Different Worlds: Issue #17

Issue #18 of Different Worlds (December 1981) begins with an interesting editorial by Tadashi Ehara. He discusses the need for "careful consideration" in choosing a roleplaying game system if one intends for it to become "a lifetime hobby." Ehara seems to be suggesting that a person might – or even must – choose a single system and then devote oneself fully to it. For that reason, he advocates choosing a system that is "lasting and worthwhile," providing "learning experiences that we can use constructively in our daily lives." I don't disagree in general, though I do find it odd that he doesn't consider the possibility of long-term devotion to multiple systems rather than a single "ultimate set of rules." 

The first article is a RuneQuest solo scenario by Sandy Petersen entitled "Ware Hall." Set in Glorantha, it's presented as a series of short boxed texts found at the bottom of most pages of the issue. The scenario itself is nothing special but I was impressed with its presentation, which is quite clever. Ronald Mark Pehr's "Speed in Melee" is a set of variant rules for Dungeons & Dragons focused on an alternative approach to initiative. I find it difficult to judge articles like this, as I've never cared much about these matters, preferring simpler, if "unrealistic," systems rather than more complex ones.

Paul Montgomery Crabaugh's "For Sale" provides three new fighter craft designs for use with GDW's Traveller. Greg Wilson's "Enuk Manamee" is a gateway cult for RuneQuest describing "the fire god of the tundra nomads." Ronald Mark Pehr appears again, this time offering "The Horseclans Player" for use with The Fantasy Trip. It's a short overview of how to set TFT in the universe of Robert Adams's Horseclans novels. As a fan of the source material, I was glad to see this article, even if it's much too brief. "The Log of the Lively Lady" by Gerald Seypura is an adventure for FGU's Skull & Crossbones – a RPG for which I've rarely ever seen articles published anywhere. 

"Questworld" is a lengthy article by Lynn Willis, Sandy Petersen, and Greg Stafford discussing the creation of a non-Gloranthan setting for use with RuneQuest. Ultimately, this setting would be published in the boxed set of the same name. I've long been intrigued by Questworld, which has long seemed to me to have been a path not taken for RQ. Most interesting to me is the article's mentioning of the fact that continents on Questworld had been set aside for Games Workshop and Judges Guild to use in producing their own adventures and support material. So far as I know, neither publisher ever did anything with Questworld, but then neither did Chaosium beyond the initial boxed set.

Robin Wood's "Conversions in Lead" is another lengthy article, this time discussing how to create non-standard miniatures by modifying existing ones. Like most topics pertaining to miniatures figures, I have a great interest in this one but absolutely no experience with it. Also notable is the article's inclusion of an Ahoggyá figure from the world of Tékumel, which is something you don't see very often. "Devious Magic" by Robert Plamondon is another D&D variant. Plamondon offers a number of new ways to use old spells and magic items in order to breathe new life in them. While I can't say I was blown away by any of his suggestions, I certainly approve of his intentions. 

John T. Sapienza also presents a D&D variant, entitled "Non-human Level Limits," which seeks an alternative approach to slowing the level advancement of demihuman characters. Sapienza's approach isn't what suggests – which is fine – but that he repeatedly notes that "the D&D rules are designed for human characters" and "humanity dominates among the intelligent races." It's a perspective that isn't much held nowadays, but I'm always pleased when I find further evidence that it was commonplace in the hobby prior to the 21st century. Issue #13 also reviews Champions, Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords, In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords, and Cults of Terror. 

Gigi D'Arn's column begins by noting that the sales of many RPG companies were poor in 1981 and that many would likely not survive long into 1982. There's no specific support for these claims, however, so I can't speak to their truth. Then there's this story:

Lou Zocchi's ventriloquist dummy, Woody Knotts, was once quite well known in the hobby, so I found this tidbit fascinating. Gigi likewise mentions rumors of a gaming magazine from FGU, Rona Jaffe's upcoming novel, Steve Jackson writing a supplement for Dragonquest, and the first two volumes of the Armies of Tékumel series. 

My exploration of Different Worlds continues. It's an odd magazine, as I've said: when it's good, it's very, very good, but much of the time it's fairly mediocre, or at least of much less interest to me than any random issue of Dragon or White Dwarf. That might say more about me and my tastes than it does about Different Worlds, of course, but there it is.

Different Worlds: Issue #15

Issue #15 of Different Worlds (October 1981) features a cover by Rick Becker, who had previously done the covers for issues #6 and #10, as well as The Gateway Bestiary. Paul Montgomery Crabaugh's "More Citizens" kicks things off by presenting six new professions for use with GDW's Traveller: cavalry, artillery, technician, engineer, reporter, and civilian, along with three new skills. In my youth, when I was playing Traveller regularly, I used to adore articles like this, so reading this one was a nice blast of nostalgia for me.

