The Good Old Days...
jo...@enterprise.net
Hello everyone...
I stumbled across this newsgroup the other night and it's made me very
nostalgic. I can remember when I first got into RPGs, in the late 80s.
We had Call of Cthulhu, Traveller, Twilight: 2000, Top Secret SI, Dr
Who, all the variants and D&D, all going at our local club. The other
day I pulled out a few old, old, old copies of White Dwarf, from 1987.
Compared to the likes of Arcane, they were stunning. Great scenarios,
well written articles on all kinds of systems... it was a golden time.
And I've seen one of the old contributors on this newsgroup, so to
speak. Marcus L. Rowland, if you're out there reading this - your stuff
rocked the house.
The purpose of my little rant is simple. Whatever happened to the good
old days?
Jonathan Turner
Andrew Rilstone
In article <34F9DE5...@enterprise.net>, jo...@enterprise.net writes
>Compared to the likes of Arcane, they were stunning.
And the women were longer, the children were more beautiful and the
summers were better behaved.
--
Andrew Rilstone and...@aslan.demon.co.uk http://www.aslan.demon.co.uk/
*******************************************************************************
"At last, the 1998 show."
*******************************************************************************
Lucya Szachnowski
>old days?
>
>Jonathan Turner
>
stinkers. 10 x 10 rooms with dragons in them next to 10 x 10 rooms with
orcs in them and no reason for the odd juxtaposition etc
I enjoy the occasional nostaligic hack-and-slay dungeon crawl, but most
of the time I'd rather have the more complex and logical scenarios that
tend to be designed now.
--
Lucya Szachnowski
Philip Masters
In article: <34F9DE5...@enterprise.net> jo...@enterprise.net writes:
> The purpose of my little rant is simple. Whatever happened to the good
> old days?
Sunset. Night. Dawn. Repeated.
If you want to know why time passes, ask Stephen Hawking. Unfortunately, he
doesn't post to this newsgroup.
Incidentally, the thread title was an unwise choice. I damn nearly deleted
the post unread. A certain Noted British RPG Person used to use it whenever
he got bored enough to inflict his ennui on the rest of us.
--
Phil Masters
* Home Page: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Phil_Masters
* "Battle not with flamers, lest you become a flamer; and stare not too
deeply into the 'net, or you will find the 'net staring into you."
-- Friedrich Nietzsche (loosely translated)
* Note: I have kill-filed all "Multipart/Alternative" postings. HTML is
very nice, but not on Usenet.
Andrew Rilstone
In article <727401...@philm.demon.co.uk>, Philip Masters
<Ph...@philm.demon.co.uk> writes
>Incidentally, the thread title was an unwise choice. I damn nearly deleted
>the post unread. A certain Noted British RPG Person used to use it whenever
>he got bored enough to inflict his ennui on the rest of us.
Funny, I always thought he was making a joke against himself.
jo...@enterprise.net
Do I detect an Arcane fan out there somewhere. At the back? Stand up
now, let us all have a good look at you...
And yes, the women were longer. I was a lot shorter back then.
Jo Walton
In article <727401...@philm.demon.co.uk>
Ph...@philm.demon.co.uk "Philip Masters" writes:
> Incidentally, the thread title was an unwise choice. I damn nearly deleted
> the post unread. A certain Noted British RPG Person used to use it whenever
> he got bored enough to inflict his ennui on the rest of us.
I blame Vampire the Masquerade.
I had the opposite reaction. I thought I was going to get one of Andrew's
beautifully crafted rants and was disappointed.
--
Jo - - I kissed a kif at Kefk - - J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.bluejo.demon.co.uk - Blood of Kings Poetry; rasfw FAQ;
Reviews; Interstichia; Momentum - a paying market for real poetry.
PJS
On 03/03/98 03:23, in message <888924...@bluejo.demon.co.uk>, Jo Walton
<J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> In article <727401...@philm.demon.co.uk>
> Ph...@philm.demon.co.uk "Philip Masters" writes:
>
> > Incidentally, the thread title was an unwise choice. I damn nearly deleted
> > the post unread. A certain Noted British RPG Person used to use it whenever
> > he got bored enough to inflict his ennui on the rest of us.
>
> I blame Vampire the Masquerade.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
and all the weirdo Cyberpunkie stuff that came immediately before it. Suddenly
everything had to be "dark".
jo...@enterprise.net
>
> And the women were longer, the children were more beautiful and the
> summers were better behaved.
> --
> Andrew Rilstone and...@aslan.demon.co.uk
>
Well, well, well... I smell an Arcane fan, down at the back. Step
forward and let's have a good look at you... And I see from your website
you're not entirely unbiased. Never mind...
And by the way, yes, the women were a lot longer. But then I was a lot
shorter then.
Seriously, I'm sorry if my original post has caused everyone to reply
with such disgust. I didn't realise I was dealing with such hard-nosed
cynical folk. But my point was that sometimes simple is better. You can
sit down and get tore in to gaming with anyone, right off the cuff.
Yes, I agree with Lucya Szachnowski that there were some real stinkers
around, and that more complex games are very rewarding. I just finished
a six month campaign, which is why I probably have a hankering for the
simple things in life again!
I shall disappear into my former career as a mere lurker now that my
original plan, to find an old friend, has been successful. Most of you
guys are obvious way too grown up for me. <G>
Jonathan Turner
Andy Butcher
On Mon, 02 Mar 1998 00:17:03 +0200, jo...@enterprise.net wrote:
>Compared to the likes of Arcane, they were stunning. Great scenarios,
>well written articles on all kinds of systems... it was a golden time.
It was time when, as you've already noted, there were only five or six
systems that anyone really played. Which meant that rules specific
stuff was easy to do - whatever system you chose, you'd hit a large
percentage of your readers, and in one issue you could cover them all.
It was also a time when optional rules and lists of cool new
monsters/spells/magic items/whatever were what roleplayers wanted.
>The purpose of my little rant is simple. Whatever happened to the good
>old days?
Time. Roleplaying has grown, evolved, and changed since then. For the
most part I think this is a good thing - if it hadn't, it would
probably have died many years ago. How many dungeons can you bash
before you get bored, anyway?
I get just as nostalgic as anyone else who's been roleplaying long
enough to remember those 'golden days', but I do get a bit sick of
people bemoaning how everything was so much better 'in the old days'.
It's such a cliche, for a start, and it's hardly ever true when you
analyse it objectively.
Sorry, but it just gets my back up. I freely admit that this probably
just personal bitterness over the untimely death of a magazine that I
put two years of my life into.
Andy Butcher a.bu...@virgin.net
"Life is too important to be taken seriously."
Oscar Wilde
Andy Butcher
>In article <34F9DE5...@enterprise.net>, jo...@enterprise.net writes
>>Compared to the likes of Arcane, they were stunning.
>And the women were longer, the children were more beautiful and the
>summers were better behaved.
Not to mention that the beer tasted better, everything was cheaper,
and smoking was actually good for you...
Andy Butcher
On Mon, 02 Mar 1998 22:26:51 +0200, jo...@enterprise.net wrote:
>Do I detect an Arcane fan out there somewhere. At the back? Stand up
>now, let us all have a good look at you...
Belive it or not, there were a few.
Unknown
In article <34fd5b11...@news.virgin.net>, a.bu...@virgin.net (Andy Butcher) writes:
> I get just as nostalgic as anyone else who's been roleplaying long
> enough to remember those 'golden days', but I do get a bit sick of
> people bemoaning how everything was so much better 'in the old days'.
> It's such a cliche, for a start, and it's hardly ever true when you
> analyse it objectively.
>
> Sorry, but it just gets my back up. I freely admit that this probably
> just personal bitterness over the untimely death of a magazine that I
> put two years of my life into.
Yup, I agree 100%. I was not very old when I started playing RPGs some (gulp)
18 or 19 years ago and dungeon bashes were what I wanted because the D&D Basic
rules made them sound so exciting and adventurous. Sadly, dungeon bashes
were all there was: if I'd been after something deeper I'd have been out of
luck. I remember (to my shame) that my first reaction on reading RuneQuest on
the train back from Games Day 1981 was that it had some cool new monsters. In
fact, to someone used to D&D, that was about the size of it- it was only with
the later published scenarios that it became more than an alternative dungeon
crawl.
I'm amazed at how the published games have matured over that period of
time, such that even the TSR, originators of the dungeon bash, have moved on to
produce lovely campaign settings as Al-Qadim and Birthright which show a
subtlety and depth far removed from the original Giant series of modules.
It is arguable that White Dwarf was instrumental in bringing about this
revolution, at least in the UK, by providing a central forum for discussing how
to go beyond the dungeon. Articles like "The Dungeon Architect" and "Monsters
have feelings too" certainly improved the design of my games at the time. In
some ways the very maturity of the market has removed the need for such a
forum. One can now play such a wide variety of characters in such a wide range
of commerical settings that the market is no longer hungry for every new
release and articles in the magazines no longer cater to such a large fraction
of the audeince. You don't need "The Dungeon Architect" any more, the rulebook
of your chosen game will do.
It's a damned shame that Arcane went down just when it was really getting into
its stride. I blame me: maybe if you hadn't published my soapbox article in
the last issue catastrophe could have been avoided!
It's an even worse shame that IF has gone into semi-permanent hibernation when
I'd just discovered it.
Cheers, Hywel.
--
| Hywel T. Phillips | Rutherford Appleton Laboratory | |
| (MC/4f Coordinator) | and DELPHI experiment, CERN | e+ e- -> f1 f2 f3 f4|
|=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*|
| H.T.Ph...@RL.AC.UK Hywel.P...@CERN.CH |
| Speaking personally, not on behalf of RAL or DELPHI |
David Damerell
Andy Butcher <a.bu...@virgin.net> wrote:
>jo...@enterprise.net wrote:
>>Compared to the likes of Arcane, they were stunning. Great scenarios,
>>well written articles on all kinds of systems... it was a golden time.
>It was time when, as you've already noted, there were only five or six
>systems that anyone really played. Which meant that rules specific
>stuff was easy to do - whatever system you chose, you'd hit a large
>percentage of your readers, and in one issue you could cover them all.
I also think that old White Dwarf was firmly on the Valkyrie side of the
Val/ Arcane debate (back when there was one); people who prefer Val almost
certainly prefer WD to Arcane, but just because they prefer that kind of
magazine.
I mean, I like old-WD better than Arcane, but I could see Arcane was an
competent implementation of something I happen not to like.
>Time. Roleplaying has grown, evolved, and changed since then. For the
>most part I think this is a good thing - if it hadn't, it would
>probably have died many years ago. How many dungeons can you bash
>before you get bored, anyway?
Hello Kirsty, welcome to NetHack! Full moon tonight. You feel lucky!
Lots.
