Recaps & Roundups: White Dwarf #3

Cover by Alan Hunter

White Dwarf #3 is cover-dated October/November 1977.  Whether that's an accurate guide to when it was released is a mystery to me, but without anything else to go on I'm covering it with other products from October.

"Solo Dungeon Mapping" by Roger Moores: This article gives a method for creating a map for solo D&D, which involves having a bunch of premade smaller maps and rolling dice randomly to determine where you end up when you transition from one map to another.  It looks workable, although I don't think it's all that well explained.  Perhaps it would be more efficient in play than rolling on random tables, but there's a lot of prep work involved before you can start.

"Competitive D&D" by Fred Hemmings: Last issue, Hemmings gave the tournament setup: the surviving descendants of the Underhill family have been summoned to compete for the treasure in the dungeons beneath the mansion of their deceased uncle.  This time around Hemmings details the first dungeon level of what is called Pandora's Maze. It's an almost entirely linear affair, with puzzles that very much rely on the player's knowledge of mythology and pop culture.

Take, for example, the following verse:

"Treading on across the floor,

Remember well the leading knave,

Of a band, two score, no more,

Strike the rock with a stave!"

The answer to this is to strike the floor with a staff while shouting "Open Sesame".  The lines about the "leading knave" and "a band, two score" refer to Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, which is the clue to the correct password, but what happens if your players don't know that story, or don't get the reference?  Getting this right is necessary to open a door in the first room of the dungeon, so the entire adventure hinges on it.  I could very easily see a party getting stuck at this first hurdle.

Another room has riddles that make reference to Sesame Street, Jesus, and the Wizard of Oz; there's no regard for verisimilitude here.  It's very much a dungeon to challenge the player rather than the character, but it does assume a cultural knowledge that may only be appropriate to a certain time and place.  There are references to things I have absolutely no idea about, such as a riddle requiring knowledge of the Condor cigar brand, or the poem "Come Into the Garden Maude" by Lord Tennyson.  (I had to Google these.)  Leaving aside the question of what these references are doing in a D&D world, you just can't expect players to know this stuff.  (Although maybe I'm wrong, and every kid in 1970s Britain would have all of this as common knowledge.  Regardless, it would be almost impossible to run as-written today.)

The reward at the heart of the dungeon level is a machine that can produce any magic item, at the price of having to fight a monster of commensurate power, and being transported to a lower dungeon level.  Talk about your potential game-breakers!  It would only take a few turns of that dial before a party would become strong enough to defeat just about any monster in the books, unless the DM decided to resort to gods and the like.  And being taken to a lower dungeon level would be meaningless when you could just turn the dial to some item with teleportation powers and use it to escape.

"News": There are rumblings about the D&D Basic Set (which I've already covered in this series), as well as the upcoming Monster Manual.  Of the other news, the publication of Traveller is probably the most significant to gaming.  In terms of the wider world, we get our first mention of Star Wars, and that's about as significant as it gets.

"The Monstermark System" by Don Turnbull: Turnbull's meticulous dissection of the relative deadliness of monsters continues.  The first two articles were used to rank the monsters, and this article puts that ranking to a practical use.

The first thing Turnbull does is provide a new table for determining the level of monster encountered by dungeon level.  In OD&D monsters were split into six levels of difficulty, whereas this system splits them into twelve.  I can't really comment on the effectiveness of what Turnbull's done, but it would be interesting to see which results in better play: Turnbull's rigorous yet flawed mathematical system, or Gygax's instincts based on years of play.  It's probably all subjective in the end.

Following that Turnbull goes on to talk about experience rewards, and providing a way to use the Monstermark System to calculate them. He's very much a proponent of the idea that XP should be relative; a 4th level PC fighting a level 1 monster should earn less XP than a 2nd level PC doing the same, at least according to him.  I'm ambivalent to the idea.  Sometimes I think it sounds great, but then I wonder what the point of it is when the amount of XP needed to level goes up significantly each time.  I guess it incentivizes the players to seek out genuine danger rather than playing it safe; I might be talking myself into liking the idea.

