1974 is an important year for the gaming hobby. It is the year that Dungeons & Dragons was introduced, the original RPG from which all other RPGs would ultimately be derived and the original RPG from which so many computer games would draw for their inspiration. It is fitting that the current owner of the game, Wizards of the Coast, released the new version, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, in the year of the game’s fortieth anniversary. To celebrate this, Reviews from R’lyeh will be running a series of reviews from the hobby’s anniversary years, thus there will be reviews from 1974, from 1984, from 1994, and from 2004—the thirtieth, twentieth, and tenth anniversaries of the titles. These will be retrospectives, in each case an opportunity to re-appraise interesting titles and true classics decades on from the year of their original release.

—oOo—
James Bond 007: Role-Playing In Her Majesty’s Secret Service was published in 1983 by Victory Games, a subsidiary of Avalon Hill. It was not the first espionage roleplaying game. That honour goes to Top Secret: An Espionage Role Playing Game for 3 ormore players, ages 12 to adult, published by TSR, Inc., and whilst Espionage! from Hero Games and Mercenaries, Spies and Private Eyes from Blade, a division of Flying Buffalo, Inc., were both published in 1983, it was the James Bond 007 roleplaying game which not only took the crown, it remained the preeminent espionage roleplaying game, arguably never to be equalled. After all, what it had was brand recognition and few of the espionage and spy roleplaying games which came after James Bond 007—and certainly none of those that came before it, were not influenced by the films adapted from Ian Fleming’s novels. The James Bond 007 roleplaying game took that brand recognition and offered the players the opportunity to roleplay in the setting of the world’s greatest spy, to travel the world and visit its greatest cities, enjoy the most luxurious food, play at the best gaming tables, seduce the most attractive women, use the most amazing gadgets, thwart the diabolical plans of evil masterminds, and so save the world, and of course, seduce the attractive women again. All whilst looking suave.

James Bond 007: Role-Playing In Her Majesty’s Secret Service is based upon the James Bond films and the original James Bond novels, but drew more from the former than the latter. This would have consequences for the roleplaying in terms of background. The rules—primarily percentile based—covered every type of action seen in the films. Action, combat, chases, gambling, seduction, thrilling cities, and gadgets are all there. Most of the major characters to have appeared on screen are also included with full stats, Bond himself receiving a chapter of his own. The one element missing from the roleplaying game and the one that everyone expected to be there, is SPECTRE and its leader, Ernst Stavro Blofeld. At the time of James Bond 007’s publication, the rights to them were contested and so they could not be included. Instead, the roleplaying game provided a similar organization called T.A.R.O.T. or ‘Technological Accession, Revenge, and Organised Terrorism’, complete with a range of NPCs, including its leader, the evilly named Karl Ferenc Skorpios. Although disappointing, the absence of both SPECTRE and Ernst Stavro Blofeld actually frees up the Game Master to create her own missions, free of the associated backstory between Bond and Blofield and obviously designed around the Tarot card theme of T.A.R.O.T., and Karl Ferenc Skorpios and his minions can become the nemesis for the Player Characters in ways that SPECTRE and Ernst Stavro Blofeld never quite will.

James Bond 007: Role-Playing In Her Majesty’s Secret Service opens with a bold statement: “The James Bond 007 Game in [sic] not like most role playing games available today. Those games are designed to make the GM all-powerful and give the NPCs a much greater advantage over the Player Characters.” It expands on this by saying that NPCs in fantasy games are often incredibly powerful because of their armies or magical artefacts, and that in Science Fiction settings, the universe is so big that the Player Characters have little influence on any course of events, before explaining whyJames Bond 007 is different. It gives Player Character agency, the ability and authority to act and so succeed rather than fail, to fulfil a mission and save the world rather than fail and let some criminal mastermind’s plans come to fruition. There is both truth and hyperbole in this statement, but JJames Bond 007 does place the Player Characters at the centre of the story and the action. It also gives both them and their players the means to succeed. The Player Characters are skilled spies and they are often equipped with gadgets devised by ‘Q’ which give them an advantage. For the players, James Bond 007 provides them with a magnificent gift—Hero Points. Arguably the roleplaying game’s greatest innovation, in play they are used to alter the effect of skill rolls and to shrug off wounds and even death, and so allow the Player Characters to be more heroic. Although a Player Character will not necessarily succeed on every action—and why should he, otherwise how else is he going to be captured and have the opportunity to listen to the villain’s monologue?—he has the means to succeed where it counts. The rest of course, is down to player decisions and roleplaying, although it is interesting to note that although the players are encouraged to roleplay like Bond, when it comes to the published scenarios, most of which were directly based on the films, they are advised not to roleplay like Bond, or at least not follow the exact same actions as he did in the films. This is because although a scenario like Goldfinger would follow the plot of its film, it had significant details changed to make it challenging and to ensure that the Player Characters would fail if they followed the exact same path of investigation and action as seen in the plot.

The introduction to the roleplaying game is excellent. Besides the provocative opening statement above, it explains the nature of roleplaying in James Bond’s world, the core concepts, terms, and rules of the game, and provides six example characters ready to play—James Bond, Anya Amasova, Felix Leiter, Holly Goodhead, Mary Goodnight, and Lieutenant Chong Sun Hip, all taken from the films. It also includes an exceptionally good example of play. In fact, it is arguably the best example of play in any roleplaying game. Six pages long, it takes two scenes from Goldfinger, first where Bond escapes the factory in the company of Tilly Masterton, but when she is killed by Oddjob, he gives himself up before attempting to flee again, using the ejector seat built into his Aston Martin DB5 by ‘Q’, and when captured again, his interrogation scene with Goldfinger. Parallel to the fiction is Game Master Jessica running the game for Dave, who is playing Bond. This is great writing, the parallels between the two working our imagination, showing how a roleplaying is played (and its highs and lows), and of course, the rules. Although the rules do not include another example of play like this, they do include numerous examples of the rules, all highly thematic and readable.

In James Bond 007, the Player Characters are secret agents working for MI6, the British Secret Intelligence Service, and sometimes its allied agencies, such as the CIA or Japan’s Public Security Intelligence Agency. Depending upon their ability and assignments, they are ranked ‘00’, ‘Agent’, or ‘Rookie’. James Bond is of course, ‘00’ rank, as is Anya Amasova from The Spy Who Loved Me, whilst Felix Leiter is ‘Agent’ rank and Mary Goodnight from The Man with the Golden Gun is ‘Rookie’. Rank determines the number of points to be spent during character creation and to a certain extent the number of Player Characters in the game. Higher ranked characters are more capable and thus fewer of them are required to complete a mission.

A Player Character in James Bond 007 has five characteristics, Strength, Dexterity, Willpower, Perception, and Intelligence. These range in value between five and fifteen. He also has numerous skills, such as Charisma, Driving, Evasion, Local Customs, Science, Seduction, and Sixth Sense. Notably, like the films, the roleplaying game does not include the use of languages (and similarly money). These are rated between one and fifteen. His height, weight, and appearance also matter, as the more notable a Player Character looks, the more Fame Points he will have, and the easier it is for him to be recognised. Derived values such as Speed, Hand-to-Hand Combat Damage Class, Stamina, and Running/Swimming Value are all primarily used in combat. All Player Characters have the Connoisseur, First Aid, and Photography, which are set values and work like skills, but optionally, a Player Character can also have Fields of Experience, which represent areas of knowledge and skill gained prior to becoming an agent for MI6, and also a weakness, for example, Board Games, Computers, Toxicology, and Rare Collectibles. Selecting one or more Fields of Experience increases a Player Character’s age, but grants him more points to spend on associated skills. To create a character, a player is given Generation Points to spend on the skills and attributes. The skill level is then added to the appropriate attribute to determine its Primary Chance. A Rookie receives 3000, an Agent 6000, and a ‘00’ 9000 points to spend. The process is a little complex and does take a bit of time.

Character Name: Claudia Romanov
Character Rank: Rookie
Age: 33 Fame Points: 76 Hero Points: 0
Appearance: Striking Height: 5’ 3” Weight: 125 lbs.

Strength 5 Dexterity 10 Willpower 7 Perception 8 Intelligence 7

Speed: 2 Stamina: 28 Running: 25 Carry: 60-100
Hand-to-Hand Combat Damage Class: A

Charisma (5) 12, Driving (4) 13, Fire Combat (3) 12, Gambling (5) 13, Hand-to-hand Combat (4) 9, Lockpicking and safecracking (7) 17, Mountaineering (4) 10, Seduction (2) 8, Sixth Sense (5) 12, Stealth (7) 11

Weakness: Greed
Abilities: Connoisseur, First Aid, Photography
Fields of Experience: Fine Arts, Jewellery, Law, Mechanical Engineering, Rare Collectibles, Snow Skiing

Mechanically, James Bond 007 employs a percentile system. The Success Chance of an action is determined by multiplying the Primary Chance—typically that of a skill—by an Ease Factor, which ranges from ½ to ten. The harder the task, the lower the Ease Factor, and vice versa. A roll under the Success Chance succeeds, whereas a roll of one hundred always fails. For ease of play, a multiplication table is included on the character record sheet. In addition, the quality of a successful roll can matter. This is measured by the Quality Rating of the roll, which ranges from 1 to 4, or Acceptable, Good, Very Good, or Exceptionable. These various degrees of success determine how well the Player Character has done or how quickly, or in combat how damage is inflicted.
For example, Claude Romanova is attending the party held by the Russian oligarch, Samuil Vorobev, at his villa on the Côte d’Azur. She has already sneaked upstairs, into a bedroom, and then into his study. She quickly locates the safe and begins to crack it. The Game Master sets the Ease Factor at 3, as the safe is modern, meaning that with Claudia’s Lockpicking and safecracking Primary Chance of 17, her Success Chance is 51%. Claudia’s player rolls 18. This gives a Quality Rating of 3 or Good. This means that she has cracked the safe, purloined the jewellery that Samuil Vorobev’s girlfriend is not wearing that night and closed up before one of the oligarch’s security guards comes knocking at the door. Now to get back downstairs to the party…Combat and other action scenes in James Bond 007 are played out in Action Rounds. Declarations of actions are made in reverse order of Speed—slowest first, and then enacted in order of Speed—fastest first. Combat handles hand-to-hand combat and gun combat in a decent fashion, with the Ease Factor used to modifier the Primary Chance if a specific location is being targeted. Chases are a special case though. Whether Boating, Diving, Driving, or Piloting, the participants in a chase bid against each, not up, down, lowering the Ease Factor and increasing the difficulty of the manoeuvre they want to perform. The manoeuvres include ‘Pursue/Flee’, ‘Force’, ‘Quick Turn’, ‘Double Back’, and ‘Trick’, the latter a catchall for all manner of stunts—jump a ditch, grab an opponent’s parachute mid fall, and so on. Failing a roll can lead to mishap as can driving below the Redline of a vehicle and exceeding its capabilities. The chase rules are clear and simple, handling the narrative of Bond-style chases in a tense fashion.