--
David/Kirsty 'Gotterdammerung' Damerell. dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk
CUWoCS President. http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~damerell/ Hail Eris!
|___| IV - A Discordian shall Partake of No Hot Dog Buns, for Such was the
| | | Solace of Our Goddess when She was Confronted with The Original Snub.
Dan Joyce
> Sorry, but it just gets my back up. I freely admit that this probably
> just personal bitterness over the untimely death of a magazine that I
> put two years of my life into.
>
The TSR debacle didn't help, but the only thing the magazine really needed
was for the bean counters to listen to us, and for them to believe us.
arcane could have survived, and would have continued to evolve and
improve.
Of course it wasn't perfect. But the 'not as good as White Dwarf' line
sticks in my throat as much as Andy's. I mean, how good was White Dwarf on
issue 20? Go take a look.
--
Dan Joyce
uly...@nospamland.co.uk
(replace 'nospamland' with 'easynet' to get my e-mail address)
Philip Masters
In article: <Lip*00...@news.chiark.greenend.org.uk>
> I also think that old White Dwarf was firmly on the Valkyrie side of the
> Val/ Arcane debate (back when there was one); people who prefer Val
> almost certainly prefer WD to Arcane, but just because they prefer that
> kind of magazine.
My vile semi-pro writer sub-routine surfaces here:
*White Dwarf* appeared monthly, with impressive reliability. It also paid
for articles - cash, not in kind.
Compare and contrast...
(It *is* true that *Valkyrie* may be trying to emulate the classic WD
experience, whereas the *arcane* crew were and are open in thinking that
RPGs had changed, and magazines had to change as well.)
--
Phil Masters
* Home Page: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Phil_Masters
Andrew Rilstone
In article <34FC91FE...@enterprise.net>, jo...@enterprise.net
writes
>Well, well, well... I smell an Arcane fan, down at the back. Step
>forward and let's have a good look at you... And I see from your website
>you're not entirely unbiased. Never mind...
You, Sir, are quite clearly as mad as a mongoose.
Andrew Rilstone
In article <34fd5b11...@news.virgin.net>, Andy Butcher
<a.bu...@virgin.net> writes
>Sorry, but it just gets my back up. I freely admit that this probably
>just personal bitterness over the untimely death of a magazine that I
>put two years of my life into.
I don't think that the obsession with "White Dwarf" in some quarters of
this hobby is even remotely connected to the quality or otherwise of
"White Dwarf".
"White Dwarf" is a symbol. It represents three things:
1: The time when the hobby was esoteric, obscure, new, experimental--
when you could say "I play Dungeons and Dragons" and everyone would say
"What on earth can that be?" rather than "You sad anorak?"
2: A time when role-playing games were simple and "unpretentious",
before poncey ideas about characterisation and realism had spoiled our
innocence, and 6 new monsters and 4 new magic items were all that was
needed to keep us docile.
3: A time when there was a magazine which everybody in the hobby read;
and thus, when it only took one small-ad to tell every gamer in the
country about your fanzine.
It also represents, of course, the time When We Were Very Young -- a
period when certain Important Popular Culture Events were taking place
(first Star Wars movie, first Aliens movie, Blade Runner, Doctor Who
being played by the guy with scarf). At least, they seemed like
important events for those of us who were 12-15 at the time. I've always
regarded 1977 as my own psychic locus. But nostalgia of this sort is a
dangerous business. It can make cause you to think that everything that
happened more than 15 years ago was wonderful. It can give rise to the
neurotic desire to call 5 pence pieces "shillings" or to think that
Enoch Powell was quite a nice man after all. Why, the week I picked up
White Dwarf 17 was the same week when Nanny thrashed me to death with a
red hot poker. Happy times!
Andrew Rilstone
In article <1998Mar4.152439.1@v2>, htp@v2.? writes
>I'm amazed at how the published games have matured over that period of
>time, such that even the TSR, originators of the dungeon bash, have moved on to
>produce lovely campaign settings as Al-Qadim and Birthright which show a
>subtlety and depth far removed from the original Giant series of modules.
Devil's advocate mode on:
Is there some genetic factor which causes those born in 1965 to
like Dungeon bashes, but those born in 1975 to like campaign settings
and angst sorry characterisation? If not, isn't it possible that many
people nowadays would rather be playing dungeon bashes? And that one of
the reasons that brilliant games like "Everway" and "Feng Shui" fail to
make money is that those dungeon-bashers are, in fact, the majority?
jo...@enterprise.net
> I get just as nostalgic as anyone else who's been roleplaying long
> enough to remember those 'golden days', but I do get a bit sick of
> people bemoaning how everything was so much better 'in the old days'.
> It's such a cliche, for a start, and it's hardly ever true when you
> analyse it objectively.
>
> just personal bitterness over the untimely death of a magazine that I
> put two years of my life into.
>
of time into a publication only to see it disappear without trace. I'm a
journalist myself and I can sympathise.
My post certainly wasn't meant to be insulting about Arcane, but in my
own personal opinion I didn't enjoy it a lot and neither did the vast
majority of gamers I know. That's not to say it was all bad...
I take your point about 'way back when' and the fact that roleplaying
games have evolved to a significant degree. I guess reading this
newsgroup, which I only recently discovered, has made me come over all
whimsical and twee.
By classic scenarios, by the way, I don't mean dungeon bashing. That was
never my favourite type of game, ever. I'm talking about stuff like
those CoC scenarios Games Workshop used to produce, the Statue of the
Conjurer or whatever it was called (obviously made a great impression,
eh?). I was also a big fan of Twilight:2000 and Traveller before GDW
made radical changes which put a lot of people off.
Yes, the hobby has evolved, but at what price? Do you think there is a
viable British industry out there which can sustain our hobby into the
future? I have a stack of White Dwarfs from years back and in them you
can chart the path Games Workshop took to where they are now. And I'm
sorry, but I liked it better the way it was before.
I'm no big fan of published scenarios, but sometimes it's nice to sit
down and read what someone else has written, if it has good characters
and a good plot. Almost like good fiction. But that isn't what
roleplaying is. Roleplaying, to me, is about creating a story, not just
on your own but with others.
I spent six or seven months crafting a CoC campaign and I used a lot of
stuff from the various Chaosium sourcebooks, which are great. The rest
was original, and it took a lot of work, as I'm sure you appreciate. The
players were all old hands and in their own way their characters guided
the story as much as my plot line. And I guess that's what it's all
about.
Maybe, as I've said, that's why I'm looking with fondness at those
simple scenarios, put together in a few pages, which were packed with
good ideas. If it were just the good old days then when I'm reading them
now they wouldn't have the same impact. But to me, leafing through WD
and a few old Twilight and Traveller scenarios I have, they still do
have that sense of excitement about them.
Sometimes, simple is best. And no, not bloody dungeon bashing. A simple
CoC scenario, like those on Tales of Terror, can be the bare bones for
very rewarding and individual roleplaying.
Sorry if I'm ranting on, but that's my own opinion. You're free to have
yours, and please understand that I respect it whatever it is.
Anyway, take it easy, wherever you are...
Jonathan Turner
jo...@enterprise.net
> Why, the week I picked up
> White Dwarf 17 was the same week when Nanny thrashed me to death with a
> red hot poker. Happy times!
>
Just kidding - you certainly do raise some good points there. But I
still stand by the old Dwarf. As I said, I've read the stuff recently
and I feel it does stand the test of time.
To me personally it doesn't have anything to do with simple fantasy
games like D&D where you rolled on endless little tables and hacked and
slashed through identical dungeons.
Look, it's like this... do you ever get the desire to sit down and watch
an old black and white movie like The Third Man or Night of the Demon?
That's the closest analogy I can think of.
Yes, the increased emphasis on characterisation which marks a lot of
modern RPGs is a universally accepted Good Thing. Yes, time passes as
that smartarse remarked - well spotted, mate. All I'm saying is that
maybe somewhere along the line we have lost sight of something basic at
the heart of the hobby here.
> 3: A time when there was a magazine which everybody in the hobby read;
> and thus...
>
I think that's your best point, and the best point raised about Dwarf in
this discussion. There was a sense of community in the gaming community
which Dwarf catered for and which I don't think has been covered quite
so well since.
In some ways I'm sorry I ever started this bloody thread, but at least
it's provoking some debate! But hey, I'm probably just spouting a load
of old crap! Don't worry about it.
Jonathan Turner
Rhodri James
In article <DxJrvLAdxe$0E...@aslan.demon.co.uk>,
Andrew Rilstone <and...@aslan.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> Is there some genetic factor which causes those born in 1965 to
> like Dungeon bashes,
Speaking as someone born in 1965 who enjoys an occasional dungeon bash as
long as it's only occasional... no. Besides, if dungeon bashers really
were in the majority, White Wolf would never have published as many
supplements as they have.
(Thinks: is the current dungeon basher's system ShadowRun? Certainly all
our scenarios end up as "apply firepower A to problem B" events, with
little opportunity for angst to get in the way :-)
--
Rhodri James *-* Wildebeeste herder to the masses
If you don't know who I work for, you can't misattribute my words to them
... Unfortunately we also have the stealth of elephants
Unknown
In article <DxJrvLAdxe$0E...@aslan.demon.co.uk>, Andrew Rilstone <and...@aslan.demon.co.uk> writes:
> In article <1998Mar4.152439.1@v2>, htp@v2.? writes
>>I'm amazed at how the published games have matured over that period of
>>time, such that even the TSR, originators of the dungeon bash, have moved on to
>>produce lovely campaign settings as Al-Qadim and Birthright which show a
>>subtlety and depth far removed from the original Giant series of modules.
>
> Devil's advocate mode on:
>
> and angst sorry characterisation? If not, isn't it possible that many
> people nowadays would rather be playing dungeon bashes? And that one of
> the reasons that brilliant games like "Everway" and "Feng Shui" fail to
> make money is that those dungeon-bashers are, in fact, the majority?
Actually, I think you've misinterprested my point here.
People nowadays ***CAN*** play dungeon bashes. Some of TSR's products are
really pure dungeon bashes in the tradition of G1-2-3: Night Below, or Dragon
Mountain, for example.
The main difference between these games and G1-2-3 are that:
1) They've been thought out a bit better and so have a higher degree of
internal consistency, which I'd have thought even the Devil's Advocate
would consider basically a good thing.
2) They're set somewhere and the somewhere is detailed and available for you to
buy. Now this might or might fit what you want. If you want a pure dungeon
bash, just run the module. If you want to fit it into your own world, it is a
bit more difficult than previously but TSR are usually pretty good at giving
advice on doing this. If you want the possibility of adventures other than
dungeon bashes, they are available for you to buy. That can make a lot of
difference to beginning GMs and to busy GMs whose free time is scarcer
than their disposable income.
3) They are better produced, with artwork and player handouts. Use them if you
like them.
I was not saying that dungeon bashes are bad! I was saying that it is really
nice to be able to buy different things as well.