"Tournament Role-Playing" by Ken Rolston is a lengthy, 10-page piece that covers a great many topics relating to the refereeing a adventure scenarios at gaming conventions. The topics range from styles of play to the creation of characters to judging players. He provides a lengthy example of a RuneQuest scenario he has designed that nicely demonstrates the principles he puts forward. Of particular interest to me was his assertion that one's "best bet" is "basing your tournament scenarios in the campaign you are currently running." As someone who's long felt that too many game writers aren't even playing the games for which they are writing, I couldn't agree more.

"Calandra and Aurelion" by Charles Huber is a Gloranthan cult for use with RuneQuest. Even though I don't play RQ regularly, I nevertheless enjoy these cult write-ups. Religion is a topic that's near and dear to me; I find its treatment in most fiction (including RPGs) to be laughably simplistic. RuneQuest makes a much better effort to take religion seriously and many of these cult articles demonstrate that quite well. David F. Nalle's "Favorites of the Gods" is another article treating religion, specifically the ability of characters to gain the favor of deities through sacrifices and quests. Nalle's treatment is simple and mechanical in its approach, but I nevertheless appreciate his attempt to grapple with the topic of divine intervention.

"A Modest Proposal for The Fantasy Trip" by David R. Dunham is a short article suggesting the splitting of the game's attribute scores into related pairs to deal with both the over-importance of certain attributes and the "unrealistic" nature of combing, say, one's physical strength and endurance into one score. This is a long-standing complaint about not just TFT but also its descendant GURPS. "Man Bites Dog" is Ken St. Andre's rather peculiar article that's ostensibly about "role-playing in the future." Instead of a prognostication of how the then-new technology of computers might change the face of the hobby, St. Andre instead offers a half-serious, half-parodic account of what roleplaying might be like in a post-apocalyptic world when only the aged remember "the good old days back in the 1980s." 

Lewis Pulsipher's "Making Life Hard for Magic-Users" is another entry in the ancient genre of "cutting magic-users down to size," the belief that magic-users in Dungeons & Dragons are too powerful compared to other character classes. To correct this supposed imbalance, Pulsipher offers numerous possible fixes, such as spell points, spell failure, spell interruption, and more. I appreciate the range of options he suggests, even if I've never been of the opinion that magic-users needed fixing to make them less potent and flexible.

This issue's reviews are lengthy and mostly critical of the products reviewed, starting with SPI's Universe. Actually, the review of Universe is quite measured and fair. The review of Aftermath is similarly fair, but notes that the complexity of the rules militates against wading through its rules to get to the genuinely good material in the game. The poor Fiend Folio gets the most abuse, such as the following passage that mocks the monsters contained therein.

Harsh but not wholly incorrect.

Gigi D'Arn's column is shorter, owing to the fact that it's now monthly, a fact Gigi draws attention to at the start of her piece. Nevertheless, there are a few notable tidbits, such as further rumors about the insolvency of SPI and that Chaosium is working on a King Arthur RPG (though it's rumored that Ken St. Andre is working on it with Greg Stafford). Gigi also says the following, which I found amusing.

Ouch! Equally amusing, I think, is that not everyone who read Different Worlds liked Gigi's column, as this letter to the editor makes clear.

I guess there's no accounting for taste.

Stackpole on DragonQuest

 In Issue #11 of Different Worlds, there's a lengthy review of SPI's fantasy roleplaying game, DragonQuest by game designer Michael Stackpole. Overall, the review is negative, though Stackpole concedes that the game was "designed with good intentions"  and contains "several good and innovative ideas … obscured by the clumsy methods used in implementing them." He concludes his review with the following:

Ouch!

Different Worlds: Issue #11

Issue #11 of Different Worlds (February/March 1981) is an interesting issue to me, because its content continues to differentiate the magazine from its contemporaries, like Dragon or White Dwarf. For whatever reason, Different Worlds published a significant number of "theoretical" articles about roleplaying, which is to say, articles about roleplaying rather than simply articles providing additions and options to existing games. If I had to guess, I imagine this reflects the local culture out of which Chaosium and, by extension, Different Worlds, grew. I've noted on a couple of occasions that California, like the Midwest and the East Coast, was distinctive in its approach to RPGs, so I suppose it shouldn't be surprising to see this distinction reflected in its periodicals. 

The issue begins with "Running Low Level Dungeons" by Robert Plamondon, which offers some advice to referees on the necessity of taking beginner dungeons seriously, as a means of "hooking" people into the hobby. Plamondon's concerns are twofold. First, he feels strongly that even low-level dungeons should be every bit as interesting as high-level one. Second, he feels equally strongly that low-level dungeons should be accommodating to the inexperience of new players and thus not "killer" in their approach. Mind you, Plamondon seems generally opposed to dungeons designed to kill characters, seeing this as somehow antithetical to the purpose of RPGs. 

