White Dwarf: Issue #40

I have no idea what artist Emmanuel's cover to issue #40 of White Dwarf (April 1983) is supposed to depict. Despite that, it's exactly the kind of cover I strongly associate with the magazine: weirdly evocative and vaguely science fictional or fantasy in its subject matter. Somewhat relatedly, Ian Livingstone's editorial notes that fantasy RPGs remain much more popular than science fiction ones and he wonders why that is. It's a question I regularly ponder myself. The closest I've come to an answer is that fantasy is a more strongly codified and, therefore, familiar gaming genre, where even those RPGs that deviate from the Tolkien-descended consensus tacitly acknowledge its supremacy. The same is not true of science fiction, with its welter of sub-genres and approaches.

"Zen and the Art of Adventure Gaming" by Dave Morris reminds us that we're solidly into the '80s and its fascination with all things Japanese. His article is an attempt to present feudal Japan in RuneQuest terms, with new weapons, armor, and skills, in addition to a very brief treatment of kami and magic. Being on something of a RuneQuest kick lately, I found this article a welcome one, though its brevity limits its utility considerably. I now find myself regretting that I never picked up Land of Ninja during the years when Avalon Hill was publishing RQ under license from Chaosium.

"Dungeon Master General" by Alan E. Paull presents a system for handling large scale combats in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Paull's system is a relatively simple one that eschews miniatures and downplays precise measurements in favor of speed and ease of use. Consequently, the system is loose and relies on referee judgment and common sense in many areas, such as the adjudication of morale. Not having used it myself, I can't speak to how well it works, but I nevertheless appreciate articles like this. I've long been of the opinion that D&D is in need of a mass combat system that does not expect the referee to break out a sand table every time he wishes to simulate a clash between armies. Paull's system may or may not succeed in doing this to most people's satisfaction – I suspect the latter – but it's a worthy project nonetheless.

Dave Langford's second "Critical Mass" column focuses on two authors whose works have been discussed on this blog in the past: Robert Asprin and Stephen R. Donaldson. In the case of Asprin, Langford reviews Myth Conceptions, the third in the author's Myth series. Langford doesn't think much of the book or its humor; I can't say that I disagree with him. It's very difficult to write a series of humorous novels without eventually descending into an unintentional parody and that's more or less what happened to Asprin. As for Donaldson, Langford reviews White Gold Wielder, the third and final book in the second trilogy of Thomas Covenant. Langford doesn't think better of this novel and, again, I can't really disagree with him. The second trilogy showed promise early on, with the protagonist being much less awful than he was in his previous outing, but it's still a convoluted, self-serious slog with a couple of interesting ideas that don't justify the time I invested in reading it.

"Open Box" reviews Soloquest 2: Scorpion Hall for RuneQuest, giving it an 8 out of 10. Also reviewed are a quarter of AD&D modules: Hidden Shrine of the Tamoachan (8 out of 10), Ghost Tower of Inverness (8 out of 10), White Plume Mountain (8 out of 10), and Dwellers of the Forbidden City (5 out of 10). Perhaps I am biased, but I find it difficult to believe that Dwellers of the Forbidden City rates only a 5 or that either Ghost Tower of Inverness or White Plume Mountain, both of which are contrived funhouse modules, deserve ratings as high as they received. Chacun à son goût. Illuminati receives a 7 out of 10, while Starstone, a generic fantasy module published by Northern Sages (and with which I am unfamiliar) receives a 9 out of 10.

"The Eagle Hunt" by Marcus L. Rowland is an AD&D scenario for 1st–3rd level characters. Its premise is that an ancient artifact, the titular Green Eagle, has been stolen from the king's treasure vault and the two detectives dispatched to locate it have themselves gone missing, thereby necessitating a public reward of 20,000gp for anyone who can recover it. "The Eagle Hunt" is a lengthy and engaging adventure, quite different from the usual low-level scenarios one regularly sees. Likewise, the Green Eagle's true purpose, if discovered, has the potential to open up interesting possibilities in a D&D campaign.