Cheers, Hywel Phillips.
ed
The noble Philip Masters <Ph...@philm.demon.co.uk> spake on the day of
Wed, 04 Mar 1998 22:32:19 GMT:
>In article: <Lip*00...@news.chiark.greenend.org.uk>
>dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk (David Damerell) writes:
>> I also think that old White Dwarf was firmly on the Valkyrie side of the
>> Val/ Arcane debate (back when there was one); people who prefer Val
>> almost certainly prefer WD to Arcane, but just because they prefer that
>> kind of magazine.
>
>My vile semi-pro writer sub-routine surfaces here:
>
>*White Dwarf* appeared monthly, with impressive reliability. It also paid
>for articles - cash, not in kind.
>
>Compare and contrast...
>
>(It *is* true that *Valkyrie* may be trying to emulate the classic WD
>experience, whereas the *arcane* crew were and are open in thinking that
>RPGs had changed, and magazines had to change as well.)
Arcane had potential, and really was hitting the stride when Future
pulled the plug. I always thought the "systemless" scenario was a bad
idea, far better to give a comparative system at least, and having "we
support no system" then telling you how to build "Magic Decks" was, at
the very least, inconsistent.
However Andy Butcher did, as far as I can tell, a decent job and I hope
he gets a better break in the future.
ed
--
edh...@equus.demon.co.uk _//// http://www.equus.demon.co.uk/
o_/o /// For devilbunnies, Diplomacy, RPGS,
<*> __\ ///__ Conspiring Rodents and other stuff!
David Damerell
Andrew Rilstone <and...@aslan.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> Is there some genetic factor which causes those born in 1965 to
>like Dungeon bashes, but those born in 1975 to like campaign settings
>and angst sorry characterisation?
Given that I was born in 1975 this seems unlikely.
--
David/Kirsty 'Gotterdammerung' Damerell. dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk
http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~damerell/ w.sp.lic.#pi<largestprime>.2106
|___| "Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc." Confessed Mercrediphile. |___|
| | | Or, in Klingon: "nucharghqangbogh chaH DISopchu' 'e' wItIv." | | |
Limbo Folk
In article <cR7sHHAXte$0E...@aslan.demon.co.uk>, Andrew Rilstone
<and...@aslan.demon.co.uk> writes:
[...and experiences major snippery...]
>In article <34fd5b11...@news.virgin.net>, Andy Butcher
> writes
>>Sorry, but it just gets my back up. I freely admit that this probably
>>just personal bitterness over the untimely death of a magazine that I
>>put two years of my life into.
>
>I don't think that the obsession with "White Dwarf" in some quarters of
>this hobby is even remotely connected to the quality or otherwise of
>"White Dwarf".
>
>"White Dwarf" is a symbol. It represents three things:
>
>1: The time when the hobby was esoteric, obscure, new, experimental--
>
>2: A time when role-playing games were simple and "unpretentious",
>
>3: A time when there was a magazine which everybody in the hobby read;
>and thus, when it only took one small-ad to tell every gamer in the
>country about your fanzine.
This is all true, but discussions of WD ALWAYS eventually bring up some
allusion to the time "when WD was good", or thereabouts. If that's a symbol
(which in part I'm certain it is) then it's one which exists, apart from
anything else, in comparison to what the magazine later came to symbolise.
This isn't as trivial as it might sound. From the rhetoric it sometimes seems
as if WD's transition was something that only became really evident in
hindsight, but I remember subscribing to the rag just in time to watch it turn
away from its general community of readers in order to become a full-time
Warhammer catalogue disguised as a hobby periodical, and I remember how that
saddened me at the time. Apart from my splendid opportunity to watch my money
being wasted, it was clear that we were watching the industry changing. The
immediate evidence for that was simply that GW had suddenly come over all
cynical and imperialistic, but (and certainly here hindsight helps) they
weren't alone in responding to (or perhaps creating) the change: they were
just alone in being in a position to do it so annoyingly...
So... for those who were then and still are interested in the hobby as a whole,
WD set itself up for posterity as a shining example of something which moved
quite quickly from trying to serve and embrace a community to trying (in
comparison) to flog some pretty shallow products and make loads of dosh. The
second phase of this always makes the first look good: even if you were a
Warhammer player at the time you'd have to recognise that WD was taking
advantage of its market prominence suddenly to start pursuing a completely new
mission. What I really missed was the cottagey, helpful, hobbyist attitude of
its early days, and the world certainly felt colder when that was casually
dumped in favour of marketing. Imagine didn't last long enough to take up that
role, though it tried. The Adventurer had a good go at it as well, but went
down even more quickly. Rumours at the time suggested that in each case this
was more an instance of industry powerplay than one of the market not
supporting a publication.
Arcane went at things a little differently, and perhaps Andy and Dan are right
in saying that with the hobby now in its sprawling, fragmented state their
approach was, broadly, the only valid one. Personally I don't agree, and by
the look of it neither do the Valkyrie folk, but that isn't really the point
and in any case I, too, was developing a feeling that it was finally hitting
its stride when all of a sudden when it went down.
In the end, for me, the main difference between Arcane and WD in its heyday was
in their apparently different perceptions and treatment of what they saw as the
gaming community. The vast and lumbering "monstermark" system that WD
published in the very early issues, for instance, was full of holes and
problems but it was put out there with the air of being "shared" within a
community in an attempt to begin to address a genuine need which loads of
people recognised. I never used it, what with the holes and problems, but in
being shown it I felt that I was being kept in touch with the spirit of the
hobby and the kind of thinking that might be generalisable to stuff that I DID
want to do. Arcane, on the other hand, sometimes gave us articles on subjects
such as what it is that women like to eat while roleplaying, and in that
segment of their content they veered well into the same kind of self-regarding
territory that quickly put me off SFX. And then there was that fervent
clinging to Magic decks and computer games. (Obviously this choice of
examples stereotypes both publications, but that's kind of the point here...)
As we all know, there are endless ways to compare, praise and criticise WD,
Arcane and any other publication. Despite the above examples I'm not out to
say that one was better than the other as such, but I do think that their
differences come down in part to ways of perceiving and presenting the
community. In that respect, and to my tastes, WD generally did a better job of
things (thrown into sharp and very obvious relief by the point at which it
suddenly stopped doing it at all) than Arcane ever had a chance to.
>It also represents, of course, the time When We Were Very Young -- a
>period when certain Important Popular Culture Events were taking place
>(first Star Wars movie, first Aliens movie, Blade Runner, Doctor Who
>being played by the guy with scarf). At least, they seemed like
>important events for those of us who were 12-15 at the time. I've always
>regarded 1977 as my own psychic locus. But nostalgia of this sort is a
>dangerous business. It can make cause you to think that everything that
>happened more than 15 years ago was wonderful.
Of course this is true as well, and caution is therefore required. All the
same it's possible to make some fairly objective assessments from the evidence
of what WD appeared to consider itself to be, and to compare this with other
publications. Magazines do have editorial "characters", which if course can
become rosier with memory but they are real at the time as well. Just consider
which, if any, of the billion available computer magazines you might ever
consider providing with house-room, and why. The whacky, zany, jokey and matey
ones do nothing for me, whatever their substantive content, since I don't trust
them to care about anything other than their own cleverness and they don't seem
liable to be bothered what I think anyway (and I'm NOT saying that this
described Arcane, by the way). One that puts itself across as being helpful,
concerned, friendly and well-informed can induce me to read articles on Unix.
Strange. (And I AM suggesting that this was how WD strongly came across -- in
the days when it was good.)
OK, enough of all that...
Cheers,
Dave
Phooey
>I just finished
>a six month campaign, which is why I probably have a hankering for the
>simple things in life again!
>
that I have been playing now for about 3 Years is looking like it is
about to finally finish this weekend, then I think Ill get myself into a
quickie 6 monther like yours ;)
--
Phooey
Ken Walton
In article <350265b6...@news.demon.co.uk>, ed
<edh...@equus.demon.co.uk> writes
>Arcane had potential, and really was hitting the stride when Future
>pulled the plug. I always thought the "systemless" scenario was a bad
>idea, far better to give a comparative system at least, and having "we
>support no system" then telling you how to build "Magic Decks" was, at
>the very least, inconsistent.
To be fair, they had changed that policy a few issues before the end. (I
know, I had to do the damned stats...)
--
Ken Walton
Andrew Rilstone
In article <34FDE90E...@enterprise.net>, jo...@enterprise.net
writes
>Look, it's like this... do you ever get the desire to sit down and watch
>an old black and white movie like The Third Man or Night of the Demon?
>That's the closest analogy I can think of.
"There are two sorts of fools. The fool who says 'This is old, and
therefore good' and the fool who says 'This is new, and therefore
better'."
antony johnston
Andrew Rilstone <and...@aslan.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> 1: The time when the hobby was esoteric, obscure, new, experimental--
> when you could say "I play Dungeons and Dragons" and everyone would say
> "What on earth can that be?" rather than "You sad anorak?"
ah, halcyon days, aren't policemen young etc.?
up with elitism -- snub the kiddies! =!>
--
antony johnston
http://www.mostlyblack.demon.co.uk/
PS: the man in the orange shirt is not really here.
Ken Walton
The trouble with all this comparison of the Good Old Days of WD is that
it can only be done by people who are old enough to remember WD in it's
heyday, and are therefore, by definition, older and more cynical* than
the fresh-faced youngsters they were then. What did the fresh-faced
youngsters of today (who've never seen a WD) think of Arcane? I know
that an acquaintance of mine's 15-year-old brother thought the scenarios
were great, and was running them all with his gaming group, so we were
doing something right for somebody. How typical among younger gamers
this was, I've no way of telling.
* or maybe it's just my cynical self that thinks older people are by
definition more cynical :-)
--
Ken Walton
Sheila Thomas
In article <d22OVAA9Om$0Ewx$@phooey.demon.co.uk>
Pho...@NoSpAmPoRfAvOr.phooey.demon.co.uk "Phooey" writes:
>Six Months? The campain ( AD&D )
> that I have been playing now for about 3 Years is looking like it is
>about to finally finish this weekend
Only 3 years? I am off to enjoy yet another session at our AD&D
campaign which has been going for over 6 years and shows no sign of
stopping.
--
____________________________________________________________________________
home: mal...@granta.demon.co.uk http://www.granta.demon.co.uk
work: smth...@twi.co.uk http://www.twi.co.uk
Lap tops? Make mine small and feline!
____________________________________________________________________________
MindShift Design
>(Thinks: is the current dungeon basher's system ShadowRun? Certainly all
>our scenarios end up as "apply firepower A to problem B" events, with
>little opportunity for angst to get in the way :-)
Gawd, you're lucky. ONLY firepower A - my party used to implement A-Z to
whatever problem they could find.<chuckle>. Until one time when they where
playing this one scenario.
