This issue has a convention theme with Ian Livingstone justifiably proud that Games Day is second only to Origins in terms of attendance (breaking the 2000 attendees mark…). It also celebrates the release of the new Player’s Handbook for D&D (the statue one not the wizard one).
On the Cover
A large spacecraft hovers over a brutalist looking castle on a rocky landscape. The artist is Eddie Jones (1935-1999) who became a celebrated sci-fi and fantasy artist. His work has become the covers of books by Larry Niven, Ramsey Campbell, Brian Aldiss and many others. The style is reminiscent of the likes of Chris Foss, although it seems Jones was the original influence here for much of the art of this era.Features
- Talismans of Tekumel (Jack McArdle): A selection of unique magic items (more like one off artefacts than everyday magic items) for Empire of the Petal Throne, easily adaptable to D&D. Some are as powerful as they are rare, one disintegrates you is you fail to obey commands!
- Light Sword (Wilf Backhaus): A duelling game for people who really like numbers, tables and picking weapons. It gets some kudos for the option to pick a male or female character, but loses it for female characters starting with much fewer ability points.
- Games Day (Ian Livingstone): A report on the recent Game Day convention in Seymour Hall in London.
- The Experienced Traveller, Part 2 (Mike Ferguson): A second instalment of Mike Ferguson’s expansion of the Traveller experience system. In this article he looks at increasing skills with training and academic courses as opposed to on the job experience.
- Valley of the Four Winds, Part 3 (Rowland Flynn): The third part of a short story introducing the setting of a new Ral Partha figure range, where our heroes risk the dangers of a forest of witches.
Fiend Factory
A collection of new monsters created by readers:- Blink Skeleton (Brian Hanstock) a teleporting skeleton, a very nasty surprise for any dungeon.
- Inverse Monster (John Culver) anti-version of any normal monster, but you reverse all results. So a miss always hits and a hit always misses. This will really mess with your players.
- Mimble (Tony Briskham) a large rodent like creature with a masochistic and suicidal streak, but who is also pretty much indestructible.
- Familiar (Trevor Mendham) a guardian cat who literally has nine lives.
- Sandman (Roger Musson) a creature made of animate sand that can put people to sleep.
- Eastern Skeleton (Brian Taylor) a standard skeleton with a few monk abilities.
- Warlock Cat (David Taylor) a strange companion cat that is visible only at night, and must devour a character to stay with a group.
- Bragger (Roger Musson) an imp who will tell you he is the most evil of all the evil things in the world.
- Dahdi (Mervyn Lemon) a ‘male’ version of the mummy…
Open Box
This month the reviews (all by Don Turnbull) are:- Gamma World, RPG Core Boxed Set (TSR)
- The Realm of Yolmi, D&D third party setting (West Coast Games)
- AD&D Player’s Handbook (TSR) The one with the statue on it. Price £6.95! Technically a ‘new edition’ making this the first of the 2nd edition books if you count the White Box as first, a fun fact for your next edition wars conversation.
- The Manual of Aurania, D&D setting book/Supplement (Singh, Wagnar & Stehle)
Regulars
- News: The new Player’s Handbook is still hogging the excitement bandwidth, but TSR is also going strong in terms of modules, with a new one called Tomb of Horrors promised soon… Chaosium has also released ‘King Arthur’s Sourcebook’ although I can find out little about this potential precursor to Pendragon.
- Letters: This month dedicated to the ‘realism argument’ with a variety of opinions about how important it is compared to just rolling dice and having fun. The general conclusion seems to be that a base level of realism in vital for immersion, but once the game gets too table heavy and tries to simulate too many details it stops being fun.
- Treasure Chest: This month it’s a traps special, showing the winners of a short competition to design something fiendish.
- Molten Magic: Still a half page, this features new figure releases from Dragontooth, Ral Partha, Archive Miniatures, Greenwood & Ball and Miniature Figurines.
