Incline Rusty sometimes reads and (not always) reviews various RPG books & magazines

[rusty_shackleford]

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Another Warren Spector adventure, Space Gamer #68. This is a generic adventure meant to be used with a system like Aftermath!

About 16 pages long, good quality for being published in a magazine. Surprised at how these aren't documented anywhere despite being good and made by someone notable.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Appears if you're a Zork fan you'd like Suspended. I enjoy reading the capsule reviews, and it appears so did the readers at the time going by the surveys.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

If this was written today, at least half of it would be dedicated to discussing how she is a womyn with womyn issues.

Space Gamer #73, MERP issue.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

 

[rusty_shackleford]

If it wasn't readily apparent, I'm just reprinting the articles I think that are most worth reading and humorous excerpts with my commentary. You can readily find such things for e.g., Dragon Magazine but most other magazines will require you to go through all the issues to find the gems.

It's interesting to see how fast MERP dominated the market due to the very high quality of the material they produced. MERP has had a long-lasting impact on many, many Middle Earth-related products released to this day ranging from Interplay's 1990 LotR video game(writer admitted to taking heavy inspiration from MERP works) to Lord of the Rings Online(ditto).

The scan for this issue(Space Gamer #75) is significantly higher than many of the previous. I hope this continues.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Space Gamer #76 was the last issue published by Steve Jackson Games. The magazine went on hiatus for nearly two years before issue #77 was printed rebranded as Space/Fantasy Gamer, but apparently continued in DTI's VIP of Gaming.

I checked issue #77 and did not like what I see, so I'll be stopping here. I collected a large list of recommended products I'd like to go through now, but I might instead move on to Ares magazine. Decisions decisions...

 

[rusty_shackleford]

(The author of this sadly went on to be infected by the marxist mind parasite)

 

[rusty_shackleford]

This book might have been OK for the time period, but it's not worth your time now.

I thought it would contain full detailed listings, but it's just their stats with no actual character information at all.

There's equivalent online generators now, and probably ones that add a generated character background/story to boot. Skip it.

 

[v1rus]

Random question, but does anyone know where to find a digital version of gamemasters screen and its adventures, for Paranoia RPG 1ed. Theres supposedly a book collecting all those adventures, Player book, GM book adn Adventure book into one, but I cant find that one either.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

If anyone needs help finding digital scans of tabletop RPGs, just send me a PM and I'll get you started.

If you like it and it's still in print, don't forget to buy it.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I doubt I'll give each individual one its own small review, but I'm going to go through Mayfair's ROLE AIDS line of supplements. These seem to have been published from roughly 1982 to 1992, and as far as I'm aware this is an up to date list of the available products:

Kobold Hall (orange envelope) (750 printed)
Blasted Lands (orange envelope) (1000 printed)
701 Beastmaker Mountain (red envelope)
702 Nanorien Stones (light blue envelope)
703 Valley of the Trees (green envelope)
703 Wizard's Vale (Fez I)
704 Dwarves (2 Printings)
705 Question of Gravity
706 Tower of Magicks
707 Dark Folk
708 Wizards
709 Dragons of Weng T'sen
710 The Contract (Fez II)
711 Elves
712 Ship Wreaker
713 Evil Ruins
714 The Keep
715 Sword Thrust
716 Deadly Power
717 Shadows of Evil
718 Morgaine (never published)
719 Fantastic Treasures
720 Angry Wizard (Fez III)
721 Dragons
722 Final Challenge
723 Throne of Evil
724 Monsters of Myth & Legend
725 Wizards Revenge (Fez IV)
726 Lich Lords
728 Clockwork Mage
730 Fantastic Treasures II
732 Elven Banner
733 Ice Elves
735 Pinnacle
737 Undead
740 War of Darkness
741 Crystal Barrier
742 Beneath Two Suns
743 Wizards Betrayal (Fez V)
744 Giants
745 Wizards Dilemma (FezVI)
746 Monsters of Myth & Legends II
747 Witches
748 Lizardmen
749 Psionics
750 Portal to Adventure
751 Monsters of Myth and Legend 3
752 Demons
753 To Hell & Back
754 Assassins (never published)
755 Denizens of Vecheron (Demons Folio)
756 Novel Seeds of Darkness
757 Sentinels Box Set
758 Denizens of Verekna
759 Demons 2 Box Set
760 Arch Magic Box Set
761 Undead: Legion of Darkness (never published)
763 Denizens of Og
764 Apocalypse Box Set
765 Blood & Steel Box Set
767 Denizens of Diannor

I have already read #704 Dwarves, which is excellent. It is written from the perspective of an in-universe character that has devoted her life to living among dwarves and learning their culture, growing to being accepted by their society which allows her to study them more closely. I hope the rest retain this high level of quality. Very cool stuff here.

