White Dwarf Wednesday #17

We kick off the 80s with White Dwarf #17 for Feb/March.  Again we see a noticeable jump in quality in terms of cover art.  This piece by Angus McKie has always been a favorite of mine.

Ian Livingstone talks prices of games in his editorial.

The Fiend Factory is next with the "Near Misses Monsters", the ones that did not make it the Fiend Folio.  What is  nice about this batch is we are given the reasons why they were not included.  First up we have a Night Rider, which is to humans as drow are to elves.  The Spice Worm (should be obvious), The Heat Skeleton and the Green Worm (both not included because there were already too many skeleton and worm like creatures). The Bodach (nothing at all like the Bodak) and the Goom, both of which were not really all that interesting.

Open Box gives us reveiws of Time War (8/10), Under the Storm Giant's Castle (5/10) and Dark Tower (9/10), both Playing Aides from Judges Guild. Also we have two games from Judges Guild, Operation Ogre (5/10) and Caverns of Thracia (8/10).

Lew Pulsipher gives us a classic, "My Life as a Werebear", or rules for playing Monster Characters in D&D.  The tables and the rules are very D&D while the art and monsters are AD&D.  It was an interesting time when the two rules existed side by side like this.  The rules are solid and could be reprinted today and branded OSR and sell.

A couple of pages on painting minis.
The Sable Rose Affair is a short Traveller scenario.
Letters again focus on Fiend Factory.
Treasure Chest has a couple of Artifacts, the Tablets of the Ish Than, the Skeleton of Zzkeel, The Marvellous Flask of Suethrin the Mystical, The Ring of Manfred the Sage, The Sword of Ehemakil and Gurthlin's Silver Harp.

We have the Questionnaire results next.  Most people (51%) read WD for the RPGs, with D&D (53%) being the largest percentage of that. Most readers want a questions and answer page, and only 31% want a comic.  Most readers want WD to come out monthly.  Soon...very soon.

There is a nice interview with Chaosium's Greg Stafford.

A new Ability for D&D is introduced, Perception.  Neat idea, but it never really took off.

We end in ads.

So the start of the 80s has us looking at WD that still looks 70s.  There are improvements, but not a lot so far.  The issue is really solid, but lacks a solid feature article.

For comparisons sake check to see what is going on over at Land of Nod.  He is doing the Dragon magazines one by one, with Dragon by Dragon.

White Dwarf Wednesday #16

We open the 80s with White Dwarf #16 for Dec 1979/Jan 1980.
First up we notice another step up in the cover art.

We have a few pages of ads and the editorial begins on page 7. Ian Livingstone talks about how WD was voted the best games magazine in the recent Game Day Awards.  The questionnaire they did a few months back is reprinted here (later in the magazine) and they want to get feedback.

Lew Pulsipher has 3 pages on monsters from the Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever series for AD&D. I was always one of those people who stopped reading the book after the rape of Lena so I have no idea if these are on target or not.  The monsters though look like they will work and there is quite a bit of them.

Andy Slack gives us more of the Traveller Universe with Social Class and Psionics.  These articles, while neat, are all over the place.  Maybe it is my modern sensibilities or just me in particular, but I would have enjoyed these more if there had been some organization to them.

A table of Boot Hill encounters is next from Dominic Beddow.  This is generic enough to be used in any system  dealing with the Wild West.  I might try this in Ghosts one day, I have had a desire to have an adventure in America.

Dominic continues the Boot Hill love with an 8/10 review in Open Box. Also reviewed are GDW's Imperium (9/10) and Snapshot (8/10).  The biggie is Don Turnbull's review of the AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide.  The book is "Not Applicable" for a review since, by Turnbull's thoughts, this is a book everyone needs. So basically it got WDs first "11/10".

A mini-adventure "The Paths of the Lil" from James Ward is next.  It deals with with some new mutants from the Gamma World game, the Lil, and an area they inhabit to investigate.  It's an interesting little mix of Gamma World and D&D to be honest.  The Lil are fae like creatures.  The adventure could be used with D&D for low level character with no problems, even with kids.

The Fiend Factory is back with only two pages of monsters.  The odd "Tenser Beast" which is a monster of Tenser's Floating Disk.  The Man Scorpion, which is not the same as other creatures I have seen like it. The Ogress, the offspring of a male ogre and a female human with some disguise ability. The Wrecker, a specialized Iron Golem and the Plant Man, which is part plant and part man, natch.

Pictures from Games Day V are posted. Including White Dwarf winning the best Games Magazine.  Letters follow that.
The questionnaire is printed on page 25.  Typicall range, what do you like the best, what do you like the least. Favorite games, would you like to see a comic strip.

After that, more ads.

I certainly feel WD is lacking something at the stage that I saw in earlier editions and what I know I'll see in later ones.  It seems kind of in a rut at the moment.

White Dwarf Wednesday #15

White Dwarf Issue #15, October/November 1979.

White Dwarf #15 is an interesting one for me to do today.  First off, it is one of the first WDs I remember ever seeing in the stores (and to this day I can't look at the cover and not hear Ozzy's "Bark at the Moon").
It is also one of the issues I am missing pages of.  Page 6/7 and 26/27 have been torn out.  Honestly I didn't recall them being missing till I picked it back up to read the Editorial.

Let's jump right in shall we?
Well my issue starts with some ads and then gets into the stalwart of early game zines, an article on HP!
Roger Musson gives us what might be the first "Wounds" system based on Con.  It is certainly playable since I have seen dozens of iterations of the same idea over the last few years AND it is as current as posts in my Google Reader today.  As good as it is, I am still a "HP as abstraction" kinda guy.