The third use Turnbull comes up with for his system is to determine the numbers in a group of wandering monsters.  He uses a ratio of the average hit points of the party over the Monstermark Rating.  Doing so, he calculates that a group of 7 Bugbears would slaughter a party of 10 PCs between 1st and 5th level.  This sounds patently wrong to me, and Turnbull acknowledges that his system doesn't factor in spells, magic items, and other special abilities of the PCs.  As I said above it's a flawed system, but I'm not sure I disagree with his findings that 3 Bugbears would be a reasonable random encounter.  I generally think wandering monsters should be a nuisance rather than a party killer, something that drains resources rather than threatening their existence (unless they're already weakened).  I also disagree with scaling encounter difficulty based on party strength; I can just about see doing it based on party size, with the idea that a larger party would make more noise and attract more monsters, but level and hit points are a much more intangible thing in the game world.  I get the desire to tailor the game to your players, but I prefer the game world to be more static than that; the players should be learning and reacting to the world, not the other way around.

"Open Box": Don Turnbull gives some fair but ultimately positive reviews to various Judges Guild products (the Ready Ref Sheets, Judges Shield, TAC Cards, Tegel Manor, City State of the Invincible Overlord, Thunderhold, Character Chronicle Cards and First Fantasy Campaign).  Mike Westhead reviews Citadel, a two-player game where one player controls heroes searching a dungeon for a talisman, and the other lays monsters and traps in their path.  Fred Hemmings reviews Fourth Dimension, which sounds kind of like a chess game where the players control warriors, rangers, guardians and Time Lords.  Martin Easterbrook reviews Battle of the Five Armies from TSR, the unlicensed wargame depicting the climactic battle from The Hobbit that drew the ire of the Tolkien Estate.  This is a game I've never seen, and am not likely to, but it seems to have most of the good and bad points of TSR products of the day: good production values, but poor rules clarity.

"D&D Campaigns: Part 1 - Philosophy (cont.)" by Lewis Pulsipher: This article kicks off with a quote that exactly sums up my approach to running a game: "the referee should not make up anything important after an adventure has begun".  Basically, the ref should have as much worked out beforehand as possible, and changes to the rules and the dungeon shouldn't be made during play.  Of course, adding unestablished details as required will always be necessary, but if my notes say something before I start playing, that's how I roll it.

Pulsipher goes on to give all sorts of good advice, touching on such topics as the logical determination of monster actions, morale, and maintaining a good relationship between the players and the DM.  He lays out the desirable attributes of a campaign as follows: "simplicity, rapidity of play whenever this doesn't reduce skill, participation by all the players, a sense of control by the players of their own fate, and believability".  It's a pretty hard list to argue with.  When Pulsipher refers to "skill", he's talking about whether the decisions of the players can affect their survival.  He has a long section on how much time to allow players to make decisions, and whether they should be able to change their mind after stating an action.  Pulsipher errs on the side of giving the players plenty of time, and letting them change their minds, and I agree with him.  His argument is that the players shouldn't be expected to display the rapid-fire decision-making of their characters, and that imposing strict time limits just leads to more player death.  Again, I find that it's all good advice (though I am inclined to hurry players along when their hesitation is holding up the game to a frustrating degree).

He has a section on the use of detection spells, which he says are vital to good play and vital to increasing the survivability of players.  I've honestly never had players that made extensive use of them, but then again I've never played the kind of exploration-centric dungeon-crawl that was prevalent at the time.

The article finishes with a section on alignment, and identifies Moorcock as the source of the OD&D alignment system.  His own system has a number of actions that are restricted by alignment, including which other alignments characters are allowed to attack. He finishes with a bit about the five-point system introduced by Gary Gygax in recent issues of The Dragon, and rather presciently declares that the introduction of such a system would require a complete overhaul of the game.

"Colouring Conan's Thews" by Eddie Jones: This is an introductory article about painting miniatures that gets into specifics about what paints and brushes to use.  I've never had the patience to get good at painting figures, so this isn't of much interest. Besides, most of the brands mentioned are probably defunct by now, and the prices are certainly no longer accurate.

"The Assassin" by John Rothwell: This article gives rules for using the Assassin class introduced in Supplement II: Blackmoor as a player character.  To be honest, a lot of this is just reproduced from Blackmoor, where the class was already intended for use as a PC, so I'm not sure what the purpose is here beyond adding some guidelines about using armour as part of a disguise, and the needless restriction that assassins can't be female.

