White Dwarf Magazine 390 Pdf 113
Nelson Suggs
White Dwarf began as a bi-monthly magazine covering roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons, and its publication started a few months after the end of Owl & Weasel in April 1977 after the 25th issue of the zine[1], and as sales of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) and other games surged, Games Workshop recognized the need for a "more professional, glossy magazine"[1] in order to improve the "sales" and "image" of Games Workshop. The inspiration for this shift came from the standard put in place by TSR, the publisher of D&D, which had replaced The Strategic Review with Dragon magazine in the USA in 1976[2].
With a vision to create the premier magazine for enthusiasts of science fiction and fantasy games, particularly D&D[3], Games Workshop needed a name that could bridge both genres and so Ian Livingstone proposed a name of the magazine :
"We needed a name for it which applied to both genres and settled on my suggestion of White Dwarf as it was the name for a dying star while everybody knew what a dwarf was in fantasy games and literature."[4]
And so in July of 1977 the first issue of White Dwarf was published, and reprinted in August 1979[5]. It was initially distributed to London games stores, which at the time were "Games, Games Centre and Knight Centre"[6] and through subscriptions, primarily among the existing Owl & Weasel readership[7]. The first issue was priced at 50p (or $1,50)[8] [9] and when it was reprinted in 1979, the price was 60p (or $2)[10]
The first issue of June/July 1977, introduces its subject to the various types of roleplaying companies and different companies that produce miniatures. Its editor, Ian Livingstone begins the magazine by describing the creation of roleplaying games and how there are over fifty games, with ten miniature production companies, spanning many different ideas and concepts at the time.
Producing the early issues of White Dwarf presented numerous challenges. With limited office space, editor Ian Livingstone had to create the magazine at his own flat[11]. This labor-intensive process is described by Ian Livingstone like this :
"After getting the galleys of text back from the typesetter, I would begin the task of laying out the pages. This was old-school analogue magazine production in the pre-Apple Mac days. It was a fiddly and time-consuming task of cutting up the galleys by hand using a scalpel and steel ruler, then, using Cow Gum, carefully pasting the blocks of text and artwork into place on art paper taped to a home-made light box to produce the double-page spreads camera-ready for the printer. Anybody who used to do this for a living will no doubt remember the sharp smell of the solvent-based rubber solution glue that was Cow Gum, and the mild high that came with it. In my case, the long hours spent on the light box combined with the cocktail of Cow Gum fumes and the damp caused by the leaking roof in my bedroom resulted in the occasional chest infection."[12]
After Games Workshop moved to Hammersmith in West London, the magazine was " too much work [...] to produce the magazine"[13] only with Livingstone, and so they hired "features editor Albie Fiore, and later editorial assistant Andy Slack, production artist Robert Owens and paste-up artist Mary Common."[14]
The original publisher was the Pentagon Printing Group and they produced the magazine for Games Workshop. It was later, when Games Workshop started producing miniatures for their own game and branched off completely from the Dungeons & Dragons format, that White Dwarf became a monthly magazine devoted just to Games Workshop products.
When Games Workshop's products took over, White Dwarf was turned into a magazine and a "catalog". The "catalog" section featured new miniatures that were released by Games Workshop/Citadel Miniatures and even had a place where they could be ordered. It was with this incarnation that White Dwarf became a true Games Workshop-only magazine. This was fully expanded beyond miniatures in the 90s to include the new releases of Black Library, the literary publisher for Games Workshop. From then on, short stories and other literary works played an important role in articles.
Later, when Games Workshop bought the license to produce miniatures for the Lord of the Rings series, White Dwarf expanded. It was the first time in over 200 issues that a non-Games Workshop concept would be featured in the magazine.
In 2014, White Dwarf became a smaller weekly publication supplemented by a monthly magazine dubbed Warhammer Visions. However in September 2016 this setup was reversed, and White Dwarf returned to being a monthly publication.
The first thing that is noticeable (and to be expected, considering the age) is the whole magazine including the cover is in black and white. There are no photographs and nothing in the way of graphics to make elements stand out. There are a number of drawings that are used throughout the magazine.
Out of the nine articles inside the magazine, four are about Dungeons and Dragons. In the editorial, Ian Livingstone mentions that he hopes White Dwarf will be a vehicle to bring the readers news of all the best science fiction and fantasy games on the market.