Andy Slack has Part 3 of his Expanding Traveller Universe article. This one is more interesting than last weeks. Lots of cool tables on planets and alien life.  Weird, trippy, 70s sci-fi always appeals to me and Traveller encapsulates that.

In the main feature of the magazine is a new board game/mini game called Barbarian from Ian Livingstone.  The purpose of this two player game is regain a magical sword and shield of the "Old Fathers".  The game is simple (it even says so).  There is a two page board, counters and charts.  All that is missing are players and dice.  One player plays Vaarn the Barbarian, the other plays the creatures trying to stop him.  The combat advantage is given to Vaarn, but there are more than one monster to play.

Don Turnbull has an EXCELLENT article on running the "New" D series of modules.  Honestly, if I ever run these again I am going to copy this page and stick inside the modules.

Open Box has some new reviews up.  Metagaming Microgames has two offerings this month Ice War (5/10) and Black Hole (9/10). Don Turnbull felt that Ice War should have been a bigger game, but Black Hole was a near perfect mini-game.  King Arthur's Knights from The Chaosium is not as it turns out a prequel to Pendragon, but one can't help think it influenced it somehow.  This is a 16-page mini game  that received a 7/10 review from Jacek Gabrielczyk.  We are treated to a bunch of Traveller books including 3 from Judges Guild. A mixed bag of Traveller Screen 7/10, Traveller Logbook 9/10 and Starships,and Spacecraft 5/10.  We also get Animal Encounters from Game Designers' Workshop 9/10.
It was certainly a great time to be a Traveller fan in late 1979.

Treasure Chest gives us a very cool height and weight based on race and strength table.   So good in fact that I did Xerox this one!  We also get an alternate undead draining table that drains Abilities.  It is different than the one I have done, but the idea is the same.

Fiend Factory is back with an acknowledgement of all the letters it has been bringing in of late.  Don Turnbull mentions that he is keeping a eye on the quality and hopes that the feature continues to give us good monsters. Some monsters have Monster Marks, others do not.  What do we get this issue? Well...we get a metal sphere that spits fire in the form of the Heat Monster. The Dragon Dog (related to dragons and the Hell Hound) and the Tacharnid (which has no stats). Next is the weird Russian Doll monster. This thing starts as an Ogre till you do 10 points of damage to it, then the skin peels off and it's now a Bugbear, 9 points later a Gnoll, 8 points later an Orc...you get the idea till we end up with a kobold of 4 hp AND then till we get to the very end, to discover it was a Leprechaun operating the monster from the inside.  They went ahead and calculated it's Monster Mark and it comes out to be as much of a challenge as a Stone Giant (OD&D).   We round up the lot with a Time Freezer, a monster that can freeze time, to at least one creature.  And the Pebble Gnome, a gnome completely immune to magic of all sorts.
This marks the 10th issue of Fiend Factory.  Coming up is the top 10 as voted on by readers.

And finally. Ads.

Next up, end of the 70s, beginning of the 80s and when yours truly discovers this cool/odd little game.

White Dwarf Wednesday #14

We continue our trek through time and space back to England of the late 1970s with White Dwarf #14 from Aug/Sept 1979.

How do you know you are reading White Dwarf and not The Dragon?  The ads have topless women in them. This was not the first time I noticed this, but 6 pages into the issue and already I have seen 4 topless women.  Mind you I am not complaining, but I am pointing out how different the attitudes were between the American game circles and the overseas ones.  This is the same theme (differences between the two groups, not nudity) of the editorial.  Ian Livingstone discusses the differences between British conventions and American ones.  Ian mentions his recent trip to America and we get more of that later.

Andy Slack is back with more expansions to the Traveller Universe. White Dwarf was the reason I picked up Traveller in the first place.  I never quite wrapped my head around it to be honest.   I would love to try it again someday.

Don Turnbull is also back with the fiends of the Fiend Factory.  This seems to be the also-rans of the bunch since non of these made it to the Fiend Folio.  We get a demonic elphant (the Gurgotch), the group entity Mindweb,  an Energy Cyclone, the Gazer (a weird beholder-like creature made of 1000s of eyes) and a frozen naked girl, the Ice Maiden.  But there is something else to note here.  Along with last issue alignments are now presented in AD&D format, so Chaotic Evil, Neutral Good.  But this issue the Monstermark scores are gone.  We knew it was coming, but they are now gone.   Another interesting bit, a note added later (but before publication) mentions "The Folio" for the first time.

Open Box we have reviews of Traveller book 4 (Mercenary) and 1001 Characters.  They get a 9 and 6 respectively from Don Turnbull.    Some Judges Guild books, The Dragon Crown and Of Skulls and Scrapfaggot Green. Both of these were used as Convention adventures but they were not particularly well liked by Don Turnbull giving them only a 5 and 7 respectively.  Mostly due to spelling and print errors but alos for some odd rule interpretations.

We are treated to a Runequest adventure "Lair of the White Wyrm" by John Bethell which would work for D&D with some tweaks.  But I want to try it with CoC to be honest.

Treasure Chest gives us a one-page dungeon (see, there is nothing new under the sun), The Bath-House of the Pharaoh. Well it's one page, front and back.
The letters page concerns itself with various attacks and defenses of the Monstermark and Fiend Factory.