Other rules in James Bond 007 cover interaction with NPCs—Persuasion, Seduction, and Interrogation, as well as gambling and gambling life. The latter includes a range of card games plus descriptions of casinos around the world. Fame handles the chances of the Player Characters being recognised by the wrong (or right) people, and then there are Hero Points. These enable a Player Character to alter the outcome of a skill roll, adjusting Quality Rating in his favour. So, he might lower the Quality Rating during a chase to ensure he pulls off a manoeuvre or raise the Quality Rating of an NPC’s attack roll to reduce the damage he would otherwise suffer. They are also used to perform a stunt or at the Game Master’s discretion, even affect the environment around the Player Character. The advice on handling Hero Points in this fashion is underwritten in comparison to their mechanical use, but the possibility is there to pull off some great stunts. For the Game Master, there are Survival Points, which she can spend on her important NPCs to do the same thing. In play, this can lead to great action scenes as the Player Characters and villainous NPCs attempt to outdo each and the Hero and Survival Points fly.
Having successfully raided the safe, Claudia is attempting to return downstairs to the party, but a security guard has come looking for her. As she exits into the hallway, bottle of champagne and glass in hand, slightly dishevelled after clambering over the balcony, she is confronted by the guard, asking what she is doing there. The Game Master sets the Ease Factor at 4, since the guard is suspicious and although out of place, she looks as if she is meant to be at the party, meaning that with Claudia’s Charisma primary Chance of 12, her Success Chance is 48%. Claudia’s player rolls 61. This is a failure, but Claudia’s player decides to spend a Hero Point to adjust the roll to Quality Rating of 4 or Acceptable. She has just about convinced the guard. …For now.It is important to note that James Bond 007 was not actually the first to use a mechanic similar to its Hero Points. The earlier Top Secret: An Espionage Role Playing Game for 3or more players, ages 12 to adult had included an optional rule for Fame and Fortune Points. However, they were only used to overcome a fatal wound and not affect game play in a wider fashion as in James Bond 007. Essentially, James Bond 007 takes the concept and refines them, making them intrinsic to both play and playing in the style of James Bond.

In terms of support, James Bond 007 details and illustrates numerous weapons and vehicles, as well as detailing other pieces of equipment. These all feel just enough to get started, but really the Game Master is going to want to have a copy of the Q Manual: The Illustrated Guide to the World's Finest Armory, which along with equipment descriptions and illustrations includes an assessment of every item by ‘Q’. The book is brilliant read and consequently a great resource for any cinematic spy roleplaying game. For the Game Master there is solid advice on running the game and handling NPCs and personalising major villains; a description of MI6, its facilities and full write-ups and stats for its personal, including ‘M’, ‘Q’ (Major Boothroyd), Miss Moneypenny, and more; and of course, T.A.R.O.T. This is followed by similar stats and write-ups for James Bond’s allies and enemies, enabling the Game Master to have her players be helped or confronted by the signature characters from the films. Thrilling Cities describes some of the exotic locations that Bond and thus the Player Characters might visit—Hong Kong, London, Nassau, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, and Tokyo. Included in the descriptions are hotels, casinos, places to visit, restaurants, and so on, essentially location guides where encounters can be had in places of interest. Just as with the equipment section formed the basis for the Q Manual supplement, these city locations would form the basis for the supplement, Thrilling Locations.

Rounding out James Bond 007 is the introductory adventure, ‘The Island of Dr. No.’ This is a solo adventure based on the film of the same name (though it would also receive a standard adventure that could be played with a group in 1984). It is intended to be played after the reader has read the introduction and understood the basics of the game. Consisting of just over a hundred entries, if used in this fashion, it does leave the player unprepared for any combat that might occur. Ideally the player should read that beforehand as well, or at least be prepared to refer to them in play. Otherwise, the scenario can be run by the Games Master and one player with relative ease. The scenario is decent and should help a player learn the rules, but it does leave the prospective Game Master needing a new scenario if she wants to run something for more players.

Physically, the James Bond 007: Role-Playing In Her Majesty’s Secret Service core rulebook is done in black and white with tones of blue, which gives it a distinctive look all of its own. It does need an edit here and there, but what really stands out is the artwork. Unable to obtain the rights to stills from the films, the roleplaying game is illustrated throughout with black and white line art. Unfortunately, although inspired by the firms, the artwork does not always work. In general, the action pieces feel slightly off, but the character pieces and the portraits are actually really very good. Plus, the use of black and white line art actually gives the rulebook a consistent look and style whereas black and white stills from the various Bond films from the sixties, seventies, and eighties would have looked discordant.

Ultimately, the issues with James Bond 007 as a roleplaying game are fourfold. First, there is the matter of the source material. To quote Judi Dench as ‘M’ in the 1995 Goldeneye, “I think you’re a sexist, misogynist dinosaur. A relic of the Cold War.” The social attitudes of both the novels and the films, then starring Roger Moore as Bond, are outdated, but reflected those of the time. Worse, Bond himself is seen to travel world, drinking, gambling, and seducing women, with the latter in particular, embodying the least attractive aspects of the character. Of course, the roleplaying has rules for seduction, but it has to in order to fit the genre. The Game Master advice for Seduction—as well as Persuasion and Interrogation (and Torture, though for NPCs only)—are they that are used as tools to gain information. To be fair, the inclusion of the Seduction mechanics cannot really be seen as the fault of the roleplaying game itself, and although attitudes have changed since the publication of James Bond 007 in 1983, it would be difficult to write a roleplaying game based on the licence today without including them. However, the likelihood is that the advice for their use would be very different in a contemporary Bond roleplaying game. Just as the depiction of Bond has changed over the years so have roleplaying tastes.

Second, it is a fantasy. The stories of James Bond and thus James Bond 007, do not reflect reality and certainly not the reality of espionage during the Cold War when the stories are set. Compared to the often-grubby world of spies, James Bond is an outlandish superhero, but in the public imagination, he is a spy and not only that, a superspy and his missions and adventures are exciting and thrilling. James Bond 007 reflects this, just as the many other espionage roleplaying games do. Ron Edwards’ Spione: STORY NOW in Cold War Berlin is one of the very few spy-themed roleplaying games to actually eschew the over-the-top style of James Bond.

Third is the absence of SPECTRE and Ernst Stavro Blofeld. This is less of a problem than it first seems. After all, the Game Master is free to create both if she wants and the provided T.A.R.O.T., and Karl Ferenc Skorpios free her to create a wide range of themed missions. Fourth, James Bond 007 is not a roleplaying game for multiple players. It simply does not work with the typical group of four, five, or six players in other roleplaying games, such as Dungeons & Dragons. There is rarely enough story for every Player Character to have time in the spotlight, plus, when it comes to the gadgets, not every Player Character is going to get to play with them. After all, who wants to sit in the back seat of the Aston Martin DB5? James Bond 007 can of course be played with a single agent and the Game Master, but works equally well with two Player Characters or three. There are other minor issues. James Bond 007 is chart heavy, so requires more page flipping than a Game Master might like. Then there is artwork which is used instead of stills from the films. Some of it is bad, but not all.

—oOo—James Bond 007 was reviewed extensively at the time and since. It was first reviewed in Space Gamer Number 67 (Jan/Feb 1984) by Aaron Allston. (Notably, the issue also included ‘Spy Vs. Spy Vs. Spy: a comparative review’ by W.G. Armintrout of Espionage! and Mercenaries, Spies and Private Eyes, the then newly released rivals to James Bond 007.) The review was extensive, Aaron Allston was critical of elements of the game—the Hero Points gave the players too much power, the legal issues over the rights to Spectre and its associated characters, its Britishness, the art, the lack of references for the NPCs presented in the book, and its preponderance of charts. However, he liked the rest of the game and its innovations, saying that, “James Bond 007 does a good job of simulating the Bond milieu. It won’t make me give up Espionage, but I was intrigued by some of the game mechanics, impressed by the flow of play, and glad of the background detail involved. Bond aficionados looking for a decent game will find it here. Gamemasters for practically any contemporary RPG should look into the Q Manual. And the price isn’t bad. I give the game a qualified recommendation; it’s a valid effort, and generally does what it set out to do.”

James Bond 007 was reviewed not once, but twice in the pages of Dragon Magazine. First in Dragon Magazine #83 (March 1984) in ‘Good evening, Mr. Bond – The 007 role-playing system reviewed’ by Tracy Raye Hickman. He concluded, “As a game designer, the James Bond game made me sit up. I guess I’ll have to work a little harder. As a game player, I decided this game fills the bill. With a rule book that is easy to digest and use, the game system conveys all the sizzle of 007’s world. Don’t expect this game to be anything more than James Bond fantasy – but be assured that you.re getting nothing less.” It was then reviewed in Dragon Magazine #137 (September 1988), in ‘Role-playing Reviews’ by Jim Bambra, who said in his evaluation that, “The JAMES BOND 007 game is a good, action-packed system that neatly captures the flavor of its subject. The need to refer to numerous tables during play tends to slow the action down, but the Hero Point system allows agents to perform just like 007 himself. To anyone looking for a game firmly based in the Bond mythos, the need to check tables proves to be a minor inconvenience, but for anyone looking for easy-to-use mechanics, the JAMES BOND 007 game is not an ideal choice.”

Nick Davison reviewed James Bond 007 in Imagine No. 11 (February 1984). He said, “Needless to say, I have some reservations about this game. The combat system takes a backward step, which is a pity: there is no hit location. Presumably the designers would argue that their simplistic approach was to speed up the game. True, but most role-players want interesting combat. Finally, this game is clearly unsuitable for a large group of players — imagine them packing into M’s office, packing into lifts and queueing up to seduce the villainess. Indeed, if there are too many, then villains will need platoons of infantry to overcome them. A necessary evil to improve play balance would be to separate them. However, this never works due to the extra complication for the GM.” Despite this, his review ended positively, “An excellent game for those primarily interested in role-playing rather than combat. It is not recommended for more than three players and is best with less.”

It was reviewed by Larry DiTillio in Different Worlds Issue 34 (May/June 1984). He said, “Overall I give 007 the highest marks as a game. It is easy and fun to play, and it simulates the Bond films (not the books, as fans know there is a big difference) excellently. Players could even play Bond himself with ease, using the stats provided (of course the mission would have to be big). Most of all, the designers have instilled the flavor of Bond, the color, the dash, the improbable stunts, and the adventure we expect from the world of Bond. Moreover, since it works in a milieu that players can easily relate to, it is more vivid than most spy games on the market. Most of all, it is true to its subject, the designers state that it is not created to play hard-edged spy stories in the John Le Carre genre, it is Bond, plain and simple.”

Bob Neville reviewed James Bond 007 in ‘Open Box’ in White Dwarf Issue 57 (September 1984) and only gave it a rating of six out of ten. Despite this, he said, “As a complete system, the 007 game stands up quite well, with a real feeling of belonging to part of the Bond mythos being generated in play. There are faults, however, resulting from complexity of mechanics which can hinder play if adhered to. The rules also concentrate on the more modern pieces of equipment to the detriment of earlier Bond movies (which relied more on plot and action rather than gadgets) and a number of essential areas remain untouched or insufficiently developed. The game might not be the best spy role-game available, but is more complete and playable than any of its rivals.”

Retrospective reviews would follow in 1996. First in Shadis Issue 27 (May 1996) by John Wick in the ‘Lost Treasures’ section of the Reviews department. He said, “A lot of people ask me why I run games without dice Well, it all started with the James Bond Role-Playing Game. You see I was dating this girl when I was living back in St. Paul who was also a gamer and a Mission Impossible/Avengers fan (they used to run them back to back on Channel 11 on Saturday afternoon). So, when I saw the JBRPG, I had to pick it up. We spent many a long, cold evening in front of a fire—with me as the GM and her as the Agent. Sheila and me, we didn’t need any dice. So when gamer couples came into the store (yes, they do exist!), I’d always refer them to the James Bond RPG. The system was simple: it was great for beginners and those of us who prefer storytelling over statistics. 0f course, as the engineers in the office remind me, it’s the guys who know statistics that make it easy to play. The sourcebooks were also a lot of fun (although not accurate). The Q Manual was packed with gadgets and submarine cars, wristwatches with laser cutters and iron teeth.” … “So if you sit around on Saturday afternoons watching old reruns of Mission: Impossible, The Avengers, Secret Agent and The Saint, then you must go out to your local con and start digging through those used game boxes. I picked mine up for $5.”

