The Articles of Dragon: "These are the Voyages of the Ginny's Delight ..."

Allow me to mention – once again – that, while fantasy is without question the genre of RPG I've spent the most time refereeing and playing, science fiction is where my heart truly lies. I sometimes think I was a fan of sci-fi from birth, because so many of my earliest memories revolve around rocket ships, aliens, and space exploration. Given that I can still vividly recall watching the handshake in space during the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz mission, this shouldn't come as a surprise. Even so, I think it's important to put what follows in some context, if only to paint a better picture of the kinds of Dragon articles that captured my imagination as a young man.

"These are the voyages of the Ginny's Delight ..." by Dale L. Kemper appeared in the Areas Section of issue #96 (April 1985). A short article, consisting of probably less than a single page of text, a technical diagram, and a set of deckplans, I nevertheless got a great deal of use out of it. There are a number of reasons why this was the case, the most obvious being that the article provided new material for use with FASA's licensed Star Trek roleplaying game, a favorite of mine at the time. I was always happy to see new content for that game, especially content that was immediately useable.

That's very important to me. Then as now, I loved reading about new ideas and rules for any RPGs I enjoyed, but what really fired me up were articles whose ideas and rules filled an obvious void or otherwise gave me stuff that I needed (or felt I needed). Speculative articles or "think pieces," as we might call them today, were fun, of course, but too often they felt unmoored from play, as if the author spent more time thinking about playing than actually doing so. There's nothing wrong with this, of course, but useable material will always win out over the theoretical.

In this particular case, the useable material was the titular Ginny's Delight, a custom-built 48 meter-long, 8000-ton merchantman intended as an "adventure-class" vessel for use by up to four independent traders in the Star Trek universe. Being a fan of FASA's Trader Captains and Merchant Princes supplement, this was catnip to me. At the time, I had already had some success running short, parallel Star Trek campaigns focused on non-Starfleet characters and wanted more. Because FASA was slow to provide such material, I welcomed anything more I could find.

The Ginny's Delight is small and comparatively fast, completely lacking in deflector shields but packing a photon torpedo mount that is unusual in a vessel of this size. It's also been streamlined to make atmospheric landings possible, something that's rather uncommon among the starships of the Star Trek setting. However, it makes it ideal for a small group of freelance rogues and ne'er-do-wells hoping to turn a few credits in the rough and tumble corners of the galaxy. That the article also included deckplans suitable for use with cardboard counters or miniatures only made the article even more appealing to me.

Like so many things, I had lots of plans to make use of the material in this article, but barely did so. The independent characters of my campaign already had their own ship and were quite fond of it, so there was no way they'd "trade up" to the Ginny's Delight. I eventually created a Tellarite trader and his crew who were intended to be rivals to the characters. Their ship was a variant of the one described in the article, but they only appeared once before the campaign ceased. Alas! Rereading this article brought back many fond memories of the far-off days when Star Trek was something that still inspired me and that's not a bad thing at all.

Pulp Fantasy Library: Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper

First published in the July 1943 issue of Weird Tales, Robert Bloch’s “Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper” remains one of the author’s most famous short stories. In less than a dozen pages, Bloch manages to do what few others had attempted: to transplant one of history’s most notorious murderers into the modern world and suggest that his evil was not an isolated eruption of Victorian depravity but rather something timeless and ongoing.

The story’s plot is simple but clever. Set in contemporary Chicago, it follows Sir Guy Hollis, a visiting Englishman who approaches a skeptical American psychiatrist, John Carmody, with the extraordinary claim that Jack the Ripper still lives. Hollis explains that the Ripper was no mere man but an occultist who discovered a means of prolonging his life through ritual murder. The killings, he insists, have continued for decades, always masked by local crimes. Carmody humors Hollis, until a twist ending reveals the truth in classic pulp fashion, namely, that the Ripper is indeed alive and much closer than anyone suspected.

Despite its shock ending, Bloch’s tale is more than a clever “gotcha” story. It’s a condensation of the author’s lifelong preoccupations with the psychology of evil and the thin membrane separating reason from madness. Bloch's Ripper is not a shadowy figure from the past but a symbol of the persistence of violence and the darkness within modernity itself. The idea of evil as immortal, adaptable, and perversely rational is one Bloch would return to repeatedly, most famously in his novel Psycho, adapted into the even more famous Alfred Hitchcock film of the same name. Bloch's fascination with hidden monstrosity under a civilized veneer runs through “Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper,” which expertly combines the analytic tone of mid-century crime fiction with the lurid, occult sensibility of Weird Tales.

The story also marks a bridge between two eras of pulp horror. Bloch’s early mentor, H. P. Lovecraft, had encouraged him to look beyond imitation and find his own unique take on horror. “Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper” shows that lesson fully absorbed. While Lovecraft looked outward to cosmic terrors, Bloch looked inward to psychological ones. His Ripper is a mortal man sustained by unholy ritual rather than an inhuman being, yet he represents a similar idea – that horror is not confined to a time or a place but an enduring truth about existence.

Other pulp writers of the same era, such as Seabury Quinn and August Derleth, had already blended supernatural elements with the detective story, but Bloch’s version somehow feels more modern than their efforts. Its clipped dialogue, urban setting, and psychiatric framing anticipate the tone of postwar noir as much as the supernatural mystery. The story’s success, both in Weird Tales and in the numerous anthologies that reprinted it, helped establish Bloch as a master of the short form and demonstrated that pulp horror could engage with contemporary anxieties rather than remain trapped in the past.

Bloch himself would later revisit the central idea of this story in a different medium. For the television series, Star Trek, he wrote the 1967 episode “Wolf in the Fold,” which imagines Jack the Ripper as an incorporeal entity feeding on fear across time and space. The science-fictional reframing underscores how adaptable the premise is and how central it was to Bloch’s conception of evil as rational and enduring. That Star Trek episode, like the 1943 story, reflects his belief that horror is never merely historical. Instead, it’s part of Man, wherever and whenever he lives.

I first encountered this story in a 1977 Del Rey anthology of Bloch's short stories whose cover is inspired by "That Hell-Bound Train," another of the stories found within it. Re-reading it for this post, I think “Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper” still holds up as a sharp, efficient masterpiece of pulp horror. Its structure is almost textbook in its presentation, its atmosphere thick with tension, and its theme of evil as an ongoing contagion remains hauntingly relevant. Visible within the story are both the legacy of Weird Tales and the seed of the more psychological horror that would dominate the second half of the twentieth century. It’s a story that, like its title character, refuses to die.

REPOST: The Articles of Dragon: Ares

I'm going to cheat for today's installment of this series. Rather than focusing on a single article from issue #84 of Dragon (April 1984), I'm instead going to talk about Ares, the magazine's new science fiction gaming section. First, a bit of background. Between 1980 and 1982, SPI published a gaming magazine entitled Ares. The magazine included a complete game in every issue (as was once typical of wargaming magazines), along with articles and reviews. Though not limited to sci-fi by any means, Ares did have a slightly science fictional bent to its content. There were eleven issues of Ares before TSR acquired SPI in 1982, followed by five more issues after the acquisition. The last stand-alone issue of Ares was published in "Winter 1983." TSR never really knew what to do with SPI's properties and wound up frittering them away over the course of the next few years, in the process alienating the company's considerable fanbase, many of whom (quite rightly) felt that TSR had handled the situation very badly. Though TSR tried to make some use of SPI's name and products, only the Ares name survived for long – and even then, "long" is a relative term.

