Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Owl & Weasel Wednesday #7 August 1975

Owl & Weasel #7 comes to us from August 1975.  I guess according to the editorial they were experiencing some uncommon heat then.  That is at least a explanation for the cover art.

Topics covered are the British Monopoly Championships, a set of rules for playing Frisbee (must have been the 70s) and coverage of a couple older (older even then) board games.

There is a quite a bit on Stalingrad, a game I still see played every so often.
The interesting bit is a letter from Action Games and Toys Ltd. They took exception in a page and quarter letter about the coverage from June on the London Toy Fair.

There is a letter complaining that the D&D combat system is "broken" since there is no way a goblin could ever hit a 20th level Lord with +5 plate, even 5% of the time.

Page 11 covers some more concepts in D&D like rooms and passages.
Finally there is a price list for more T.S.R. material.

Not a landmark issue by any stretch, interesting for the questionable line art, pink paper and the continued inclusion of D&D.

ETA: D&D pages.


4 comments:

faoladh said...

I realize that it would be some effort, but I would love to see the full text of that letter about the D&D combat system. I'm sure that it's a case of "some things never change", but the details would be at least amusing and likely instructive.

Scott Anderson said...

+1000!

Timothy S. Brannan said...

let me see what I can do.

faoladh said...

Holy cats, that letter is a thing of beauty! Better than most modern forum posters, I note, as he provides several possible solutions for the alleged problems, and offers to mail them off to anyone who asks. Yet, it is still an early example of that illustrious line of argument that the rules as published are unsatisfying and therefore need to be fixed.