The big feature of the issue is an interview with Gary Gygax.
A lot of this is stuff we now know and take for granted.  Highlights:  At the time of the interview TSR had 20-25 employees and expected that to grow to over 30 or 40 by August of 1980.  He does credit Dave Arneson's campaign and Dave Megarry's Dungeon board game as influences.  At the time WD estimates there are 30,000 D&D players in the UK and GG estimates that there are 250,000 to 300,000 in the US and Canada.  When asked what extent have other games (RPGs) have had on D&D Gary says "None to speak of."   The World of Greyhawk is planned for the summer of 1980.

We end the magazine with the few pages of ads.

Certainly more ads this time around, but not as strong of issue as the last one was.

White Dwarf Wednesday #13

Wow.  I am not doing so well on this one am I. I missed last week and didn't catch it till almost Saturday.
So we move on to Issue 13.
For starters the Editorial page has gotten a facelift. In it Ian Livingstone wants to know about your gaming group to start building a list of contacts.

In what is the big feature of this issue are the new AD&D Combat Tables. 4 tables that will be in new PHB.
The Fiend Factory is back with some faves like Doombat and Shadow Demon.  We also get the Imps, which look like they were changed into the mephits.  Don't have my Fiend Folio handy to be sure, but they look the same.

We some additions to the Traveler rules.  Part 1 includes Skills and their uses as Poisons and chemical warfare.
Open Box hits another high point with reviews of B1 In Search of the Unknown and S1 Tomb of Horrors. Don Turnbull gives them 9 and 10 respectively.   Equally as impressive is the 9-point review given to Games Workshop Dungeon Floor Plans.

The issue keeps on giving with Brian Asbury's Houri character class. This class has become a bit infamous in the last few years. I have even posted about it in a past, here and here.

More from the Valley of the Four Winds.
Some new spells. Most are good, though I dislike "Laser", not really a fantasy type spell.  
Some more letters.  Most are about the monsters in FF.  First a letter about how the monsters are already going downhill in quality.  Interestingly one of the letters is from Don Turnbull himself about how Monster Mark is dead with the advent of the new AD&D system.
Some news and some ads.

Quite a bit of quality work in this episode.  While the amount of content hasn't changed (just yet) the quality is up.  Despite the letters, I still think the monsters of FF are still good.

White Dwarf Wednesday #12

April 1979 I was buried in one of the worst snow/ice storms that the midwest had ever seen. So much so that even after the Snowpocylspe of 2011 people still talk about it.

At the same time White Dwarf jumps from 28 pages to 32.

In addition to that, Issue 12 ups the quality of the cover art too.

This issue's editorial lambasts the people that photocopy games to give (or worse sell) to others.  I know my first character sheet was a bad photocopy as was my first copy of White Dwarf.  Sorry. I was kid.  Again this could run today, just replace "photocopiers" with "scanners".

We start the issue with and expanded Fiend Factory.  Future Fiend Folio alumni include, the Assassin Bug, Grell, Hook Horror, Giant Worm, and the Githyanki.  We also get an Iron Pig and Desert Raider which seems to be a combination of Sand People and Freeman from Dune.  Easier to see why these were not included.  The stats still include the Monstermark numbers.

Lew Pulsipher gives us an article on Dungeon Equipment.  Many of these should be included in any standard equipment lists to be honest.  Love the idea of silver smiths silvering weapons as part of the economy and I never thought about nose plugs.

Open box gives us two classics, the Arduin Grimorie and Pellic Quest.  In the big surprise of the day the Arduin Grimorie only gets a 4 out of 10 from Don Turnbull. But looking back at these I think the OSR tends look at anything from the time with rose colored glasses. I think Turnbull was more likely correct.

Bill Howard gives us a mid-level adventure for D&D in the form of "The Pool of Standing Stones".  I liked the White Dwarf adventures, they seemed to be different enough from the ones in Dragon that I could ascribe a quality to them, a "White Dwarfiness" if you will.

We get some new magic items like the Sword of Thieves and Earnings of Control.  We also get some corrections to the Barbarian class.

Don Turnbull looks into the new Player's Handbook for AD&D. Interestingly enough he can't find "Hobbits" in the book and never mentions Halflings.

The rest of the magazine is ads with the Gamma World ad in the back again.

White Dwarf is certainly maturing.  It is more on par with the early Dragon magazines, maybe not Dragon of 1979, but certainly 1977 or 78.   The amount of ads have increased to about 12-13 pages per issue.  I do not know how that compares to Dragon from the time.

Reminder, A to Z post will be later today.

White Dwarf Wednesday #11

It's still Wednesday!

White Dwarf issue #11 has the magazine continuing it's stride.  We are getting close to the time when I had started playing, so I am coming into territory I find a little more familiar.

First off, is that a spacesuit she is wearing?  I am not sure, but I know this is not Dragon.

Getting right in to the articles, we have some new firearms for Traveller.  I think I had a bad photo copy of this article cause I remember trying to convert it to Star Frontiers some years later.  I remembered it because of the Stormtrooper on page 7.  Try doing that these days!

The Fiend Factory introduces us to some familiar to us now; the Witherstench, Sheet Phantom, and the Berbalang.  The others were also interesting and I am getting more curious on how the monsters were chosen.

What might be the highlight of the issue is the one page rules (and 2 page map) on the D&D bar fight.  I wonder if Lew Pulsipher has updated this at all?  Challenge to the OSR: Come up with rules for a bar fight, accounting for all the things found in a bar and make it easy and fun to use!  Right now I could print thi sout and use it in 3.x or 4e without much work.