From issue #84 to issue #111 (July 1986), Ares was one of my favorite sections of Dragon, since I've always been more of a SF fan than a fantasy one. The section featured articles on games like Traveller and Star Trek and Space Opera, as well as Gamma World, Star Frontiers, and a host of superhero games, especially Marvel Super Heroes. Because sci-fi has always played second (or third) banana to fantasy, you'd have expected that the pool of articles would have been pretty shallow in Ares but that wasn't the case. In my opinion, the quality of the articles in this section was consistently high, higher even than that of the rest of Dragon (which is saying something). However, its appeal was definitely more limited, which is why I suspect it was eventually killed. Why devote some many pages of each issue to genres that are also-rans compared to fantasy, especially D&D's brand of fantasy?

To this day, though, when I look back on the years when I subscribed to Dragon, the Ares articles are among those that stick out most prominently in my mind. Its coverage of Gamma World, for example, was truly excellent and I used a number of its Traveller rules variants over the years. And of course Jeff Grubb's regular "The Marvel-Phile" column was invaluable if you were running a Marvel Super Heroes campaign (or even if you weren't and were just a fan of the comics). I've always thought it a pity that a non-fantasy-centric gaming mag never really gained any degree of prominence. GDW's Challenge, where my first published writings appeared, was a decent stab at such a thing, but it eventually folded, too, much to my disappointment. Like Ares, Challenge filled a hole in the hobby that needed filling. In my opinion, it still does.

Retrospective: Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game

Between early exposure to televised coverage of NASA launches and constant reruns of Star Trek, it was almost inevitable that I would become a science fiction fan. It helped, too, that my father’s only sister, who was barely twenty years my senior, shared that passion and actively encouraged my fascination with all things related to space travel, robots, and laser guns. So, when George Lucas’s space opera Star Wars premiered in the late spring of 1977, my aunt and I wasted no time in seeing it. Like countless other children of my generation, the experience marked a turning point in the development of my imagination.

As I’ve written elsewhere, Star Wars dominated the mental landscape of my childhood from 1977 to 1979, a reign challenged only by my discovery of Dungeons & Dragons and, through it, the wider world of roleplaying games. Even so, my enthusiasm for Star Wars didn’t vanish. I vividly remember the thrill I felt at the first rumors of "Star Wars II" (the film’s actual title wouldn’t be revealed until late 1979, as I recall). While D&D redirected some of my imaginative energy, it never fully replaced my love for Lucas’s galaxy. That said, there’s no denying that the fervor of my early affection dimmed somewhat in the face of newer, competing obsessions.

By the mid-1980s, that dimming had become a common experience. Star Wars itself seemed to be fading into the past. In 1987, the franchise appeared adrift. Four years had passed since Return of the Jedi had concluded the original trilogy and no new movies were on the horizon. For many fans, the galaxy far, far away was becoming a relic of childhood. The Kenner toy line was winding down, Marvel’s comic book series had ended, and while fan interest endured, it was increasingly nostalgic in character. There were occasional whispers of more to come, but nothing concrete. To be a Star Wars fan in the late ’80s was to dwell in the long shadow of what had been, clinging to worn VHS tapes, dog-eared storybooks, and well-loved action figures.

Meanwhile, the tabletop roleplaying game hobby was entering a new phase. TSR’s Dungeons & Dragons still loomed large, but the landscape was shifting. A host of new games had appeared, offering players fresh ways to explore favorite genres. Yet the RPG industry had not yet figured out how to handle licensed properties particularly well. With a few notable exceptions, like Star Trek or Marvel Super Heroes, most licensed RPGs of the era felt to me like clumsy grafts, existing more as marketing tie-ins than true adaptations. Then, in 1987, West End Games released Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game, designed by Greg Costikyan.

What West End delivered was more than just a faithful adaptation of a beloved movie trilogy: it was a revelatory act of worldbuilding. The game employed a streamlined D6 system, originally developed for Ghostbusters, that emphasized speed, flexibility, and cinematic flair over rules complexity. It was a system that matched the tone and pacing of Star Wars perfectly. Characters weren’t defined by a tangle of subsystems but by evocative archetypes: the Brash Pilot, the Young Senatorial, the Quixotic Jedi. Combat was fast and improvisational, encouraging swashbuckling heroics rather than tactical micromanagement. It felt, in a word, right.

But the real genius of the Star Wars RPG wasn’t its rules; it was its tone and presentation. The game didn’t merely borrow the setting of Star Wars; it inhabited it. The rulebook and its indispensable companion, The Star Wars Sourcebook, were filled with film stills, in-universe schematics, detailed planetary entries, and short snippets of fiction. These books didn’t feel like products about the galaxy far, far away; they felt like artifacts from within it. For fans starved for new material, the RPG was a lifeline, offering a way not just to revisit Star Wars, but almost to live in it.

It’s hard to overstate the influence these books would go on to have. Much of what we now take for granted about the Star Wars universe, like species names, background details about the Empire and the Rebellion, classifications of ships and vehicles, and descriptions of distant planets, originated not in the films, but in the pages of these RPG books. Lucasfilm itself came to rely on West End’s material. When Timothy Zahn was hired to write Heir to the Empire in 1991, he was handed a stack of WEG books to use as reference. In many ways, West End Games defined the Star Wars expanded universe before it officially existed.

Within the RPG hobby, Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game was also a harbinger of things to come. Unlike many earlier games, it emphasized genre emulation and collaborative adventure over simulationist detail. Its influence can be seen in the rise of narrative-focused design philosophies that would emerge in the late 1990s and early 2000s. It welcomed new players with familiar characters and easy-to-grasp mechanics, helping to expand the hobby beyond its traditional fantasy roots and making it more accessible to newcomers.

As I mentioned earlier, there were other successful licensed RPGs during this period, each with its own merits. But, in my opinion, none matched the totality of West End’s vision. The Star Wars RPG wasn’t just a game; it was a doorway into a living, breathing world, one that players could explore, shape, and make their own. Today, with Star Wars a global media brand, it’s worth remembering the quiet, crucial role this game played. It expanded the setting beyond what we saw on screen. It kept the flame alive during a fallow period. And it reminded us all that, with a few friends, a handful of dice, and the right kind of scenario, we too could journey to that galaxy far, far away.

Retrospective: The Triangle

In the comments to last week's Retrospective about Trader Captains and Merchant Princes for FASA's Star Trek the Role Playing Game, an anonymous reader mentioned The Triangle, which he called "bar none ... my favorite RP supplement." The comment was fortuitous (and prescient), because I had already intended to look at The Triangle this week. Though usable for any type of Star Trek RPG campaign, it's an especially good fit in my opinion for merchant-based campaigns, which, from what I gather, is what most people who owned did with this 92-page supplement.

The Triangle takes its name from an area of space that lies between the territories claimed by the United Federation of Planets and Klingon and Romulan Empires. Consisting of a little more than 120 class M worlds, most of which are independent of any of the aforementioned great powers, the Triangle is a contested area, filled with danger, mystery, and lots of opportunities to turn a credit. That makes it an ideal place to set a campaign, especially if you're interested in interstellar intrigue in the Star Trek universe – or at least FASA's interpretation of that universe.

That's an important thing to bear in mind. The Triangle was first released in 1985. At that point in time, there were only three movies and The Next Generation was still two years in the future. And while there were a good number of novels and comic books, the concept of a Star Trek "canon" as the word is used today was very loose, almost to the point of non-existence. Consequently, each licensee was largely free to develop the setting in whatever way it chose and without regard for – and sometimes in contradiction of – how any other licensee did so. I know it's hard to imagine 

FASA took full advantage of this creative freedom to flesh out their own unique take on the Star Trek universe, one that, in retrospect, has a decidedly Cold War edge to it, with the Federation standing in for NATO and the Klingons and Romulans for different aspects of the Warsaw Pact. It wasn't quite as overtly militaristic as, say, Starfleet Battles, as it tempered its power politics with elements sincere idealism, but it also wasn't quite as wide-eyed as The Next Generation regularly was. It was a vision of the 23rd century that reflected the tensions and concerns of the mid-1980s and so probably would feel a bit dated to some today. At the time, though, I loved it.