They were given a Shadowrun to go and hunt down a troll in a 'bad' area of
town. Everytime they did so, they were ambushed by fire teams. Eventually
one player got suspiciois and instead of killing the poor guy, he
'questioned' him. Found out that the Mr Jonhnson who had hired them was no
other than one of the biggest media corps. It also so happened that that
this player had a cybercam in his head and recorded alll his runs, selling
some of them off to that company and feeding them live picures. So the party
went crazy and arrived at the door of the media corp, to be confronted with
a massive war drone refusing them entry (sound familiar, anyone ?). They
finally got by it and rendered the guy who commisioned them 'inoperative'. I
mean 6 hardened armed (to the teeth) fighters against an unarmed corp
slimeball. What chance did he have. They redecorated his office too ..
... ah ...
... the good old days ...
Jason Paul McCartan
MindShift Design
ja...@mindshift.prestel.co.uk
www.commercepark.co.uk/mindshift
Mary Gentle
Born in 19_65_...
Sob. Sob. Whimper.
Hi, Rhodri.
ed
The noble Ken Walton <K...@kenjo.demon.co.uk> spake on the day of Thu, 5
Mar 1998 13:05:51 +0000:
Yes, and they reisuued the old scenarios with Stats, but you note that I
said it was "hitting its stride".
Future were, I think, short sighted. Arcane was shaking itself free of
the "Future House style" that out me off SFX and becoming a "must by
mag"
Ach well, old times.
John Dallman
In article <4821de5c...@wildebst.demon.co.uk>,
rho...@wildebst.demon.co.uk (Rhodri James) wrote:
> (Thinks: is the current dungeon basher's system ShadowRun? Certainly
> all our scenarios end up as "apply firepower A to problem B" events,
> with little opportunity for angst to get in the way :-)
Only usually. Sometimes we get "Have a blinding attack of sense and run
away" or "reprogram their security cameras so they don't notice us".
---
John Dallman j...@cix.co.uk
Snatch Foster
On Thu, 5 Mar 1998 08:35:09 +0000, Phooey <Ma...@phooey.demon.co.uk>
wrote:
>>I just finished
>>a six month campaign, which is why I probably have a hankering for the
>>simple things in life again!
>>
>Six Months? The campain ( AD&D )
> that I have been playing now for about 3 Years is looking like it is
>about to finally finish this weekend, then I think Ill get myself into a
>quickie 6 monther like yours ;)
>--
>Phooey
6 years - ha. I've been playing a first edition tunnels and trolls
solo scenario city of terrors for 35 years now. 'Take that you
fiend'.
Snatch, aged 31.
Cheers, Snatch.
Free Alf Grundy - imprisoned since 1983 for a crime he did not commmit!
Phooey
In article <889125...@granta.demon.co.uk>, Sheila Thomas
<mal...@granta.demon.co.uk> writes
>In article <d22OVAA9Om$0Ewx$@phooey.demon.co.uk>
> Pho...@NoSpAmPoRfAvOr.phooey.demon.co.uk "Phooey" writes:
>
>> that I have been playing now for about 3 Years is looking like it is
>
>Only 3 years? I am off to enjoy yet another session at our AD&D
>campaign which has been going for over 6 years and shows no sign of
>stopping.
running thru different character now for errrr 10 Years
--
Phooey
My campaign is bigger than yours and my dragon is 'arder than yours etc etc
:耄~
Paul Watson
Since I was born in 1970, I think I can claim some sort of
neutral ground here ;-)
I think that despite my best intentions I tend to look back
in nostalgia at the days when WD used to be a good read
which I looked forward to. I'd probably view Arcane in the
same way if I was that age now and I'd just discovered a mag
which talked about what I was interested in.
Having said that, when WD was going well I was probably more
orientated towards the sort of stuff WD published then. I
grew older and my tastes changed. Arcane would not have
represented my preferences had it been around then.
"All things change and we change with them", if I may be
allowed to quote someone not a million miles away from this
list.
--
Paul Watson
Marcus L. Rowland
In article <34F9DE5...@enterprise.net>, jo...@enterprise.net writes
> Marcus L. Rowland, if you're out there reading this - your stuff
>rocked the house.
why does this make me feel very, very, old...?
--
Marcus L. Rowland
http://www.ffutures.demon.co.uk/
"We are all victims of this slime. They... ...fill our mailboxes with gibberish
that would get them indicted if people had time to press charges"
[Hunter S. Thompson predicts junk e-mail, 1985 (from Generation of Swine)]
Philip Masters
In article: <DxJrvLAdxe$0E...@aslan.demon.co.uk> Andrew Rilstone
> Is there some genetic factor which causes those born in 1965 to
> like Dungeon bashes, but those born in 1975 to like campaign settings
> people nowadays would rather be playing dungeon bashes? And that one of
> the reasons that brilliant games like "Everway" and "Feng Shui" fail to
> make money is that those dungeon-bashers are, in fact, the majority?
Nitpick; while *Feng Shui* doesn't support many dungeon-bashes, I have to
say that it's an immensely munchkin-friendly game.
Okay, so it thinks that it's being ironic about it; one of the people
responsible even tried to use the words "post-modern". (Though it doesn't
have a pediment on the top.) But when push comes to shove, it's a game that
*tries* to appeal to the dungeon-bashing, blow-things-up, simple-pleasures
mind-set. If it still crashed despite that - well, supply your own
explanation.
--
Phil Masters
* Home Page: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Phil_Masters
* "Battle not with flamers, lest you become a flamer; and stare not too
deeply into the 'net, or you will find the 'net staring into you."
-- Friedrich Nietzsche (loosely translated)
Rhodri James
In article <EpD5n...@cix.compulink.co.uk>,
> Sob. Sob. Whimper.
> Hi, Rhodri.
I know, I know, I am a callow youth!
Hi, Mary.
--
Rhodri James *-* Wildebeeste herder to the masses
If you don't know who I work for, you can't misattribute my words to them
... Sleep is for the weak and sickly
Rhodri James
In article <6dn26a$5t3$1...@svr-c-02.core.theplanet.net>,
MindShift Design <postm...@mindshift.prestel.co.uk> wrote:
> >(Thinks: is the current dungeon basher's system ShadowRun? Certainly
> >all our scenarios end up as "apply firepower A to problem B" events,
> >with little opportunity for angst to get in the way :-)
> Gawd, you're lucky. ONLY firepower A - my party used to implement A-Z to
> whatever problem they could find.<chuckle>.
Well, we only make one plan since we know it won't survive contact with
the enemy!
--
Rhodri James *-* Wildebeeste herder to the masses
If you don't know who I work for, you can't misattribute my words to them
... The trick is to remember which way is up
Jonathan Rowe
In article <1998Mar5.085245.1@v2>, htp@v2.? writes
>
>People nowadays ***CAN*** play dungeon bashes. Some of TSR's products are
>really pure dungeon bashes in the tradition of G1-2-3: Night Below, or Dragon
>Mountain, for example.
I was tempted to interpret your comment differently, from my experiences
DMing at school clubs. "Pure" dungeon bashes require some highly
specialised and fiddly skills. Mapping out a tunnel complex in 10'
squares based on an oral description from the DM. Accurately logging
monsters killed, treasure acquired and who's carrying it. Keeping track
of torches, iron rations, arrows, holy water, flasks of oil and charges
left in the wand of paralyzation all takes some book-keeping aptitude.
Relating descriptions of fights into the positioning of lead
miniatures... refusing the temptation to knock said miniatures over or
twiddle with their swords till they break off ... shutting the *** up
and listening while the DM describes the contents of a room ...
functioning as a party not as a collection of prima ballerinas ....
Dungeon Bashes are *HARD* on players, particularly young ones,
particularly those who haven't entered RPGs through tabletop wargaming
or strategy boardgaming.
"Storytelling" is, by contrast, a fairly intuitive process for most
players. The GM does all the work...
--
Jon Rowe
Associate Editor, Valkyrie Magazine
"Mundus Nihil Pulcherrimum"
Jonathan Rowe
In article <773241...@philm.demon.co.uk>, Philip Masters
<Ph...@philm.demon.co.uk> writes
>In article: <Lip*00...@news.chiark.greenend.org.uk>
>dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk (David Damerell) writes:
>> I also think that old White Dwarf was firmly on the Valkyrie side of the
>> Val/ Arcane debate (back when there was one); people who prefer Val
>> almost certainly prefer WD to Arcane, but just because they prefer that
>> kind of magazine.
>
>My vile semi-pro writer sub-routine surfaces here:
>
>*White Dwarf* appeared monthly, with impressive reliability. It also paid
>for articles - cash, not in kind.
>
>Compare and contrast...
>
>(It *is* true that *Valkyrie* may be trying to emulate the classic WD
>experience, whereas the *arcane* crew were and are open in thinking that
>RPGs had changed, and magazines had to change as well.)
>
Have to respond, don't I?
Yeah, well, I agree really, don't I? If Valkyrie could get reliable it
would start increasing its subscriptions and distribution. If that
happened it would start becoming profitable. If that happened it would
start paying cash for contributions... but Valk can't get reliable as
long as the main people concerned have day jobs and can't track down the
advertising copy and enforce deadlines. So it goes.
I agree that Arcane was hitting its stride and maturing into a
worthwhile magazine. I also agree with its critics that it was empty of
detailed material that could make it a "resource" for gamers - I used to
read it on the train up to Edinburgh and it filled the 45 minutes
nicely, but I'd never refer back to it because it had no specific
scenarios, rules, detailed campaign settings or focussed gaming
information - the sort of stuff people actually remember from WD of old
is, of course, exactly this sort of material: Dungeon Architect,
Irilian, The Key of Tirandor, The Demonist (hi Phil!), Designing A
Quasi-Medieval Society (OK, generically medieval, but firmly rooted in
the practice of an AD&D campaign).
But maybe I just suffer from the "born before 1970" syndrome...
On the other hand Arcane did carry informed industry news, up to the
minute reviews, debates on some topical issues and relevent discussion
of books and RPG related products.
Actually, we're trying to steer Valkyrie in this direction too,
supplementing the WD-style hardware with more "reading material".
But, some divide will remain, because Arcane was, for a lot of people,
the Great White Hope of British RPG Magazines and bravely tried to
market itself as a stationary-shelf monthly alongside "Women's Own" and
"PC User". I think it was right to do this.... but I believe in
Valkyrie as a product too, of course, and would like to see some
synthesis of the two approaches arising. Ideally a synthesis that
succeeded in commercial terms!
Jonathan Rowe
In article <wWFbhFAt+z$0E...@lazar.demon.co.uk>, Paul Watson
<pa...@lazar.demon.co.uk> writes
>Since I was born in 1970, I think I can claim some sort of
>neutral ground here ;-)
>
>I think that despite my best intentions I tend to look back
>in nostalgia at the days when WD used to be a good read
>which I looked forward to. I'd probably view Arcane in the
>same way if I was that age now and I'd just discovered a mag
>which talked about what I was interested in.