The second retrospective review appeared in Arcane Issue Nine (August 1996). In the regular ‘Retro’ department James Swallows described the roleplaying game consisting of, “Larger than life characters, loose, almost non-existent plots, fantastic gadgets, fast cars, beautiful women, lots of shooting and explosions, megalomaniac villains and ludicrous names – all set in exotic locations in a glamorous version of our own drab world.” His review was positive, concluding that, “The James Bond 007 roleplaying game had exactly the same sort of instantly playable background that, say, Star Wars does. It had ‘M’, ‘Q’, Moneypenny, Oddjob, Jaws, Goldfinger, and Scaramanga. It even had the infamous Pussy Galore! What more need be said?” It was followed in Arcane Issue Fourteen (December 1996) by its inclusion in ‘The 50 favourite RPGs of all time’ based on a reader’s poll at position #46. Arcane’s editor Paul Pettengale commented: “Because of the subject matter, and because the rules are easy to get to grips with, this proved to be an instant hit. It has also been backed up with a couple of cracking supplements – Thrilling Locations and the Q Manual – which makes creating all manner of interesting scenarios an absolute breeze.”—oOo—
James Bond 007: Role-Playing In Her Majesty’s Secret Service would go on to win the H.G. Wells Award for ‘Best Roleplaying Rules of 1983’ at the 1984 Origins and at the 1984 Strategists’ Club Awards, it won ‘Outstanding Role-Playing Game of 1983’. It is not difficult to see why. Long out of print—although a retroclone of the rules shorn of the licence, Classified, is available—James Bond 007 is still the best emulation of James Bond stories seen on screen. The mechanics are at their core simple and elegant, and its various subsystems—gambling, chases, seduction—do all really work together to emulate the source material in a fashion that can only be described as pitch perfect and peerlessly playable. Add on top of that, the innovation of Hero Points that enable the Player Characters to get into the story and action of Bond in a fashion that had never before been seen in any roleplaying game, and what you have in James Bond 007: Role-Playing In Her Majesty’s Secret Service is an impeccable roleplaying game, the first great licensed roleplaying, the like of which would not be equalled, let alone bettered for decades.

Fifth Doctor: I'm the Doctor. Who are you?Tenth Doctor: [amazed at meeting his former self]  Yes you are! You are the Doctor!Fifth Doctor: Yes I am... I'm the Doctor.Tenth Doctor: Oh good for you, Doctor! Good for brilliant old you!Fifth Doctor: Is there something wrong with you?
- The Tenth and Fifth Doctors, Time Crash
Another Sunday Special on the A to Z. Today, I want to cover some other multi-Doctor stories, this time with just Two Doctors.

The Two Doctors

The first one that comes to mind is appropriately titled, The Two Doctors. This was set during the Colin Baker years (originally airing Feb/March 1985) and features the Sixth Doctor (Colin Baker) and the Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton).  Troughton has always wanted to come back to Doctor Who, but not as the Doctor, but as an alien. He thought it would be fun to play something under so much makeup that no one would know it was him. This was during the John Nathan-Turner years, and JTN wanted to bring back all sorts of old friends and enemies. So it really is no surprise that the Second Doctor and Jaime were brought back.

While the episode itself was not supposed to celebrate anything, like the Three and Five Doctors did, it was the 100th book put out by Doctor Who novel publisher Target. So that is nice. Also, I felt this episode marked a turning point for Colin Baker's Doctor. He became less brash after this moving towards that kinder Doctor he always wanted to play. 

Trial of a Time Lord

In the modern Doctor Who era we are used to big surprises, especially when they come to the Doctor (see below), but in the classic series this was something new and unexpected. In a story that would fir in in with New Who well we have The Trial of a Time Lord. Again with Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor and Anothony Aniley as the Master (and doing things that will have an effect on Jodie Whittaker's Doctor and Sacha Dhawan's Master) and another figure, the Valeyard played by Michael Jayston. We learn he is an incarnation of the Doctor between his "12th and last regeneration."  So evil that the Master joins up with the Doctor to defeat him.  We don't see him after this year-long series but he is mentioned a few more times.

Time Crash

This one was a short that appeared on the Season 4 DVD (or maybe Season 3) DVD sets. It was right before the Christmas Special "Voyage of the Damned" and featured the Tenth and Fifth Doctors.

Ok this one is so meta. First off, David Tennant grew up with the Fifth Doctor as his favorite Doctor. Earlier that year David had just met Georgia Moffett and they would get married in 2011. Georgia Moffett is Peter Davidson's (the Fifth Doctor) daughter. Georgia in fact played"Jenny" the Doctor's Daughter in a previous episode called, "The Doctor's Daughter."

Confused? Not surprising. When asked at a convention "what was the strangest thing a fan had ever given him" Peter Davidson replied "Grandchildren."

The episode is fun and pure fluff to be honest, but fun fluff.

Twice Upon a Time

Jumping past the 50th Anniversary special for now.  We get to our next double Doctor story. This one features the Twelfth Doctor, Peter Capaldi, as he is trying to decide if he should regenerate or not, and he meets up with his former self, the First Doctor, now being played by the amazing David Bradley, going through a similar existential crisis. 

Before I say too much about this episode (it is wonderful) I need to say something about David Bradley here. WOW. He is so great as the First Doctor (he has played him since and even played William Hartnell). Yes, yes, this script makes him seem older and more cantankerous than he really was, but it was done to show the differences between 1 and 12 more.

Technically this episode is not a Two Doctor story but rather a Three Doctor one since at the end the Twelfth Doctor does decide to regenerate into the Thirteenth Doctor in the form of Jodie Whittaker. 

Fugitive of the Judoon

Now here is an episode that totally surprised everyone.  The "Fugitive" in this episode is not The Thirteenth Doctor (Jodie Whittaker) but instead a completely unknown and never before seen incarnation from before the First Doctor. This Doctor, called the Fugitive Doctor (play AMAZINGLY by Jo Martin), had her memories wiped via a Chameleon Arch by the Time Lords. 

Look, I'll be honest. I LOVED Jodie Whittaker as the Doctor. I just felt some of the scripts were weak. But Jo Martin? Damn. She lit up and took over every scene she was in. 

My head cannon is this. We know the First Doctor took a TARDIS that was "a museum piece," according to River Song. We know that he was going to steal one, but Clara, in her Impossible Girl incarnation, directed him to a different one.  That TARDIS, old with a broken Chameleon Circuit was brand new when The Fugitive Doctor used it (it looks new in the above clip). It was her TARDIS then and when the Time Lords wiped her memories and made her into the "First Doctor" that TARDIS sat there and waited until the Doctor decided to run again. Like the First Doctor she even calls it her "ship."

I want more Jo Martin and her Doctor. I want to know what her actions were to give us the Doctor we know today. 

The War Doctor in The Name of the Doctor

Ah. There is so much to unpack here. This one will need its own post.

All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.

What’s New

• First 20 page module
• First module to have 2 new monsters
• The Background seems more clearly geared to be read to the players, with expressions like “your map shows” and “you must all exercise great care”. This is definitely a development and a refining from the previous modules
• First module to have a map which shows multiple levels superimposed on top of each other – this can at times be a little confusing and is very rarely used in future. See those dashed lines? – those are to indicate a 10 foot wide passage underneath the top level

Art

• DCS III front and back cover
• Most internal art by DCS III but quite a few by Trampier as well
• After the sequence of back covers for the G’s, and D1 showing the main 3 monsters, the back cover of this one just shows the players encountering a rust monster – an odd choice, considering rust monsters are only in the random monster tables. Again, the Australian version doesn’t have a third panel – instead the back cover is the hex map

General

• There were two and half pages of random monster tables in D1. This module ups it to three and a half pages.
• The 2 minor encounter areas on the way to the main area are quite interesting – Gygax seems to be adding more and more flavour as he does more and more design – names and motivations for the monsters, and descriptions of various reactions depending on what the players do
• The massive main temple room is something else! I mean, the main cavern in D1 was big, but the jaggedness of the edges gives it a smaller feel. In this module, the players enter on to a gigantic 260’ x 270’ room with a huge statue at the centre – it’s pretty awesome as a set piece

• I haven’t got much else to say. Rather than a bunch of random monster cupboards, the layout of the Kuo-Toan city makes a decent amount of sense. The main question I have is “why do they have money?” It’s not like they have any shops or anything…
• The two and a half pages just for Kuo-Toans is the most extensive monster description yet
• There’s an article in the October Dragon mag, #19, that details how they scored the tournament with a little commentary about this module

Date Information – August 1978

• See info on D1 page
• There’s more info about the release at GenCon in the history at DriveThruRPG

Going back down the hallway from Room #15 the party will see a bit of light coming from the wall on the right.  There is a secret opening that is easier to find here. 

Inside this small room is a Grey Ooze.

There is no treasure here.

1974 is an important year for the gaming hobby. It is the year that Dungeons & Dragons was introduced, the original RPG from which all other RPGs would ultimately be derived and the original RPG from which so many computer games would draw for their inspiration. It is fitting that the current owner of the game, Wizards of the Coast, released the new version, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, in the year of the game’s fortieth anniversary. To celebrate this, Reviews from R’lyeh will be running a series of reviews from the hobby’s anniversary years, thus there will be reviews from 1974, from 1984, from 1994, and from 2004—the thirtieth, twentieth, and tenth anniversaries of the titles. These will be retrospectives, in each case an opportunity to re-appraise interesting titles and true classics decades on from the year of their original release.

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Cthulhu Companion – Ghastly adventures & Erudite Lore was published in 1983. It was the first supplement for Call of Cthulhu, a roleplaying game which in its forty-year history has had relatively few supplements compared to the number of campaigns and scenario anthologies. It brings together a collection of essays and scenarios, some of which are drawn from the pages of Different Worlds, providing the Keeper with source material and extra scenarios, all set within the classic period of the Jazz Age. The supplement actually opens with a quick guide to adapting a Keeper’s campaign from the first to the second edition of Call of Cthulhu. The changes here are to what is recognisably the version of Call of Cthulhu which would form the basis of the roleplaying game for the next few decades until the advent of Call of Cthulhu, Seventh Edition.

The opening essay in the supplement is ‘The Cthulhu Mythos in Mesoamerican Religion’ by Richard L. Tierney. This builds on Zealia Bishop’s novella, ‘The Mound’, to draw correlations between the Cthulhu Mythos and the religions of Mesoamerica. Thus, Cthulhu is the Aztec Tlaloc, Yig is Quetzalcoatl, Nyarlathotep is Tezcatlipoca, Shub-Niggurath is Coatlique, and more. It suggests that there are signs of Cthulhu worship at Chichen Itza, explores the role played by the Mythos in the Aztec religious practices, and so on. A more contemporary sourcebook, for example, The Mysteries of Mesoamerica: 1920s Sourcebook and Mythos Adventures for Mexico and Central America from Pagan Publishing might not necessarily equate the deities of Mesoamerica with those of the Cthulhu Mythos quite so readily, instead leaving it up to individual cults and cultists to interpret however the Keeper wants. Nevertheless, as one of the first articles on comparative theology for Call of Cthulhu and on Mesoamerican religion, there is much here for the Keeper to work with if she wants to develop the parallels for her scenarios. This is followed by William Hamblin’s translation [sic] of the Bulgarian scholar, Phileus P. Sadowsky’s ‘Further Notes on the Necronomicon’. This is a linguistical examination of the Kitab al-Azif or the Necronomicon which works from Arabic through Greek, Latin, and Egyptian to explain the meanings derivations of the names of various Mythos entities and races. It is a thoroughly enjoyable piece of faux scholarship which could worked into a campaign or scenario as a lengthy handout.
One of the great additions to Call of Cthulhu is ‘A Sourcebook For the 1920’s’, both an almanac for the Jazz Age and an expansion to the rules. The Cthulhu Companion expands upon this with ‘Sourcebook Additions’. These include a range of prisons by Lynn Willis, such as H. M. Deathoak Prison, Great Britain and the American Wayshearn Co. Work Farm. Each includes a physical description, the penal theory in force, routine functions, staff, and more. These are all horrid places and the Investigators best hope that they never end up behind the walls of any of these establishments, but in case there is plenty of detail here to help the Keeper bring them to life should an Investigator end up a prisoner for crimes he did, or did not, commit. Keith Herber details two skills, Photography and Lock Picking. The former is more interesting than latter, hinting at the difficulties of taking and developing photographs of the Fungi from Yuggoth, ghosts, and similar entities. This is an aspect, if only a small one, which Call of Cthulhu would revisit later. Sandy Petersen pens a ‘Lovecraftian Timeline’ for the various works of H.P. Lovecraft, running from the disappearance of the Starry Wisdom cult in Providence, Rhode Island in 1877 (from ‘The Haunter of the Dark’) to the autopsy performed on the Eridanus mummy in late 1932 after its attempted theft and deaths of the would-be thieves (from ‘Out of the Eons’). It is a handy little thing for the Keeper who wants to tie her scenarios into particular events depicted in Lovecraft’s fiction.