The Triangle makes the most sense when viewed in this context. This is an area of space filled with mostly independent worlds whom each of the three nearby major powers wishes to sway to their side, whether for noble or cynical reasons, reminiscent of the way that the United States and the Soviet Union used Third World nations as pawns in their Great Game. But because no one wishes to ignite an interstellar war, they must act with caution – and often covertly – lest they light the spark that throws everything into chaos. As I said, it's a great place to set a campaign.

In addition to the Federation, the Klingons, and the Romulans, The Triangle introduces us to several other regional powers. The Affiliation of Outer Free Worlds is a Federation-friendly – but still independent – coalition of planets. The Orion Frontier Mercantile Association is a front for moneyed Orion interests to exploit the worlds of the Triangle. The Imperial Klingon States is a breakaway Klingon government headed by an admiral who failed in his attempt to seize the throne. The Mantiev Colonial Association is another coalition of worlds but one whose fractious politics have brought to the brink of civil war, with each faction backed by one of the major powers.

In addition to fleshing out these regional powers, The Triangle details every individual world, along with significant NPCs, new alien races, and corporations. There's also information of trade routes and black markets, both of which are essential if it's used in conjunction with Trader Captains & Merchant Princes. Of course, the Triangle works just as well as the setting for campaigns focusing on Federation or Klingon ships and characters. The book provides lots of hooks for referees looking to run almost any sort of adventure you can imagine in the Star Trek universe – exploration, rescue missions, espionage, diplomacy, and more. It's jam packed with ideas. Even if you find only a few of them of immediate interest, The Triangle has more than enough to keep a campaign moving for months or years.

I had a lot of fun with The Triangle after its release, using it as the basis primarily for merchant adventures. Unfortunately, I didn't use it for very long, though mostly for reasons having nothing to do with the supplement itself. In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I had hoped I'd get the chance to referee a long-running campaign in the region. The book certainly provides enough ideas on which to build such a campaign, which is my usual metric for determining the value of a gaming supplement, hence why I think so highly of The Triangle. 

Retrospective: Trader Captains and Merchant Princes

FASA's Star Trek the Role Playing Game was one of my favorite RPGs in my youth, eclipsing even Traveller in my affections, if you can believe it. One reason for this is that Star Trek was my first fandom. I was initiated into the mysteries of Gene Roddenberry's vision of the future by my paternal aunt, who was a teenager when I was born. She was thus old enough to have been a fan of The Original Series during its initial broadcast and to be close enough to my own age that we shared a lot of interests (she also took me to see Star Wars in 1977 and introduced me to Kolchak: The Night Stalker). 

Before she married, my aunt still lived with my grandparents, which I visited nearly every Saturday. That was also the day when a local independent TV station showed reruns of Star Trek, which we'd watch together. This weekly ritual, started when I was quite young, made me a devoted fan of the series, long before it became heavily merchandised (though there were still a few tie-in products kicking around). My earliest conceptions of science fiction were thus strongly influenced by Star Trek.

Another reason is that FASA's RPG adaptation is a very good one that, in my opinion, did a great job of capturing the vibe of what Star Trek was like in 1982, when what is now a bloated, sclerotic franchise devoid of good ideas (James, tell us how you really feel) was still as wide open and rife with possibilities as the Final Frontier itself. Recall that, at that time, we had only The Original Series itself, its short-lived animated continuation, two movies, and a fairly small number of comics and novelizations. That was in the process of changing, of course, but, upon its publication, Star Trek the Role Playing Game still felt like it belonged to the looser, more freewheeling era of fandom my aunt had introduced to me.

So, when FASA released the Trader Captains and Merchant Princes supplement in 1982, I immediately snapped it up. I've mentioned my love for it previously, but, until now, I've not had the chance to talk about it in any detail. Where Star Trek the Role Playing Game was (obviously) devoted to Starfleet characters and their exploration of the galaxy, this 52-page book focused on civilian characters, specifically "traders, privateers, merchants, con-men, and rouges [sic]," as its back cover boasted. If you're the sort of person who ever watched "The Trouble with Tribbles" and wondered what other shenanigans Cyrano Jones might have gotten up to or imagined what life was like for Harcourt Fenton Mudd as he perpetrated his illicit schemes at the far corners of space. this is the supplement for you.

For myself, all of that was compelling, no doubt, but what really grabbed my interest was simply learning more about life on the fringes of the galaxy's Great Powers. Up to this point, everything we'd seen of Star Trek was about Starfleet and the Federation, leaving me to wonder what else there might be to do out there among the stars. Characters like Jones and Mudd hinted at the existence of people living on the edge, doing what they needed to turn a credit while trying to stay ahead of any authorities that might look too closely at what how they earned their livings. Roddenberry had, after all, originally pitched Star Trek as Wagon Train in space, so it only made sense that there'd be futuristic gamblers, rustlers, and snake oil salesmen out there somewhere. This supplement let you play them.

In addition to new character generation options, like the Merchant Academy, Trader Captains and Merchant Princes also offered both new personal equipment and new starships. The latter were especially interesting to me, because they were all small craft, with a crew complement of no more than a dozen, which made them both the perfect size for a "party" of civilian characters and a nice counterpoint to the huge vessels of Starfleet. The book also included rules for trading, running and maintaining small ships, taxes, tariffs, piracy, and playing the stock market. Topping it off were guidelines for refereeing merchant adventures and campaigns, as well as a sample setting, the Twilight Nebula, an unclaimed area of space at the fringes of the Klingon Empire. 

I'm a big fan of supplements that expand the scope of a RPG, opening up new avenues for fun and exciting play. Trader Captains and Merchant Princes really did that for Star Trek the Role Playing Game, at least for me. I ran a merchant campaign for my friends in parallel with the missions of the USS Excalibur aboard which their Starfleet characters served. I even recall that one of the Starfleet characters spent time undercover as a merchant, operating under an assumed name to learn more about the Romulans' activities in a region of unclaimed space. We had a lot of fun and this supplement gave us the rules and inspiration to make it happen.

Polyhedron: Issue #24

Issue #24 of Polyhedron (July 1985), with its cover illustration by Roger Raupp, is another one I remember very clearly from my youth – and the cover is a big part of the reason why. When I first saw this odd collection of characters, I honestly had no idea what I was looking at. Were they supposed to be orcs or half-orcs or something else entirely? As I turned out, my guess wasn't far from the truth, but that initial perplexity compelled me to read the issue with great interest. Nearly forty years later, I still remember it.

"Notes from HQ" can be quickly dispensed with, since most of it concerns RPGA matters of little lasting interest. The main thing worth discussing is a note indicating that, in response to pleas from the editor in previous issues, there have been a number of submissions from RPGA members. Indeed, Penny Petticord states that "we have not rejected a single article." She quickly adds, though, that submissions are still very few in number and that "only a fraction of the so-called active membership has contributed." At the time there were supposedly "over 8000" RPGA members worldwide, so I can sympathize with Petticord's lament about the small number of submissions. 