>Having said that, when WD was going well I was probably more
>orientated towards the sort of stuff WD published then. I
>grew older and my tastes changed. Arcane would not have
>represented my preferences had it been around then.
There's a can of worms here.
I'm going to follow the Monster Manual's precedent by catergorising
gamers as Type I or Type II.
Type I gamers are hobby enthusiasts. They own plenty of RPG rulebooks
or supplements. They GM. They read newsgroups and subscribe to
magazines. They go to Conventions and join clubs. They have obvious
preferences for the content of a magazine.
Type II gamers are passing-through. They don't own RPG material and
they don't GM. They turn up, spend a nice evening playing a character,
then go to the pub. They don't follow hobby news, take interest in new
products, read scenarios or research campaigns. They only go to Cor
clubs if their mates do. Once the friend who GMs scenarios for them
leaves school/graduates/moves away, they pack in roleplaying.
There are a lot of Type II gamers (they outnumber Type I gamers about 5
to 1 a far as I can judge) so, in a way, any magazine looking for
commercial success should target them.
Problematically, of course, most Type II gamers don't subscribe to
magazines, but the majority of Type Is do. So what's a mag to do? WD
aimed at the committed hobbyists because, back then, they were the
consensus. The fact that people here still talk about "the good old
days opf WD" (which was 15 years ago for Chrissakes!) shows that we're
all Type I gamers, grizzled veterans who've bashed away at the hobby
while dilettente players have blown around our ankles like dead leaves.
Arcane tried to harness the latent commercial power of all those Type II
gamers, who'd been stirred to life already by Magic:TG. Valkyrie is
still writing for the vets. Arcane didn't survive - but it nearly did.
It came real close. Valk's still with us, erratically pushing an issue
out, getting by on love and enthusiasm. Welcome to the world.
Philip Masters
In article: <1998030518...@mostlyblack.demon.co.uk>
> up with elitism -- snub the kiddies! =!>
Actually, it was "Stuff the kiddies."
It's meeting mature, married gamers with children who were among the
kiddies I wanted stuffed that makes me feel old. (That, and realising I
first saw a D&D rulebook the year David D. was born.)
--
Phil Masters
* Home Page: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Phil_Masters
Lucya Szachnowski
In article <34FDD109...@enterprise.net>, jo...@enterprise.net
writes
>
>By classic scenarios, by the way, I don't mean dungeon bashing. That was
>never my favourite type of game, ever. I'm talking about stuff like
>those CoC scenarios Games Workshop used to produce, the Statue of the
>Conjurer or whatever it was called (obviously made a great impression,
>eh?). I was also a big fan of Twilight:2000 and Traveller before GDW
>made radical changes which put a lot of people off.
CoC was a bit different from most of the games around at the time. Most
of the early campaigns for the system have stood the test of time better
than much that was published for other systems. Probably why Chaosium
have been producing new editions of many of those early campaigns.
Gary O'Connell and I recently had a job of rewriting a bit of the Fungi
from Yuggoth campaign - soon to be republished as the Day of the Beast
(unashamed plug ;)). While there were a few things in it that seemed a
little too simple for today's market (hence the re-write) most if it was
just fine.
--
Lucya Szachnowski
Michael Cule
In article <sMHqOMAlr1$0E...@ffutures.demon.co.uk>
mrow...@ffutures.demon.co.uk "Marcus L. Rowland" writes:
> In article <34F9DE5...@enterprise.net>, jo...@enterprise.net writes
> > Marcus L. Rowland, if you're out there reading this - your stuff
> >rocked the house.
>
> why does this make me feel very, very, old...?
Because, Marcus, you are very, very old....
Me too....
I hereby nominate us both for the Order of the Role-Gaming Dinosaur.
Role-Gaming Dinosaurs Third Class started playing before the publication of
Eldritch Wizardry.
Role-Gaming Dinosaurs Second Class started playing before publication of
Blackmoor.
Role-Gaming Dinosaurs First Class started playing when there were only three
little booklet and 'Chainmail' and no supplements or adventures whatsoever...
--
Michael Cule
Actor And Genius
And Role-Gaming Dinosaur Second Class.
David G. Bell
In article <wWFbhFAt+z$0E...@lazar.demon.co.uk>
pa...@lazar.demon.co.uk "Paul Watson" writes:
> Since I was born in 1970, I think I can claim some sort of
> neutral ground here ;-)
>
> I think that despite my best intentions I tend to look back
> in nostalgia at the days when WD used to be a good read
> which I looked forward to. I'd probably view Arcane in the
> same way if I was that age now and I'd just discovered a mag
> which talked about what I was interested in.
> Having said that, when WD was going well I was probably more
> orientated towards the sort of stuff WD published then. I
> grew older and my tastes changed. Arcane would not have
> represented my preferences had it been around then.
>
> "All things change and we change with them", if I may be
> allowed to quote someone not a million miles away from this
> list.
Let's not forget that White Dwarf changed enormously in the latter half
of the Nineteen-Eighties, just as Games Workshop changed. The days we
remember so fondly were when GW/WD were about role-playing games. Then
all that was dropped in favour of the Warhammer miniatures gaming.
I think that is a change supported by hard evidence, rather than the
more subjective opinions often prompted by nostalgia, although such
feelings will play a part in comparisons between White Dwarf and other
magazines.
--
David G. Bell -- Farmer, SF Fan, Filker, Furry, and Punslinger..
Philip Masters
In article: <EzK8VBAEjDA1Ew$6...@troll-ink.demon.co.uk> Jonathan Rowe
> Arcane tried to harness the latent commercial power of all those Type II
> gamers, who'd been stirred to life already by Magic:TG.
A plausible sort of analysis, actually. Selling to people who don't buy
much is a lousy job, obviously... For better or for worse, *arcane* at
least set about the task with some care and good taste. Past efforts in
that direction have been truly horrible, mostly consisting of ignorant
reviews of computer games, comics, and bad action movies or videos. (And
they haven't done any better than *arcane* - usually worse.)
Yes, it does sound as though *The Power* is heading the same way. But I'm
not worried, as the latest issue doesn't seem to have made it to Orc's
Nest or the Virgin Megastore, so it's probably imploded into irrelevance.
--
Phil Masters
* Home Page: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Phil_Masters
* "Battle not with flamers, lest you become a flamer; and stare not too
deeply into the 'net, or you will find the 'net staring into you."
-- Friedrich Nietzsche (loosely translated)
Paul Watson
Jonathan Rowe wrote
>Type I gamers are hobby enthusiasts.
>Type II gamers are passing-through.
>There are a lot of Type II gamers (they outnumber Type I gamers about 5
>to 1 a far as I can judge) so, in a way, any magazine looking for
>commercial success should target them.
>Arcane tried to harness the latent commercial power of all those Type II
>still writing for the vets. Arcane didn't survive - but it nearly did.
>It came real close. Valk's still with us, erratically pushing an issue
>out, getting by on love and enthusiasm. Welcome to the world.
>
itself at what you have called the Type I gamers, whilst still being
accessible to Type II gamers. Unfortunately you can't please all of the
people all of the time (I wish someone would tell that to Mr Blair), and
eventually you're going to have to choose your audience. Valkyrie has
done this, and its still around. I think Arcane tried to hold the
middle ground between the two. Unfortunately the "middle ground" is a
wide chasm.
Also, you certainly can't build _lasting_ commercial success by selling
to Type II gamers - extrapolating from your definitions, they don't show
any "brand loyalty" - gaming for them is a pretty ethereal fad which
will be cast aside after a few months or years.
I think that my real unease with your argument lies in the
categorisation of the Type I gamer. This overly simple categorisation
puts method-roleplayers into the same bed as rules-lawyers (a quite
horrendous and distracting mental image has hit me as I typed that!).
Both are indeed hobby enthusiasts in their own rights (and we all know
the well-rehearsed civilised arguments which state that each side is
quite entitled to pursue their own version of roleplaying without too
much criticism from the other camp) but unfortunately I would guess that
each wants a completely different magazine. This division wasn't anyway
like as evident (although it was still most definitely there) back in
the old days of WD, and so it wasn't so much of a problem. WD could
publish each month knowing that most of the potential audience would be
happy with its content (and so keep buying it).
As time has passed since then several things have happened:
1. The hobby has widened (a good thing) and taken in new ideas (another
good thing).
2. The hobby enthusiasts of the early/mid eighties have grown up
(definitely a good thing), matured (possibly a good thing), and with
their new perceptions the things they want from the hobby have changed
(arguably a good thing).
3. New gamers have come into the hobby (a very good thing) and added
their new ideas (another good thing) to give us all something to think
about (an incredibly good thing) and argue about over usenet (not so
sure about this one).
The up-shot of all these good things is that the hobby is a damn sight
more extensive than it used to be. Someone else mentioned in this
thread that "gamer" used to refer to a quite specific hobby area,
whereas now it covers a multitude of sins, outlooks and requirements. I
really don't think you'll ever see the return of a large-circulation RPG
magazine because the RPG hobby is just so different now.
And in some ways I'm glad.
--
Paul
- so obviously witty I don't need a sig to prove it.
Ken Walton
In article <sMHqOMAlr1$0E...@ffutures.demon.co.uk>, Marcus L. Rowland
<mrow...@ffutures.demon.co.uk> writes
>In article <34F9DE5...@enterprise.net>, jo...@enterprise.net writes
>> Marcus L. Rowland, if you're out there reading this - your stuff
>>rocked the house.
>
>why does this make me feel very, very, old...?
It *still* rocks our house!
--
Ken Walton
Ty Beard
> Is there some genetic factor which causes those born in 1965 to
> like Dungeon bashes, but those born in 1975 to like campaign settings
> and angst sorry characterisation? If not, isn't it possible that many
> people nowadays would rather be playing dungeon bashes? And that one of
> the reasons that brilliant games like "Everway" and "Feng Shui" fail to
> make money is that those dungeon-bashers are, in fact, the majority?
God I hope so. I was born in 1965 and started RPGS in the late 1970s.
Dungeon bashes were all that was out there and THEY WERE FUN!! No
angst-ridden snivelling roleplayers who want to barter with the merchant
over the price of an iron spike! An age of men; Manly Men. And manley
women. The meanest fighter in our original D&D campaign was a gal who
suffered fools poorly. But I digress...
You know, a lot of the "serious" roleplaying games are like French movies.
Dull, boring and pretentious. But critically acclaimed by people you'd
never want to play with. The Good Old Days were a time when RPGs were like
T2 and Aliens. A good time. A time gone with the wind... (ack!).
--
Ty Beard, Attorney at Law
Remove "nospam" from my email address to reply to me.
Marcus L. Rowland
In article <889210...@room3b.demon.co.uk>, Michael Cule
<mi...@room3b.demon.co.uk> writes
>Role-Gaming Dinosaurs Second Class started playing before publication of
>Blackmoor.