"A Change of Hobbit" by Ronald Mark Pehr is an odd piece. It's a critique of D&D's portrayal of hobbits (halflings) on the basis that it differs from they way Tolkien portrayed them in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Beyond that, Pehr's main complaint is that D&D pigeon holes halflings as thieves and doesn't acknowledge their skills as warriors. These are fair points, if being true to Tolkien, is one's goal, but I'm not sure that was ever the point of including halflings in the game. (I resolve the matter by dispensing with halflings entirely.) Part two of "Gems & Magic" by Steve Marsh and Margaret R. Gemignani is also here, completing what began last issue. I'm a big fan of "natural" magic items like this, so the article was most welcome to me.

"A New Computer System for Traveller" by Martin Connell is an attempt – in 1981, I remind you – to offer new rules for computers to make it "truly representative of the far future." More amusingly, Connell notes that his rules are based on his experiences with an "IBM 360, and IBM 3033, a PRIME, and several hobby computers." He also consulted with "several friends who are computer science majors." I don't mean to mock Connell, whose larger point about how outdated Traveller's computer rules have always been is sound, but only to point out that, when it comes to technology, predicting the future is not always easy. Personally, I've generally found Traveller's somewhat retro approach to computers less problematic than trying to import the moving target of "realistic" far future computer rules into the game.

"The Fourfold Way of FRP" by Jeffrey A. Johnson is a follow-up of sorts to the articles by Glen Blacow and Lewis Pulsipher in issue #10. It's another stab at trying to describe types of gamers and approaches to roleplaying. Johnson offers a diagram consisting of two axes, one relating to personal goals (power gaming vs storytelling) and realism (pure fantasy vs simulation). Honestly, this isn't a bad approach, though, as with most such articles, I marvel at gamers' desire to try and codify everything into neat categories (I am as guilty of this as anyone).

There is a huge collection of lengthy reviews in this issue, starting with a positive one for Azhanti High Lightning. Also covered are Tunnels & Trolls (also positively) and DragonQuest and several smaller adventure publications of which I've (mostly) never heard. What stands out about these reviews is how lengthy they are, something I appreciated, since, if nothing else, they afforded the reviewer to explain his own perspective in detail. This is particularly useful in the case of case of the T&T review (by Ken Rolston) and the DQ review (by Michael Stackpole), since there are multiple points where their own opinions differed with my own. Even more interesting is that the review of DragonQuest was followed by a rebuttal of sorts by the designer, Eric Goldberg. Good stuff!

John T. Sapienza reviews Beasts of Antares and several other novels in the saga of Dray Prescot. Sapienza also provides D&D game statistics for some of the magical items and monsters that appear in the series. "The Cult of Kali" is a "gateway" cult for RuneQuest by Greg Costikyan. Meanwhile, "The Sword of Hollywood" by Larry DiTillio is a new column about fantasy and science fiction movies, this time focusing rumors of the D&D movie, a new Star Trek TV series, and pre-production of the third Star Wars movie, Revenge of the Jedi. 

Lewis Pulsipher's "Personalities of Role-Playing Gamers" presents fifteen types of roleplayers, ranging from "The Barbarian," who always plays fighters and likes combat, to "The Puppet," who does what other people tell him to do, and "The Entrepreneur," who's always looking for ways to make money in an adventure. It's a fine, if limited list, but, much like Johnson's article earlier in this issue, I'm not quite sure the point of all these attempts at codifying the hobby and its players. Ending the issue is another column by Gigi D'Arn, which sadly doesn't contain any remarkable bits of gossip worth mentioning here. Oh, well.

Dragonslayer (no, not that one)

SPI's DragonQuest underwent at least one name change prior to its release in 1980. According to this advertisement from the pages of Different Worlds #7, this game was initially to be called DragonSlayer. An earlier issue of DW suggested that the game was to be called Dragonflayer, which might simply have been a typo, though it's hard to say. In any event, I can't help but wonder if the name change had something to do with the 1981 movie of the same name, perhaps relating to trademarks.

Imagine Magazine: Issue #20

Alan Craddock provides the cover to issue #20 of Imagine (November 1984), which is dedicated, as its cover proclaims, to "Clerics in the Dungeons & Dragons game." Themed issues like this are always a risk, since, if you're not interested in the theme, it tends to damper your enthusiasm for reading the issue. Fortunately for me, this issue's theme piqued my interest greatly, since clerics might well be my favorite class in D&D. I've always felt that clerics weren't given the love and attention they deserve, being reduced to armored medics respected only for their ability to heal and nothing else. Needless to say, I was curious to see what the writers of Imagine had to say on the subject.

