On the Cowl
A dragon menaces an adventuring get together, who appear taken without warning regardless of its dimension. The warrior struggles to manage his horse as a dismounted man at arms readies a weapon. The wizard is tries to not look behind him whereas he finishes tying up some form of bundle. It appears very odd although. Is he on prime of a deflated airship, or is he truly a really small Halfling securing the pack of an unseen horse within the foreground? Share your solutions within the feedback!
Options
- Amber to Purple (Neil Cheyne): That is the successful entry for the competitors in difficulty 23. I did discover it a bit of disappointing although. There’s a stable background with a planet in turmoil as its persons are being evacuated after chemical warfare. However the journey itself simply boils all the way down to stealing a ship and taking off with it with a small addendum to succeed in a rendezvous. Nonetheless, it’s a great starter journey to arrange the PCs with their very own ship.
- The Dungeon Architect, Half 2: The Constructed Dungeon (Roger Musson): This half offers with the structure and physicality of your dungeon. Some wonderful factors about how rooms don’t have to solely match on one degree and how one can mess with the map makers within the get together.
- The Dungeon Grasp’s Information to the Galaxy (Marcus Rowland): Marcus Rowland (already turning into an everyday contributor in addition to famend video games designer) continues his have a look at D&D in house with how gravity may work. Once more, that is all earlier than Spelljammer and his conclusions are very comparable, with a great mixture of H.G.Wells.
- An Introduction to Dungeons and Dragons, Half 4: fighters and Thieves (Lewis Pulsipher): This difficulty we transfer onto the soldiers and the rogues. Whereas the fighters don’t get a lot element as their job within the get together is to hit stuff (though I really feel there might need been extra right here) Thieves get quite a lot of good options about the right way to discover their place.
- Quiz and Questionnaire Outcomes: Fortunately we now have the solutions to final difficulty’s quiz, so it was good to know I used to be proper concerning the tiny quantity of questions I might reply! Extra importantly we even have the results of the questionnaire/survey from final difficulty. So right here’s what we learn about gaming in 1981:
Dungeons and Dragons is the most well-liked recreation (no shock) 4 instances extra standard than its closest rival Traveller. The opposite three of the highest 5 are Runequest, Chivalry and Sorcery and House Opera, who’re every a 3rd as standard as Traveller. The age vary of players is 11 to 40 with the commonest age being 16 and the common being 19.
As to White Dwarf itself, most readers need extra, and are proud of any extra of something as its all fairly good. Fiend Manufacturing unit, Treasure Chest and Open Field are the most well-liked options, though there isn’t a lot between any of them. It appears that evidently now Kalgar is gone nobody has any difficulty with any of the content material (though I appreciated Kalgar). The preferred adventures are The Halls of Tizun Thane (1st) The Lair of Maldred the Mighty (2nd) Bar Room Brawl (third) and The Lichway and The Sable Rose Affair (joint 4th). Looks like White Dwarf readers love adventuring within the lair of an enormous baddie. The favorite articles are The Dungeon Architect (1st) An Introduction to D&D and Increasing Universe (joint 2nd), The Magic Brush (third) and Backdrop of Stars (4th). So kudos to Dungeon Architect and Introduction to D&D who’ve solely have their first or second half out when the questionnaire went out.
The highest three covers turn into Situation 23 (1st, Wizard in Lab, Emmanuel), adopted by Situation 19 (2nd, Ghoul, Les Edwards) and Situation 17 (third, Crashed Ship, Angus McKie). I feel my favorite to this point is Situation 12, what was yours?
Regulars
- Character Conjuring: In a break from character courses we get a brand new character species, Lizard Males, from Roger E. Moore and Michael Brown. It’s a reasonably stable set of choices ought to one determine to go away the swamp for a lifetime of journey
- Letters: There’s each reward and pedantry for Roger Musson’s Dungeon Architect articles, the reward coming from a minimum of TSR’s Don Turnbull. The “I do know the books higher than you” Tolkien pedants take difficulty with Lew Pulsipher utilizing Gandalf for example of a wizard final difficulty. There are questions on crossbows versus longbows for the editor, additional dialogue concerning the Silence 15’ radius spell and a suggestion about combining Energy scores when forcing doorways. Lastly, Roger Moore is stunned how a lot he appreciated the Detective class, and to be truthful it’s a little forward of its time. We’ll not see metropolis homicide thriller adventures for some time but (though The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh and Secret of Bone Hill will launch this yr).