"Letters" is quite interesting this issue. First, there's a letter in which a reader complains about the heavy D&D focus of Polyhedron, as well as the lack of support for Marvel Super Heroes. In response to the first part, the editors explain that Polyhedron can only publish those articles that are submitted to it, so, if anyone wants to see more non-D&D content, they'll need to make it happen themselves. As I think I said before, I wish I'd paid more attention to this sort of stuff when I was a subscriber, because I probably would have had better luck getting published in Polyhedron than I ever did in Dragon. In answer to the second part, the editors point out that, because MSH is a licensed game, Marvel itself must review and approve everything it publishes for the game. This makes it harder for any writer, especially those outside the TSR staff, to produce new articles to support it. Also among the letters published are a couple discussing the bad publicity Dungeons & Dragons is getting in their area, a consequence of the ongoing Satanic Panic. If I hadn't lived through those times, I'd hardly believed such things happened!

"Secrets of Success" by Steve Null offers tips on playing in RPGA tournaments. Never having participated in RPGA events, I must say I only briefly skimmed this article and saw nothing worthy of comment here. "Unofficial New Magic-User Spells" by Jon Pickens continues what he began in issue #22. The selection of new spells continues to focus replicating the effects of AD&D magic items, which is fine, but I'd have liked a little more variety myself. More notable, I feel, is that, like its predecessor, it includes the word "unofficial" in its title – a reminder that nothing that appears in Polyhedron carries the official TSR seal of approval. 

Part I of Frank Mentzer's AD&D adventure, "Needle," appears in this issue. Designed for characters of levels 8–10, this is another tournament adventure offered for the delectation of readers of Polyhedron, like most of the adventures published in its pages previously. The adventure concerns an expedition to locate and examine a powerful magic item – the titular Needle – that is found in a ruined city located in a far-off land. The characters are all members of an adventuring guild called SMART, which stands for Syndicate of Master Adventurers for the Recovery of Treasure. All the pregenerated characters have what I assume (hope?) are merely nicknames, like Slim, Smiley, Blondy, and Blaze. To be honest, I found this nomenclature detracted from my enjoyment of scenario, which is otherwise decent, filled with lots of challenges and puzzles. Maybe it's just me, but I prefer a slightly more serious tone when it comes to things like names.

Errol Farstad's "How Reviews are Done" is an overview of how RPGs and RPG products will be reviewed in Polyhedron, since such reviews are a new future in the newszine. All games are given a Difficulty rating from 1 to 4, with 1 being the easiest to learn for a newcomer and 4 being the hardest. Then, the product is rated on a scale of 1 to 10 in three other categories: Packaging, Rules and Explanations, and Miscellaneous. Taken together, these four ratings contribute to its Overall score, rated from 0 to 4 Stars. With the explanations out of the way, Farstad reviews Star Trek the Role Playing Game, to which he gives an overall rating of 3 Stars out of a possible 4. He had some minor (and frankly nitpicky) complaints about the game, which did not detract from his otherwise very positive opinion of it. Being a big fan of the old FASA game, I could not disagree with his assessment.

"The Grond Family & Friends" by Roger E. Moore is the first installment in a new series called "The New Rogues Gallery." Like the book after which its named, this series is intended to present write-ups and illustrations of characters from people's home campaigns – basically "Let me tell you about my character(s)" in written form. The eponymous John Grond is a half-ogre and it's his friends and family whom Roger Raupp depicted on the cover of this issue. Half-ogres were briefly described as a possible player character race by Gary Gygax in issue #29 of Dragon (September 1979). Moore apparently liked the idea enough to adopt and adapt for his own use. The article presents six characters, ranging from Grond himself (a 16th-level fighter) to his wife (a 4th-level half-ogre cleric) and followers, like Boron the Moron, a full ogre of limited intelligence.

"Fletcher's Corner" by Michael Przytarski – and people say my name is hard to spell – is the start of a new column devoted to "solving the everyday problems faced by anyone who judges role playing games." In short, it's another referee's advice column. Consequently, I expect it'll be filled with lots of good insights and advice that will be genuinely useful to someone who's sitting behind the screen for the first time but rather dull to the veterans among us. That's OK: there are always newcomers in need of advice and that's good for the hobby. For his inaugural column, Przytarski takes up the topic of introducing new characters (and, by extension, new players) to a campaign. It's a good topic and his advice is solid, though nothing I haven't heard before (or come to understand through years of play). It'll be interesting to see what he tackles next and whether I find it useful.

Concluding the issue is "Dispel Confusion," with answers to questions about D&D, AD&D, and Marvel Super Heroes. Sadly, none of the questions piqued my interest, because they were all very banal. Most pertained to discrepancies between two sections of the rules or details that had been inadvertently left out of the text – in short, the kinds of rules questions about which you can't say very much else. Personally, I've always enjoyed questions that afford the responder to pontificate a little about a philosophy of play or game design, but that's just me. Maybe next issue!

Polyhedron: Issue #21

Issue #21 of Polyhedron (January 1985) features a cover illustration by Timothy Truman, who produced a lot of artwork for TSR throughout the 1980s before going on to greater success as a comic book artist. The piece depicts the protagonist of this issue's "Encounters" article, facing off against a creature of para-elemental ice, but, as I'll explain shortly, I have some questions. 

The issue starts with another "Notes from HQ" article by Penny Petticord. Her position is RPGA Network Coordinator, which I assume is the title of the head of the RPGA. However, starting with issue #22, Petticord will also be the editor of Polyhedron, taking over from Mary Kirchoff, who'd been on the staff of the newszine since issue #5. She would then devote herself full-time to fiction, writing numerous Dragonlance novels and later becoming part of TSR's book publishing division.

Next up is the aforementioned "Encounters" article by James M. Ward. The scenario sees a young paladin named Ren Grakkan on a quest to retrieve "the most potent of all artifacts," the white cloak of enchanting (or is it charming? The text is inconsistent) for his unnamed lady love. The cloak is found in a cave guarded by para-elemental ice monsters. As I noted, I have a couple of questions. First, Ren is described as a paladin, but he looks more like a classic sword-and-sorcery barbarian based on Truman's illustration. The text at least supports this, since he's described as wearing no armor but only bracers of defense (AC 4) and having Dexterity 18 (hence a –4 defensive adjustment). Even so, he looks nothing like what I'd expect of a "paladin," but perhaps I simply lack imagination. (I suppose it's possible the artwork depicts the cloak's original owner, a barbarian lord, who lost it in battle against the ice creatures, but then why isn't the cloak shown?) Second, this so-called "potent artifact" Ren is seeking makes its wearer's charm and illusion spells harder to resist, especially if the wearer is female. Could it be that Ren's "lady love" is actually a sorceresss who's charmed him? There's no evidence of this in the text, but the thought occurs to me. (Also, why does Ward keep re-using the name "Ren" for his characters?)

Sonny Scott's "Observations from a Veteran Gamer" is short piece of fluffy advice from a long-time player of AD&D who's also a stalwart of the RPGA. I don't mean to be so dismissive, but there's nothing here you've never heard a thousand times before. More interesting is Gary Gygax's "Why Gargoyles Don't Have Wings But Should." The article begins with classic Gygaxian boasting: he speaks of his association with Flint Dille ("Did you know his grandfather invented Buck Rogers?") and their upcoming joint projects. Then, he moves on to his dissatisfaction with depictions of both the gargoyle and the mar(l)goyle from Monster Manual II. The illustrations for both, Gygax says, lack wings and this should be corrected in "some future edition" of AD&D. For reference, here are the two illustrations in question: 

"Don't try to tell me those dark shadows are wings!" Thus spake Gygax.

Gygax also explains that the second monster's proper name is marlgoyle, with an "l," just as it's named in The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth. This is one of those cases where, if one knows anything about geology, the error is obvious. In any case, I find this sort of thing fascinating – all the more so because the error was never corrected in any subsequent edition of the game. 