Things kick off with Paul Vernon's "Clerics are People Too." The article rightly notes that, whereas fighters, magic-users, and thieves all have clear literary inspirations, the cleric does not. While I can certainly come up with examples to counter Vernon's specific claim, his larger point remains, namely, that D&D clerics lack fantasy role models and that this contributes to their being played badly and banally. What Vernon suggests is developing fantasy religions better so that players of clerics understand what their character should believe and its impact on their behavior. Nowadays, it's an obvious point – though how often it's actually employed is an open question – but, in 1984, I think it was fairly unusual.

Lewis Pulsipher offers "Alignment, Personality & Philosophy-Religion," an extensive examination of all these factors with regards to playing a cleric. Pulsipher is particularly interested in the subject of alignment, which, as we all know, remains a contentious one even today. He argues for making alignment more important, even to the point of suggesting, for example, that Lawful clerics not roll for their hit points but instead get the average amount per level, while Chaotic ones roll as normal. It's an intriguing notion, though not one I expect to catch on, even if it does succeed bringing alignment front and center rather than leaving it a philosophical abstraction at best.

"As God is My Witness" by Graeme Davis examines the judicium Dei, the various types of trials used during the Middle Ages to determine guilt or innocence. This is a purely historical article but a worthwhile one, full of ideas for use in a campaign. "The Necklace of Lilith" by Phil Gallagher is an AD&D adventure intended for a party consisting only of clerics, which is certainly a novel idea. The scenario concerns the recovery a divine item, the titular Necklace of Lilith, long believed lost. Accompanying the article is another, "New Clerical Spells," which is a reprint of an article from Dragon #58 (February 1982) by Gary Gygax and Len Lakofka. The adventure makes some use of these spells and is, in fact, intended as a means of introducing them into an existing campaign.

"New Flail Types" by Graeme Davis does exactly what its title suggests, providing more weapons for use by clerics (along with stats for these weapons in other game systems, like DragonQuest, Traveller, and Bushido). Carl Sargent's "Looking for an Edge" examines the ban on the use of edged weapons by clerics and argues, as others have done, that the ban should not apply to clerics of every god. In the traditional polytheistic set-up of Dungeons & Dragons, I am sympathetic to this perspective, though I also think the prohibition exists for reasons beyond a hamfisted attempted to introduce a Christian worldview into the game.

This issue's reviews include Grenadier's Disappearance on Aramat, which the reviewer, Stephen Nutt, liked even less than I did. There are also a number of reviews of adventures for Star Frontiers, Space Opera, and The Morrow Project, continuing Imagine's commitment to greater coverage of science fiction RPGs. There's also a very positive review of the revised, boxed version of The World of Greyhawk, for which I have many fond memories. "Chain Mail" discusses the postal version of En Garde!, while Colin Greenland gives a strangely positive review of Conan the Destroyer, a movie most people intensely dislike. Conversely, he gives a negative review to the animated Fire and Ice, which, while no masterpiece, I recall being more enjoyable than Schwarzenegger's second outing as the Cimmerian. 

The comics "Rubic of Moggedon" and "The Phalanx" continue in this issue. Roger Musson's "Stirge Corner" continues the discussion of alignment begun in the previous issue. He rightly points out that Law does not equal Good and Chaos does not equal Evil and riffs off of these matters to good effect. Richard W. Lee's short fiction, "Prince of Thieves," is fine for what it is but nothing special. Much more compelling is the Pellinore installment, "Pablo Fanquay's Fair," which details a group of traveling performers, along with ideas for using them in a game. The Cock o' th' Walk tavern gets a similar treatment, including a map by Paul Ruiz. There are also rules for making a living by street performance – including by breakdancing. Yes, you read that right. Forgive them: it was 1984.

This is another fine issue of Imagine, with much to recommend it. I am particularly fond of the Pellinore setting articles. They evince a terrific combination of creativity, utility, and humor that sets them apart from most other TSR offerings at the time. Seeing as many of those who worked on Pellinore would eventually contribute to Games Workshop's Warhammer Fantasy Role Play, this should come as no surprise. 

Imagine Magazine: Issue #16

Issue #16 of Imagine (July 1984) represents, I think, a turning point in the history of the magazine. Starting with this issue, the magazine has expanded its page count to 56 (from 48), which is a not insignificant increase. More interesting – to me anyway – is that this issue also sees the first installment of the Imagine magazine campaign world, Pelinore. Pelinore is quite highly regarded (and justifiably so) by those who know it, but, given its limited availability, there are many roleplayers who know nothing about it. Before we get to that, though, let's look at the other contents of issue #16.