- Information: Now firmly within the format of a newspaper referred to as Midguardian, the lead story is that White Dwarf misplaced the Greatest Journal Award at Origins to The Journal of the Traveller’s Help Society. TSR is releasing a sequence of “minigames” beginning with Barbarian Prince and Outpost Gamma. The Judges Guild is diving into extra Traveller content material with “The Glimmerdrift Reaches” in addition to extra AD&D adventures. There are extra determine releases, particularly for Traveller, and Steve Jackson Video games is quickly to launch a recreation referred to as “Killer” which shall be banned throughout faculty campuses very quickly after its launch!
- Starbase: As promised final difficulty, Starbase provides two methods for issues utilizing your ship’s soar drive. Most are mechanical, so I’d have appreciated to see some unusual house/time occasions as you fall by hyperspace. However these are nonetheless stable and really helpful methods.
- Treasure Chest: This difficulty Treasure Chest will get two entire pages! It fills them with a set of eight new magic gadgets of various energy, the eighth merchandise being a equipment of 5 nasty assassination instruments. Some fascinating and off the wall selections right here moderately than simply stuff that does extra harm.
Fiend Manufacturing unit
This time we step away from the mini-adventures once more, however I’ll forgive it as there may be nonetheless a theme, this time tribal creatures. Because the editor factors out, these are helpful for just about any degree as you may determine how most of the tribe you may meet:
- Asrai (Roger E. Moore) A potent species of water creature that take feminine type and reside within the deep ocean. They know most of the secrets and techniques of the deep however don’t have any actual idea of time. Very fascinating position play potential.
- Forest Big (M. Newton & D. Healey) A very good tackle a kind of big you realise ought to have been included a very long time in the past. They’re primarily non-plant Ents however a stable new monster nonetheless.
- Shadow Goblins (Barney Sloane) A moderately harmful combination of Goblin and Drow, full with scimitars and phantasm magic. Very cool and really harmful.
- Winter Kobolds (Jonathan Hardwick) A pleasant twist on an previous basic. Not what the PCs will anticipate as they shelter in a cottage because the snows come down.
Open Field
This month’s critiques are:
- Apocalypse, Board Recreation (Video games Workshop): One of many different massive 4 video games GW promote collectively (with Physician Who, Valley of the 4 Winds and Warlock). This has been describes as “Threat with Nukes” though there appears much more to it than that.
- Ebook 5 Excessive Guard (2nd Version), Complement for Traveller (GDW): Solely a yr after launch, this guide will get a second version. It appears like GDW realised the earlier model wasn’t fairly match for objective. So it’s good they launched an improve, however unhealthy their extra devoted clients couldn’t get this model initially.
- Knights of Camelot, Board Recreation (TSR): This recreation seems to be a model of King Arthur’s Knights, beforehand launched by Chaosium. The primary disappointment to this evaluation is that the reviewer (Charles Vasey) spends half the evaluation explaining how mundane and inane RPGs are (his drawback seemingly being {that a} recreation you may’t win is simply garbage). Ultimately he does get all the way down to reviewing the precise recreation and does a good job. Board Recreation Geek thinks there was a Second Version of this launched the identical yr, however I’m undecided if it’s an improve or correction.
- Module S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, AD&D Journey (TSR): The PCs got down to cope with an array of latest monsters haunting the native space. However – Spoiler warning – it seems they’re escaped from a crashed alien spacecraft (linking AD&D to Metamorphosis Alpha). You both cherished or hated this module if you found the key, or misplaced a personality pointing one of many new weapons they discover within the incorrect route!