Open Box gives us a review on Runequest (9/10) and SPI's Middle-Earth (5/10).
Also we are treated to a review of D1, D2 and D3 in their original format. Don Turnbull gives it a rare 10/10.  But this is a classic, reading the review gives you the sense of when this was all new. AD&D has arrived and the RPG hobby will never be the same.

We are treated(?) to an April Fools class, the Weakling.  We will see something similar in a future Dragon article, the Hopeless Character.
More of Four Winds and ads.

Speaking of which this the first issue where we are treated to this ad:

I have heard that this is Gary Gygax's daughter.  This ad is so 70s. The future is silver hot pants and big laser guns.

White Dwarf Wednesday #10

I little late, but still Wednesday!

Issue 10 starts us off with some fantastic cover art.  Maybe the best we have seen so far.  It unites the two themes of Sci-fi and Fantasy well.

The editorial is a mix bunch, attendance at Game Day and the release of the new AD&D Player's Handbook and the late release date of the new "AD&D Referee's Guide".  Doesn't really have the same ring to it as DMG does it.
Plus the shipping costs of WD overseas is going up due to the fall of the Dollar.  Must have been the Carter Era.

We have some new magic items for Tekumel.
Nine new monsters for Fiend Facotry, of which only one graduated to the Fiend Folio.  The others though are worth looking at.  In particular a couple of interesting skeletons and a couple of cats.

Some traps sent in by readers.  I have never been over enamored with traps. They have their place, but I never fetishized them like other players/game masters.

As promised we have a collection of letters on realism in the game.  These are the same arguments that we have today, so I guess we will always have them.

Next up is a combat simulation/duel game called "Light Sword".  Which were light sabers with the serial numbers filled off.  It looks interesting enough and could be used with any sort of melee combat.  The thing I thought was odd was the art.  The first is a man's face with a nondescript sword next to it, the next one is a topless woman in a loin-cloth with two "light daggers".  The artist took the time to make sure her breasts were properly shaded, but her hair is just an outline.  Not sure what was the though process on this one.

Open Box this issues gives us the boxed set of Gamma World (9/10) and the AD&D Player's Handbook (10/10).  Worth the read just get that feeling again when everything was new.

More on the Experienced Traveller by Mike Ferguson. Chapter 3 of the Valley of the four Winds follows.
We end the issue with 7 pages of ads.  The most so far.

Not a stellar issue, but a solid one.  The Fiend Factory continues to give me entertainment and I am thinking a Fiend Folio 2 of updated monsters that didn't make the cut would be a fantastic fan-book.

White Dwarf Wednesday Issue 9

Issue 9 of White Dwarf nearly finishes up the transitional year of 1978.  We saw a lot of changes int he magazine in the last year and there are still more to come.

In another editorial that seems taken from today's blogs or posting boards is the amount of "Realism" people want in their game.  So much so in fact that they opted to withhold their letters page till next issue since so many were on the topic of realism.

Mike Ferguson gives us some new skills and rules for Traveller. The Fiend Factory is up and running again with FF faves such as the Svart and Umpleby.  Ok, faves might be too strong of a word. There are half a dozen monsters here that didn't make the cut for the Fiend Folio and I have been wondering if there is enough here to make a "Fiend Folio 2" that never was.  Let me think about that one.

Another instalment of "Valley of the Four Winds".
A mini-dungeon "The Lichway" for 6-8 1st level characters which looks like a blast.  Interestingly enough one of the monsters introduced is the Susurrus.  This monster will also later go on to join his Fiend Factory cousins in the Fiend Folio.  The art used is identical (what what I can remember). And later go on to influence this author on a magic item.

Kalgar is back and takes an odd twist. The adventures of Kalgar are no more than the dreams of some man and watched on some sort of high-tech viewscreen by another man and woman.  Not sure where this is going yet.

Open Box gives reviews on Superhero 44 by Lou Zocchi and Legions of the Petal Throne from TSR.  We are also treated to reviews of G1, G2 and G3 which get a 9/10 from Don Turnbull. Finally Judges guild gives us Citadel of Fire (6/10).

We get a new class in the form of the Foresters for Chivalry & Sorcery.

Treasure Chest is a mixed bag of some traps, useless items and instant ability scores for monsters.
The issue wraps up with a couple pages of ads.

White Dwarf Wednesday Issue 8

Back at it!  Sorry for that.

White Dwarf #8 came out Aug/Sept of 1978.  The cover art for this is really cool.  I am not sure what is going on here, but it is cool and very evocative of what I feel was D&D at the time.
The editorial laments that there are so few gaming companies overseas, especially in England and Europe.
There is a neat article on making your own monsters.  Not stats, but making models of monsters.  They skew heavy on recent additions from the Fiend Factory, but the Carrion Crawler is rather cool.  I personally never had the skills for these "arts and crafts" sort of articles.

The Fiend Factory introduces to future Fiend Folio entries such as the Tween and the Coffer Corpse.

Lew Pulsipher gives us a simple critical hit system.

The Man-Beast is a new class/race of half-human/half-animal characters.  It is very reminiscent of the Wolf Man or Jekyll and Hyde.   It is an interesting class, and one that as far as I know never had any traction.

In Open Box we have a rare treat.  A review of the first AD&D book ever, the AD&D Monster Manual.  It is described as hard cover, but with the option of getting a soft cover in the UK.  Had anyone else ever heard this before?  Don Turnbull gives it the highest praise.  This was the game changer.  The review is joined by "Space Marines" by Fan Tac Games, "Starships & Spacemen" by Fantasy Games Unlimited and "War of Wizards" by TSR.