I chose these because I was unaware of them before seeing reviews for them in Space Gamer, all of which were full of praise.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

The content covered varies from covering generic fantasy races(e.g., #704 Dwarves, #711 Elves, #707 Dark Folk) to full adventures. The adventures are generally well written with detailed maps and nice drawings to add to the atmosphere. The adventures are designed for use with Basic D&D, AD&D, or Tunnels & Trolls, varying with each adventure but AD&D seems to be a constant. I'd imagine that porting them to a newer system wouldn't be very difficult.

The themes covered varies from fantasy-medieval to historical. Quite a few books deal with Romans, Celts, and so on. #717, Shadows of Evil, sees the Romans portrayed as the evil invaders of Celtic land which is not something you see very often. Shadows of Evil contains a good deal of real historical matter and there is little apologia here with regards to certain forms of pagan conduct. The adventure in #717 itself is fantastical with semi-historical elements.
As stated before, the maps are well detailed and so I will provide an example(again, from #717):

They also provide you with various things such as crudely drawn maps(as drawn in-universe) to show the player:

#717 Shadows of Evil is a lengthy adventure, coming in at about 90 pages when counting the maps.


There are also books like #719 Fantastic Treasures that are just a collection of items(or item ideas) to use in your campaign. #719 itself is interesting because it involves many historical & mythological artifacts.

It's not very often you find adventures with the map presented in 3D(From #720 Fez 3 Angry Wizard):

The books focusing on a single topic are, for lack of a better word of praise, very well done(#721 Dragons)

Again, they covered a wide range of singular topics from Dwarves to Giants, Lizardmen, and so on...

The quality control would be of what I'd deem "high", very little typos or obvious errors. If I were looking for fantastical and/or semi-historical supplemental material, this would be a great resource. These were definitely high enough quality to have been published by TSR themself. I don't have much else to add about these beyond praise. I may give one or two individual reviews, but I don't think they really need it because if you just pick one at random the quality is high.

 

[Reggin Backward]

Do you possess physical copies of these books or are these scans? I wonder if these books and magazines are worth something

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Do you possess physical copies of these books or are these scans? I wonder if these books and magazines are worth something

I lost most of my possessions from my childhood/teenage years when I was in my early 20s, so, no.
I considered spending money to consoom products I had as a kid, but I decided it would be a waste when digital scans are just as good.

 

[Reggin Backward]

Okay thanks for the quick reply but how much do you think they are worth today? Or are they just old papers with no value even for an avid collector.
edit: okay

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Okay thanks for the quick reply but how much do you think they are worth today? Or are they just old papers with no value even for an avid collector.

Don't assume this is authoritative or anything, but a lot of this material is more on the obscure side so probably not much I'd guess. The products collectors would be looking for are probably well preserved TSR things, official D&D products especially.
Other products of worth would be licensed products. '82/'83 FASA Star Trek stuff and so forth, but really any popular licensed product before ~'00.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Okay thanks for the quick reply but how much do you think they are worth today? Or are they just old papers with no value even for an avid collector.
edit: okay

There are websites that attempt to keep track of the auction/market value of RPG materials, for example for D&D/AD&D:
https://acaeum.com/ddindexes/rulebooks.html
https://acaeum.com/ddindexes/modcode.html
https://acaeum.com/ddindexes/periodicals.html
https://acaeum.com/ddindexes/misc.html
https://acaeum.com/ddindexes/rares.html

For Dungeons & Dragons, the products that have gained greatly in inflation-adjusted value are either very early or a strange item that never had many copies printed in the first place.

 

[Reggin Backward]

That website is a good start. In the "rare" section we're talking 4 digits prices, also there's a great deal of information regarding each publication. Thanks.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

 

[rusty_shackleford]

RPGs in 2022:

RPGs in 1983:

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Now reading Ares magazine, published 1980 to 1984, 17 regular editions, 2 special editions.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I don't have anything to compare it to, but $800 seems quite high doesn't it?

 

[I'm Big Into Anal]

NOICE

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

I don't have anything to compare it to, but $800 seems quite high doesn't it?

Depends on the circulation of the magazine, since the price charged per page can't be separated from the expected number of readers: https://www.quora.com/What-is-an-average-CPM-for-magazine-ads

Also consider that a specialty magazine, such as Ares, might have a relatively high value to advertisers, since their products align closely with the particular interests of the magazine's readers, whereas an advertisement in a more general interest magazine would expect to appeal to a smaller section of the magazine's audience. This would mean that Ares and other relatively specialized magazines should have been able to charge a higher price per subscriber.