This issue's cover is by Tony Roberts and nicely prepares the reader for some of its contents. There is, for example, an article by Rod Stevenson entitled "The Magic of Ancient Egypt," which briefly discusses the real world beliefs of the ancient Egyptians about magic. It's not a game article per se, as there are no stats for any game, but it focuses on several inspirational aspects of Egyptian belief, like magical stones, amulets, and names. "The Mythology of Ancient Egypt" by Graeme Davis is similar in that it's entirely "non-fiction." Davis follows this up with a Deities & Demigods-style write-up of the Egyptian deity Sobek, which is paired, oddly, with a similar description of the Persian deity Mitra by Graham R. Drysdale. Finally, Davis presents "Sethotep," a low-level Egyptian-themed adventure scenario for D&D, AD&D, and DragonQuest. Among other things, the adventure has a terrific map of an Egyptian temple that I might just steal for use elsewhere (such as my House of Worms campaign). 

Outside of the many Egyptian-themed articles, there are quite a number of other intriguing ones. First up is Chris Felton's "There and Back Again," which is not about hobbits but "alternative ways of travelling," more specifically riding animals other than horses. Needless to say, I heartily approve. Richard W. Lee's "Goroghwen" is quite unusual. It's a three-page description of a new monster that has very few actual game mechanics but lots of advice for using it successfully (a bit like Arnold Kemp's false hydra). In this case, the Goroghwen is a fear parasite that uses illusion to intensify those feelings in its potential prey. It's definitely a clever idea well presented but it's hard to say if it plays as well as it reads. 

"The Priests of Aphor" by Robert P. Scott is a piece of short fiction about the servant of a sultan seeking out the source of forged coins. The "Philosopher's Stone" competitions continue, with the answers to last issue's puzzle and a new one to ponder. Game reviews consist predominately of TSR products, along with battlemats, clear hex overlays, and related miniatures paraphernalia. "Illuminations" is very notable because it references a game that never came out and that, so far as I can recall, I never heard of: Liege Lord, a fantasy RPG by GDW. I shall have to turn to my usual sources on these matters to learn more. 

This issue, Rubic of Moggedon is replaced with another comic by the same author called "Interlude," which I found no more compelling. There's also another installment of "The Sword of Alabron." Brian Creese's "Chainmail" column reviews several play-by-mail games, none of which are familiar to me. Colin Greenland's "Fantasy Media" looks at the latest books and movies, which are similarly forgettable. Pete Tamlyn, meanwhile, reviews Seacon, which occurred in Brighton during the month of April 1984. This brings us to Roger Musson's "Stirge Corner" and the issue of measurements in D&D, specifically how they relate to the use of figures, counters, and different kinds of grids. Derrick C. Norton has some interesting things to say about welcoming newcomers to the hobby in "Getting Started." 

This brings us to Pelinore, which introduces the basic concept of this fantasy setting. Pelinore is a flat world at whose center lies the Worldheart – whatever that is, since it's made clear that there are a lot of opinions on the matter and little hard evidence. Its lands consist of the Theocratic Principalities, the Splintered Lands, the Tradecities of Xir, and the fallen kingdom of Varit, among others. Little else is said about the setting other than its central design feature is that it's intended to be open-ended and flexible with just enough detail to inspire but not too much to bog down the referee. A sample organization, the Order of Heralds, is briefly described, as is the City League. There's a promise of more articles in every subsequent issue, along a general call for submissions to develop the setting. As of this issue, there's not much to work with, but I look forward to seeing where these articles go.

As I'd hoped for some time, issue #16 presents an Imagine that's found its footing and knows what it's about. The magazine now has a clearer editorial voice and the quality of its articles is quite high. I'm quite excited to see what the next issue holds; I think it's going to be a good one.

Imagine Magazine: Issue #7

Issue #7 of Imagine appeared in October 1983 and its cover proclaims that it is "A DRAGONQUEST game special edition." That alone is quite intriguing to me, since DragonQuest is a game for which I still have a strange attraction, even though I never really got the chance to play back in the day. Furthermore, it's rare to see a gaming magazine outside of SPI's own Ares devote much space to supporting it. Of course, not long before this issue was published TSR had picked up DragonQuest, along with all of SPI's intellectual property, through a self-serving financial arrangement that ultimately resulted in SPI's shutting down for good. This issue was likely an effort – I believe there was a similar one in the pages of Dragon – to drum up support for TSR's latest RPG acquisition.

We'll get to the DQ content shortly. First, there's another installment of Jim Bambra's "The Beginners' Guide to Roleplaying Games," accompanied, as were previous ones, by a comic, "The Adventures of Nic the Novice," drawn by Geoff Wingate, under the pen name of Paul Ruiz. This issue's chapter shows what it's like to assume a role in a game. Looking back on this from the hindsight of 2020, when the idea of RPGs is so well established, it's difficult to understand why an article like this was necessary. Yet, it clearly was and it's an important reminder of just how strange and indeed revolutionary this hobby was even in the early 1980s.

Roger Musson's "Stirge Corner" also returns. This time, he discusses the importance of planning to the success of a D&D adventure. It's a fascinating little piece, because so much of Musson's advice seems rooted in an understanding of D&D where dungeon exploration is a foundational activity. For example, his advice concerns matters such as healing, avoiding combats, and treasure seeking, among others. Nearly a decade after the release of Dungeons & Dragons, these were still important considerations to players of the game.