Kalgar is down to half a page, while the letters are now a full page.
Rowland Flynn gives us our first bit of fiction in the form of "Valley of the Four Winds".  It is par for the time.  Fiction in White Dwarf and even Dragon was never my thing really.  A few pages later we get a line of miniatures based on the story.  There is more here than I know obviously.

We are given a couple of pages of classified ads and more ads.

All in all this a larger issue, but like issue 7 most of the new space is given over to ads.  Again, this is not a bad thing.  Then as now, I like to look at the ads.  The ads of Dragon have been loving detailed by James at Grognardia.  Someone really should do the same for the ads of WD.

For example have you seen this one before in Dragon?

Maybe you have, I haven't.  It looks awesome!
I think that is what enjoy the most going through these old White Dwarfs.  Everything was so new, so exciting.

White Dwarf Wednesday Issue 7

Sorry for the interruption.  Here we are back to Issue 7 with the start of the new full color covers.

White  Dwarf covers always had a "Heavy Metal" feel to them for me.  The magazine not the musical style, though both are accurate.  This cover was no exception.
Plus this cover, half naked girl with sword and space helmet riding a dinosaur just screams OD&D to me.  I love the little lizard dude pointing the way.

This issue is larger than the past ones by 4 pages.  Growth it good, even if it looks like most of those new pages are ads.  But ads are good too, since to me the ads of WD and Dragon were just as good of an indication as to what was popular or at least had the money to buy the space.  There were many games I looked at the ads and later HAD to have.

We have bit on feudal economics in Chivalry and Sorcery (by one of the authors of the game), but certainly fine for any FRPG.

Next up is a huge update to the Fiend Factory.  This feature is about to hit it's apex and there a plenty of new but familiar creatures to be found here.  We have the Necrophidius, the Rover (a large round creature that, um, rolls), a Living Wall (which later became the Stun Jelly) , Volt, the Gluey (which thankfully later became the Adherer), Squonk, Eye Killer, Witherweed, and the Withra.  All are complete with Monstermark ratings too.  What I find interesting here are not the ones that made it in to the Fiend Folio, but the ones that didn't. They don't seem any worse or better than the others.

Ripped from the blog posts of last week are carrying capacities in Treasure Chest.  They are split out by male and female.  Oddly enough they are listed in terms of kg (kilograms) instead of pounds or even "coins".  Though they do state at 1kg = 100 gp.

Yet more on the Asbury system of experience rewards.

Open Box reveiws "The Warlord Game", "The Thieves of Fortress Badabaskor", "Bifrost, Vol. 1", "Lords and Wizards" (Overall 6), "The Sorcerer's Cave", and "Cosmic Encounter" (Overall 8).

WD gives us a section of the Greenlands Dungeon called Lair of the Demon Queen.  Which is a just a quick encounter really with a couple rooms.  Perfect to add into a game or "collect them all!"  Though I can't recall if there ever were more articles on this.

A special guest in the form of Gary Gygax writes about the Proliferation of Magic Items in D&D.  If you didn't know already, old school games are typically low-magic affairs.  None was more low magic than Gary himself it seems.  While his advice is good, and certainly germane to any old school blog, it's not my tastes since I tend to run a magic rich game.

The issue ends with some ads.

All in all the future is looking good for WD.  It has found a nice stride here in's toddlerhood.

White Dwarf Wednesday Issue 6

April/May 1978 gives us the topic of today's White Dwarf Wednesday, White Dwarf #6.

So we at one year of WD and we see some changes.  The first, most notable change is the right justification of the the text.  I does make the magazine a bit easier to read and looks cleaner.  The second is the introduction of a new feature called The Fiend Factory.  Something that in time will be a major feature of WD and spawn the AD&D Fiend Folio.

First up though is an article ripped from today's Internet postings on various types of Armor Class vs. various weapons.  Very old school yes, but the solution reminds me of the various armor classes we see in 3.x.

Next up is the Fiend Factory. The monsters presented here are from various authors but edited by Don Turnbull.  The format is near-AD&D/Basic D&D (no longer in OD&D format).  Each includes a picture (most times) and a Monstermark rating right there with all the other stats.
Out of the gate we have some monsters that would later live on in the Fiend Folio and some even in infamy.  We have in this issue, The Needleman, The Throat Leech, The Mite, Bonesnapper (no "The"), The Fiend (which later became something of the mascot of later articles), Disenchanter, and the first appearance anywhere of The Nilbog.  The article is longer than most WD articles have been to date (which were about 2 pages max).  This is a significant jump in the evolution of WD.

An article on minis follows then an article on how to adapt Jack Vance's The Dragon Masters to a D&D game.
Open Box reviews two new games, "Knights of the Round Table" by Little Soldier (no ranking is given) and "Elric" by The Chaosium which they loved, but still graded it down in terms of the price (7 out of 10).  Also reviewed are various D&D playing aids from Judges Guild.

The letters section has someone complaining about last issue's comic and another giving reasons why players should be allowed to roll your own attack dice.  See none of you are really old school at all if you let your player roll their own dice!  What's next? 4d6 and drop the lowest die? Anarchy!

Don Turnbull treats us to a lengthy overview/review of Traveller. He does spend a lot of time comparing it to D&D, which at the time I think made it read unfavorablly even if the article is positive.  Today of course it reads differently where our assumption is it should not be like D&D at all.  While he likes the game he feels there are some serious drawbacks to it.  Namely what to do with it once you have it.  While we can wink at that now, I do see where he was coming from.
Another full page of Kalgar.
Some new magic items in Treasure Chest.
Part 2 of the Asbury System of rewarding experience points by level and class.
A hit location system for Melee combat.
And finally an expanded Classified section.