"The Loremaster of Avallon: Part III" by Andy Holt: Holt continues with his own house rules, this time getting into combat.  I say house rules, but really it's an entirely new system that uses cards, with the attacker laying out cards to attack and the defender using their own cards to parry.  There are more details to come next issue, so it's impossible to evaluate at present (and pretty difficult to do so anyway, without actually seeing it in practice).  Regardless, I'm always leery of RPG combat systems that don't use dice.

"New Magic Rooms" by Ian Waugh: Waugh details two special rooms.  The first, a "cloning room", splits any neutral character in two, with one lawful clone and one chaotic clone. Both will fight to the death.  (I'm assuming he nicked this from the Star Trek episode "The Enemy Within".) The second, a "clumsy room", reduces the Dexterity of any character inside by 75%.  It also contains a purse containing gold that makes the bearer similarly clumsy for as long as they carry it.

"Letters": Jennell Jaquays writes to praise the Monstermark System, and express her annoyance that her adventure "Merlin's Garden" was referenced in the "Competitive D&D" article without appropriate credit.  Lewis Pulsipher suggests some rules changes to the Lankhmar wargame.  Nigel Galletty provides Monstermark ratings for the Balrog, which he says Don Turnbull missed (not entirely accurate, as he covered the Type VI Demon).  And Patrick Martin complains that there aren't any miniatures portraying characters with backpacks, poles, lanterns, and other adventuring gear.

Recaps & Roundups part 64: White Dwarf #2

Cover art by Christopher Baker

The second issue of White Dwarf is cover dated August/September of 1977.

"Editorial" by Ian Livingstone: The issue kicks off with Ian Livingstone's editorial, in which he wonders why so many old-school wargamers are hostile to the new trend of sci-fi and fantasy gaming.  His conclusion that they're perhaps worried that this trend will completely take over the hobby is astute and prescient.

"Competitive D&D" by Fred Hemmings: This series continues, with Hemmings describing the set-up for a game run over "D&D Day", whatever that was.  The game sounds like an interesting one: the surviving descendants of the Underhill family - a family that has been made up of nothing but adventurers for four generations - has been summoned at the behest of their recently deceased uncle Ragnarock "Digger" Underhill to compete for the treasure in the dungeons beneath his mansion.  The surviving Underhills are described as follows:

• Cassia, a 5th-level, neutral, right-handed Fighter, with 16 strength, 21 hit points and a potion of invulnerability. Partnered with Carl.
• Carl, a 2nd level, neutral, right-handed Monk, with a constitution of only 6, 4 minus 2 hit points and a +1 sword (IQ 1). Partnered with Cassia.
• Brutus, a 5th level, neutral, either-handed Fighter, with 25 hit points and a rod of cancellation. Partnered with Lotus.
• Lotus, a 2nd level, neutral, left-handed Illusionist, with 4 hit points and a scroll of non-detection. Partnered with Brutus.
• Flash, a 2nd-level, lawful, right-handed Ranger of 17 Strength and 15 Constitution, had 12+2 hit points and +1 armour. Partnered with Milo.
• Milo, a 2nd-level, lawful, left-handed Cleric. He had 6 hit points, a +1 shield, and a staff of striking with 80 charges. Partnered with Flash.
• Jose, a 2nd-level, chaotic, left-handed Magic-User of 6 Strength, 4 hit points, and no magic items.  Partnered with Will.
• Will, a 3rd level, chaotic, right-handed Bard, with 7 hit points and a +1 protection cloak. Partnered with Jose.
• Zadok, a 3rd level, chaotic, left-handed Thief, with 6 hit points and a sword which would break the first time it was used.  Partnered with Prudence.
• Prudence, a 3rd level, chaotic, ambidextrous Fighter with a constitution of 16, 10+3 hit points, a potion of levitation and a +1 sword which was also +3 vs. clerics (IQ 4). Partnered with Zadok.
• Pierre, a 2nd level, lawful, right-handed Cleric with a strength of 5 and 10 hit points, but also the handicap of a shield that would break at the first blow. Partnered with Joan.
• Joan, a 2nd level, lawful, right-handed Fighter with a strength of 14. She had 8 hit points and a potion of bronze dragon control. Partnered with Pierre.
• Tonto, a 5th level, neutral, right-handed Magic-User who had 14 hit points and a bowl of watery death. Partnered with Avon.
• Avon, a 2nd level, neutral, right-handed Thief. This unfortunate person had a strength of 3, a constitution of 5, 6 minus 2 hit points and a +1 sword with the ability to locate objects (and an IQ Ego that would take her over in stress situations). Partnered with Tonto.
• Burke, Uncle Digger's hulking moronic grandson, a 2nd level, neutral, left-handed Fighter with a strength of 18 (+3/+5), while both intelligence and charisma were 3. His special equipment consisted of a scroll vs. elementals and a sword of draining (which transferred all hit point damage to the wielder for 24 hours).