"The Quest for the Perfect Game" is a lengthy, four-page article by Robert Kern, discussing the strengths of the DragonQuest game, both in general terms and in comparison to D&D. Now, it's worth noting that Kern wrote an introductory adventure for DQ, which was included in the second edition of the game. Nevertheless, he states early on that he "was asked to write an article introducing the DRAGONQUEST game to people perhaps more familiar with the DUNGEONS & DRAGONS game." Asked by whom he does not say, but, as I noted above, my guess is that it was TSR who did so in order to promote their newly acquired RPG. Kern provides some support for this interpretation at the end of his article when he says:

The good news is that TSR now own the DRAGONQUEST game so that it no longer directly competes with the D&D game in the marketplace, and therefore can be given the full marketing and creative force that TSR can muster. 

Sadly, that never happened and DragonQuest effectively died after TSR took over its publication. Even so, this issue offers a mini-adventure by Michael Brunton for DQ that, unlike the one that appeared in issue #6, is not dual-statted for AD&D.

"The Philosopher's Stone" is an ongoing competition, with a monetary prize of £40 to whoever can correctly answer six questions based on a two-page illustration filled with strange symbols and imagery. "Illuminations" provides news from around the world regarding to the latest happenings in roleplaying games, especially releases. Graeme Davis offers a short story, while Don Turnbull talks about trademarks. The "Dispel Confusion" column answers reader questions about D&D, AD&D, and RuneQuest. There's another entry in the comic saga of "Rubic of Moggedon and "The Imagination Machine" discusses the possibilities to be achieved with more advanced home computers (such as those with 256K of RAM!). 

As with previous issues, there's a page devoted to the latest fanzine releases. I continue to find this remarkable, particularly now that I have produced fanzines of my own. I don't believe Dragon ever took note of these kinds of grassroots publications and it suggests a significant way that the hobby in the UK might have been different than in North America. This issue also includes reviews of Frank Mentzer's D&D Basic Rules, Dave Trampier's Titan, and the second edition of Gamma World. Peter Tamlyn criticizes "rule playing" in a two-page piece that reminds me very much of discussions found in numerous periodicals around the same time. This is another fascinating snapshot of where the hobby was in the early 1980s.

I never read Imagine at the time of its release, White Dwarf being my main window on what was happening in gaming on the other side of the Atlantic. Consequently, reading through these issues continues to be educational, filling in gaps in my knowledge and providing insights I otherwise would not have had.

Look What Arrived in the Mail

A late Christmas package appeared on my doorstep today:

I'm going to be very busy these next few weeks, I think -- not that I'm complaining.

DragonQuest Demons

Obviously my taste in demon illustrations is idiosyncratic, but, even so, when I think of demons, the ones that come immediately to mind are those I saw in the pages of SPI's DragonQuest as a younger man.

I'm still not entirely sure why this particular image affected me so. Looking at it now, it still creeps me out a little, especially the demon on the left, which reminds me a bit of a sinister Carnival mask. Maybe it's their mocking expressions that unnerve me; I don't know. As I've said before, though, I find demons like this far more frightening than I do those that just look like Big Monsters.

Interview: Paul Jaquays (Part II)

6. You produced material for SPI's DragonQuest, one of the lesser known fantasy RPGs of the 80s, such the adventure "The Enchanted Wood," which I understand you consider one of your best designs. What is it about this adventure that you regard so highly after all these years?

It's the last game adventure that I wrote as a freelance adventure designer (the first time around). It's a setting where I was totally in control of the world and its contents and not share-cropping in others' worlds (as with RuneQuest or later D&D and AD&D adventures I created). The entire adventure is "soft-keyed" meaning that in a sense, even the "fixed" locations in the map are more or less random encounters which can also be placed as needed by the GM to develop the players' story. It's chock full of memorable characters and situations (i.e.; Jhingleshod the Iron Axeman, The Knight of Horns, and the wizard Amelior Amanitas). Of course some of this could be nostalgia driven by the fact that very few people have seen this adventure (other than collectors) due to the relative lack of popularity of DragonQuest and the demise of SPI not long after its publication.

7. Speaking from personal experience, I know that your Central Casting books are among the most popular you've ever written. I know gamers who, to this day, religiously use Central Casting when creating new characters. What was the origin of this product and what do you think is the secret of its appeal?

Role play gamers are on the whole, a very creative sub-set of humanity. But everyone's imagination benefits from inspiration or random input. And the Central Casting books, being driven by a series of dice rolls are all about inspiring with randomness. It was about getting players to enrich their role playing experience by creating characters that moved beyond the twin limitations of stereo-typing and min-max power gaming.