The ‘Rulesbook Additions’ gives new content to supplement the core rulebook for Call of Cthulhu. Glenn Rahman provides a long list of ‘New Phobias’, everything from Acrophobia, Ailurophobia, and Algophobia to Verbophobia, Vestiophobia, and Zoophobia. More phobias are always useful, as are the two Insanities—Quixotism and Panzaism—which Sandy Petersen contributes before working with Alan K. Crandall and Glenn Rahman on ‘Additional Deities, Races, and Monsters for the Cthulhu Mythos’, an expanded ‘bestiary’ of more Mythos entities for the roleplaying game. Many, like the Atlach-Nacha, Gnoph Keh, Gugs, Moon Beasts, and Lloigor will be familiar in the Call of Cthulhu canon today, but this article marks their first appearances and they would have been welcome additions, though not necessarily what the Cthulhu Companion would be remembered for.

‘Excerpts and Prayers’ collects pieces drawn from the works of H. P. Lovecraft, J. Ramsey Campbell, Frank Belknap Long, and Clark Ashton Smith and includes excerpts from the Necronomicon and Revelations of Glaaki as well as others. Much like the earlier ‘Further Notes on the Necronomicon’, these are all begging to be used as handouts in a campaign or scenario where they would add to their flavour and sense of verisimilitude.

If the Cthulhu Companion is remembered for anything, it is its four scenarios. These begin with John Sullivan’s ‘Paper Chase’. This is a then rare, one-on-one, one Investigator, one Keeper scenario in which the Investigator is hired to find out who is stealing some books. The trail quickly leads to a nearby cemetery where the Investigator will encounter the ghoul who is not only responsible for the thefts, but was the previous owner of the books! This is a classic which would be included in ‘Book Three—Paper Chase and Other Adventures’ of the Call of Cthulhu Starter Set. ‘Paper Chase’ is fairly benign scenario, really only deadly depending upon what the Investigator decides to do. Of course, there is the sanity-sapping realisation that the truth of the world is not as the Investigator knows it be, but this is a gentle introduction to Lovecraftian investigative horror and shows how although the Mythos is antithetical to mankind, aspects of it are not necessarily actively working against mankind.

The first long scenario in the Cthulhu Companion is ‘The Mystery of Loch Feinn’ by Glenn Rahman. Set in Scotland, it concerns the death near Loch Feinn of Professor Willard Gibbson, a noted palaeontologist working at the British Museum, whose last words were that he was onto “the biggest scientific discovery of this century or the last!” Putting aside the fact that ‘Feinn Loch’ is actually in the west of Scotland rather than due north of Inverness in the east as ‘Loch Feinn’ here, the scenario brings together the Loch Ness monster (or its equivalent) and the Mythos, a backward Scottish clan, a gothic ruin, and the first appearance of the Lloigor in a scenario. There are moments of silliness, such as giving an NPC the surname ‘MacGuffin’, but there is lots to investigate here and the scenario has an eerie, mystery of the moors feel to it, with very nasty encounters both below the castle and—if the Investigators venture out—on the waters of the loch.

Lynn Willis’ ‘The Rescue’ is a much more linear affair, taking place in the Appalachians where a US State Department official has been found dead and his daughter has gone missing. Joining the search party leads to encounters with the lowlife and the poor of the nearest town before the search sends them into the nearby hills, where the culprits behind the death and the abduction are lurking. The scenario turns feral as those responsible decide to hunt the Investigators. This is physically brutal confrontation with a Wild West style shootout in a ravine as the culprits—now revealed to be werewolves—stalk the Investigators. The scenario funnels the Investigators into this confrontation and that and the fact that it involves Lycanthropy is a potential issue. This may or may not fit the Keeper’s view of the Mythos, but the scenario gives a means of passing the Lycanthropic curse, treating it as a form of rabies.

The longest and grandest scenario is ‘The Secret of Castronegro’ by Mark Pettigrew and Sandy Petersen. Intended for moderately experienced Investigators, it sends them to the town of Silver City in New Mexico where there has been a rash of disappearances, including a Professor of Psychology, an anthropology student, and a local man from the nearby town of Castronegro. The clues should lead the Investigators to Castronegro, an odd, out of the way place dominated by two corrupt Spanish families, the de Diaz and the Vilheila-Pereira families, noted for their long teeth, black hair, and vibrantly green eyes. The Mythos seems to have run quietly wild in the town, a weird combination of Port Merion and Innsmouth, but both set in the desert. One notable establishment in the town is ‘The Tomb’, bizarrely stuffed with Mythos gewgaws and doodads for sale! The town’s inhabitants reactions to the Investigators’ presence and questions will be slow at first, but ramp up to daily pot shots and nightly bad dreams and then a kidnapping. The latter is unfortunately, a deus ex machina, that the player and his Investigator can do nothing about once it happens, forcing the player to create a new Investigator. Looming over the town is the Casa de Diaz and it is here that the Investigators will confront the scenario’s ultimate villain. If the preceding investigation has been weird and creepy, the confrontation is likely to be physical and combative and this perhaps is the biggest weakness of the scenario. It either ends in combat against tough opponents here in the almost dungeon-like or lair-like house or not at all.

The Cthulhu Companion draws to a close with ‘Poetry’. This includes four poems by H.P. Lovecraft taken from The Fungi from Yuggoth and Other Tales, but also includes the one item that the Cthulhu Companion is really remembered for. This is ‘The Lair of Great Cthulhu’, an eyebrow raising set of Filk lyrics by Joan Carruth and Larry Press set to the tune of Glenn Miller’s Chattanooga Choo-Choo. Lastly, Morgan Conrad’s ‘Sanity Quiz’ which anything other than that, but instead a lengthy, two-page listing of every adjective that H.P. Lovecraft used in his fiction to describe his unworldly creations. It is either useless, or a priceless list of descriptive words for the Keeper to add to her vocabulary with describing the monsters of the Mythos at the table.

Physically, the Cthulhu Companion – Ghastly adventures & Erudite Lore is very well presented. The artwork is uniformly good and the cartography, if a little quirky, is as good. The cover depicts a desperate explorer trying to climb up out of a walled pit, chased by grasping tentacles. The inclusion of the fedora being knocked from his head hints at Indiana Jones, if only a little…

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Cthulhu Companion – Ghastly adventures & Erudite Lore was first reviewed in ‘Open Box’ in White Dwarf Issue No. 51 (March 1984) by Jon Sutherland. He awarded it 7 out of 10 and ended his review with, “In conclusion, this tome is really of use only to the Keepers of Arcane Knowledge and given that this does not set out to fundamentally change any of the basic rules themselves, again this will limit appeal. The scenarios are quite good and altogether, this represents a predictable package and is reasonable value for money.”

Graeme Davis reviewed ‘The Cthulhu Companion’ in the Game Reviews department of Imagine No. 15 (June 1984). He was slightly dismissive of the supplement’s poetry, ‘Sanity Quiz’, and other bits and pieces, and said, “Apart from these, there is nothing which is not immediately useful to any campaign, and it is to be hoped that future supplements will maintain the very impressive standard of the Cthulhu Companion. The value for money is excellent, and no Call of Cthulhu referee can afford to be without it.”

Lastly, it was reviewed in Different Worlds Issue 36 (Sep/Oct 1984) by Steve Marsh. He said, “I liked the Cthulhu Companion. For a keeper who uses a great deal of background and whose investigators live for giblets of lore, it is easily worth the price. For a keeper who uses preset scenarios (I rarely do but will use some of these) it isn’t bad deal excepting for the hack-and-slash elements of the last scenario. Pricewise a keeper might be better off purchasing one of the scenario packs available for Call Of Cthulhu if not inclined to use the material in the Companion except such are by far too rare.” He expressed disappointment that more of the source material could not have been integrated into the supplement’s gaming content, but concluded that, “However, on the net, it is a good buy for the money. It meets Chaosium’s demanding physical product standards. Every article can be easily understood. Everything does have a use even if requiring a bit of work. Its only failure is that it is merely a good solid work instead of the brilliance I was expecting.”

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The Cthulhu Companion would be reprinted in the 1986 collated Call of Cthulhu, Third Edition, which for the British audience would be the definitive edition of the roleplaying with hardback from Games Workshop. ‘The Secret of Castronegro’ would be reprinted in 1989 in Cthulhu Classics, along with Shadows of Yog-Sothoth, and of course, in ‘Paper Chase’ in the Call of Cthulhu Starter Set. The other scenarios and the rest of the volume’s content has not.

In 1983, there can be no doubt that the Cthulhu Companion – Ghastly adventures & Erudite Lore greatly added to Call of Cthulhu—new supplementary information, new Mythos monsters, and four scenarios—and all of it useful in some ways. It was a good supplement, which set the blueprint for the subsequent, but nowhere near as good, Fragments of Fear: The Second Cthulhu Companion, and the superior, Island of Ignorance – The Third Cthulhu Companion. Today, the content of the Cthulhu Companion – Ghastly adventures & Erudite Lore is still playable, although by modern standards too many of scenarios emphasise combat solutions over other means of resolution. Yet the Cthulhu Companion – Ghastly adventures & Erudite Lore genuinely added to Call of Cthulhu, expanding its background material and exploring the types of scenarios which the roleplaying game could support.

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An unboxing of the Cthulhu Companion – Ghastly adventures & Erudite Lore can be found here.

The previous release in 1982 from Chaosium, Inc. for Call of Cthulhu was Shadows of Yog-Sothoth. The next would be the anthology, The Asylum & Other Tales.

Chantho : Chan-Professor, please!
The Professor : THAT IS NOT MY NAME! "The Professor" was an invention. So perfect a disguise that I forgot who I am.
Chantho : Chan-Then who are you-tho?
The Master : I am... the Master.

- Professor Yana/The Master, Utopia 

The Master. Moriarty to the Doctor's Holmes. Lex Luthor to the Doctor's Superman. He is possibly the deadliest enemy the Doctor has ever known, next to the Daleks, and they began as friends.  Not just friends but old, good friends.

Like the Doctor, the Master is a Time Lord. Like the Doctor he is a renegade. We know from various sources they were both good friends and were shown the Untempered Schism together. The Doctor ran, the Master went mad. They went to the academy together, along with another brilliant Time Lord, The Rani. 

Also, like the Doctor, the Master has been played by many actors.  The role was originated by Roger Delgado in the Pertwee (3rd Doctor) years and was introduced in the serial "Seeds of Death" which also gave us Jo Grant. At first they Doctor and the Master knew each other but did not act like they had a history.   Delgado died in car crash a few years later and it was one of the reasons Jon Pertwee left the show, they two were very good friends. Next we had a couple of actors play a "decayed" version of the Master, having gone through all of his regenerations and was now in regeneration crisis.

We next see him at the end of the Tom Baker (4th Doctor) years. He steals the body of a Trakenite named Tremas (more on that) and is played with over-the-top gusto by Anothny Ainely. Now a LOT of people didn't like Ainely's portrayal of the Master compared to the more suave and sophisticated evil of Delgado. And I waiver back and forth a lot myself. 