The family is summoned to the Brass Monkey inn, run by "Greasy Pete", where they receive their inheritances (the magic items given in their descriptions) and a map to their uncle's former home and the dungeons beneath.  The dungeon is only vaguely described, and will apparently be shown in more detail next issue, so I'll save it until then.

To me, the above scenario has a real Judges Guild vibe, so I think it would fit pretty well into the Wilderlands setting.  As for getting the PCs involved, I could perhaps reveal one of them to be a distant Underhill relative, or have one of the unscrupulous NPCs above bring them in as ringers.

A lot of the article focuses on how this was run as a competitive game, with point values for various tasks, and the rules of the competition.  None of that's really relevant to my project, but it's an interesting look into the way competitive D&D was run in that time and place.

"Asgard Miniatures" reviewed by Ian Livingstone: Ian reviews a range of figures from a company co-founded by Brian Ansell, who will go on to co-design Warhammer Fantasy Battle and buy Games Workshop from Steve and Ian.  It's interesting to note certain things, like Ian being pleased that there are finally some good cleric figures on the market, and that the size of figures representing giant animals varies greatly.  It's easy to forget when reading this stuff just what a nascent hobby fantasy gaming was at the time.

"The Green Planet Trilogy of Games" reviewed by Lewis Pulsipher: Pulsipher reviews three games - Mind War, War of the Sky Galleons, and Warriors of the Green Planet - which can all be combined for a single campaign.  It's set on a future Earth that's devastated by an axial shift, where civilisation rises again in Africa with lasers, airships and mutated psychics.  Sky Galleons focuses on air combat, Warriors on ground combat, and Mind War on psychic combat. Pulsipher displays his usual no-fun-allowed nitpickery, but his reviews are nothing if not rigorous.

"Before the Flood" by Hartley Patterson: Gives a history of the game Midgard, which I gather was a sort of play-by-mail game with a newsletter, where the players were the rulers of various areas of a fantasy world.  It started in the UK and spread to the US and Australia, apparently.

"Open Box": This issue there are reviews of Steve Jackson's OGRE (that's the other Steve Jackson, not the GW co-founder), the Lankhmar boardgame from TSR, a sci-fi game called War of the Star Slavers, and the seminal fantasy game Tunnels & Trolls (which was tellingly not reviewed in any TSR publication).  Predictably, Lewis Pulsipher does not approve of T&T's silly spell names.

"The Monstermark System" by Don Turnbull: Turnbull continues to rank the deadliness of D&D monsters using his mathematical system.  This time around he tackles fire-breathing monsters (including dragons, naturally), weird miscellanea, golems, elementals, demons, and the monsters from Empire of the Petal Throne.  Most of the monsters match up relatively about where you'd expect, but there are some oddities.  Dragons are much weaker than I would have thought, and demons rate very highly.  I'd have expected the numbered demons to advance progressively, but in terms of power on this scale they go (from lowest to highest) V, I, IV, II, VI, III, with the Succubus trailing way, way behind.  Turnbull chalks the odd power scale up to differences in Armor Class.

Ropers receive a huge score, comparable to demons, and with scores in the tens of thousands iron and stone golems are way off the chart.  These are all tough monsters, but I'm not sure they're as tough as Turnbull's system makes them out to be.

The article wraps up with revised wandering monster tables by dungeon level, which I'll recreate here. They include the EPT monsters and some other oddities, and could make for some interesting dungeons very much rooted in 70s D&D.

The Monstermark Wandering Monster Chart

"Treasure Chest": This is the regular segment where contributors present new additions to D&D: classes, monsters, magic items, etc.