"Trading" by Oliver Dickinson presents a simple trade system for use with RuneQuest, one vaguely reminiscent of that found in Traveller (not that that's a bad thing). Speaking of Traveller, Andy Slack offers up "Explorer Class Scoutships," a detailed look at a new type of starship, complete with game stats and deckplans. Part II of "Inhuman Gods" by Phil Masters treats readers to the deities of yet more non-human beings, such as the firenewts, flinds, and frogmen. "RuneQuest Characters" by Nelson Cunningham provides the code for a GAP (game assistance program) intended to generate random RQ characters. I love that the article includes a section entitled "What to do when it crashes." Good times! Finally, "Treasure Chest" gives us six more D&D magic items, because we can never have too many magic items, can we?

Issue #40 is a very strong issue, filled with plenty of meaty and imaginative articles, many of which have a unique flair that differentiates them from what I saw in the pages of Dragon and other American gaming periodicals of the same era. Re-reading this issue, I found myself unexpectedly nostalgic for the White Dwarf of old, before the magazine became wholly devoted to Warhammer and its spin-offs. I consider myself fortunate to entered the hobby at the time I did. We shall not see its like again.

White Dwarf: Issue #21

Issue #21 of White Dwarf (October/November 1980) begins with an editorial by Ian Livingstone in which he opines about magic systems in fantasy roleplaying games. "Not wishing to sit on the fence," Livingstone stakes the claim that D&D's Vancian system is "now a little outdated." He then lauds "the power point system of RuneQuest" as being "more logical." While I have no problem with Livingstone's preference for RQ's system over that of D&D, I find his claim that the latter's system is "outdated" odd. What does that term even mean in this context? The suggestion that RuneQuest's system is "more logical" is equally odd, especially given that Livingstone notes earlier in his own editorial that "there is no real way of testing the fallibility of each system." He's right about that, which is why all we have are personal preferences.

"Lore of the Land" by Andrew Finch is a collection of four new D&D character classes based on characters from the Thomas Covenant novels of Stephen R. Donaldson. Three of these classes are spellcasters, while the fourth one is the bloodguard, which are broadly similar to monks. "Merchants" by Roger E. Moore describes one more D&D character class, the merchant of the title. In Moore's version, merchants are similar to thieves and bards, in that they possess a variety of percentile-based skills focused on personal interactions. The class is clearly very specialized but I can certainly see its appeal.

"Open Box" presents three longer reviews, the first of which is for GDW's Azhanti High Lightning (garnering a score of 8 out of 10). Also reviewed are a pair of micro-games from Task Force Games, Intruder (6 out of 10) and Valkenburg Castle (8 out of 10). I never saw the two games reviewed here, but micro-games were quite trendy in the hobby for a time, with some of them, such as Ogre, proving quite successful and influential. "Survival!" by Bob McWilliams is an example of such a mini-game, whose complete rules and game map are included in this issue/ The game is solitaire, with the player taking the role of Jardine, the sole survivor of a starship whose lifeboat crash landed on the world of Coryphire. The world is uninhabited, but there is an Imperial Scout Service Aid Station located on it. By braving Coryphire's wildlife and environment, he might be able to reach the station alive. 

"Treasure Chest" presents fifteen new D&D spells submitted by a variety of authors, including such notables as Roger E. Moore and Mark Galeotti. "Fiend Factory" does something very interesting. Instead of simply presenting seven new D&D monsters, they're all contextualized within a wilderness area known as "One-Eye Canyon." It's quite clever in my opinion and made me much more interested in the new monsters than I have been in previous installments of "Fiend Factory." 

Bob McWilliams pens another "Starbase" column, this time presenting a short scenario – more of a situation really – involving a wilderness trek during a winter storm. It's fascinating to me how many early Traveller adventures take place in the wilderness or battles against the elements. It's definitely not what I imagine most people think of when they hear the words "science fiction adventure in the far future." The issue ends with "Tomb of the Maharaja" by S. Hartley. It's a short adventure set in an ostensibly Indian-themed dungeon, but that felt to me more like something out of ancient Egypt, complete with a mummy at the end. 