>
>Role-Gaming Dinosaurs First Class started playing when there were only three
>little booklet and 'Chainmail' and no supplements or adventures whatsoever...
>
I have a horrible feeling I'm 1st class; I first played at an SF
convention in 1971 or 72.
Andrew Rilstone
In article <01bd4907$ff1e0c80$1c2519ce@default>, Ty Beard
<tbeard...@e-tex.com> writes
>pretentious
Twit.
--
Andrew Rilstone and...@aslan.demon.co.uk http://www.aslan.demon.co.uk/
*******************************************************************************
"At last, the 1998 show."
*******************************************************************************
Juppy
On Thu, 5 Mar 1998 00:05:49 +0000, and...@aslan.demon.co.uk (Andrew
Rilstone) wrote:
> Devil's advocate mode on:
Shouldn't there be a "Devil's advocate mode off" somewhere at the end? ;)
> Is there some genetic factor which causes those born in 1965 to
> like Dungeon bashes, but those born in 1975 to like campaign settings
> and angst sorry characterisation?
If so, the date on my birth certificate must be 10 years out. Still, I
wouldn't mind being 22 again.
I was born in 65, and when I started roleplaying (in 78) I got bored with
dungeon bashes very quickly. These days I have been known to break out in
a rash when a scenario descends into too much exploration of twisting
passages and avoiding traps, and make (unfair) comments about leaving my
10' pole at home. ;)
> If not, isn't it possible that many
> people nowadays would rather be playing dungeon bashes? And that one of
> the reasons that brilliant games like "Everway" and "Feng Shui" fail to
> make money is that those dungeon-bashers are, in fact, the majority?
I still blame the CCGs. <wanders off muttering to himself>
John
--
John Upstone * jo...@shikasta.demon.co.uk * ju...@cix.co.uk
Dial up, Log in, Chill out * Peace, Love, Unity, Respect
..................................................................
"It is inhumane, in my opinion, to force people who have a genuine
medical need for coffee to wait in line behind people who
apparently view it as some kind of recreational activity."
- Dave Barry, Miami Herald
Juppy
> Valk's still with us, erratically pushing an issue
> out, getting by on love and enthusiasm. Welcome to the world.
>
> --
> Jon Rowe
> Associate Editor, Valkyrie Magazine
> "Mundus Nihil Pulcherrimum"
Is there an address for subs and/or back-issues?
Juppy
> "Pure" dungeon bashes require some highly
> specialised and fiddly skills. Mapping out a tunnel complex in 10'
> squares based on an oral description from the DM. Accurately logging
> monsters killed, treasure acquired and who's carrying it. Keeping track
> of torches, iron rations, arrows, holy water, flasks of oil and charges
> left in the wand of paralyzation all takes some book-keeping aptitude.
[snip]
Actually, looking back on it, I think I learnt quite a lot from those
experiences. Not least of which was the ability to work as part of a team.
> "Storytelling" is, by contrast, a fairly intuitive process for most
> players. The GM does all the work...
I might argue that if the GM does *all* of the work, then either he's not
a very good GM or he has lazy players. I've both run and played in
"storytelling" campaigns where the players had a great deal of involvement
in the campaign background and put fair amount of time into it outside of
the weekly playing session.
Juppy
On 6 Mar 1998 20:09:25 GMT, tbeard...@e-tex.com (Ty Beard) wrote:
> God I hope so. I was born in 1965 and started RPGS in the late 1970s.
> Dungeon bashes were all that was out there and THEY WERE FUN!!
And ultimately repetitive. But I don't really want to get into an argument
over which style is better. Honest. :)
Surely we should welcome the fact that the hobby is wide enough to embrace
a range of different playing styles. I sometimes play simultaneously in
different campaigns of different types - angst-laden storytelling in one,
sword-wielding high adventure in another. And I enjoy both.
> No
> angst-ridden snivelling roleplayers who want to barter with the merchant
> over the price of an iron spike!
The third scenario I ever wrote had more written about the nearby village
than it did about the dungeon itself. And taking the part of your
character, speaking with his voice, can be fun. Just because it might not
turn you on, please don't piss on my bonfire just because I happen to
enjoy it.
> You know, a lot of the "serious" roleplaying games are like French
> movies. Dull, boring and pretentious. But critically acclaimed by people
> you'd never want to play with. The Good Old Days were a time when RPGs
> were like T2 and Aliens. A good time. A time gone with the wind...
> (ack!).
Oh god, I like a lot of French movies. I can tell I'm on a loosing streak
here. But I like T2 and Aliens too. Diversity and all that...
Juppy
On Thu, 5 Mar 1998 00:01:27 +0000, and...@aslan.demon.co.uk (Andrew
Rilstone) wrote:
> I don't think that the obsession with "White Dwarf" in some quarters of
> this hobby is even remotely connected to the quality or otherwise of
> "White Dwarf".
I'm not sure I agree. And I have issues 1-100 here as reference.
(Sadly it seems as if I gave up on Arcane too quickly, quitting after
issue 3 or 4 I think.)
Compared to the state the hobby and industry was in at the time, I think
White Dwarf represented excellent quality. Not every page of every issue,
but certainly it offered some excellent articles and series that helped to
shape the way I roleplay.
> But nostalgia of this sort is a
> dangerous business. It can make cause you to think that everything that
> happened more than 15 years ago was wonderful.
I think that there are better games around now, and that I have at least
as much, if not more fun playing them now as I did back then.
Limbo Folk
In article <PGuo+CAM...@troll-ink.demon.co.uk>, Jonathan Rowe
<valk...@troll-ink.demon.co.uk> writes:
> Accurately logging
>monsters killed, treasure acquired and who's carrying it. Keeping track
>of torches, iron rations, arrows, holy water, flasks of oil and charges
>left in the wand of paralyzation all takes some book-keeping aptitude.
That did separate the sheep from the other sheep, indeed. Some of the other
sheep took bit of training, but in the end we had them happily wandering about
simply feeling doomed in CoC but enjoying it anyway. All this new-fangled
skulking in alleys, though....
Cheers,
Dave
jo...@enterprise.net
> "There are two sorts of fools. The fool who says 'This is old, and
> therefore good' and the fool who says 'This is new, and therefore
> better'."
>
I think what you're saying is... we're both nutters... and that's cool.
;)
By the way, in reply to an earlier post, you sir, as as mad as a
moose...
Take it easy Andrew, I think you're gonna be allllll right...
Jonathan
jo...@enterprise.net
> > Marcus L. Rowland, if you're out there reading this - your stuff
> >rocked the house.
>
> why does this make me feel very, very, old...?
>
reading any scenario or article that bore your name, and still do now
and then...
But what do you think about this argument I seem to have started? After
all, you're in a position to say, Master Yoda...
Jonathan Turner
Jo Hart
Andrew Rilstone wrote:
>
>
> Devil's advocate mode on:
>
> like Dungeon bashes, but those born in 1975 to like campaign settings
> and angst sorry characterisation?
Rumour has it that papers recently surfaced from the Home Office
(following the 30-year archiving period) which do indeed support the
theory that for some periods during 1962-67, certain areas of the UK
were targetted by the US military in co-operation with MI5, in order to
test psychoactive drugs in the local water supply which were being
developed during the Vietnam conflict. The purpose of these drugs was to
encourage the birth of a generation with a tightly ingrained instinct
for close-quarters violence, and a natural ability to function well
underground, or in wilderness survival behind enemy lines.
Truth or lies? I think we should be told.
jo
Jonathan Rowe
In article <memo.19980307...@juppy.compulink.co.uk>, Juppy
<jo...@shikasta.demon.co.uk> writes
>On Fri, 6 Mar 1998 17:56:20 +0000, valk...@troll-ink.demon.co.uk
>(Jonathan Rowe) wrote:
>
>> Valk's still with us, erratically pushing an issue
>> out, getting by on love and enthusiasm. Welcome to the world.
>
>
>--
>John Upstone * jo...@shikasta.demon.co.uk * ju...@cix.co.uk
>Dial up, Log in, Chill out * Peace, Love, Unity, Respect
Yes indeedy. You can email Stig at Part...@compuserve.com but you have
to get past his internet gnomes.
Or you can write/phone Caliver Books, 816-818 London Road, Leigh-on-Sea,
Essex SS9 3NH, 01702-73986
Cheers
Jonathan Rowe
In article <303778...@philm.demon.co.uk>, Philip Masters
<Ph...@philm.demon.co.uk> writes
>In article: <EzK8VBAEjDA1Ew$6...@troll-ink.demon.co.uk> Jonathan Rowe
><valk...@troll-ink.demon.co.uk> writes:
>> gamers, who'd been stirred to life already by Magic:TG.
>
>much is a lousy job, obviously... For better or for worse, *arcane* at
>least set about the task with some care and good taste. Past efforts in
>that direction have been truly horrible, mostly consisting of ignorant
>reviews of computer games, comics, and bad action movies or videos. (And
>they haven't done any better than *arcane* - usually worse.)
I remember GM.
<shudder>
Philip Masters
In article: <889210...@room3b.demon.co.uk> Michael Cule
> Role-Gaming Dinosaurs Third Class started playing before the publication
> of Eldritch Wizardry.
Ooh Good. I don't think that I'm a dinosaur after all. At worst, I'm a
borderline case. (Can somebody give me a date for *Eldritch Wizardry*?)
Okay, I was a late starter. I stuck with wargames for too long.
(Remembering when most ancients games used 25mm may make me a *wargaming*
dinosaur, of course.) Anyway, I officially declared my twentieth
anniversary of RPG'ing at StabCon in January.
Philip Masters
In article: <01bd4907$ff1e0c80$1c2519ce@default> "Ty Beard"
> You know, a lot of the "serious" roleplaying games are like French
> movies. Dull, boring and pretentious.
But with fewer enjoyable nude scenes. Where's the Beatrice Dalle (or Alan
Delon) of vampire roleplaying, then?
> ... But critically acclaimed by people you'd
> never want to play with. The Good Old Days were a time when RPGs were
> like T2 and Aliens.
Headache-inducing?
Actually, I'd like to see a few more RPGs that reminded me of movies *I*
like. *The Draughtsman's Contract*, or *The Man in a White Suit*, or
*Tampopo*, or *Casablanca*...
(May say something about how my GURPS Mage game is likely to go, I suppose.
I hope.)
> ... A good time. A time gone with the wind... (ack!).
<Orchestra swells> And ah swear, as god is mah witness, ah'll never go to
one hit point again... Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn... Yes,
there's always Greyhawk...
ed
The noble Philip Masters <Ph...@philm.demon.co.uk> spake on the day of
Sat, 07 Mar 1998 08:26:11 GMT:
>In article: <889210...@room3b.demon.co.uk> Michael Cule
><mi...@room3b.demon.co.uk> writes:
>> Role-Gaming Dinosaurs Third Class started playing before the publication
>> of Eldritch Wizardry.