Roger E. Moore's "Take Command of a Titan!" is, by far and away, the best part of this issue and indeed one of my favorite articles ever to appear in any gaming periodical, not simply Polyhedron. In it, Moore lays the groundwork for a "Big Ship" campaign in Star Frontiers. By "big ship," he means a space vessel whose crew numbers in the hundreds at least, if not more. This is territory well covered by both Traveller and Star Trek, but it's not really discussed in Star Frontiers. Additionally, Moore provides lots of ideas on what makes a Big Ship campaign unique and fun. Back in my youth, this article, along with its sequel in the next issue, was a very inspirational one for me. To this day, I find myself longing for a science fiction campaign set aboard a Big Ship.

"Spelling Bee" by Frank Mentzer returns, looking at the ins and outs of a few low-level magic-user spells for AD&D. I'm always of two minds about these kinds of articles. On the one hand, I appreciate seeing the clever ways that people can make use of well-worn spells. On the other hand, some of these clever uses depend on very specific, nitpicky, and possibly tendentious readings of the text. It's a fine line, to be sure, which is why I can't be outright dismissive of articles like this, even as I, as a habitual referee, tend to grit my teeth at some of the more "creative" applications put forward.

"Witchstone" by Carl Sargent is an AD&D adventure for character levels 8–12. It's an odd adventure, because, at base, it's pretty mundane: a bunch of hill giants are causing trouble and it's up to the PCs to deal with them. However, the reason why the giants are more hostile than usual concerns a power play by a giantess wishing to make her son chief. This she does by trickery, pretending she is a witch and arranging for "accidents" to occur that support her false claim. It's certainly interesting in an abstract sense, but I'm not sure how much of this would be communicated to the characters involved in the adventure.

"Five New NPCs" is just what its title suggests: a collection of five non-player characters submitted by RPGA members. None of them are especially memorable. "Module Building from A to Z" by Roger E. Moore is vastly more worthy of attention. In this lengthy, four-page article in which Moore presents the guidelines by which modules submitted to both Dragon and Polyhedron are evaluated. It's a remarkable article for its insight into the culture of TSR in early 1985, as well as into the readership of its periodicals. There are already hints of the "TSR Code of Ethics" that would appear later, for example. The guidelines also allude to the relative popularity of various RPGs at the time, with modules for games like Boot Hill and Gangbusters being excluded "due to low reader interest." There's a lot here to consider; I may need to do a longer post dissecting the whole thing.

I could not bring myself to read "The RPGA Network Tournament Scoring System" – sorry! "Dispel Confusion" covers only three games this month: AD&D, Gamma World, and Top Secret, with AD&D questions taking up slightly more than half of the pages devoted to this section. That shouldn't come as a surprise, but I nevertheless find it notable. What does surprise me is how often the submitted questions amount to "In my campaign, can I do ...?" with the answer usually being, "Yes, if the referee will allow it." What a strange world! This seeking of permission from the publisher is bizarre. I wonder if anyone ever wrote to Parker Brothers to ask about whether it was OK to use Free Parking as something other than an empty space?

A Mystery Solved?

Being a Star Trek fan, I was aware of the fact that, sometime during the early stages of the production of 1979's Star Trek: The Motion Picture, the original 33-inch model of the U.S.S. Enterprise (used in the title sequence of the television show) had become lost. Gene Roddenberry had a sentimental attachment to the model and was keen to get it back, but, despite his best efforts, he was never able to do so. Its disappearance was thus one of big mysteries of Star Trek lore – that is, until the end of last month.

According to this article, a listing on eBay for a replica of the Enterprise caught the eyes of some fans, who suspected that it might well have been the model missing for nearly half a century. They contacted the seller with their suspicions, recommending he get in touch with Roddenberry's family about it. Soon thereafter, Roddenberry's son, Rod, issued the following statement:

“Along with much of the Star Trek community, I was excited and pleased to learn that the original 3-foot filming model of the Starship Enterprise appears to have been discovered after being missing for decades (pending full authentication). I can confirm that I am now, through an intermediary, in contact with the individual who possesses the model.

This prototype played a key role in the visualizing design of the famous television starship during Star Trek’s early development in 1964. Once the show went into production, the model was actually filmed in numerous visual effects shots seen throughout the life of the original Star Trek series, along with a larger, 12-foot model that is currently displayed at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. I am convinced that this prototype model holds immense significance for Star Trek and its 58-year history. From its creation in the mid-60s until about 1977, the model was in the possession of my father, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry. Unfortunately, it went missing after being loaned out during the production of Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

Beyond its physical value, the greater significance is this prototype Enterprise model really represents the underpinning ideas my father imbued into the series. That we are clever, resilient and can learn from our mistakes. We can and will move beyond archaic belief systems. And once we truly embrace the infinite diversity all around us, both in form and idea, we will then take those next step into a prosperous and unlimited future.

Guided by this principle, one of my primary goals over the past decade has been to locate, recover, and digitally archive significant Star Trek materials and artifacts through the Roddenberry Archive project. The intention would be to scan it in the finest detail for the Roddenberry Archives and after rigorous scrutiny make it available to the public. Furthermore, I firmly believe that a piece of such importance should not be confined to any private collection. This iconic artifact should be enshrined along side the 12-foot shooting model at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, where it can serve to help tell the story of television history, the history of space exploration and ultimately, a beacon of hope for the future.”

I'm quite curious to see how this story plays out. Growing up in Maryland, I regularly visited the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. A highlight of any such trip was seeing the 11-foot studio model of the Enterprise used for exterior shots in the 1960s TV series. Consequently, this story really piqued my interest. I imagine many of my readers will feel the same way.

Retrospective: Traders and Gunboats

I've mentioned before that Star Trek was my first fandom. If you were a kid with an interest in science fiction in the early 1970s, there simply weren't many other options. Despite this, Star Trek wasn't heavily merchandised at the time, certainly not to the extent that Star Wars would be in a few years. Consequently, fans like myself had to make do with a fairly limited selection of Star Trek products to sate our lust for more information about Gene Roddenberry's vision of the 23rd century. 

A couple of items from that limited selection stand out in my memory, both of them created by the German technical artist Franz Joseph Schnaubelt, known by his nom de plume, Franz Joseph. In 1975, Ballantine Books released Joseph's Starfleet Technical Manual and Star Trek Blueprints. Each included lots of beautifully rendered maps and schematics of Star Trek space vessels and technology (and, fascinatingly, served as the basis for Starfleet Battles, but that's another story). Needless to say, I owned and adore both of them, spending countless hours poring over the secrets they revealed about the layout of the USS Enterprise and other Starfleet ships of the line. These books initiated my lifelong love for deckplans of all sorts, but particularly of science fiction vehicles – a love I'd later transfer into the realm of science fiction roleplaying games.

GDW's Traveller, which I first picked up sometime in 1982, was more than accommodating of my love of starship deckplans. Nearly every adventure released for the game, along with many of its supplements, included one or more deckplans of this sort. There were even separate but related games, Snapshot and Azhanti High Lightning, that included deckplans large enough to use with cardboard counters or 15mm miniatures. From the standpoint of someone like myself who loved starship deckplans, Traveller delivered the goods.