Central Casting started while I was in college in the late 70s with some simple social status tables inspired by articles in early (as in single digit issue number early) copies of The Dragon magazine; which over the course of a few months developed into a series of tables that outlined a previous history that included social status, parental employment, and personal quirks (published in an early The Dungeoneer). I tested this on my gaming group, who liked it, but thought too many characters were orphaned when their villages were destroyed. Somehow this project became a part of classwork for my creative writing class and actually was taken into consideration for the humanities honor awards I received at graduation. This work eventually appeared in The Dungeoneer issue #9 as "The Fantasy Role-Playing Previous History System" (Catchy title!).

The project sat dormant for several years. While home sick from work for a few days in the early 80s, I started making notes about how to expand the previous history system, blocking out much of the structure of the final book, but taking it no further.

In the late 80s, while working freelance and looking for large projects, I'm fairly certain it was Rick Loomis who nudged me in the direction of Task Force Games as a publisher. I met with Alan Eldridge at GenCon in the summer of 1987 and they signed me to a deal for the first book. I produced the entire first book on a turn-key basis; doing all the writing, the art, the page setting and the final pre-press set up.

I think Central Casting continues to appeal for several reasons. The books are genre specific, but not game specific. A history made with Heroes of Legend can fit into nearly any fantasy campaign or rule system, from OD&D to 4th Edition D&D, from RuneQuest to Warhammer. The generated history events often have a weird synchronicity to them that makes players want to draw the cause and effect lines between them. They inspire players to get outside the typical characters they often create.

8. Like a number of other tabletop RPG writers, you eventually made the leap to the video game industry, first starting with Coleco. Did you find the transition between the two industries difficult?

When I "leaped" into the video game industry the first time, I wasn't looking for a full time position. Coleco was simply a client at first. I needed a client that paid well (something the RPG industry circa 1980 was definitely not doing) and Coleco needed someone to help them make a fantasy game for a piece of prototype electronic game hardware. Video games actually came a couple years later, after I had been working for the company a while. I think it helped quite a great deal that I was not just a writer, but also worked as an artist. Much of what I did at Coleco was actually balanced between art and writing tasks.

When the video game bubble finally burst at Coleco in 1985, I eventually "leaped" back into RPG design and illustration and worked as a freelancer designing adventures and computer games and doing art for a lot of clients, mostly in the RPG field. I did that freelance (and then eventually as a TSR staff artist) for over 10 years.

When I "leaped" back into video games again full time in 1997 as a level designer at id, it was a mix of my reputation as an adventure designer and my traditional art skills that secured the job. Without either set of skills, I would not have succeeded at that time in the industry's history. Which is probably why for the next few years, traditional adventure designers rarely transitioned into computer games. Until story content heavy MMO games brought about a need for designers who could write (as opposed to construct in 3D), there just wasn't a real need for a lot of full time writers in video games.

9. Were there any particular skills you possessed as an artist and writer that have helped you in the computer games field?

Two things come to mind. The ability to simply communicate ideas being perhaps the key skill for the would-be digital game maker. The best designers are those who can convey ideas with both words and images, regardless of whether they are designing systems, writing content, or building 3D game levels. Throughout my career, I was either the artist who could write (both adventures and technical docs), or the writer/designer who could draw and construct in virtual 3D. This made me versatile and allowed me to choose to work on projects that didn't always require the same skill sets.

Over a career that has spanned three decades and is working on a fourth, the need for some of my specific services or skill focuses has dried up (e.g.; paste-up artists, full time RPG adventure designers, staff and free lance illustrators just to name a few), or in some cases the tasks I was doing became repetitive and boring. In at least one case I made a decision to stop writing RPG adventures because I found that I was starting to imitate my own previous work rather than being original. Being able to move between job descriptions (artist, writer, editor, level designer, content designer, etc.) over my career has allowed me to reinvent myself as needed and stay long term and full time in a field that can burn out or use up creative talent in a matter of a few years.

10. Are there any lessons you've learned from working in the computer game field that you think ought to be applied to tabletop RPG design?

Provide more than one solution to encounters, if only to be willing to accept the other solutions that your players devise.

Take into consideration your players' (not their characters') skills and ability to understand 3D space when creating or choosing adventures. Don't throw new players into complex 3D settings. Mapping and understanding one's position inside 3D space can be challenging even for skilled players. Start "flat" and work them up to spaces with more complicated vertical relationships.

Create spaces that could work in the real world. Walls have thickness. Large open interior spaces have to be supported by columns to be believable. As a fantasy illustrator, I learned to engage the viewer's suspension of disbelief by creating realistic, believable environments which would in turn lend their reality and believability to the fantasy elements found within. Designers need to do the same thing ... engage the players' suspension of disbelief just long enough to convince them that game situations are grounded in things that could happen.