We last see the Master in the old series in the serial "Survival" with the Seventh Doctor and Ace. Though we know he escapes that doomed world. 

Ace : Last time I saw you, you were half cat.
The Master : A man's allowed to experiment.

- The Power of the Doctor (2022)

He is the major antagonist of the US Fox/BBC-produced Doctor Who movie with Paul McGann as the Doctor. Here is played with gleeful scenery chewing by Eric Roberts as only Eric Roberts can. Making this the only time a Time Lord was played by an American actor. Eric Roberts real-life wife Eliza (who should be familiar to anyone that frequents this site) appears as his wife in this movie as well. In this the remains of the Master find a way to possess poor paramedic Bruce (Roberts) and use him as he did Tremas.  He is seemingly destroyed here as well...but I am sure you know what is next.

Just like "Bad Wolf" was an Easter Egg for the first season of the new Doctor Who, and "Torchwood" was for the second season, "Mister Saxon" was for the third season. We heard a lot about Mr. Saxon, but the payoff was not until the end.

The 10th Doctor, Martha and Jack Harkness end up at the very end of the Universe, 100 trillion years in the future. The stars have all burned out and the last of the humans are living on a dark planet ("Malcassairo") with hopes of finding the last surviving home for humanity, Utopia. Hoping to get them all there is Professor Yana, a strange and sort of bumbling scientist (of the type the British do so well) played by Derek Jacobi (THE Derek Jacobi).  Yet not all as it appears. The Professor carries a watch, like what the Doctor had used when he was disguised as a human for a while. Opening the watch (a Chameleon Arch) returns his memories and Yana is revealed to be the newest incarnation of the Master. Sadly we only get a few moments of Jacobi playing the Master before he is killed and then he surprisingly regenerates! To the new Master played by John Simms. Who, if anything, is more akin to the Joker than Lex Luthor. 

We learn that Mister Saxon is really the Master in the form of John Simms who came back to Earth in the Doctor's stolen TARDIS six months prior.  John Simms gives us some of the best performances as the Master up to that point. Yes, even better than Delgado and Jacobi. We learn a lot more history about the Master here from the 10th Doctor.  The Master is killed, again, and this time to spite the Doctor he refuses to regenerate. Of course, he has a backup plan.

We next see the Master when Rassilon (from the Five Doctors) comes out of Death/Retirement to win the Time War (more on that) tries to pull Gallifrey out of the War and into orbit near Earth. The Master sacrifices himself to save the Doctor and Earth (crazy right?).

No Master at all for the 11th Doctor. But when we get the 12th Doctor a new character keeps poping up in his wake, someone called "Missy" and refers to the 12th Doctor as her "boyfriend."

Missy is played by the absolutely delightful Michelle Gomez.

"Please try to keep up. Short for Mistress. Well, I couldn't very well keep calling myself the Master, now could I?"

- Missy/The Master, Death in Heaven

Missy seemed more like she was trying to impress the Doctor rather than defeat him. Indeed it seemed like maybe the old friendship they had would rekindle and Missy could be something new.  That is until she ran into the John Simms (now with a goatee) version of herself. The old master re-corrupts the new Master/Missy, but they still ended up killing each other.

Finally, we have the most recent Master during the time of the 13th Doctor, played again with over-the-top glees by Sacha Dhawan.  This Master is back to being evil. Very, very evil. This Master seemingly dies in the same episode that he, once again, kills the Doctor. 

Honestly, I could go on and on here about the Master, they are just as colorful and interesting as the Doctor.  A couple of things though. While both the Doctor and the Master have hypnotic and psionic powers, the Master's seems to be much greater. The Delgado Master would routinely hypnotize people and the Simms Master even took the power to take over the Earth using a series of interlinked satellites. 

Another thing about the Master is his seeming compulsion to use anagrams or alternates of his own name. The Delgado Master was often known as Mr. Masters or Magister. Even Tremas of Traken (who the Master could have been grooming to be his new body) is an anagram of Master. Speaking of anagrams, "Mister Saxon" is an anagram of "Master no. six" to indicate John Simms as the sixth person to play the Master at that time. Even Professor Yana came as a warning from the Face of Boe to the Doctor of "You Are Not Alone." 

Will we see a new Master now after the Doctor has regenerated? Oh yes, just like the Daleks and the Cybermen the Master keeps coming back for more.

All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.

Quick-starts are means of trying out a roleplaying game before you buy. Each should provide a Game Master with sufficient background to introduce and explain the setting to her players, the rules to run the scenario included, and a set of ready-to-play, pre-generated characters that the players can pick up and understand almost as soon as they have sat down to play. The scenario itself should provide an introduction to the setting for the players as well as to the type of adventures that their characters will have and just an idea of some of the things their characters will be doing on said adventures. All of which should be packaged up in an easy-to-understand booklet whose contents, with a minimum of preparation upon the part of the Game Master, can be brought to the table and run for her gaming group in a single evening’s session—or perhaps too. And at the end of it, Game Master and players alike should ideally know whether they want to play the game again, perhaps purchasing another adventure or even the full rules for the roleplaying game.

Alternatively, if the Game Master already has the full rules for the roleplaying game for the quick-start is for, then what it provides is a sample scenario that she still run as an introduction or even as part of her campaign for the roleplaying game. The ideal quick-start should entice and intrigue a playing group, but above all effectively introduce and teach the roleplaying game, as well as showcase both rules and setting.

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What is it?
The War Stories: A World War 2 RPG Quickstart Ruleset is the quick-start for War Stories: A World War 2 RPG, the roleplaying game of the stories of the men and women whose desperate missions and harrowing exploits would help win the greatest conflict of the twentieth century.

It includes a basic explanation of the setting, detailed descriptions of the various elements which make up a Player Character, rules for actions and combat, details of the arms and equipment fielded by the Player Characters, the mission, ‘Cut the Lines’, and five ready-to-play, pre-generated Player Characters.

It is a forty-five page, 20.42 MB full colour PDF.

The quick-start is well illustrated and the artwork is uniformly excellent, especially that of the pre-generated Player Characters. The maps for the scenario are also good and like the newspaper-style layout for the quick-start, they grant the War Stories: A World War 2 RPG Quickstart Ruleset a pleasing verisimilitude.

The War Stories: A World War 2 RPG Quickstart Ruleset is published by Firelock Games.

How long will it take to play?
The War Stories: A World War 2 RPG Quickstart Ruleset and its adventure, ‘Cut the Lines’, is designed to be played through in one session, two at the very most.

What do you need to play?
The War Stories: A World War 2 RPG Quickstart Ruleset requires six-sided dice, no more than ten per player, as well as a single ten-sided die each. Ten cards from a standard deck of playing cards, numbered Ace through ten are also required. They will form the Initiative Deck.

Who do you play?
Four of the pre-generated Player Characters consist of members of the 101st Airborne. They include an ex-baseball player turned intimidating sergeant, a farm boy who is an impatient scout, an unlucky ex-police officer now rifleman, and an educated, but naïve medic. The female Player Character is a French ex-con artist turned partisan.

How is a Player Character defined?
A Player Character in War Stories: A World War 2 RPG has four Attributes—Strength, Agility, Intelligence, and Empathy. These are rated between one and five. He also has several skills, rated between zero and five. These are associated with each of the four Attributes. For example, Calisthenics is a Strength skill, Ranged Combat an Agility skill, Insight an Intelligence skill, and Guts an Empathy skill. Specialisations, such as Grunt, Stealth, Sharpshooter, Born to Lie, and Counsellor add dice to Action Tests. Talents like Intimidating, Fast Reflexes, Hardy, Polyglot, and Intense Focus: Empathy provide further bonuses. For example, Polyglot grants a chance to understand the basis of other languages, whilst Fast Reflexes enables a player to draw an extra Initiative card and chose the best. All five Player Characters have Flaws and Virtues, but these not defined in the War Stories: A World War 2 RPG Quickstart Ruleset and the Game Master will need to consult the War Stories: A World War 2 RPG core rules if she wants to bring them into play mechanically.

In addition to Endurance, a Player Character’s capacity to handle the physical and mental stresses of combat and other challenges, he also has a Conditions Tracker which measures the effect of damage suffered. The Conditions Tracker has four categories, one for each Attribute, and each category has three ranks. Wounds is linked to Strength and a Player Character can either be ‘Gashed’, ‘Cut’, or ‘Nicked’. Weariness is linked to Agility, Fear to Intelligence, and Morale to Empathy. Each rank levies a penalty on all rolls made with its associated Attribute.

How do the mechanics work?
Mechanically, the War Stories: A World War 2 RPG uses the Year Zero Engine first seen in Mutant: Year Zero – Roleplaying at the End of Days, published by Free League Publishing. To undertake an action, a player must roll an Action Test. The player rolls a number of six-sided dice equal to the skill value and its associated Attribute. Each six rolled counts as a Success. Only one Success is typically required to succeed at an Action Test. Extra Successes can be used to generate additional effects, for example, bonuses to damage in combat or extra Lucky Strike tokens.

If no Successes are rolled or if he wants to generate more Successes, a player can chose to ‘Push Your Luck’. This enables him to reroll any dice that did not roll Successes or results of one. He can only this once for any Action Test. However, a ‘Push Your Luck’ attempt turns any result of a one—on either the original roll or the reroll, into Duds. Any Dud results after a ‘Push Your Luck’ earn the Player Character a FUBAR point. A Player Character can hold up to a maximum of two FUBAR points, any excess going into a pool that the Game Master give out to a Player Character when narratively appropriate.

Along with FUBAR points, Lucky Strikes are the two types of luck or hero points in War Stories: A World War 2 RPG. A player can use his Player Character’s Lucky Strikes or FUBAR points to reroll ones on a ‘Push Your Attempt’, add more dice to an Action Test, reroll a damage roll, change a minor plot point, and so on. Thus FUBAR points are not necessarily as dangerous as they first appear or sound, but the Game Master can use them in three other ways that a player cannot. This is ‘Push an NPC Test’, essentially a ‘Push Your Luck’, but for NPCs; impose narratively suitable Condition on a Player Character without the need for Endurance loss; and introduce a Random Bad Luck Event into the current scenario. The latter is not explored in any detail in the War Stories: A World War 2 RPG Quickstart Ruleset and if the Game Master wants to use this aspect of the rules, she will have to improvise.

All sixteen skills in the War Stories: A World War 2 RPG Quickstart Ruleset are described in detail and include the results of Success, Failure, and extra Successes. In each case, several options are given for the latter.

How does combat work?
Combat in the War Stories: A World War 2 RPG Quickstart Ruleset uses the same rules as Action Tests. Initiative is handled by drawing cards from the Initiative Deck, and can be altered as the result of Talents, such as ‘Fast Reflexes’ or Extra Successes generated on certain Action Tests. In one Round, a Player Character can undertake one Slow Action and one Fast Action, or two Fast Actions. Slow actions include Close Combat Attack, First Aid, and Rally, whilst Fast Actions include Aim, Go On Overwatch, and Operate Vehicle. The rules cover aiming, rendering first aid, rallying an ally, and overwatch, as well as range, obstructions, visibility, and zones. The latter are combat areas which vary in size according to the needs of the narrative. Thus, one room in a house-to-house fight could be a zone, as could a wheat field outside a village. The rules also take into account rapid fire by semiautomatic weapons, burst fire, and full auto, along with suppressive fire, explosions, protection, cover, and personal armour.

When an attack is successful, a roll is required on the Damage Table. This is made with the ten-sided die. Bonuses to this roll can come from the weapon used, depending upon its lethality, and any extra Success rolled on the Action Test. Damage is deducted from the Player Character’s Endurance and applied to his Conditions Tracker. The first Condition is determined by the Game Master as narratively appropriate, whilst the player is free to assign the damage elsewhere on the Conditions Tracker. Rest, First Aid, and Rally can also be used to restore Endurance and remove Conditions. (Amongst other rules the War Stories: A World War 2 RPG core rule book also covers Critical Injuries, Stress, Fatigue, and more, which are not included in the War Stories: A World War 2 RPG Quickstart Ruleset.)