>
>Ooh Good. I don't think that I'm a dinosaur after all. At worst, I'm a
>borderline case. (Can somebody give me a date for *Eldritch Wizardry*?)
Me too also. I started in 1978, does that make me a
johnny-come-lately-young-whippersnapper?
ed
--
edh...@equus.demon.co.uk _//// http://www.equus.demon.co.uk/
o_/o /// For devilbunnies, Diplomacy, RPGS,
<*> __\ ///__ Conspiring Rodents and other stuff!
Andy Butcher
On 6 Mar 1998 20:09:25 GMT, "Ty Beard" <tbeard...@e-tex.com> wrote:
>You know, a lot of the "serious" roleplaying games are like French movies.
>Dull, boring and pretentious. But critically acclaimed by people you'd
>never want to play with. The Good Old Days were a time when RPGs were like
>T2 and Aliens. A good time. A time gone with the wind... (ack!).
Erm, what about french movies like Nikita?
Andy Butcher a.bu...@virgin.net
"Life is too important to be taken seriously."
Oscar Wilde
The Philosopher's Stone
Andy Butcher <a.bu...@virgin.net> writes
>Erm, what about french movies like Nikita?
There's some violence but there's a hell of a lot more going on in there
too. Now whether RPG is like the Nikita series is another question...
does anybody actually watch that?
** Falling Out Of The Light Is Just As Devine As Falling In **
Marcus L. Rowland
In article <350098B5...@enterprise.net>, jo...@enterprise.net
writes
>But what do you think about this argument I seem to have started? After
>all, you're in a position to say, Master Yoda...
I think it's the sort of argument I prefer to stay well out of right
now; too much work to do!
Andrew Rilstone
Read my webpage, recently have you?
Juppy
> >Is there an address for subs and/or back-issues?
>
> Yes indeedy. You can email Stig at Part...@compuserve.com but you have
> to get past his internet gnomes.
I tried the website but it's down.
> Or you can write/phone Caliver Books, 816-818 London Road, Leigh-on-Sea,
> Essex SS9 3NH, 01702-73986
Thanks Jon.
John
--
John Upstone * jo...@shikasta.demon.co.uk * ju...@cix.co.uk
Dial up, Log in, Chill out * Peace, Love, Unity, Respect
Juppy
> Past efforts in >that direction have been truly horrible, mostly
> consisting of ignorant >reviews of computer games, comics, and bad
> action movies or videos. (And >they haven't done any better than
> *arcane* - usually worse.)
>
> I remember GM.
>
> <shudder>
I can't remember whether GM grew out of Gamesmaster or the other way
around, but whichever one of them was first - I met the guys who started
it up. I was working for Mitregames, the PBM company, and they were using
the artwork from Tribes Of Crane for the cover art of the first issue. I
took it over to the editor's house and chatted with him.
He seemed a nice enough bloke, but had previously worked on C&VG and knew
FA about RPGs. The main other guy involved was an idiot called Wayne who
fancied himself as some big shot in the PBM world (okay, I'm biased), and
reckoned he knew everything there was to know about gaming. At the time I
felt it was doomed to failure because it relied to heavily on one man's
input.
At least arcane seemed to be written and edited by people who cared about
the subject, and while it wasn't really my thing I respected the
motives of the people involved. Personally, I didn't want to read articles
about how to GM, I'd been through all that years before. Of course I don't
know everything, and there were sometimes new ideas in there. And at least
you had reviews and industry news.
I had no idea Valkyrie was still going, though. That gives me some cause
for optimism. :)
Juppy
On Sat, 07 Mar 1998 05:06:09 +0000, jh...@btinternet.com (Jo Hart) wrote:
> theory that for some periods during 1962-67, certain areas of the UK
> were targetted by the US military in co-operation with MI5, in order to
> test psychoactive drugs in the local water supply which were being
> developed during the Vietnam conflict.
Trust me to miss out on the one bit of 60s psychedelia I wasn't too young
for. ;)
Juppy
On Sat, 07 Mar 1998 08:26:11 GMT, Ph...@philm.demon.co.uk (Philip Masters)
wrote:
> Anyway, I officially declared my
> twentieth anniversary of RPG'ing at StabCon in January.
Mine's coming up this Autumn, I think, but it's all so blurry now.
When did the D&D Basic blue edition come out?
Juppy
On Sat, 07 Mar 1998 02:45:41 +0200, jo...@enterprise.net () wrote:
> > > Marcus L. Rowland, if you're out there reading this - your stuff
> > >rocked the house.
> >
> > why does this make me feel very, very, old...?
> >
> Well, sorry... but it's true! I can remember looking forward to any
> reading any scenario or article that bore your name, and still do now
> and then...
In actual fact, having only recently arrived in this ng, I find it cheers
me up immensely to see so many familiar names in here. Good to know that
the people whose articles I used to enjoy are still enthusiastically
involved in the whole hobby.
Tim Ellis
Paul Watson <pa...@lazar.demon.co.uk> has previously posted
>
>Also, you certainly can't build _lasting_ commercial success by selling
>to Type II gamers - extrapolating from your definitions, they don't show
>any "brand loyalty" - gaming for them is a pretty ethereal fad which
>will be cast aside after a few months or years.
Except thats what the New WD does - which, of course is why it is now
disliked by all type I gamers. . .You can endlessly recycle material for
an audiance which will only last for a couple of years, people who have
been with you for 15 years might start to notice!
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Tim Ellis EMail t...@timellis.demon.co.uk |
| Everything I tell You Three times is true |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Juppy
> >Shouldn't there be a "Devil's advocate mode off" somewhere at the end?
> ;)
>
> Read my webpage, recently have you?
Only when I'm feeling unhealthily cheerful and need to be brought back
down to earth. ;)
Aidan Skinner
Andrew Rilstone wrote in <cR7sHHAXte$0E...@aslan.demon.co.uk>:
> In article <34fd5b11...@news.virgin.net>, Andy Butcher
> <a.bu...@virgin.net> writes
> "White Dwarf" is a symbol. It represents three things:
Okay, as I new-ish roleplayer (got D&D in 1991, I was born in 1980...) the
old WD's *were* v.good. I've aquired a decent-ish collection of them from
50-80 and I still re-read them for ideas etc.
- Aidan (when I were a lad...)
--
eskimo
http://www.skinner.demon.co.uk/aidan.html
http://www.gla.ac.uk/Clubs/WebSoc/~9704075s/
Ty Beard
I bow to your good point sir. MMMMMMMM Nikita. The actress was in some
vampire-babe movie here. What was her name?
--
Ty Beard, Attorney at Law
Remove "nospam" from my email address to reply to me.
Andy Butcher <a.bu...@virgin.net> wrote in article
<3501303d...@news.virgin.net>...
> On 6 Mar 1998 20:09:25 GMT, "Ty Beard" <tbeard...@e-tex.com> wrote:
>
> >You know, a lot of the "serious" roleplaying games are like French
movies.
> >Dull, boring and pretentious. But critically acclaimed by people you'd
> >never want to play with. The Good Old Days were a time when RPGs were
like
> >T2 and Aliens. A good time. A time gone with the wind... (ack!).
>
> Erm, what about french movies like Nikita?
>
Ty Beard
I had absolutely no intention of demeaning your style of roleplaying. I was
just happy to come across a thread ABOUT the old days. I should've used
some emoticons, but I don't know how to simulate "tongue pressed firmly in
cheek."
And yes, some of my best role playing game stories were about the
roleplaying that took place.
But it was still a great, simple time. An age of kill the monsters-haul out
the treasure-kill the monsters-etc. A glorious time I still say. And in my
dotage I hope that I'll brag about the time Maureen slew the Wyrm with a
single critical-impaling crossbow bolt to the head. Not about the color of
the curtains in the magic shoppe. ;-)
--
Ty Beard, Attorney at Law
Remove "nospam" from my email address to reply to me.
Juppy <jo...@shikasta.demon.co.uk> wrote in article
<memo.19980307...@juppy.compulink.co.uk>...
> On 6 Mar 1998 20:09:25 GMT, tbeard...@e-tex.com (Ty Beard) wrote:
>
> > God I hope so. I was born in 1965 and started RPGS in the late 1970s.
> > Dungeon bashes were all that was out there and THEY WERE FUN!!
>
> And ultimately repetitive. But I don't really want to get into an
argument
> over which style is better. Honest. :)
>
> Surely we should welcome the fact that the hobby is wide enough to
embrace
> a range of different playing styles. I sometimes play simultaneously in
> different campaigns of different types - angst-laden storytelling in one,
> sword-wielding high adventure in another. And I enjoy both.
>
> > No
> > angst-ridden snivelling roleplayers who want to barter with the
merchant
> > over the price of an iron spike!
>
> The third scenario I ever wrote had more written about the nearby village
> than it did about the dungeon itself. And taking the part of your
> character, speaking with his voice, can be fun. Just because it might not
> turn you on, please don't piss on my bonfire just because I happen to
> enjoy it.
>
> > You know, a lot of the "serious" roleplaying games are like French
> > movies. Dull, boring and pretentious. But critically acclaimed by
people
> > you'd never want to play with. The Good Old Days were a time when RPGs
> > were like T2 and Aliens. A good time. A time gone with the wind...
> > (ack!).
>
> Oh god, I like a lot of French movies. I can tell I'm on a loosing streak
> here. But I like T2 and Aliens too. Diversity and all that...
>
Ty Beard
I remember The Good Old Days (TGOD) as being a time of boundless
enthusiasm. Avalon Hill and SPI were the Giants in the Earth, later
folllowed by TSR. Any gamer with a decent idea (a even a really bad idea)
would type up a manuscript and publish it himself. Judges Guild made a
company out of that strategy. That makes TGOD different from today.
Sure a lot of that stuff was crap. But it was cheap and available. And
there were some good ideas in there.
It's ironic that this isn't being done on that scale now. You now have home
computers with desktop publishing capabilities. Judges Guild could have
made a mint now. Oh well...
Of course, the Internet may be argued to fill that gap now.
That's my $.02. Or is it 2p?
Juppy
On 7 Mar 1998 18:13:47 GMT, tbeard...@e-tex.com (Ty Beard) wrote:
> I had absolutely no intention of demeaning your style of roleplaying. I
> was just happy to come across a thread ABOUT the old days. I should've
> used some emoticons, but I don't know how to simulate "tongue pressed
> firmly in cheek."
In which case I apologise for overreacting. :)
> But it was still a great, simple time. An age of kill the monsters-haul
> out the treasure-kill the monsters-etc. A glorious time I still say.
You sure that's not a bad case of nostalgia making things look better than
they were? I look back on a lot of the gaming I did in the "old days" and
know that I would have got bored quite quickly if I hadn't moved on a bit.
Juppy
On 7 Mar 1998 18:08:58 GMT, tbeard...@e-tex.com (Ty Beard) wrote:
> I bow to your good point sir. MMMMMMMM Nikita. The actress was in some
> vampire-babe movie here. What was her name?