Which brings us to the true topic of this post: Supplement 7: Traders and Gunboats. Released in 1980 and written by Traveller's creator, Marc Miller, with assistance from Frank Chadwick, John Harshman, and Loren Wiseman, Traders and Gunboats is a 48-page supplement that provides information on, as its title suggests, merchant starships and patrol craft. The information is not limited solely to game statistics – though there's plenty of such detail – but also includes an equal amount of information on the place of such vessels within GDW's Third Imperium setting. The inclusion of both game mechanical and setting information makes Traders and Gunboats equally useful to players and referees, as well as to those using Traveller's official setting or one of their own creation.

Ultimately, what makes Supplement 7 so appealing to me is its practicality. All of the space vessels described in its pages are small in size. The largest is no more than 1000 displacement tons, but the vast majority are in 100–400 ton range, which makes them perfect for use by – or against – player characters. That's one of the things that's always appealed to me about Traveller: it keeps its focus on the PCs and their adventures. It's true that Traveller can be vast in scope and certainly the official Third Imperium setting encompasses tens of thousands of worlds spread across dozens of sectors of space. Yet, the play of the game remains human-scaled, which is exactly what Traders and Gunboats supports with its information on smaller space vessels.

Of course, as you'd expect, given my preamble, it's the deckplans that still excite me. Here's a sample page featuring a few small (20–50 ton) craft.

Traders and Gunboats includes more than a dozen of these maps, most of which have proven very useful to me over my years of playing Traveller – so useful that I rank it up there with 76 Patrons in terms of how much I've used it at my own table. That's probably the highest praise I can give any RPG product.

Splitting the Party

Within a few years of my entrance into the hobby, my friends and I were playing a wide range of different RPGs. Dungeons & Dragons remained our staple, of course, but we also regularly played other games. Playing those other games not only cleansed our palates genre-wise, but also medium-wise. For example, Champions and Marvel Super Heroes, being inspired by the medium of comic books, both included game mechanics intended to emulate the kinds of things you'd see in the sequential storytelling of those four-color magazines. Consequently, when we played those RPGs, we made an effort to do so in a way that mimicked the action we'd see in issues of our favorite DC or Marvel titles. I'm not sure we did this consciously. More likely, it was simply something that seemed right, given how clearly (and explicitly, in the case of Marvel Super Heroes) these games modeled themselves after their source material.

This mindset carried over into other RPGs, too. One that sticks very firmly in my mind – and that's relevant to the larger topic I want to discuss in this post – is Star Trek the Role Playing Game. As I've no doubt said too many times before, Star Trek was my original fandom, the gateway through which I entered more solidly into the wider world of nerdery. When FASA published their RPG adaptation of the TV series in 1982, I snapped it up immediately and ran the game almost non-stop over the course of several years in the mid-80s. Though the rules of the game made some effort to model the conventions of the show – the starship combat system is perhaps the most successful instance of this – they weren't as strongly wedded to emulation of that kind as were the superhero roleplaying games I mentioned above.

Even so, my friends and I, as if by suggestion, tried to replicate the beats of the 1966 Star Trek series as best we could in play. One of the ways I attempted this – I say "I," because I was almost always the referee – could be seen in my handling of landing parties. In our sessions, as in the television program, characters would sometimes split up, with some of them remaining aboard ship, while others transported down to the planet it was orbiting. The two groups would stay in communication with one another, conveying useful information back in forth, but there were often times when they were out of contact for short or extended periods of time. Occasionally, the lack of communication between ship and landing party was a major plot point, with each group of characters having to deal with a problem in isolation, with only part of the overall picture available to them. 

This set-up makes for good drama and I thought it'd make for good roleplaying too, especially since my friends and I were all fairly committed to bringing our sessions in line with the TV show. In those days, we regularly played in the basement of the home of two brothers. In sessions where one group of characters beamed down to a planet and another stayed in orbit, I'd physically separate them, sending one group upstairs to the living room or kitchen, while leaving the other in the basement. I'd shuttle back and forth between each group, handling their current situation in isolation. When they communicated with each other, I'd allow a player from one group to go to the other and they'd exchange information, as if they were using a communicator. This approach, while it slowed down play and involved a lot of running back and forth on my part, was often quite effective. I can still recall several sessions where the ignorance of one group of characters about the activities of the other led to memorable moments of roleplaying (and humor). Nowadays, I could probably handle this much more easily and effectively with technology unavailable to us in the 1980s. 

Ironically, in my House of Worms campaign, the characters recently found themselves in a situation where I could have made use of a technological solution – and I didn't do so. While exploring a mysterious location, the characters came across a large, pillar-like object with multiple open apertures leading inside. After some experimentation to determine that it was probably safe, several of them entered and all found themselves in a different place. As some of them eventually discovered, the pillar was a device of the Ancients called a superposition enclosure and it was being used to hold an Undying Wizard called Getúkmetèk prisoner. Each of the characters who entered found himself in a separate reality in which he experienced a possible past/present/future where he had achieved some goal he greatly desired. Meanwhile, there were several characters outside the superposition enclosure, none of whom had any idea what was going inside it.

Bear in mind that House of Worms has been, since its inception in 2015, an entirely online game. We use Discord for voice chat and the campaign's server could easily accommodate separate voice channels into which I could separate all the characters so that their players would have no idea what was happening elsewhere. I didn't do this, however, and I'm not entirely sure why. Part of it, I suspect, is that I was simply lazy. Unlike my teenage self, the thought of popping back and forth between voice channels seemed like too much work, even though the end result might have been dramatically effective. Part of it, too, is that I worry about players losing focus while I tended to a player segregated in his own channel. As I have been running it, all the players have the chance to hear what's happening to their comrades, even if their characters do not. That keeps everyone engaged and, more than once, hearing the reactions of the players to things their characters do not know was positively delightful.

Does anyone reading this have any experiences with this sort of thing? Have you ever split up players in this fashion and, if so, how did it turn out? I'm quite curious to know how others have done it.

White Dwarf: Issue #77

Issue #77 of White Dwarf (May 1986) features an immediately recognizable cover illustration by Chris Achilleos. The image is probably best-known for its appearance on the September 1981 issue of Heavy Metal, though it has appeared in many other places over the years. I've noted before that, compared to Dragon, WD more regularly used re-purposed artwork for its cover illustrations, though I've never come to a satisfactory conclusion as to why this was the case. My best guess is that it was a matter of simple economics, reprinted art being perhaps cheaper than commissioning original art, but I honestly don' know if that's the case. In any event, this particular cover induces a bit of cognitive dissonance in me, since I so strongly associate it with Heavy Metal, not White Dwarf.

Issue #77 is also the last issue under the editorship of Ian Marsh. Marsh only took over in issue #74, so his departure so soon after his installation comes as a bit of a shock. In his final editorial, Marsh states that "the other staff of the magazine" would also be leaving, though he doesn't specify which ones. He seems to obfuscate on the reasons for all these departures, simultaneously reminding readers that Games Workshop was moving to Nottingham and that he and the others "have decided not to accompany it on this move," while also couching their decision as being for nebulous "reasons of our own." The next issue will have a "fresh team" headed up by Paul Cockburn.

The issue proper begins with the reviews of "Open Box." The first of these is Mayfair's DC Heroes, which receives a quite favorable (8 out of 10) review by Marcus L. Rowland, who continues to be the workhorse of the magazine. The Stormbringer adventure Stealer of Souls likewise scores 8 out of 10, while The Sea Elves, a supplement for the Elfquest RPG gets 7 on the same scale. Another Chaosium product, Alone Against the Dark for Call of Cthulhu earns 9 out of 10, but Yellow Clearance Black Box Blues for Paranoia receives only 7 – another example, I think, of where the numerical scores don't quite align with the text of the review itself. Finally, there are reviews of two supplements for FASA's Doctor Who RPG: The Daleks (7 out of 10) and The Master (6 out of 10). 