In addition, the War Stories: A World War 2 RPG Quickstart Ruleset includes a table of the weapons used by the Germans in the scenario as well as a glossary of the various Qualities that the arms and equipment used by both sides can have. 

What do you play?
The War Stories: A World War 2 RPG Quickstart Ruleset includes ‘Cut the Lines’. This set in Normandy on the morning of June 6th, 1944 shortly after members of the 101st Airborne have parachuted into enemy occupied territory. Scattered, they have met up, together with a French partisan and are investigating a town which is currently ablaze. After foiling an ambush attempt on advancing Allied troops, the squad is assigned a mission. This is to knockout an enemy communications post based in the town post office and recover as much intelligence as possible. The squad is given free range as how they do it, though the involvement of French civilians may complicate the situation.

Is there anything missing?
For the most part, the War Stories: A World War 2 RPG Quickstart Ruleset is complete. However, a table of the Allied arms and equipment for the benefit of the Game Master would be useful. Similarly, given the relatively short length of the scenario, some scenario hooks or a link to sequel scenario would be a nice bonus for a group playing at home. Lastly, although mentioned in the rules and each Player Character comes with at least one Virtue and one Flaw, there is no explanation of how Flaws and Virtues work in the game. To bring them into the game, the players will simply have to roleplay them.

Is it easy to prepare?
The core rules presented in the War Stories: A World War 2 RPG Quickstart Ruleset are relatively easy to prepare. The Game Master will need to pay closer attention to how combat works in the game as it is the most complex part of the rules and highly tactical in play. There is decent advice for the Game Master on how to run the scenario.
Is it worth it?
Yes. The War Stories: A World War 2 RPG Quickstart Ruleset includes everything necessary to play out a desperate mission at the beginning of the greatest military invasion ever seen. The rules are clearly explained, the mission straightforward, the players are given free agency for their characters to approach it however they want, and the consequences of how the choices made by the players and their characters explored for the benefit of the Game Master. The scenario, ‘Cut the Lines’, is short, but that also makes the perfect length if the Game Master wants to run it as a convention scenario. Plus if run as a convention scenario, there is also scope to scale the scenario up into a skirmish roleplaying scenario, complete with terrain, miniatures, and maps.
Where can you get it?
The War Stories: A World War 2 RPG Quickstart Ruleset is available to download here.

This tunnel in the back and to the right of Room 14 leads to long hallway. This goes some 50' and then splits to the left and to the right.  

Going right, the corridor straightens out and opens to a carved out room glowing with eldritch light.

Inside are Seven (7) Ghouls.  The ghouls appear to be orc-like in appearance.

These ghouls are worshiping around a giant idol of a demon. When the party enters, the ghouls will stop their chanting. At this point it will come down to initiative.

The Ghouls have 3* HD instead of the normal 2 HD. In fact, they are not even aware they are ghouls; they still think of themselves as living orcs.  The paralysis WILL affect elves.

These orc-ghouls have an extra Treasure Type C as a group. 

There is a secret door underneath the idol that leads to Level 5.

(I will detail that next month)

Before the advent of the internet, the magazine was the focus of the hobby’s attention, a platform in whose pages could be news, reviews, and content for the roleplaying game of each reader’s choice, as well as a classified section and a letters page where the issues of day—or at least month—could be raised and discussed in chronically lengthy manner. In this way, such magazines as White Dwarf, Imagine, Dragon, and many others since, came to be our community’s focal point and sounding board, especially a magazine that was long running. Yet depending upon when you entered the hobby and picked up your first issue of a roleplaying magazine, you could have missed a mere handful of issues or many. Which would have left you wondering what was in those prior issues. Today, tracking down back issues to find out and complete a magazine’s run is much easier than it was then, but many publishers offered another solution—the ‘Best of…’ magazine. This was a compilation of curated articles and support, containing the best content to have appeared in the magazine’s pages.

1980 got the format off to a good start with both The Best of White Dwarf Scenarios and The Best of White Dwarf Articles from Games Workshop as well as the Best of Dragon from TSR, Inc. Both publishers would release further volumes of all three series, and TSR, Inc. would also reprint its volumes. Other publishers have published similar volumes and in more recent times, creators in the Old School Renaissance have begun to collate and collect content despite the relative youth of that movement. This includes The Gongfarmer’s Almanac which has collected community content for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game since 2015 and Populated Hexes Monthly Year One which collected the content from the Populated Hexes Monthly fanzine. The ‘Best of…’ series of reviews will look at these and many of the curated and compiled from the last four decades of roleplaying.

—oOo—

The Best of White Dwarf Articles was published in 1980. Containing “Selected material from the first 3 years of White Dwarf”, from White Dwarf Issue No. 1 to White Dwarf Issue No. 20, its focus is Dungeons & Dragons and Traveller. This is no surprise given the popularity of the world’s first roleplaying game and the world’s leading Science Fiction roleplaying game. It is also no surprise that the versions of Dungeons & Dragons supported within the pages of The Best of White Dwarf Articles were the original version published in 1974 and the J. Eric Holmes designed Basic Dungeons & Dragons. By 1980, the three-core books for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons had only just been published, and consequently the content of the compilation predates them. This is not to say that The Best of White Dwarf Articles lacks sophisticated content, either for 1980 or now. However, gaming needs and tastes have greatly changed in the last forty years and not everything in the pages of The Best of White Dwarf Articles would find its way into Dungeons & Dragons today.

The Best of White Dwarf Articles opens with the majestic ‘The Monstermark System’ by Don Turnbull. Appearing in the first three issues of White Dwarf, this is a system of rating monsters in Dungeons & Dragons for their lethality versus the ability of base Player Characters to defeat them. It first rates them for their Defence and Aggressive values to provide a Monstermark value which could be further modified by their abilities and special powers—paralysation, poison, regeneration, and others. Turnbull first works through fairly standard monsters such as Kobolds and Manticores before moving on through undead, fire-breathing monsters, demons, and more. Throughout he compares the completed Monstermark Level for each monster versus their Greyhawk Level, the latter more often than, not quite providing an accurate measurement of their lethality versus the Player Characters. Turnbull also uses his Monstermark System as a means to more fairly award Experience Points, but avoids extending it as a means to measure treasure.

‘The Monstermark System’ was much lauded in its day. It is still a good example of a writer dissatisfied with a mechanical aspect of a roleplaying game and devising and working through an alternative system. There is no doubt that at the time, some groups would have adopted this over the Greyhawk system, but of course, it would have remained a house rule. These days it is a hard read, feeling outdated and outmoded, and it would have probably felt the same fairly quickly as new versions of Dungeons & Dragons were taken up. There are points of interest in the article though, Turnbull often referring to his ‘Greenlands’ dungeon. These sadly, are only in passing, the only existing details being here and other mentions in the pages of White Dwarf magazine.

‘The Magic Brush – Fantasy Figure Painting As An Art’ by Shaun Fuller is another three-part series. It ran from White Dwarf Issue No. 17 to White Dwarf Issue No. 20 and provided a comprehensive guide to figure painting. With the roleplaying hobby only being six years by this time and having strong roots in miniatures wargaming, it is no surprise that miniatures would feature in the early issues of White Dwarf. Coverage of them would lessen during the early eighties, but would make a resurgence as the importance of Citadel Miniatures to Games Workshop grew and grew. Nevertheless, painting guides always proved popular and it is subject that White Dwarf would return to again in subsequent issues. Even if the paints and styles have changed over the years, this is a solid article on the subject whose advice could still be followed today.

The compilation includes two new Classes, one familiar, one unfamiliar, for Dungeons & Dragons by Brian Asbury, another regular contributor to White Dwarf. ‘The Barbarian’ is from White Dwarf Issue No. 4. There are similarities between it and the Barbarian Class which E. Gary Gygax would design and include in Unearthed Arcana and thus the Class we have today in Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. It combines features of the other Classes with those new to it. Thus, the Class can track like the Ranger and hear noise, climb, and hide in the shadows like the Thief, and catch missiles like the Monk, but cannot wear armour until later Levels, possess a Fearlessness which can send them berserk any time it is subject to fear effects, and has a First-Attack Ferocity which grants a bonus to hit and damage if the Class attacks on the first round and has the initiative. Notably, this version of the Class is allowed to use magical items. There is an option to treat the Barbarian Class as a Race as per Basic Dungeons & Dragons. This version of the Barbarian Class is more constructed than built from the ground up, and with elements such as First-Attack Ferocity is fiddly in places.

The second Class is ‘The HOURI character class’, published in White Dwarf Issue No. 13. The Houri is an alternate magic-using Class whose primary abilities focus is on the seduction of members of the opposite sex and a combination of Charm-related spells and spells whose somatic component involves kissing the target. There is even a seduction mechanic in which Paladins, Rangers, and Monks are very hard to seduce, whereas Barbarians and Half-Orcs and Orcs are relatively easy. Primarily intended to be a female only Class—the option to play a Gigolo rather than a Houri is male is suggested, the description includes new spells, such as Impotence and Ecstasy, and entertaining new magic items like the Manual of Advanced Lovemaking and Lipstick of Irresistibility. Subtle the Houri Class is not and it feels very much out of place in a magazine which had a primarily male readership. The salaciousness of the Class borders on the tasteless if not the offensive—and yet… The Houri Class is not unplayable. It would be unsuitable for most campaigns, especially any focused-on dungeon adventures as much of her magic and certainly her abilities would have little application down there, unless as suggested, she also has Levels in the Thief Class as well. Instead, use the Class in an urban campaign with pulp or noir sensibilities and plenty of roleplaying and it would really work. It would take a mature audience. Ultimately, the Houri is too specialised a Class and as a subject for inclusion in the pages of White Dwarf, best regarded as a misstep.

The barbarian theme is continued with ‘The Barbarian’ a two-player board game designed by Ian Livingstone for White Dwarf Issue No. 15. One player takes the role of Vaarn, a barbarian seeking to restore civilisation and withstand the onslaught of mutated beasts and the undead. He can only do this by locating the magical sword and shield of the Old Fathers. The other player controls the werewolves, wild hill men, wraiths, zombies, goblins, and giants arrayed against him. Vaarn’s player wins by locating both sword and shield and leaving the play area, whilst the creature player wins by killing him. Vaarn must explore six types of terrain to locate the magical items, although there are decoys and cursed items to be found too. It is a serviceable hex and counter, fantasy-themed game, not dissimilar to the highly regarded solo board from Heritage, Barbarian Prince, but simpler and more straightforward. Enjoyable for a playthrough or two.

‘Chronicle Monsters’ is the first of two contributions from designer Lewis Pulsipher. Published in White Dwarf Issue No. 15, this presents the various monsters from Stephen Donaldson’s ‘The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever’ for Dungeons & Dragons. The novels were very popular at the time and these adaptations would have been welcomed by the magazine’s readership. However, the novels have not been fully adapted in their own right and this is likely one of the few times where material from them has received such a treatment. Including such creatures as the Raver, the Ur-Vile, Cavewrights, and Seareach Giants they look to be well done and made all the better by being illustrated by Russ Nicholson.

Andy Slack’s ‘Expanding Universe’ ran for four issues from White Dwarf Issue No. 13 to White Dwarf Issue No. 16. Written for use with Game Designers’ Workshop’s Traveller roleplaying game—and thus the only non-Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying content in The Best of White Dwarf Articles—this greatly expanded upon the core rules with additions for skills, poisons and chemical warfare, ship weaponry, artillery, and explosives, campaign locations, alien life, and robots, and social status and psionics. In many cases, they supplement the often-sparse rules in Traveller—the ‘Classic Little Black Books’ original edition still available today, such as handling skill rolls by Player Characters without a relevant skill and suggesting an Experience and improvement mechanic, something that Traveller lacked. In the main, the articles cover aspects of a far future setting not covered in the rules, such as those for poison gas and other weapons of mass destruction, more detailed missile design, and so on. The rules here are excellent, efficiently expanding and supplementing the core rules of Traveller in useful fashion. Slack has since expressed his unhappiness with the editing and updating of the contents of the four original articles for inclusion in The Best of White Dwarf Articles and in their original format can be found at the Citizens of the Imperium Traveller website.

