me.

"Competitive D&D" by Fred Hemmings continues with the details of several more rooms from his competition dungeon, this time from its fifth level. Several of them are cleverly done and I was glad Hemmings shared them. However, I feel as if they'd have made more sense if they'd been given more overall context, even if it had made the article longer. Still, I remain fascinated by the kinds of dungeons referees designed in the early days of the hobby; articles like this give me a little more insight into the matter.

All in all, issue #4 was a good read. I particularly enjoyed the content that was clearly derived from play and spoke to the though referees put into the design of their dungeons and campaign settings. I hope that we'll continue to see this sort of thing in future issues, perhaps in lengthier and more detailed forms.

15 comments:

  1. Only one UK wargames company in 1977? Who does Livingstone claim that was? In terms of figures, there were quite a few, including TableTop Games, Hinchcliffe, Laing, Skytrex, Heroics (and Ros), Minifigs (going since the 60s) and others including Hinton, Tradition, and Willie had been going for longer than that.

    In terms of rules, there was the London Wargames Section, TTG again, Wargames Research Group, Society of Ancients / Slingshot, Tony Bath's Tabletop Warfare Ltd, and that's just off the top of my head and not including the books (which included rules) by the likes of Featherstone, Grant, Young, Bath (who wrote an article in the same issue).

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    1. He names Philmar.

      To be fair, I may have overstated Livingstone's comment. He says Britain can only boast one company capable of competing with the US wargames companies.

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    2. Ah, I wonder if he's referring only to board wargames then (Philmar did boardgames). Which would make sense, since the early GW shops mainly sold boardgames.

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  2. I love the fact the wargamers moved RPGs to competitions, from the start. "it is a GAME, therefore we keep SCORE!"

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  3. This issue started it all for me. One of the first gaming items I ever bought, at age 12 - and now I have ever White Dwarf issue ever published - along with about a thousand games!

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  4. I was fascinated to learn that Tony Bath had contributed an article ti this issue.

    I had always assumed that Bathesque fantasy worldbuilding and RPG worldbuilding had proceeded on parallel but unrelated lines.

    It's wonderful there was this crossover.

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    1. Bath's article in WD4 precedes his famous 15 part series on Hyboria published in Battle for Wargamers (see also https://snv-ttm.blogspot.com/p/tony-baths-hyboria.html ). In later editions of "Setting up a Wargames Campaign" I believe Bath also references D&D in a chapter "Fantasy Campaigns".

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  5. Was an "Alice" level common in dungeons of the day, or is it just a coincidence that both Turnbull and Gygax had one? I love the possibility that a Wonderland level was the trend in dungeon design at one point!

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    1. In the 1970's most creative/artist folks thought about Alice in Wonderland fairly often. The counter-culture loved its trippy imagery and the number of pure-fantasy authors was several orders of magnitude less than it is today. I wouldn't be surprised if there were as many Wonderlands as Barsooms or Narnias.

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    2. Agreed. The Alice books were practically universal in the 70s - I had a schoolteacher gift me my first copy in 2nd grade (that's 1973) and they were mandatory reading in 5th grade. There just wasn't much "classical literature" fantasy out there back in the day, with Middle Earth and Narnia being the only others I can think of that had much mass recognition, so most folks got into fantasy through one or all of those few routes.

      Kind of the same effect that pre-cable TV had on US culture. When there were only three network channels and re-runs were on half the time, almost everyone's viewing overlapped to a large degree. Then cable came along and suddenly you had dozens, then hundreds of choices, and common experiences became fewer and farther between. That trend's continued, although whether it's for better or worse I can't say.

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    3. The "Open Box" reviews have me curious. Was the negative Melee review for the microgame (which really wasn't anything more than a dueling/skirmish boardgame) or for the Advanced Melee rulebook (which was essentially the "mundane combat and skills" book of a trilogy that made up the RPG)?

      Regardless, it's pretty funny that the one game they panned is also the only one in print in 2021, and which remains one of the better rules-light, combat-focused RPG engines ever written. The other three haven't been around in ages - maybe there was a Dungeon reprint in the last twenty years? - although Chaosium might give us a new edition of Nomad Gods eventually.

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    4. The review was of the original micro-game, not Advanced Melee.

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    5. Hmm, I'd also quibble with the nothing original in Melee. While it's not listed here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tabletop_role-playing_games in 1977 (presumably because at that point it's a wargame not an RPG), it certainly has stuff that is unique compared to all the RPGs published up through 1977. I don't know what all skirmish board games by 1977 though so maybe there are other board games that predate Melee that contain the concepts of Melee.

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    6. So the reviewer was bitching about a boardgame not being a good enough RPG for his tastes. Brilliant work, that.

      @Frank If we count Melee and Wizard as actual RPGs (which is iffy) they're probably the first published RPG that used a point allocation system for stats as the default, which would be noteworthy. The trilogy of TFT books didn't drop till 1980 though, and that's the point where I'd call the games actual RPGs - and by then other systems were also using point allocation.

      I'm honestly kind of surprised the OSR and indie RPG community hasn't embraced the TFT relaunch with more enthusiasm. Yeah, it's not even D&D-adjacent but it's old enough to have real OS roots and it's absurdly easy to hack to your own tastes.

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  6. To squeen's point, the designers would have all grown up with Disney's version of Alice in Wonderland (1951), which remains a strikingly visual fantasy even by modern standards. Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit" had also been released just a few years before D&D was published and was a huge hit (with evocative lyrics).

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