Give your players "save spots" in your gaming sessions, natural breaks in the adventure where they can pull back, regroup, return to base, etc.

Finally, don't overwork the game's backstory. Less can be more, so write as little as you can to convey it. I emphasize this to the content designers on my own project teams. Your players will appreciate that you are creating plot and character links, but could probably care less about detailed ancestries, hidden motivations, or involved descriptions of locations and events that they will never encounter. They just want to hit things and move on. Don't make success in your game depend on reading multiple paragraphs of stilted description or dialogue.

11. Do you still play tabletop roleplaying games? If so, which ones?

The short answer some where between "not really" and "no."

I pretty much moved on from the playing side of role play games in the late 80s. I've never been big on doing for fun what I do for my day job. My last active role play gaming group involvement was in the mid-80s while working at Coleco. Our group was mostly designers from Coleco and in some cases, their wives. Notable were Lawrence Schick (author of White Plume Mountain and our main AD&D DM), Kevin Hendryx (also formerly of TSR), and B. Dennis Sustare (who created the druid class for D&D and co-authored the Bunnies & Burrows RPG). After Coleco shut down, the game group eventually dispersed and between being a young parent and a full time freelancer, I was never able to find time for another regular game group.

After moving to Dallas in 1997, I occasionally played in some of Sandy Petersen's games, but even that sort of trickled to not playing fairly quickly.

In past year or so, I've only played at the North Texas Roleplay Game convention in a few retro gaming events. Last year was the first time I'd actually played AD&D in possibly 22 years.

Retrospective: Dragonquest

When it comes to fantasy, I have pretty much always been a D&D gamer. I dabbled in RuneQuest and Swordbearer at various times, but I never really got into any other fantasy RPGs, because I was generally happy with Dungeons & Dragons. That'll probably strike a lot of people as odd, even improbable, especially given the culture of wild invention that so permeated the hobby and the industry back in the late 70s and early 80s.

Odd and improbable it may be, but it has the advantage of being true. I have abandoned D&D many times throughout my gaming history, of course; I think most gamers do. In my case, though, I abandoned it only when I abandoned fantasy roleplaying altogether and moved on to science fiction or horror. I never did so out of disgust or frustration with the game. Each time, though, when the fantasy bug bit me again, I returned to D&D -- except once.

The one time I didn't was during my brief but passionate love affair with SPI's DragonQuest, the first edition of which was released in 1980. I never saw the first edition and I'd have never seen the second if my local library hadn't had a copy in the fall of 1982. RPGs were so popular in those days that even public libraries had copies of them, including less popular ones like DragonQuest. Intrigued, I checked it out and fell in love with the thing, eventually buying a copy, along with SPI's science fiction RPG, Universe, from a toy store in a nearby shopping mall -- again, how different the world was back then that you could easily buy third tier RPGs from toy stores!

I'm still not sure what it was that first attracted me to DragonQuest, but I suspect it was because I didn't perceive in it any sense that it was the designers' attempt to "fix" D&D or do D&D "better," qualities I always perceived, rightly or wrongly, in most other fantasy RPGs at the time. Indeed, DragonQuest struck me as being off in its own little universe, almost oblivious to the rest of the gaming world. Consequently, the game held a strange fascination for me and read and re-read it numerous times. Even now, I can still see its illustrations and page layout in my memory.

DragonQuest used percentile dice for all its mechanics. Character creation was a mix of random generation and player choice, since the game lacked classes and used skills instead. Races were mostly standard fantasy one -- human, dwarf, elf, halfling, etc. -- with orcs and lycanthropes for variety. Characters could begin play under the influence of certain stars or planets, granting special bonuses or penalties, an idea I'd previously seen in Chivalry & Sorcery. Combat was astoundingly complex and pretty much demanded the use of miniatures, since it used a hex grid and facing was very important. At the time, this didn't bother me in the slightest, but I doubt I could stomach it now. Characters had two "hit point" pools, fatigue and endurance, with fatigue regained quickly and easily and endurance damage being more difficult to heal. Magic was divided into several colleges. I recall that the college of summoning included lists of demonic dukes cribbed from Johann Weyer's Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, which I found endlessly fascinating.

In the months following my discovery of DragonQuest, we played it a lot, but, much like Boot Hill, I can't recall now any of the characters or the adventures we had. That's not terribly surprising, since, in play, I found the game system much less enjoyable in play than it was in reading. Back then, we had a higher tolerance for such things and soldiered on, managing to enjoy ourselves despite the game's clunkiness. I know I wouldn't have the patience for that nowadays, but I still look back fondly on DragonQuest nonetheless, since it was one of a handful of RPGs that made me reconsider, even if only briefly, my lifelong devotion to Dungeons & Dragons. The game's also a reminder of the sad, sorry fate of SPI, a game company whose passing is another important marker for the passing of the Golden Age of the hobby.