• "New Magic Item: Needle of Incalculable Power" by Julian Cable: This needle has whatever power the player who picks it up thinks it will have, which has all sorts of potential for fun but also for breaking the game.  It's offset by a reduction to the user's prime requisite, and by the restriction that it can't have the same power for two different players, but I still think that players could create all sorts of havoc with this once they figure out what it does.
• "New Class: The Scientist" by Dave Langford: A parody class in much better taste than last issue's Pervert.  Langford becomes a staple reviewer in British gaming mags, and this article has some solid gags.  Upon reaching name level, the scientist becomes "out of touch", and must restart from level 1, for example.  I won't be using this class, but it did get a chuckle or two out of me, which is more than can be said for most of the humour in The Dragon at this time.
• "New Monster: Spinescale" by Ian Livingstone: I'm a Fighting Fantasy nut, so any D&D content from Ian is right up my alley. Spinescales are frogs mutated by chemicals from the lab of a master alchemist named Vollan.  They have a poisonous bite and a tough hide that provides protection, but their eyes and underbelly are soft.  It's notable that it says that normal weapons will bounce off the hide; is it completely immune to all attacks that strike it there?  It only has AC 7, and I've always been iffy on how to rule monsters with different protection on different body parts.

Art by Polly Wilson

• "New Monster: Dune Stalker" by Ian Livingstone: Similar to Invisible Stalkers, Dune Stalkers are extra-dimensional trackers that are usually summoned/created by evil magic-users that have been exiled to desert lands.  They're immune to normal weapons, attack via sonic vibration, and also have a "kiss of death" which is fatal. This monster will later be included in the Fiend Folio.

Art by Polly Wilson

• "New Monster: The Ning" by Ian Livingstone: A creature created by evil priests, which is kept imprisoned in a flask. They are often placed in treasure hoards as protection. When the flask is opened the Ning materialises and attacks, hypnotising with its gaze and crushing those affected with its powerful lower arms.  It's immune to all attacks, and can only be defeated by severing the two arm-like antennae on its head.  It's more of a puzzle encounter than anything, and would best be used sparingly.

Art by Alan Hunter

• "New Monster: Giant Caterpillar" by Ian Livingstone: Another giant creepy-crawly, of which D&D can never have too many. This one has a poisonous bite, and a skin that can be sold for hundreds of gold pieces.  The skin is especially prized by "hill people" who wear it as a ceremonial dancing costume.

Art by Alan Hunter

• "New Monster: Blood Hawk" by Ian Livingstone: Tougher and more aggressive hawks, basically, that like to line their nests with gems.  Somehow this one made the cut for the Fiend Folio.

Art by Polly Wilson

"The Loremaster of Avallon" by Andy Holt: Last issue Andrew Holt made many complaints about D&D, and proposed some ways to fix it.  This month he goes into more detail about his various solutions.  There's an alternate system for devising ability scores, which is far too removed from D&D to be of use, but his magic system is intriguing, as it uses a spell point system and has unique chants for each spell that must be recited by the player from memory.  I could see that being fun at the table, although perhaps favouring certain types of players.  Some new spells are given: Bow Break (causes a strung bow or crossbow to break); Mammal Empathy, and Stun.

"Letters": Graham Reynolds writes to complain about the gravity chart in last issue's Metamorphosis Alpha article, Graham Buckell quibbles over the review of Starship Troopers, and Adrian Bolt lets the editors know what he thought of every article.

Recaps & Roundups Part 59: White Dwarf #1

Cover dated June/July 1977, the first issue of White Dwarf is a follow-up to Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone's fanzine Owl & Weasel.  I'm casting a fairly broad net in this chronological march through D&D history, but I'm trying to include products that are in some way official.  White Dwarf sneaks in for two reasons: the first is that Games Workshop were the official distributors for TSR products in Europe; and the second is that quite a lot of the monsters first introduced here will be added to D&D canon by way of the Fiend Folio.  I'll probably cover White Dwarf up until it stops doing D&D articles, somewhere around issue #100.

In terms of articles irrelevant to D&D, the first issue has reviews of SPI's Sorcerer and Avalon Hill's Starship Troopers, and Steve Jackson talks up the boardgame The Warlord.

"Metamorphosis Alpha" by Ian Livingstone: This is an introduction to the game of the same name, which came out in July 1976 but is described here as being the latest TSR game.  (No doubt it didn't make it to the UK until later.)  It goes into some depth about the background of MA, which I really need to cover on here at some point.  In short, it's about a colonisation ship that passed through a radiation cloud that wildly mutated the crew, whose ancestors - having long-forgotten the original purpose of the ship - must now fight for survival.