Ian starts the issue by reviewing Metamorphosis Alpha a game by TSR that is a science fiction setting for a roleplay game. Metamorphosis Alpha takes place on a gigantic generational space ship whose inhabitants have undergone a series of mutations and every day turns into a challenge to survive as the survivors explore the ship to find supplies.
Astronomers have discovered the smallest white dwarf star ever documented around 130 lightyears from Earth, reports Leah Crane for New Scientist. The star, officially given the catchy designation of ZTF J190132.9+145808.7, is roughly the same size as our moon, but what this white dwarf lacks in diameter it makes up for in density with a mass about 1.3 times that of the sun.
The white dwarf was first spotted by Kevin Burdge, a postdoctoral scholar at Caltech, who was looking over all-sky images captured by the Zwicky Transient Facility at Caltech's Palomar Observatory, according to a statement.
It may seem counterintuitive, but smaller white dwarfs happen to be more massive," Caiazzo says. "This is due to the fact that white dwarfs lack the nuclear burning that keep up normal stars against their own self gravity, and their size is instead regulated by quantum mechanics."
In the statement, Caiazzo further speculates that it's possible that the white dwarf is massive enough to further collapse into a neutron star." According to Caiazzo, the white dwarf is so dense that in its core, electrons are being captured by protons in nuclei to form neutrons. Because the pressure from electrons pushes against the force of gravity, keeping the star intact, the core collapses when a large enough number of electrons are removed."
What of the scenario outlines? What missions were available for our budding PC space cartographers? Did they provide an exciting escape from the tedium of surveying planets? Well, there was an interesting mix:
This is the 80th GROGPOD and there is a sense of celebration in the air. We are delighted to have Marcus L Rowland as our guest. He was a stalwart of Whit Dwarf during its hey day. Cthulhu Now! Green Horizon, To Live and Die in Mega City One and the Fear of Flying, his contribution to our gaming imagination back in the day is inestimable.
The Games Workshop publishing studio was working at full pelt at this point following the management takeover by Citadel. As well as UK prints of US Roleplaying classics such as Stormbringer, Call of Cthulhu, and Paranoia, they were extending the range of board games. In this issue they are promoting the Rogue Trooper game, based on the 2000ad strip.
Last weekend, it was the virtual version of UK Games Expo, which included streamed-seminars where former member of the editorial team of White Dwarf Marc Gascoigne gave a shout out to The GROGNARD files. Much has changed over the past 40 years, not only can the Brits stomach three day cons, we can enjoy them from the comfort of our own homes.
The content is pitched at new readers too with an introduction to the hobby from Marcus L Rowland, with a great colour illustration from Iain McCaig (I tried copying it with my coloured pencils, but reader, it was rubbish).
It was held on the same day as the Wham! farewell concert and our coaches met at Watford Gap. Two tribes. Us in our black Assassing! tees with long-hair and the Wham! lads in dressed in white wearing straw hats.
A random roll on the d100 as thrown up 37 (4 issues later than the first one) which was dated January 1983. The magazine had started to get into the stride as a monthly publication after years of coming out every two months.
This was the month that wearing a seat belt became compulsory in the UK, despite protests from people bemoaning their loss of the civil right of being thrown through a windscreen. BBC launched its Breakfast Time programme with Frank Bough jazzed out in his jazzy jumpers and the Green Goddess preened in green.
White Dwarf (sometimes shortened to WD) is the monthly magazine produced by Games Workshop. The first issue was published in June-July 1977 as a bimonthly magazine. In August 1982 it changed to a monthly release. In the present day White Dwarf covers the three 'core' games systems produced by Games Workshop: Warhammer 40,000, The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game and Warhammer Fantasy. White Dwarf is produced in a number of countries in several languages, with the UK edition considered the 'mother' edition.
Issue 1 of White Dwarf was published in June-July 1977. It was in black and white, had only 24 pages, was bi-monthly, had many advertisements for obscure non-Games Workshop games and had no pictures of miniatures. During this time Dungeons & Dragons was the main focus of the magazine. In August 1982 the magazine became monthly and the first Warhammer article was published in White Dwarf 45 in September 1983, shortly after the release of the 1st edition rulebook.[1]
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