Anne Parillaud. And she is indeed a babe.
Limbo Folk
In article <memo.19980307...@juppy.compulink.co.uk>,
jo...@shikasta.demon.co.uk (Juppy) writes:
>You sure that's not a bad case of nostalgia making things look better than
>they were? I look back on a lot of the gaming I did in the "old days" and
>know that I would have got bored quite quickly if I hadn't moved on a bit.
I think youl're right, but this could apply to anything once you've had enough
of it. I can imagine people getting fed up eventually with goth angst or
interstellar politicking, and saying, "What, you mean there are games where you
just romp about and have fun killing the bad guys?!"
Furthermore... for me AD&D was appropriate to some of the days when I was at
school and could play this rather simple game (I mean, vastly topheavy and
complex in its rules, but straightforward -- nay, shallow -- in philosophy)
fairly frequently with a regular bunch. Doesn't mean I'd like to get back to
it, except maybe for a bit of light relief (see above...), but I do recognise
them there Days as having been genuinely Good... even if they're also now
Old...
Cheers,
Dave
Andy Butcher
On 7 Mar 1998 18:08:58 GMT, "Ty Beard" <tbeard...@e-tex.com> wrote:
>I bow to your good point sir. MMMMMMMM Nikita. The actress was in some
>vampire-babe movie here. What was her name?
Anne Parillaud (spelling?). The vampire movie was, if I remember
correctly, called Innocent Blood, and was directed by the same guy who
did An American Werewolf In London - John Landis?
Darrell Impey
>wrote:
>
>> Anyway, I officially declared my
>> twentieth anniversary of RPG'ing at StabCon in January.
>
>Mine's coming up this Autumn, I think, but it's all so blurry now.
>
>When did the D&D Basic blue edition come out?
>
Finally, a thread that makes me feal young!!!
--
Darrell Impey
David L. Pulver
On 7 Mar 1998, Juppy wrote:
> On Thu, 5 Mar 1998 00:01:27 +0000, and...@aslan.demon.co.uk (Andrew
> Rilstone) wrote:
>
> > I don't think that the obsession with "White Dwarf" in some quarters of
> > this hobby is even remotely connected to the quality or otherwise of
> > "White Dwarf".
>
> I'm not sure I agree. And I have issues 1-100 here as reference.
>
> Compared to the state the hobby and industry was in at the time, I think
> White Dwarf represented excellent quality. Not every page of every issue,
> but certainly it offered some excellent articles and series that helped to
> shape the way I roleplay.
One thing that always amazed me was tht the production values (especially
in early issues) were so high. Looking at my White Dwarf #8, the first
issue I bought, I am still amazed to see glossy paper, nice black and
white photographs of games and miniatures, a professionally illustrated
(if not to my taste) comic strip and an attractive, uncluttered layout.
Granted the content was mostly D&D and a bit of Traveller at the time, but
then, that reflected the hobby, but compared to White Wolf ten years
later, the production values of early White Dwarf are astonishing.
PJS
On 07/03/98 07:58, in message
<memo.19980307...@juppy.compulink.co.uk>, Juppy
<jo...@shikasta.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> On Sat, 07 Mar 1998 08:26:11 GMT, Ph...@philm.demon.co.uk (Philip Masters)
> wrote:
>
> > Anyway, I officially declared my
> > twentieth anniversary of RPG'ing at StabCon in January.
>
> Mine's coming up this Autumn, I think, but it's all so blurry now.
>
> When did the D&D Basic blue edition come out?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
I still have mine. It was printed in 1977 and 1978.
---
"Many of us throw up our hands and say "I don't understand
this stuff"... as if ignorance of science were a badge
of artistic merit"
- Polly Toynbee
---
Juppy
On 7 Mar 1998 21:45:38 GMT, limb...@aol.com (Limbo Folk) wrote:
> >than they were? I look back on a lot of the gaming I did in the "old
> >days" and know that I would have got bored quite quickly if I hadn't
> >moved on a bit.
>
> I think you're right, but this could apply to anything once you've had
> enough of it.
Very true. I have a short enough attention span anyway. There's no other
hobby I've ever had that's lasted as long as this one, but that's largely
because the games I run and play in have mutated over the years, and will
probably continue to do so.
> I can imagine people getting fed up eventually with goth angst
> or interstellar politicking, and saying, "What, you mean there are
> games where you just romp about and have fun killing the bad guys?!"
*chuckle* I played in a Kult campaign a couple of years ago which had so
much angst and emotional torment that it was bloody hard work, and getting
close to losing all its fun. The GM was putting two of the characters
(mine and his wife's) through all sorts of psychological hoops, and after
a time I began to feel the character was becoming unplayable. I spoke to
him about it, and he increased the pace a little so the whole thing was
resolved. I was planning to retire the character, but in the end he went
down in a blaze of glory.
> Furthermore... for me AD&D was appropriate to some of the days when I
> was at school and could play this rather simple game (I mean, vastly
> topheavy and complex in its rules, but straightforward -- nay, shallow
> -- in philosophy) fairly frequently with a regular bunch. Doesn't mean
> I'd like to get back to it, except maybe for a bit of light relief (see
> above...), but I do recognise them there Days as having been genuinely
> Good... even if they're also now Old...
Oh, I agree completely. They were good, but not necessarily better, which
is what people tend to mean when they say The Good Old Days. :)
John
--
John Upstone * jo...@shikasta.demon.co.uk * ju...@cix.co.uk
Juppy
On Sun, 08 Mar 98 02:30:53 GMT, P...@winwaed.demon.co.uk (PJS) wrote:
> > When did the D&D Basic blue edition come out?
>
> I still have mine.
So do I.
> It was printed in 1977 and 1978.
Then it was 78 when I got mine, and I *am* coming up on 20 years of gaming
this autumn.
I think I'll just go and have a mug of Horlicks and a lie down now...
Juppy
> >Mine's coming up this Autumn, I think, but it's all so blurry now.
> >
> >When did the D&D Basic blue edition come out?
>
> Finally, a thread that makes me feal young!!!
Glad to be of service. :)
Philip Masters
In article: <memo.19980307...@juppy.compulink.co.uk>
> He seemed a nice enough bloke, but had previously worked on C&VG and knew
> FA about RPGs.
All right - which British RPG'er offended an old gypsy woman back in the
early '80s?
We have evidently been placed under a curse that every other magazine we
get to cover our hobby shall be edited by someone who doesn't actually know
anything about RPGs. I refuse to believe that it's coincidence.
--
Phil Masters
* Home Page: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Phil_Masters
* Note: I have kill-filed all "Multipart/Alternative" postings. HTML is
very nice, but not on Usenet.
Rob Alexander
Upon the day of Sat, 7 Mar 1998, Aidan Skinner
<ai...@skinner.demon.co.uk> scrawled on the wall (in blood):
>Andrew Rilstone wrote in <cR7sHHAXte$0E...@aslan.demon.co.uk>:
>
>> In article <34fd5b11...@news.virgin.net>, Andy Butcher
>> <a.bu...@virgin.net> writes
>
>> "White Dwarf" is a symbol. It represents three things:
>
>Okay, as I new-ish roleplayer (got D&D in 1991, I was born in 1980...) the
>old WD's *were* v.good. I've aquired a decent-ish collection of them from
>50-80 and I still re-read them for ideas etc.
Not unlike myself, although even with a year's head start (born 1979)
I've only found half-a-dozen pre-100 WDs. There's an energy there that
none of the more recent magazines have.
--
Rob Alexander
You _MAY_ need to replace 'nospam' with 'mhairi' to reply
Juppy (John Upstone)
On Sun, 08 Mar 1998 08:26:30 GMT, Ph...@philm.demon.co.uk (Philip Masters)
wrote:
> > He seemed a nice enough bloke, but had previously worked on C&VG and
> > knew FA about RPGs.
>
> All right - which British RPG'er offended an old gypsy woman back in
> the early '80s?
That could well have been me, without realising it at the time - I have a
talent for offending people and back in the early 80s I hadn't learnt to
keep it under control. ;)
> We have evidently been placed under a curse that every other magazine
> we get to cover our hobby shall be edited by someone who doesn't
> actually know anything about RPGs. I refuse to believe that it's
> coincidence.
That was one of the things that *did* impress me about arcane - at least
the editors knew what an RPG was.
David G. Bell
In article <01bd49c2$0b7d8360$172519ce@default>
tbeard...@e-tex.com "Ty Beard" writes:
> I remember The Good Old Days (TGOD) as being a time of boundless
> enthusiasm. Avalon Hill and SPI were the Giants in the Earth, later
> folllowed by TSR. Any gamer with a decent idea (a even a really bad idea)
> would type up a manuscript and publish it himself. Judges Guild made a
> company out of that strategy. That makes TGOD different from today.
>
> Sure a lot of that stuff was crap. But it was cheap and available. And
> there were some good ideas in there.
>
> It's ironic that this isn't being done on that scale now. You now have home
> computers with desktop publishing capabilities. Judges Guild could have
> made a mint now. Oh well...
>
> Of course, the Internet may be argued to fill that gap now.
>
> That's my $.02. Or is it 2p?
I was looking up some adverts in early issues of White Dwarf.
Original D&D was being sold at UKP 7.50 in 1977.
If the price tracked the UK retail price index it would have been sold
in 1997 for UKP 25.50 which is, at the current exchange rates, just over
$40
Cit State of the Invincible Overlord was being sold at UKP 6.50 which
would be UKP 22 now ($35).
Paper costs have recently been rising far faster than the RPI, but I've
no idea how they have changed over this 20-year time-scale. And I have
not considered possible changes in taxation which seem likely to have
pushed up UK prices relative to the USA.
The trouble is that the market has changed a lot. DTP certainly makes
it easier to turn out a product which looks nice. We're not stuck with
fixed-pitch typewriter output. But while it is possible to produce a
better quality of original, there is also a much higher expectation of
the quality of the printing process. And the change in the nature of
Games Workshop has been a part of the change in the expectation of
quality. In the early days, rope-playing was a largely mail-order
business, with sales driven by reviews more focused on the play value of
the game, rather than the production value.
Now people walk into shops and look at the product, and a Judges Guild
style of production has to compete with the spectacle provided by glossy
paper and full-colour printing.
And because of this the up-front costs are probably higher (relative to
incomes), so people who are going to have a go are perceiving a bigger
risk. Either they don't bother to try, or they can never break away
from the obscurity of short production runs and minimal advertising.
--
David G. Bell -- Farmer, SF Fan, Filker, Furry, and Punslinger..
Dave
Yep, for Valkyrie back issues and subs get in touch with Partizan Press
at:
816-818 London Road, Leigh-on-Sea, Southend, Essex SS9 3NH
Phone: 01702 73986
Sorry about the shameless plug, but he did ask....
--
Dave