Tuesday, March 22, 2022

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.

7 comments:

  1. "Federation Space by Task Force Games, an expansion of its well known Starfleet Battles" - Minor quibble, Federation Space was more accurately a stand-alone spin-off game than an expansion to SFB proper. It was the first TFG effort at a strategic board game set in their Star Fleet Universe, long since replaced by Federation & Empire.

    Love the cover on this issue, even if the place seems pretty brightly-lit. Must been from one of the editions where all clerics had a side hustle selling items with Continual Light cast on them. :) At the same time it's kind of odd that they didn't stick a proper lighthouse lamp in the tippy-topmost tower there.

    "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."

    Wasn't that the norm for at least some of the T&T solo modules? I could swear I've seen it somewhere before - Goblin Lake, maybe?

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    1. Not ever having been a regular player of SFB, I appreciate the clarification.

      You're right about the all the entries being on the same page of T&T solos. What impressed me was the way the WD layout placed them at the bottom of each magazine page. It was economical as well as useful.

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  2. This was the first issue of White Dwarf I bought. Having plucked up courage to go into the Games Workshop in the shopping centre above Birmingham New Street station.

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  3. Mine too, as I wanted the T&T solo scenario, as that was mostly what I was playing at the time.

    One correction: the four Traveller adventures were published by FASA, not Gamelords.

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  4. "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."

    Well said James, and I couldn't agree more.

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  5. This was also my first issue, although I didn't start buying it regularly till #52 when it began to appear in newsagents. I was strangely excited to see it appear here!
    As a result of this blog I recently delved into my parents basement to rescue them, I now have a lot of rusted staples to replace!

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    1. The issues with actual staples in them are the best of the lot, rusted or no. :)

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