‘The Fiend Factory’ collates some of the best monsters from the long-running department that appeared in the first fifteen or so issues of the White Dwarf. First appearing in White Dwarf Issue No. 6 and edited by Don Turnbull, the department grew out of an earlier series in the magazine called ‘Monsters Mild and Malign’, also edited by Turnbull. With White Dwarf issue No. 18, Albie Fiore would edit the reader-submitted content of ‘The Fiend Factory’, but the entries in ‘The Fiend Factory’ in The Best of White Dwarf Articles consist of the ten best creatures as voted for by the magazine’s readership. The article includes some classics, many of which would be included in the Fiend Folio, which Don Turnbull would edit for TSR UK Ltd. Here then, are the Hook Horror, created by Ian Livingstone, Cricky Hitchcock’s Svart, the Necrophidius (or Death Worm) by Simon Tilbrook, and of course, the Githyanki, by one C. Stross. Stross, of course, would go on to become a Science Fiction and horror author. These are all fun, entertaining monsters and this ‘The Fiend Factory’ collation is one of the highlights of The Best of White Dwarf Articles.

Lastly, ‘D&D Campaigns’ is Lewis Pulsipher’s second contribution to The Best of White Dwarf Articles. This ran in White Dwarf Issue No. 1, White Dwarf Issue No. 3, White Dwarf Issue No. 4, and White Dwarf Issue No. 5, but not White Dwarf Issue No. 2. In this series, Pulsipher examines what Dungeons & Dragons and how he views it can be best played, particularly as a campaign. For example, in terms of style whether as the players versus the game and its monsters, puzzles, or traps, or as a fantasy novel and thus telling or experiencing a story. It is interesting that he notes that the latter style prevails in California, which would be related and explored in more detail in Jon Peterson’s The Elusive Shift. There is advice on being a fair Referee, be logical in in the design and play of both dungeon and campaign, the dangers of a Player Character being played in more than one campaign world (an odd practice by modern standards), handling the division of treasure according to Alignment (Lawful Player Characters fairly, Chaotic Player Characters on a who grabs it first basis), regulating the learning of spells and the time to do so, and more. Some of the advice has dated because both the rules have since changed—multiple times in fact—and how Dungeons & Dragons is played differently. If many of the specifics are now obsolescent, there is nevertheless, broader advice here that still holds and would be could for the latest version of Dungeons & Dragons. For 1977 and 1978, when Dungeons & Dragons was just four years old and ‘D&D Campaigns’ was serialised, this was all good advice.

However, interspersed between all of this is content from the other long-running department in White Dwarf focusing on reader-submitted content—‘Treasure Trap’. Four themed compilations for ‘The Best Of Treasure Trap’ appear in the pages of The Best of White Dwarf Articles. These are ‘Magic Items’, ‘Potions’, ‘Tricks and Traps’, and ‘Spells’. For example, Roger Coult’s ‘The Swords of Meryn Caradeth’ presents two powerful blades and some flavoursome background to work them into a setting. Drink James Meek’s Potion of Truth and the imbiber must tell the truth; David Bell’s Potion of Ultravisibility and the imbiber shines like a torch, the colour of light depending on his Alignment; and a Dragon Breath Potion by Kathryn George—one of the few female contributors to White Dwarf—and the imbiber gains a one-shot breath weapon that varies according to the dragon’s colour. David Bradbury’s ‘Frozen Food!’ is an old trick of setting up the Player Characters to eat frozen Troll meat and then have it regenerate inside them, whilst Roger Musson’s ‘The Pit and Rope Trick’ sets up several Gelatinous Cubes as traps above and below the Player Characters. These definitely feel ‘Old School’ in their design. Phil Masters’ spell, Sword of Warning, is inspired by the sword of Damocles and can be cast by a Cleric as symbol of divine displeasure, whilst ‘Jebansalf’s Eye of Back-Seeing’ by Daniel Adler is for both Cleric and Magic-User and turns the caster’s Pineal gland into a backwards facing eye, thus preventing attacks from behind or backstab attempts. Whilst some of the traps might not make it into a modern dungeon, the content of all four parts of ‘The Best Of Treasure Trap’ are playable today as they were in the late seventies. If not for Dungeons & Dragons, then certainly for the retroclone of the group’s choice.

There is one last aspect of The Best of White Dwarf Articles which deserves mention and that is the adverts. There is a sense of nostalgia and wonder in examining these adverts from the past, for shops that have long since closed down such as Dungeons & Starships or Forever People and for products long out of print, like the Knights of Camelot board game from TSR, Inc. Ral Patha’s board games—Witch’s Cauldron, Final Frontier, Galactic Grenadiers, and Caverns Deep, and then Metagaming’s The Fantasy Trip.

Physically, The Best of White Dwarf Articles is cleanly, tidily presented. It does need an edit here and there, but what stands out is the amount of art on display. All of the monsters in ‘The Fiend Factory’, many of the traps in ‘The Best Of Treasure Trap’, and so on are illustrated, and it gives the compilation an airy feel. The Conan-esque cover by Steve Brown—complementing the one which would appear on the cover of The Best of White Dwarf Scenarios—is excellent.

The Best of White Dwarf Articles is a bit hit and miss, primarily because what might have been seen as the best content drawn from the first three years of issues of White Dwarf in 1980 do not look like the best today. The Houri Character Class deserves mention as a miss, even in 1980, unnecessarily prurient and unsuitable for much of its readership, and perhaps ‘The Monstermark System’ might be regarded as miss today, but not in 1980 when dissatisfaction with an aspect of the rules could be expressed in the pages of a leading magazine in the industry and an alternative readily suggested. The rest of The Best of White Dwarf Articles consists of hits and that is how it should be for a compilation or ‘Best of…’ volume. The Best of White Dwarf Articles highlights how even though the magazine might not yet have hit its stride—and when that was, is dependent on the reader—there was still a lot to be found within the pages of White Dwarf that was useful, playable content then and surprisingly, now. Consequently, The Best of White Dwarf Articles manages to show how the hobby has, and has not, changed since it was published in 1980. The Best of White Dwarf Articles is a snapshot of the British roleplaying hobby in the seventies, that for the most part, remains still readable and if you want, still useful.

"Empty threats, Rutan. Enjoy your death as I enjoyed killing you."

Leela to a Rutan, Horror of Fang Rock

I mentioned that the role of the Companions in Doctor Who was largely one of screaming, getting captured, and going, "what Doctor?" every so often. 

That is not true for Leela. 

If Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor was my first Doctor, then Leela was my first Companion. And what an impression she made! She was from a savage tribe descended from human space travelers that crash-landed on her planet. Her tribe, The Seevtem, aka "Survey Team," had reverted back to savagery and superstition. Leela herself when first meet her is on trail for disobeying the will of her elders. So she was head strong, and intelligent from the very start.  And actress Louise Jamison played the character with undisguised gusto.  Louise Jamison rather famously talked about getting scripts and seeing "Leela screams" with her crossing it out and writing in "No she does not!"

Leela didn't scream, at least not typically, and she usually ran into danger than from it. She had a knife and a bag full of Janis thorns that would paralyze and then kill.  Unlike other companions before (and since really), Leela had a body count. Though in her mind, the world, and then the universe was a savage kill-or-be-killed place.  

She was unlearned but obviously very bright and she picked up on concepts the doctor threw at her quickly, although sometimes in her own way.

For reasons unknown the production team made Jamison wear these red contact to turn her normally blue eyes brown.

She hated them and they were uncomfortable. So in the episodes of "Horror of Fang Rock" and exploding Rutan spaceship blinds her temporarily (and in typical Leela fashion she asks the Doctor to kill her because she is no use to him) and her eyes heal and turn blue.  

Leela is the prototype companion that would later give us Ace and the modern companions but in particular River Song.

 

All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.

Dungeon Crawl Classics #79: Frozen in Time is a scenario for Goodman Games’ Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, the Dungeons & Dragons-style retroclone inspired by ‘Appendix N’ of the Dungeon Master’s Guide for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition. Published by Goodman Games, scenarios for Dungeon Crawl Classics tend be darker, gimmer, and even pulpier than traditional Dungeons & Dragons scenarios, even veering close to the Swords & Sorcery subgenre. One of the signature features of Dungeon Crawl Classics and its post-apocalyptic counterpart, Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic, is the ‘Character Funnel’. This is a scenario specifically designed for Zero Level Player Characters in which initially, a player is expected to roll up three or four Level Zero characters and have them play through a generally nasty, deadly adventure, which surviving will prove a challenge. Those that do survive receive enough Experience Points to advance to First Level and gain all of the advantages of their Class. Dungeon Crawl Classics #79: Frozen in Time is designed for a party of six First Level Player Characters and thus is not a Character Funnel. However, it includes notes on how to run it as a Character Funnel, suggestions on how to use it as a campaign starter, and although predating the publication of the Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game by five years, the scenario could easily be run as part of a campaign for that post-apocalyptic roleplaying game, with some adaptation, since it veers heavily into the realms of Science Fiction.
Dungeon Crawl Classics #79: Frozen in Time is set in the Forlorn North, home to various barbarian tribes where there stands a mighty and deadly glacier known as Ghost Ice, infamous for the number of tribesmen who have perished on its frigid reaches, ripped apart by the claws and teeth of the ice demons known to live there. The Elders of the tribe have long forbidden exploration of Ghost Ice, declaring it to be taboo, but now Ghost Ice has shattered, leaving two holes in the face of the glacier from which green smoke emanates. The Elders of the tribe have decided to send their best champions to investigate and determine if the breaking of the glacier means that the ice demons have gone. The set-up is simple—a group of humble tribesmen, a nearby mystery or taboo to be revealed or examined due to a circumstantial change or cataclysm, and the need for it to be investigated for the safety of the tribe. It is a formula which has been well tread in previous releases for both the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game and the Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, which means that the scenario needs to be inventive and interesting to make it other than formulaic.
This however is only the default set-up and the scenario suggests several others. One is still as standard Player Characters approached by barbarian envoys wanting ‘great champions of the southlands’ who could explore and investigate the Ghost Ice glacier when taboo prevents them from doing so. Another is to use the scenario as the start of a campaign with the Player Characters all members of a primitive tribe who know the legends of the Ghost Ice. This can still be with First Level Player Characters or it can be with Zero Level Player Characters who sent out to investigate the Ghost Ice as part of their ‘Rites of Passage’. The latter would thus mean running the scenario as a ‘Character Funnel’. Appendix A of the scenario includes a ‘Primitive Occupations Table’ to determine the starting occupations of such Zero Level tribesmen. All together, this gives Dungeon Crawl Classics #79: Frozen in Time a pleasing degree of flexibility when it comes to running the scenario.