The article brings up three sci-fi novels that Ian puts forth as possible inspiration for the game: Orphans of the Sky by Robert Heinlen; Non-Stop by Brian Aldiss; and Captive Universe by Harry Harrison.  From those he develops some ideas that can be added to Metamorphosis Alpha.  I won't get into the plot details of those books, which aren't really relevant here, but I'll briefly go over the possible additions to the game.

• From Orphans of the Sky comes the idea that different decks of the Starship Warden may have differing levels of gravity.  There's even a chart that tracks how far a character is from there home deck, and what effect that might have on them in combat.
• Also from Orphans of the Sky come the ideas of using class structure, an agricultural barter economy, different forms of law and order, and the use of strange religions and superstitions. This is standard sci-fi stuff of the sort that would have been seen on Star Trek, but I like that Ian puts forth the idea of a cult that worships football team Manchester City.  Sport fan to religious cult fanatic is not a huge stretch.
• From Non-Stop, Ian introduces a race of intelligent rats that inhabit the ventilation shafts of various areas of the starship, complete with stats.  Those stats are pretty bare bones, but then again I'm not sure how numbers-heavy Metamorphosis Alpha was.  
• Also from Non-Stop comes the Ponic, a multi-purpose plant that has edible sap, medicinal leaves, and can be used as construction material.
• Non-Stop also includes diseases which, if survived, would cause physiological mutation in the survivors.  I'm not sure if this is necessary in MA, it seems like the people on board are plenty mutated already.
• From Captive Universe, Ian puts forth the ideas of whole decks ruled by tyrannical priests, mechanical gods in the form of grotesque robots, and security systems that will kill those who tamper with vital equipment.

All of these seem like they could slot into Metamorphosis Alpha without too much trouble.  I'll add this article to my list of things to remember should my campaign ever cross over into the Starship Warden.

"The Monstermark System" by Don Turnbull: Previously introduced in Owl & Weasel, this is Turnbull's mathematical calculation of the relative deadliness of D&D's various monsters.  It's the precursor to the Challenge Rating system from D&D's 3rd edition, and I guess that predecessor to this would have been the dungeon level tables from D&D Vol. 3: The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures and Supplement I: Greyhawk.

I must admit I got a bit lost as far as the math goes, but I'll give this one a brief outline.  Turnbull uses the system to come up with 3 ratings: the "D" factor, for a monster's defense; the "A" factor for a monster's aggressiveness; and "M" for the monster's over all "monstermark".  "D" is worked out by calculating the average number of melee rounds that it takes a 1st-level fighter to kill the monster with a sword. "A" is calculated by the average number of hits a monster would hand out to a character of AC2 during the number of rounds denoted by "D". The Monstermark is often the same as A, but it brings in multipliers based on certain special abilities a monster might have.

A whole bunch of different monster groups are given as examples, and the results are both interesting and odd.  Skeletons are the lowest rated, even below kobolds, with a Monstermark of 0.9.  The highest rated by far is the Intellect Devourer, with a Monstermark of 1,215.  This doesn't seem quite right, but I'll be the first to admit that I've never been able to wrap my head around the psionic rules, so there could be factors going on here that I'm not aware of.  The next monsters down are the Umber Hulk on 520, the Vampire on 440, and the Ent on 420, which seem more correct.  Turnbull hasn't calculated a lot of the higher-end stuff like Dragons and Demons yet, and I'm interested to see where they come in.

Overall I think Turnbull has a great idea here, and it's definitely the sort of thought that helps to improve the game.  I'm not sure if he's going about it the right way; as he admits himself, a lot of his math regarding the special abilities is based on guesswork.  Dan over at Delta's D&D Hotspot has interrogated the system a lot more rigorously than I  ever could, and come up with his own way of ranking monsters by deadliness if you want to check that out.

"Competitive D&D" by Fred Hemmings: This article about D&D tournament play is pretty much just a play report about a dungeon called "The Fabled Garden of Merlin".  I was all set to start taking down details for this dungeon until I realised that I'd already covered it in my post on The Dungeoneer #2. Not much else to see here.

"No Way Out?" by David Wells: Wells presents a trio of puzzles, with answers up the back.  To be honest, I'm too dumb to understand the answers even after having read the solutions, so I won't explain them here.  They aren't really applicable to D&D anyway.

