Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Owl & Weasel Wednesday #19 October 1976

Issue 19 represents a shift in Owl & Weasel.  This issue has more D&D related content than any other issue so far.  The front cover also takes on a more magazine like feel. Lets see what is inside.
The editorial is noticeably longer this issue, a precursor to the long White Dwarf editorials to come.  But a fully half of it is devoted to a long and odd joke about mouse having sex with an elephant.  It was a different time.

Page 3 covers the D&D Society news.  More names but also some house rules on which race you can choose.  Basically there are new minimums for some scores to be demi-humans.  Strength for Dwarves, Dexterity, Wisdom and Intelligence for Elves and Dex for hobbits. Hobbits are still used in place of halflings at this point. Rules similar to these show up when OD&D converts over to Basic.

The new D&D supplements "Gods, Demi-gods and Heroes" and "Swords & Spells" are mentioned, but only get about a paragraph each.  I am not sure if longer reviews will appear, but that was the impression I got from the last issue.  Also paragraph on how the new issue (#3) of The Dragon is the best yet.

Page 5 revisits Ian's and Steve's fascination with American Baseball and they discuss the Avalon Hill baseball simulation game where they pit their fantasy Mets (Steven) and fantasy Red Sox (Ian).  While I have not played this game, I might check it out. I have been a life long St. Louis Cardinals fan and this sounds fun.  Plus having some of my favorite historical players like Smith, McGuire, McGee and Stan the Man on the same team with some of the better newer players would be a lot of fun.

Later on we get an overview and discussion on 3 player games.  Interesting, but not my thing.

 Maybe there is a bit of professional jealousy or just natural progression of how these things work, but O&W has some new D&D house rules on keeping time in D&D and another on magical uses in D&D.

Page 9 to 10 covers alignment in D&D.  The first of several thousand never ending discussions.  Though to be fair this is one of the first.

The "News" page is a cross between actual news and classified ads.
Back page covers items for sale at Games Workshop's store.

Owl & Weasel is not just yet a pure RPG zine, or even a pure-ish D&D one, but it's wargame and even board game roots are more in it's past than it's future.

3 comments:

anarchist said...

Is it the one that ends with the mouse saying something like "Yeah baby, take it all!"?

Timothy S. Brannan said...

yes it is.

David Pulver said...

I'm really enjoying your Owl and Weasel (and older White Dwarf) posts.

The first RPG magazines I ever read was White Dwarf #7 and #8, which my parents bought for me when we visited Hammersmith back in 1978, a month after I discovered gaming.