Issue #21 felt like a slight step backwards for White Dwarf, especially after a string of truly excellent issues. That's the nature of submission-driven magazines, I suppose, so I can't judge the issue too harshly, even if its content wasn't quite as appealing to me as that in its immediate predecessors.

Pulp Fantasy Library: Lord Foul's Bane

Along with The Sword of Shannara, another book I first encountered because of my friend's mother's membership in the Science Fiction Book Club was Stephen R. Donaldson's Lord Foul's Bane, the first novel in "The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever." Both books were first published in 1977 but could not be more unlike one another in my opinion. Whereas Brooks's book inaugurated the tendency of many contemporary fantasy authors to ape Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings to varying degrees, Donaldson's inaugurated an opposite tendency: to reject Tolkien's world, or at least the worldview communicated through it.

Interestingly, Lord Foul's Bane takes much from older approaches to fantasy. Its focus character, Thomas Covenant, is a man from "the real world" who, by means of a car accident that leaves him in a coma, finds himself inexplicably transported to another reality known only as "the Land." In our world, Covenant is a writer who contracted leprosy, which costs him not only two fingers on his right hand, but also his family, his career and indeed his connection to other human beings, as he becomes increasingly bitter and reclusive. Covenant's mysterious journey to the Land is reminiscent in many ways of other dreaming heroes, such as Burroughs's John Carter and Lovecraft's Randolph Carter, among others, which leads one to wonder, as Covenant himself does, whether the Land is a real place or merely a figment of his imagination.

Once in the Land, Covenant discovers that he has been summoned by means of a potent magical artifact called the Staff of Law by a being known as Drool Rockworm. Drool is a "cavewight," a pathetic evil creature who intends to use the Staff to bring doom to the Land. However, another evil being, who calls himself Lord Foul the Despiser, tells Covenant that, if Drool is stopped, the Land can be saved -- for a time. Ultimately, Foul explains, nothing can stop him from destroying the Land, but that destruction is some decades hence. He then tasks Covenant with delivering this information to the Council of Lords located in a place called Revelstone and sends him elsewhere in the Land to begin his journey.

After being transported, Covenant encounters a young woman named Lena, who, upon seeing his loss of two fingers, believes him to be the second coming of an ancient hero called Berek Halfhand. This notion is reinforced by the fact that Covenant where's a wedding band of white gold, that metal being seen as mystically significant in the Land. Lena heals Covenant of his injuries through the use of a magical earth called hurtloam, which cures his leprosy. This turn of events only further convinces Covenant that the Land is not real but rather a delusion of some sort.

It's at this point in the book where Lord Foul's Bane takes a turn that many readers, quite understandably, find too difficult to bear. As a consequence of the curing of his leprosy and of his growing certainty that the Land cannot be real, Covenant rapes Lena. This act firmly cements Covenant's status as an antihero unlike most in mainstream fantasy and has spelled the end of untold readers' attempts to make it through this book. Before the rape, Covenant was already a miserable, self-centered, and unlikeable character. His violence against Lena, who not only had helped him but also trusted him, turns him into a nigh-villain and it is difficult to see him in a heroic light. That was clearly Donaldson's intention, but I can't say that makes it an easier to take.

The remainder of Lord Foul's Bane is, in my opinion, a fairly mediocre book set in a very interesting world. The Land is a fascinating place, full of intriguing people and places, even if it does suffer a bit in the nomenclature department. Donaldson seems overly fond of either obvious names (the aforementioned Drool and Lord Foul) or goofy compounds (like Foamfollower) that don't really do a service to the setting he's constructed. Likewise, Thomas Covenant is so relentlessly off-putting that it makes it difficult to keep reading the book. Even when he's not being a jerk, he's self-pitying and self-absorbed, to the point where it's almost impossible to care about him as a protagonist, a situation that does improve somewhat in later books in the series, but I can hardly blame anyone who never made it that far. Even given its limited virtues, I'm not sure I can honestly say that someone who hasn't read this book has missed out on anything, except perhaps one of the wellsprings of contemporary "edgy" fantasy.