Issue 6 now sees all the early vestiges shed from the pages.  No joke classes, no silly treasure.  White  Dwarf has stepped up.  Issue 6 can stand side by side with Dragon issues of the day and content wise I feel they are comparable.  The art is not there yet and the content is still only around two dozen pages (but the pages are longer and the font smaller).

Next month, cover art takes a big leap forward.

White Dwarf Wednesday Issue 5

Here we are again for our mid-week delve into the past with White Dwarf.   Today I want to discuss issue #5 which came out Feb/March 1978.

Our editorial is another feature ripped from today's blogs, if that is Ian Livingstone had figured out how to read the blogs 30 years before they were published.  The editorial deals with the issues of copyrights and how one can play a game in someone else's worlds.  He mention Star Wars specifically (ok so he didn't see the future where you can play "D&D Star Wars" thanks to the d20 System), but also the Tolkien estate and TSR's short lived "Battle of the Five Armies" game.  Granted the point of view at this time is "hopefully one day we can play in those worlds" which we ended up being able to do.  Today the cry is more "this should be in the public domain".  An argument for a later post I think.

Lew Pulsipher gives us a nice review of FGU's new game "Chivalry & Sorcery".  Actually it is part review, part play report and part advertising to be honest.  I am not faulting him on this, on the contrary, I am rather enjoying the open fondness everyone had for the games back then.  He likes this game and wants you to try it.
We are treated to a 2-page review/overview of Der Kriegspielers ("The War Gamers") new line 25mm minis.  These mins have a strong Middle-Earth feel for them (they had not read the Editorial yet it seems).

More monsters from Don Turnbull in Monsters Mild and Malign. The presentation of the information has not improved any here.  The monsters are detailed in the article with their stats inserted where needed.  Among the monsters we get this time are the Fuzzy and Steely which actually come from an article from The Dungeoneer about Beholder-like creatures.  We have modern monsters like the Gremlin and Cyborg.  The Bogy is an interesting beast (and pictured) as something like a three-armed satyr that might be related to the Type III Demon.  That one deserves to be worked up a bit more I think.  A bunch of other creatures are also mentioned including Imps of various sizes (and Monstermark ratings) and a crawling hand.  Of note though is the final entry which mentions that a new feature will be coming with the next issue, The Fiend Factory.

Don Turnbull returns with more on D&D Campaigns where he discusses Alignment, Magic, Treasure and whether or not Players should play more than one Character.  Each one of these is interesting in their own right and most of all how none of these have stopped being a point of conversation among D&D players.  I think it would be good for the playtesters and authors of D&D.Next to re-read some of these old articles.

Open Box gives us new reviews.  Three book from a company named "Little Soldier" are reviewed; Book of Monsters, Book of Demons and Book of Sorcery.   Book of Monsters has 100 new monsters, mostly from myth and legend with some "near D&D" like stats. Book of Demons is similar, but also includes the magic and magicians used to deal with these creatures.  The Book of Sorcery includes spell fumble rules and more magic items.  While the reviewer (Pulsipher) does not care for them (no rating is given) I can't help now but to want them and try to find them! (ETA: I found them!).  We also have a review of War of the Ring from FGU which only gets 5/10.  Chaosium's (still called "The Chaosium" at this point) "All The World's Monsters" is reviewed. Described as a 110+ page book of 265 monsters for D&D and fantasy RPGs. It was printed on thick stock and featured 3-ring punching long before this was a common feature for some games.  There are a lot of good features to this book, but the reviewer (Again Don Turnbull) found it a little lacking, giving it 5 out of 10 and saying that quality was sacrificed for quantity.

A review of Games Day III (Dec 17, 1978) follows.   An article on how to get food and water on the Starship Warden for MA.
The news section informs us of the release of the D&D Basic box and that the AD&D Monster Manual is next.  Followed soon by the AD&D Player's Handbook and the "AD&D Referee's Guide".

The first comic for White Dwarf is featured.  A full page comic called Kalgar.
Treasure Chest gives us some neat magic items.  The Rainbow Sword for charming (based on an item in the Led Zeppelin movie The Song Remains the Same) and two waters, the Waters of Beguilement and the Waters of Enchantment.
The "Asbury System" of awarding experience points based on PC level is presented by Brian Asbury.  It reminds me of the charts in the 3.x DMG of awarding experience to characters based on CR.  The only thing this is missing is a way to tie it in to Monstermark.

Letters continues with more Monstermark clarifications and how to separate player interaction from character interaction.

One gets the feel here that White Dwarf is becoming something more now.  Gone are the silly classes and weapons.  The art is taking a notch up and the regular features are in getting into place.  It comapres well to others of it's kind at the time, but I feel the writing is getting better, the analysis is more in-depth.  At one year old WD is getting ready to be the fantastic RPG magazine I knew it to be.

Want to read more of this issue? Get it from Noble Knight Games. White Dwarf #5.

White Dwarf Wednesday Issue 4

Welcome back to another White Dwarf Wednesday.  Today we will be looking into Issue #4.

This issue covers Dec 1977 to January 1978.  So still not quite to the point where I was playing yet.  But getting there.

The editorial this month is bemoaning the lack of good British publishers of war games and minis.  Funny, I chose to read White Dwarf and review again now because they were British.