"D&D Campaigns, Part 1: Philosophy" by Lewis Pulsipher: This one looks like it's going to be a three-part series.  In this part, Pulsipher puts forward what he believes are the four predominant styles of D&D players: those who want to play the game as a game (sub-divided into those who prefer players-vs-monsters and those who prefer players-vs-puzzles) and those who want to play it as a fantasy novel (subdivided into those who want to be told a story by the referee, and those who like a silly, unbelievable game).  I'm on board with this to a point, but I'm not sure what Pulsipher is getting at with that last category.  He spends a lot of time decrying games where the players are at the mercy of random elements like the deck of many things, but I'd consider that type of thing antithetical to the story-telling crowd, and much more welcomed by the game-as-game crowd.  The rest of the article harps on the necessity of self-consistency, which I'd agree is something to strive for in D&D, both in the rules and the game world.  Pulsipher does come across a bit like the "fun police" though.

"Treasure Chest: Helm of Vision" by Steven Littlechild: This gold-plated helm is fitted with diamonds in the eye-slits that function as gems of seeing, grant the wearer infravision, and in direct sunlight can cast confusion and reduce the combat effectiveness of opponents.  When worn by a Lawful character, that character will always see creatures in their true forms (regardless of polymorph, invisibility, etc.), will always see through illusions, and can see through disguises most of the time.  Neutral characters wearing the helm get weaker versions of those abilities, and can also see evil intentions written on people's faces.  Chaotic characters wearing it can never see illusions, will never see through a disguise, and will see weaker monsters as stronger ones (and vice versa).

"What's Wrong With D&D.... and what I'm doing about it!" by Andrew D. Holt: The author here indicates what he believes are the three major problems with D&D: the lack of realism in the combat system; the magic system; and what he calls "the party effect".

I can sympathise with the author's lament that none of the combat system in D&D at this time are clearly and unambiguously explained: OD&D was many things, but clear and unambiguous weren't among them. He goes on to outline a system he's developed that involves the player's using cards to attack and defend, but beyond that no details are given.  It's one thing to decry D&D for its lack of realism, but Holt hasn't provided anything concrete as an alternative.

As for magic, he might be the earliest author I've seen to definitively link the D&D magic system with Jack Vance's Dying Earth books.  He says that the system results in low-level magic-users being left with little to do, and many of the non-combat spells never getting used, and I think these are valid complaints. His solution involves using a series of chants that the players must use correctly, things like "Not Libra of Taurus Over Cancer With Mars, Geronimo", which is an intriguing method.  Without more details on how often these spells can be used, though, it's hard to judge its effect on game balance.  I like the flavour of it, if not the actual chants themselves.

As for the "party effect", this is the boredom caused by parties of adventurers when one or two players takes over and everyone else is left with nothing to do. It's not entirely clear, but I think the author is suggesting that the DM, instead of running large groups, run multiple smaller groups and have the idle players control the monsters until it is their turn.  This can work, I guess, but I don't think the problem is as universal as the author thinks it is.  Some players function well in large groups, some don't, and a DM just has to figure out what works best.

"The Pervert" by Ian Waugh: This is a new class that's introduced with a disclaimer by the editor, and is mostly just gags about sexual deviants. High armor class when wearing black leather, a joke about going blind, class level titles such as "flasher" and "streaker".  The suggested artifect of "elven dirty mac" did raise a smile, I must admit.

"Poison" by Alan Youde: This presents an alternate method of using poison in D&D.  Instead of the standard "save or die" method, this article presents a chart that cross references a character's Constitution with the monster's Hit Dice.  The poisoned character keeps rolling saving throws every round, and if they fail they take the damage shown on the chart.  Once they make their save, they stop taking damage.  I think this is a pretty good system, actually, but the numbers on the chart are a bit ridiculous, and really undersell the deadliness of poison.  A character with an 11 Constitution can't be harmed by a monster with less than 4 Hit Dice; a character with an 18 Con is immune to poison from anything below 11 Hit Dice.  These are pretty absurd results.  I like the general idea though.

So that's the first issue of White Dwarf, which is very much a D&D-focused magazine at this time. The articles are very early-days stuff, hobbyists hashing out the basics of the game, although the analysis seems much more rigorous here than in the US.  There's not a lot here that I can use in the Ultimate Sandbox, although I'll keep the Metamorphosis Alpha ideas in mind, and the helm of vision should get thrown in as a unique item somewhere.