Dave Langford's "Critical Mass" is mostly forgettable to me, as usual, but he does take note of the death of Frank Herbert, opining that Chapter House: Dune, to which he gave a "mildly favorable" review back in issue #65 might be the end of "galactic power-politicking" in the Dune universe. How I wish that had been true! Colin Greenwell's "2020 Vision" reviews a few movies, most notably Young Sherlock Holmes, a forgettable, even laughable, Steven Spielberg movie that nonetheless does feature one of the earliest examples of a computer-generated character in the history of cinema – a dire portent of things to come.

"The Crazy File" by Peter Tamlyn provides a handful of new "crazies" – zealous devotees of social fads – for use with the Judge Dredd – The Role-Playing Game. The article contains no game statistics; it's pure background information intended to give the referee something inspirational for use in his own adventures and campaigns. "Spellbound" by Phil Masters looks at "magic in superhero games." Again, there's nothing mechanical here. Instead, it's an overview of how magic has been used in comics over the years and then offers advice and examples of how to make use of it in one's own original superhero RPG adventures and campaigns. It's well done in my opinion and helped by the fact that it's not geared toward any particular superhero RPG. 

"The Final Frontier" by Alex Stewart does something similar for Star Trek gaming: it's an overview of the unique characteristics of Gene Roddenberry's science fiction setting and how they can best be used to create enjoyable adventures and campaigns. As a fan of Star Trek – or at least I once was – I think the article is pretty well done for what it is, though I do find myself wondering about its intended audience. White Dwarf used to have lots of these introductory articles in its early days. To see them return so late in its run strikes me as odd, though I'm sure there's a logic to it that eludes me. 

Graham Staplehurst's "A Secret Wish" is an adventure that's written for both D&D and Middle-earth Role Playing. The scenario itself assumes the players take on the role of hobbits and deals with the disappearance and return of Glorfindel. How well it jibes with the actual history of Middle-earth as laid out by Tolkien, I can't rightly say, though, to me, it reads a bit like a work of fan fiction rather than something that could have come from the mind of the Professor himself. "A Cast of Thousands" by Graeme Davis is yet another look at NPCs and how to give them "personality." It's fine, though, as is so often the case with articles like this, I find it difficult to sift through the conventional wisdom repeated for the hundredth time from the genuine insights.

"The Cars That Ate Sanity" by Marcus L. Rowland is a set of car chase rules for use with Call of Cthulhu. Is this something anyone needed? I don't mean to be flippant, but I cannot recall any car chases in Lovecraft's fiction. Maybe my memory is failing me again. Chris Felton's "Gaming for Heroine Addicts" – a clever title – is about how avoid "sexism" in one's games and make them more enjoyable to women. As you might expect, the article is a very mixed bag of topics, not to mention perspectives. I'm not sure the article offers a coherent viewpoint on any of its topics, which range widely and make many assumptions about RPGs, men, women, and everything in between. I've already spent more time thinking about it than it probably deserves.

Joe Dever's "Tabletop Heroes" looks at the best techniques for photographing one's painted miniatures. I found it fascinating and very much appreciated the little diagrams that accompanied the article. They showed the placement of lighting, camera, and background and did a great job of illustrating the principles Dever discusses. "The Travellers," "Gobbledigook," and "Thrud the Barbarian" are all here as usual. "Thrud" pokes fun at superheroes by having the tiny-headed barbarian face off against the All-American Legion of Incredibly Stupid Heroes, such as

After reading Ian Marsh's farewell editorial, I now feel an obligation to read at least a few more issues. I'm genuinely curious now to see how much will change under a "fresh new team" at the helm of White Dwarf. If nothing else, it'll be fascinating purely from a historical perspective. Till then!

White Dwarf: Issue #74

Issue #74 of White Dwarf (February 1986) sports a cover by American conic book artist, Frank Brunner, who's probably best known for his work on Creepy, Eerie, and Vampirella, as well as his covers for Marvel's Savage Sword of Conan and Red Sonja. The issue also marks the point where Ian Livingstone hands over day-to-day editorial duties to Ian Marsh. Livingstone states that he is not "deserting the magazine" and will still "be keeping a benevolent eye on the progress of [his] eight-year-old love-child" in his new capacity as Editor-in-Chief. Despite his reassurances, this nevertheless feels like a turning point in the history of White Dwarf.

Case in point: the issue kicks off with "Superpower" by Bruce Hollands, which is an extensive look at the Games Workshop-published boardgame of the same name. Like the look at Warrior Knights from the previous issue, this article, while informative, nevertheless feels more like an extended advertisement for a GW product than a "real" article. That may be an unfair judgment on my part, but reading it convinced me that the oft-discussed transformation of White Dwarf into a full-on house organ of Games Workshop was not far in the future.

Countering that worry is "Open Box," which only reviewed one GW product this issue, the Call of Cthulhu scenario Night in Norway, which scores 7 out of 10. Also reviewed is Dragon Warriors and two of its supplements (The Way of Wizardry and The Elven Crystals), which collectively earn 9 out of 10. After all these years, I've still never read Dragon Warriors, which people whose opinions I respect tell me is well worth a look. The historical RuneQuest supplement Vikings gets 8 out of 10, while Oriental Adventures for AD&D receives 9 out of 10. The Pendragon Campaign, the predecessor to the well regarded The Boy King, is similarly well regarded, earning 9 out of 10. The column wraps up with a look at two different scenarios for use with FASA's Star Trek, The Outcasts and Termination 1456, both of which are judged perfect (10 out of 10). 

Dave Langford's "Critical Mass" generally vexes me, but this issue's column at least looks at a few books I know and have read, like Jack Vance's Planet of Adventure series. Langford quite correctly recognizes the value of these books and of Vance more generally

The good stuff lies in Tschai's rich scents and colours, and in elaboration of style. No Vance villain would say 'I'll get you for that.' Instead: 'Low-grade assassins will drown you in cattle excrement! Twenty pariahs will drub your corpse! A cur will drag your head along the street by your tongue!'

Langford's byline reappears under "The Power of the Frog," a science fiction short story about a human junior military officer held prisoner by an alien race. Like all of Langford's previous short stories, this one is both brief and amusing. It's clear the man has talent, which is why I sometimes feel bad at the lack of interest his book review column elicits. Truthfully, I wish he had contributed more fiction to White Dwarf. 

"Terror at Trollmarsh" is an AD&D adventure for 4th–5th-level characters by Peter and Janet Vialls. I really enjoyed this one, which takes the form of a murder mystery with fantasy/horror elements. A monster is stalking the halls of Baron Uther Torgrim, killing his servants, and it's up to the players to figure out just what is really going on. While the overall concept is a standard, even clichéd one, the authors handle it well, giving the referee an interesting, well mapped out environment, an array of compelling NPCs, and a culprit with clear, understandable motives. "Terror at Trollmarsh" is nothing revolutionary, but, like all good scenarios, it gives players lots of "moving parts" with which to interact as they grapple with its central mystery.

"A Company of Wolves" by Peter Blanchard looks at lycanthropy in AD&D from both a game and folkloric perspective. The article doesn't offer much in the way of new rules mechanics, which I appreciate, focusing instead on "social" aspects of this magical curse, which is to say, how it might function in a fantasy setting, including its advantages and drawbacks. "The Hide of the Ancestor" by Chris Watson is a short RuneQuest scenario about the recovery of a relic holy to the twenty-six tribes of the Ithillian-Fane, a race of lion-centaurs. I find it oddly refreshing to read a RQ adventure set in Glorantha whose author feels comfortable enough with the setting to his own creations, like the Ithillian-Fane to it. Too often settings like Glorantha – and Tékumel and Hârn and ... – are treated as inviolable to the point that no one is even willing to play in them, lest they "do it wrong." That's nonsense in my opinion, which is why I delight in scenarios like "The Hide of the Ancestor."