An interesting adventure of Alice in Dungeonland from Don Turnbull, years before Gygax would do something similar.  Lew Pulsipher continues on his series of D&D campaigns.
An interesting article about Hyboria follows.  Author Tony Bath explains how he took the REH country and made it into a world he could use. The article reads like a good blog posting about world building.  There is a lesson here. That it is still very true you get from the game what you put into it.

Skipping over most of the reviews I am going to focus on a product reviewed that is near and dear to my heart, TSR's Dungeon! Reviewed by Fred Hemmings he gives it an overall score of 8, noting that the artwork was a bad point and it was expensive (listed at £7.95).  Having bought a rare first edition of Dungeon at a auction some years back I have to concur about the price.  He does call it a D&D board game (even if he gives it bad point for the folding board/map).

Don Turnbull is back giving us a few new monsters that more concept than stats.  We are introduced to the likes of the Glitch, Droll, Smoke Creature, Smoke Demon, the Black Leech, the Black Orc (which I have used in my own games) and the Black Monk.  The creatures are given basic HD, AC and attacks and a Monster Mark score.

The first "real" new class is presented in the Treasure Chest, The Barbarian.  There are some similarities between this one and the one that would later appear in the Unearthed Arcana, but they are still different enough.  For example no rage like ability, but there is a Ferocity ability.

We end the issue with Fred Hemmings look into Competitive D&D and the letters and classifieds.

This issue really felt like it was on the way to becoming the White Dwarf I remember.  Gone are the silly classes to be replaced by something quite usable.  Monster Mark is now being used in practice, not just in theory, even if just a little.

Looking back at this I am sure I must have merged a lot of this material into a whole when stating out my own D&D world.  I even have "Black Orcs" in my world as the fiercest orcs. Like Hyboria they are from the north.

White Dwarf Wednesday Issue 3

Welcome back to White Dwarf Wednesday.

Issue 3 takes us into Oct/Nov 1977.
The editorial opens up with a bit on whether or not the British SF/F game market was large enough to support a magazine like this.  They decide that it is and begin looking for opinions on how they should cover items, namely D&D.
The Editorial ends, amusingly enough, with a "May the Force Be With You".  It was 1977 after all.

Digging in we have an article on how to play D&D and Empire of the Petal throne as Solo games.  Not a bad read really, I might try it out sometime to see if it works.
More on Fred Hemmings Competitive D&D. The interesting thing about this article that it really shows the roots of D&D in war-gaming and tournament play.  It is not something I would try on my own, and I am not sure it would work so well with modern games.  But a cool read all the same.

The News section talks about the smash new movie "Star Wars" and how Gen Con had attendance over 2,000 every day, out selling Origins. There is a new movie in the works with Marlon Brando named "Superman".

We delve deeper into the Monstermark system.  By this point in my original readings I was loosing interest in it.  It was such a convoluted system, but I appreciated it determination to keep on going.  Though no new monsters in this issue.

In Open Box we get an overview of a number of D&D aids from Judges Guild including D&D Reference Sheets, a Judge's Screen and Dave Arneson's First Campaign book. They also cover what I believe is the first product to support the "City State of the Invisible Overlord", a place that was near legend when I would be playing a mere 2-3 years later.
Reviews of Citadel from FGU, Fourth Dimesion from J.A. Ball and Co. and The Battle of Five Armies (yeah that one) from TSR.  The new reveiws list good points as well as bad ones and the overall score.  I can't recall if this was something they kept, so I'll wait till I re-read issue 4.

The next installment of Lewis Pulsipher's "D&D Campaigns" is next. The main issue here is realism of the game and how PCs, NPCs and monsters should behave. There is also a bit about how rules should be handled.  Interesting to read in a near-Pre DMG day.

Some details on painting minis comes up after that. A write up on the Assassin character class (with halflings still being referred to as Hobbits). A couple of magic rooms as "Treasure".

The letters section opens with a letter from Paul Jaquays, Editor of the Dungeoneer about the Monstermark system and a gripe about Competitive D&D. More letters follow on the Monstermark system.

The back cover is a cool looking faerie woman.

An interesting, but not landmark, issue.  The layout seems a bit cleaner and they certainly know what they are doing now.

White Dwarf Wednesday Issue 2

Welcome back to White Dwarf Wednesday.  Today I will talk about Issue #2 from Aug/Sep 1977.

This is an interesting issue if for one reason alone (though there are more), the editorial.  Ian Livingstone talks about the superior attitude being taken by the old guard war gamers against this "New" hobby of RPGs, though called throughout the editorial as SF/F gamers.
It is interesting reading this piece where D&D is the new kid on the block and defending itself against, well, the Grognards.
It is also interesting since none of the arguments have changed in 35 years. Substitute the names of the games and you have the same post you will see on any blog or message board.

Following that we have more details on Competitive D&D. A review on Asgard Miniatures by Ian Livingstone. Lewis Pulsipher gives us a three page review/article on The Green Planet Trilogy game by Richard Jordison. He doesn't particularly like the games and invites the author to write White Dwarf to clarify some rules.

An interesting tid bit is an article by Hartley Patterson called "Before the Flood" where he describes a game called "Midgard" that according to him, had many resemblances to D&D. He contends that there was no way that Gygax and Co. could have seen these rule beforehand.  The original manuscript had been written in 1972 by Will Haven and then rewritten by himself. I have never heard of it.

The regular Open Box feature gives us reviews of new games such as "OGRE", a new craze called a "micro-game", TSR's "Lankhmar", and a game called "War of the Star Slavers".  OGRE got an 8 total, Lankhmar got a 6 and Star Slavers a 3 due to the poor rules and counters.  There is also a review for a D&D enspired or rip-off game called Tunnels & Trolls (eek!), but no numerical rank is given.
We continue with the Monstermark system with a look at dragons, other fire breathing monsters and other "nasties". From what I can tell nearly every monster  from OD&D is listed here.

The Treasure Box feature gives us new crunch. We get a new magic item, a needle that can be anything it needs to be, and a new class the Scientist.  The Scientist is just plain weird. It is actually two classes, the Scientist (with level titles like Ph.D. and Polymath) and the Anti-Scientist (with level titles like Luddite, Jehovah's Witness and Football Supporter).  I can't tell if they are trying to be funny with it or not.

Finally we get to some crunch we can actually use, five new monsters: the frog-like Spinescale, a constructed bottle creature, The Ning, a Giant Caterpillars, the Blood Hawk, and the Dune Stalker which survived nearly unchanged save updated to AD&D from the OD&D here in the Fiend Folio.  None of the new monsters have a Monstermark score themselves just yet.

The issue ends with part two of "How to Improve D&D" and a letters section with people already writing in and telling them how do things different.  Gamers have never changed.

White Dwarf Wednesday Issue 1

Welcome to my first White Dwarf Wednesday!
Today we are going to look into Issue 1 published in June of 1977.
But first lets talk about what White Dwarf meant to me and why it later captured my attention in the OSR days.

Back in the early days of my gaming I was well aware of Dragon Magazine.  My first issue was Dragon #80 and it was awesome to see that this new game I enjoyed so much was enjoyed by others.  Imagine my surprise and delight when I discovered that there was not just one, but TWO magazines dedicated to this hobby.
Back in the 80s I was in love with all thing British.  My favorite shows were "Doctor Who", "Monty Python" and "Benny Hill". My favorite bands were "The Who", "Led Zeppelin" and "The Police".   To my teenaged mind there was nothing better than something from the UK.  White Dwarf did not prove that wrong to me.
The writing style was different than what I saw in Dragon.  It was grittier, it was more dangerous.  I reminded me a lot of Heavy Metal magazine to be honest.  Plus the ads in White Dwarf were not "edited" or dare I say, "censored" as they were in Dragon. And really who could forget those early Gamma World ads?
My first issue of White Dwarf was issue 44.  I picked up some here and there over the years, and about 4-5 years ago I was able to buy issues 1 through 89.  I worked on getting all the way 100, but only have a few between 89 and 96.

I used White Dwarf in the Great D&D Article Purge on Wikipedia a few years back.  Since WD was a 3rd party publication it could support many of the D&D articles that needed extra references.  In the process I got to read through all of them many times over and it was a great blast from the past.  I am now in my 3rd wave of White Dwarf affection thanks to the OSR.  You can't get much more Old School than this.

So without further ado, lets jump right on in.

White Dwarf #1
June/July 1977

The magazine contains the sub-title of "The Science Fiction and Fantasy Games Magazine", certainly that was true enough.  Counting covers we have a mere 24 pages worth of content.
The editorial from Ian Livingstone discussed the emergence of just 2 short years of a new kind of wargaming brought over by two Americans, Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson.   He mentions how there are now over 50 games in the Sci-Fi/Fantasy genre and over 10 companies providing these games and how White Dwarf hopes to cater to them.
We have a two and a half page review/pre-view of the newest Sci-Fi game, Metamorphisis Alpha.
We are treated to a few ads about a local game store and the British Fantasy Society.
Next up is something very unique and very interesting for a number of reasons.  It is Don Turnbull's Monstermark System.  The Monstermark system was used by White Dwarf to assign a "level of malignity" to every monster.  An early attempt at what would be the Challenge Rating.  The Monstermark is based on the number of rounds it would take to defeat a monster and the aggressiveness of a monster.
The explanation is full of wonderful equations; enough to make your high school math teacher happy and there are tables with examples.  What else could be more old school really?  I am bit suprised no one has tried to revive this and republish it for the OSR (or something like it).  What struck me as interesting too was that this was based on something the author had published previously in Owl & Weasel. How often did you see something like that?  The Monstermark system would be used in White Dwarf for many issues to rate the various monsters they created including some of the future Fiend Folio ones.
The Open Box feature column reviewed games.  Games were ranked 1-10 on Complexity, Skill, Atmosphere, Originality, Presentation and an Overall score. This issue SPI's Sorcerer (overall score 7) and Avaon Hill's Starship Troopers (Overall, 9).
A piece on competitive D&D. Part 1 of Lewis Pulsipher's D&D Campaign breakdown. IS D&D a war game or something else? An article on the wargame "The Warlord" by Steve Jackson (the English one)
Near the end we are introduced to a section called "Treasure Chest", which is basically a way for readers to send their contributions to the D&D rules.  We have a magic item, the Helm of Vision, and a bit talking about how D&D combat and magic is all wrong and a proposed fix (and it's only Issue #1!).  We have a new class (The Pervert) and some information about Poison.
We end up with some classified ads, and a "caption this" style cartoon.

All in a good start. It does not compete with Dragon from the same time yet, but it will get there soon.

Looking Forward to 2012: White Dwarf

This week I am going to continue some posts of things I want to do in 2012.

I have a stack of White Dwarf magazines sitting here at home.  They cam in handy to stop the purge of many D&D related articles on Wikipedia a while back and I generally get a big kick out of them.  There is something so British about them to me.

So in 2012 I am going to try to do "White Dwarf Wednesdays".  I am going to go through issues #1 to #100 each Wednesday and pull out what is good.  Less of a review or a "Where I Read..." type post.  But we will see.