"Gentlemen and Players" by Richard Edwards and Chris Elliott is nice little article about creating British characters for use with Call of Cthulhu. As its title suggests, the article focuses on the creation of "gentlemen" (or aristocratic amateurs) and "players" (professional sportsmen). "Hitting the Right Note" by Ian Berridge presents information on musical instruments, their use, and the how to learn to play them for use with AD&D. Articles like this are godsends to those whose campaigns would benefit from such fine details – and absolutely useless to those whose campaigns wouldn't. 

"Alternative Origins" by Ian Thomson is a collection of random tables for use with Games Workshop's Golden Heroes. The tables are intended to replace those presented in the game for character generation in order to produce more "convincing" heroes whose powers are an incompatible jumble. This makes good sense to me, but then I haven't looked at a copy of Golden Heroes in decades, so it's hard for me to judge how useful this article would be. Elsewhere, Joe Dever offers part three of his look at "Dioramas," accompanied by some lovely – though non-diorama – photographs of painted miniatures.

The issue also includes more "Thrud the Barbarian," a full-page "Gobbledigook," and "The Travellers," which continues its Shadows-inspired plotline. I particularly enjoyed the latter, especially this bit:

Of course, I've always been fond of the way that "The Travellers" blends Traveller-specific humor with more general lampoonery of roleplaying games, so I may be biased. In any case, it's nice to see that one of my favorite comics remains as amusing ever, even if White Dwarf as a whole looks to be on the verge of some monumental – and not entirely pleasing – changes.

Happy Birthday, William Shatner

Unbelievably, today marks the 92nd birthday of William Shatner, whom I – and likely everyone else – will forever remember for his portrayal of James Tiberius Kirk, captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise during the original run of the science fiction series Star Trek and its subsequent spin-offs. 

As I have mentioned before, Star Trek was my original fandom. I was introduced to it in the mid-1970s through the influence of my paternal aunt and godmother, who was a teenager when Star Trek was first broadcast. Indeed, I attribute many of my earliest interests, whether it be science fiction or cryptozoology, to the time she spent with me as a child. Every Saturday, I used to visit my grandparents, where my aunt still lived before she married, and we'd watch reruns of Star Trek on a local independent TV station. These are among my most cherished childhood memories and William Shatner is a big part of why.

Being a bookish and generally nerdy kid, you'd have thought that Leonard Nimoy's Spock would have been my role model. While I loved Spock, Captain Kirk was who I wanted to be, probably because he was so different from myself – courageous, self-assured, decisive, and, above all, protective of his friends and crew. Kirk was everything I hoped I might someday be and Shatner breathed life into him in a way no one could have.

Nowadays, I know it's more or less required that we sneer at Shatner as a big, fat ham of an actor, but, even with the benefit of an adult's perspective, I still think his portrayal of Jim Kirk is phenomenal. Shatner imbued Kirk with the fundamental decency and indeed humanity that are vital to the character's appeal. Far from being the swaggering, overbearing, tin-plated dictator with delusions of godhood of many people's imaginations, Shatner gave Kirk a degree of thoughtfulness and sensitivity that is often underappreciated. I didn't fully recognize this as a child; I only knew that I liked Kirk and wanted to be more like him, which I think would be high praise for any actor.

Happy Birthday, Mr Shatner! My younger self owes you a lot.

My Top 10 Non-D&D RPGs (Part II)

Part I of this list can be found here. 

5. Star Trek the Role Playing Game

Star Trek is my original fandom. I started watching the Original Series in reruns on a local TV channel growing up and instantly fell in love with it. As a kid, I read everything about or related to the show that I could and one of my proudest possessions was a gold Starfleet uniform shirt that I probably wore far too often. Consequently, the appearance of FASA's 1982 was a major event for me. I bought a copy as soon as I could and immediately started refereeing a long-running campaign with my friends. In most respects, FASA's rules were nothing special – a fairly basic percentile-driven system – but they included two things that set them apart in my opinion. The first was the lifepath character generation system, which helped players get a handle on who their characters were before the campaign began. The second was a character-based starship combat system that nicely evoked the feel of ship-to-ship combat from the TV series. These, combined with the obvious love the game showed toward its source material, makes Star Trek the Role Playing Game one of my favorite RPGs even today.

4. Gamma World

I'm a sucker for post-apocalyptic settings, so it was natural that Gamma World would appeal to me. Nowadays, it's pretty common among gamers to make fun of GW and its rather, shall we say, idiosyncratic take on the End Times. On the one hand, I can understand that. From the vantage point of the present, Gamma World, with its mutant chicken-men and rabbits that can turn metal to rubber with a touch, certainly might appear silly. On the other hand, I think what's often misunderstood about the game is that it actually owes a lot more to the "dying earth" fantasy sub-genre than straight science fictional speculation. Gamma World postulates that the End Times come several hundred years hence, when all sorts of technological marvels exist and have made Earth quite unlike our own age. After the Fall, Earth becomes genuinely weird, thanks to artificial intelligences, mutagenic substances, and reality warping weapons. That's precisely why I continue to love it and why I hope to have the chance to referee another campaign of it one day.

3. Call of Cthulhu

Like Pendragon, Call of Cthulhu is another "perfect" game in the way that it marries its game mechanics and its source material. Of course, despite its original subtitle – "Fantasy Role-Playing in the Worlds of H.P. Lovecraft" – Call of Cthulhu's source material is much broader than simply the works of HPL. As I have argued before, CoC owes a great deal to Lovecraft's admirer, August Derleth, whose literary vision is far less bleak than that of his hero. An RPG based solely on Lovecraft's nihilistic cosmicism would certainly be horrific, but would it be fun to play? I personally don't think so, which is why Sandy Petersen was wise to have leavened the existential gloom of Lovecraft with healthy doses of Derlethian optimism. In any event, I've played a lot of Call of Cthulhu over the years and hope to do so again in the future. It is, hands down, my favorite horror roleplaying game and yet another reminder that Chaosium is one of the great publishers of our hobby

2. Empire of the Petal Throne

This is the only game on this list that I didn't play in my youth. Indeed, I never had the opportunity to play Empire of the Petal Throne until a few years ago, when I began my House of Worms campaign. Now, just shy of eight years of continuous play with a consistent group of players, there can be little doubt that EPT is one of my favorite RPGs. Naturally, its remarkable setting, Tékumel, is a big part of why, but there have been several other Tékumel games released over the years and none of them has ever had the staying power of Empire of the Petal Throne. In large part, that's because EPT is so simple. Its rules are easy to remember and use, which is important when playing in a setting as complex and detailed as Tékumel and I suspect my players would agree. 

1. Traveller

Surprising precisely no one reading this blog, Traveller is at the top of this list for too many reasons to list. For our present purposes, I will focus on two. First, Traveller is the only game besides D&D whose rules I know well enough that I can play it without having to refer to any rulebooks. After so many years and so many campaigns, slipping back into Traveller is effortless. Second, Traveller is the game that served as my gateway to professional writing. Way back in the early '90s, when I was still in college, I made the acquaintance of other Traveller fans who encouraged me to submit articles to GDW's Challenge. I was not only successful in this, but doing so eventually opened the door to my writing not just for Traveller but for many other games as well. Traveller is and probably always will be my "true love" when it comes to RPGs. I am absolutely certain that I will play many more campaigns of it in the years to come.