It should be noted that later printings of Dungeon Crawl Classics #79: Frozen in Time go further than this by including a guide to the Forlorn North. This is a mini-campaign setting which provides a history and gazetteer of the region as well as several scenario hooks. The history of the scenario ties in with Dungeon Crawl Classics 2013 Holiday Module: The Old God’s Return, but otherwise this provides the Judge with the basis upon which to develop further adventures in the Forlorn North once the Player Characters have finished playing through Dungeon Crawl Classics #79: Frozen in Time.
Once the Player Characters have ascended Ghost Ice and find their way through the tunnels, they discover a strange complex of objects covered in blinking lights, objects and creatures held perfectly immobile in stasis, pools of ice and slush, and empty columns which connect areas with no obvious explanation for how they work. The dichotomy at the heart of the scenario is that the players will quickly realise what their Player Characters are exploring, but their Player Characters will not. This is because they will recognise many of the features of the ‘dungeon’ as machinery and devices, the ‘dungeon’ itself as some kind of technological habitat, and many of the items being held in stasis, including a tyrannosaurus rex, the Mona Lisa, and more. In fact, the Judge is encouraged to add his own preferred artefacts and pieces of artwork here as well. There is also a lone human held here as well. He could easily be a replacement Player Character, but who is not say that this could be Jimmy Hoffa, Elvis Presley, or anyone interesting that the Judge chooses. There is also an amusing encounter with a very Robby the Robot-like robot much like that of Lost in Space—as depicted on the cover of the scenario.

The location is in fact, ‘The Vault of Zepes Null-Eleven’. This the secret hideout and last resting place of a time traveller from the far future who rode the timestream looting art and artefacts for both himself and to order. The vault is where kept everything far from the prying eyes of his fellow, but more law-abiding time travellers. What this sets up is an obvious nod to S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, but the scenario feels like Gamma World too. Either way the scenario embraces Arthur C. Clarke’s Third law that ‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.’

The play of Dungeon Crawl Classics #79: Frozen in Time primarily focuses on exploration of Zepes Null-Eleven’s complex, the Player Characters prodding and poking at buttons and not always getting a very interesting response. The scenario involves relatively little combat, although it has its moments. The scenario does end on an exciting, action driven climax though. Where the scenario is weakest is roleplaying as there are few opportunities for it written into the scenario. The scenario also misses opportunities for further adventure, primarily because it is limited by length. The scenario includes a time machine and artefacts and persons from across time and space, including a Mark III blaster rifle from the Android Wars, a katana dating from the Eternal Shogunate of the Lich, and more. The question is, how exactly are the Player Characters expected to find these details out? There are some cases where the Wizard in the party can cast Comprehend Languages, but that does not apply to every situation and will definitely not if the scenario is being run as a ‘Character Funnel’. Other than that, they remain amusing little Easter Eggs for the Judge’s eyes only.
There is an opportunity to use the time machine in the scenario, but really only to trap a Player Character or two in the primordial past. Besides wanting to keep time travel out of the hands of the players and their characters, this misses opportunities in not allowing the Player Characters to visit these epochs mentioned in the artefact descriptions and adventure there, if only temporarily. Or indeed to have the colleagues of Zepes Null-Eleven turn up and deal with the mess he left behind as well as interact with the Player Characters. Another issue is that whatever the Player Characters do and do not do, the complex explodes, which undercuts their agency and makes the scenario rather linear.
Physically, Dungeon Crawl Classics #79: Frozen in Time is well presented. The artwork is excellent and the scenario is clearly written and easy to understand. The maps are as decent as you would expect.

Dungeon Crawl Classics #79: Frozen in Time was the first Science Fiction crossover scenario for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. It can be played through in a single session or two, in the main because it is exploration rather than combat or roleplaying driven. As written, it is a fun adventure, with lots of detail, but as much as the scenario is written to present a Science Fiction experience for a fantasy roleplaying scenario, it also wants to reign those elements in, to never let the players and their characters explore them fully despite their throwaway mention in the text. Dungeon Crawl Classics #79: Frozen in Time is a fun if linear Science Fiction scenario for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game, which is never fully allowed to play with all of its ideas. If it had, it could have been an even more fun and fantastic adventure for ‘Appendix N’ style gaming.

The tunnel in the back of Room 13 leads down to another cave.  This one features the bones of a great beast embedded in the walls.

The bones are the fossilized remains of some ancient beast. They were part of the walls when the Necromancers got here.  Repeated unsuccessful necromantic magics have left this cave magically charged.

If the party remains more than 3 turns they must make a saving throw vs. Paralysis or take 1d4 hp of damage. The energies are draining the very life from the characters.

The bones are difficult to remove from the walls, the easy ones were removed a long time ago, but if they somehow manage (dealing 24 hp of damage to the bones will break off a chip), then they can be sold to a wizard or necromancer for 50gp each. But while the characters possess these bones, they will not heal any wounds, either by normal or magical means.

Rose Tyler: [referring to K-9] Why does it look so... disco?
The Doctor: Oi! Listen, in the year 5000, this was cutting edge!

- Doctor Who, School Reunion

Most of the Doctor's companions have been human, most of whom are from Earth. But two stand out as not only non-human but non-living robots. I am talking about K9 and Kamelion.

K9 was a robot dog (get it, K9?) from the year 5,000 during the Tom Baker years. Invented by Prof. Marius who lived on a space station and wanted to bring his real dog but couldn't. 

K9 went on to join the Doctor and Leela, who he referred to as "Master" and "Mistress." He stayed behind on Gallifrey with Leela. When the Doctor left he introduced his new version K9-Mk2 who traveled with him and both Romanas.  He stayed behind in E-Space with Romana and that was the last time we saw him. For a while.

K9, this time Mk-3 was given to Sarah Jane Smith as a present and for the start of his own spin-off show K9 and Company. But that only lasted one episode. We would not see him, or Sarah Jane again until the 10th Doctor episode, School Reunion. The Doctor rebuilt him to give us K9 Mk-4.

K9 would appear again, briefly in the Sarah Jane Smith spin-off and in his own Australian version, "K9" with a different look. We only got such brief glimpses of him because the character is still owned by its creators, Bob Baker and Dave Martin. So to use him, the BBC has to pay Baker and Martin. 

K9 though was extremely popular and I can remember my younger brother desperately wanting to build one (he is an engineer now, so I suppose he could) and I know others that loved that "little tin dog" as well.

On the other end of the popularity spectrum is Kamelion. Originally a tool of the Master to disrupt the signing of the Magna Carta in "The King's Demons." He was a robot that could appear as anyone commanded. 

Let's be honest here. The episode he stared in was a bit weak. Even the Doctor admitted that the plan was small time by the Master's standards. And Kamelion, well he was really kind of lame.  The prop used was not built for the show, but was found by then producer John Nathan-Turner as a K9 replacement.  Plus it was a prop and not an actor in a suit, so it was always breaking down.  

Kamlion seems to have been cursed from the start. The man who designed it's software, Mike Power, had been killed in a boating accident around the time the show was aired and no one knew how to operate it properly.  Terence Dudley (1988) and Peter Grimwade (1983), who scripted the robot companion's appearances, left the show or died while the show was running. His voice, Gerald Flood, died in 1984. And the last actor to play him as a human also died. 

The companion/prop was so hated in fact that Peter Davison has said that any sign of regret shown by him/the Doctor during Kamelion's (the prop's) "death" scene was pure acting. He was happy it was gone.

I remember the fans at the time also rather hated it. I guess they all can't be winners. 

All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.

Going back to Room #9 and hitting the other tunnel, straight ahead, leads to another cave.  Though this cave is not the home to some creature, it is a tomb. 

Inside this room are 5 Wights. Their ancient tattered uniforms gives the characters the idea that these had been guards at some point. Their magically compelled orders said they could not leave this room and that compulsion remained after their deaths.

They will attack on sight.

There are the remains of other humans and humanoids here. So in addition to their treasure, (B x5) there is type C, D, and T.

Michael Gonzales / April 12, 2023

Tower Records on 4th Street and Broadway, 1984. Photo by Brandi Merolla

Having grown up in the 1970s, an era when record shops were a fixture in communities and often served as neighborhood social centers, I became obsessed with a small store located on 146th and Broadway. Owned by my father’s friend Mr. Freddy, I visited that record shop weekly to buy 45s to jam on my blue record player. From the Jackson 5 to Gladys Knight & the Pips, he carried all the latest soul records. There were promotional posters taped in the windows and tacked to the exterior walls, and packages of fragrant incense on the counter next to the register. If needed, Mr. Freddy, a sharp-dressed and kindly man, played the disc for me to make sure it was the right one.

As I got older and my musical taste broadened, I began spreading my wings throughout Manhattan, where I discovered other record stores, including Kappy’s in Washington Heights, Bobby’s Happy House in Central Harlem, and Bondy’s, which was across the street from City Hall. Often, I went alone and spent hours flipping through the stacks in search of old soul, new wave, early rap, free jazz, and on-the-money funk. I was a fiend for cut-out bins where I could find discounted records, mostly from artists I’d never heard of—but I liked the covers.

I dug all them shops, but I had no particular favorite until 1983, when Tower Records opened on Fourth and Broadway. Back then the neighborhood was rather bleak. With the exception of New York University and music venue The Bottom Line, there wasn’t much else. Recently, while watching the wonderful Tower Records documentary All Things Must Pass (2015), a senior West Coast employee described the location as “the bowels of the East Village” and claimed he saw a dead dog in the gutter. As the talking heads dropped Tower Records history and lore, I thought about the many hours I spent in that store as both patron and employee. 

With their custom designed window displays that were done by in-house artists, Tower Records was bigger than most New York City record stores. They had large jazz and classical departments, sold cool import and rap singles, and carried an array of music publications, including British papers Melody Maker and New Music Express (NME). Inside the trademarked yellow bags stamped with the red logo, I often carried out lots of goodies. Additionally, Tower stayed open until midnight, which made it the perfect place to drift into after happy hour when some jukebox song was stuck in your head. I can remember my buddy Jerry and I going down there one night when my drunk self believed I needed to buy the soundtrack for Valley of the Dolls just to hear Dionne Warwick singing the theme. 

Though I lived in Harlem and Jerry dwelled in Brooklyn, we often met in front of Tower when we planned on “hangin’ in the village.” We’d flip through racks of records for an hour or so, which was usually followed by smoking a joint in Washington Square Park while watching comedian Charlie Barnett. Back in those days, I had a bad habit of running late and, on one occasion, he befriended a guy begging for change in front of the store. An aspiring playwright, Jerry wrote a one-act about the encounter. Years later, I heard how fallen Grandmaster Flowers, a pioneering DJ from Brooklyn, used to shake his coin cup on that spot and I just knew that’s who Jerry had met. That same year I hung out with Jerry as he waited in line overnight to buy tickets for The Police’s Synchronicity Tour. That year we both worked as messengers in Manhattan, but we were ready to splurge our minimum wages on Sting.

In 1985, two years after Tower’s doors opened, I abruptly quit my gig at midtown coffee shop Miss Brooks after a transgression with a married older woman manager. After leaving, I went to Baltimore for a few weeks. I’d gone to high school there and my mom still called it home. For two weeks I bummed around with old friends and had a fling with a former classmate. When I returned to the Big Apple, I needed to find a new job. As a lover of books and music, my first thought was going to a favorite bookshop, but I was afraid I might get fired for hiding in the aisle reading the latest Harlan Ellison short story collection or a Chester Himes reissue. Instead, I went down to Tower Records the first week in September.

After being directed to the cassette department, I met with the manager, who had me fill out an application. During that era, when most Americans had tape players in their homes and cars, as well as the millions that carried Walkman’s every day, cassettes were a popular format. Tower also sold a variety of blank tapes, cassette player head cleaners, and carrying cases. There were numerous blank tape companies including TDK, Maxell, Fuji, and Memorex.            

With his neo-rockabilly style, the manager was a few years older than me. I don’t recall much about the interview process, but when he asked who my favorite artists were, I went back to my old standards: “James Brown and Led Zeppelin,” I replied. He smiled and hired me. If I had said Lionel Richie and A-Ha I might’ve been kicked to the curb, but instead I was asked to report on Saturday morning at 8:00. As with most retail stores, Saturday was Tower’s busiest day and I was thrown straight into the fire. 

Beastie Boys display window designed by Brandi Merolla, 1986. Photo by Brandi Merolla

That morning I was shown around the cassette department and, for the next few hours, restocked the shelves with co-worker Barry Walters, an NYU student as well as a music critic for The Village Voice. As an aspiring writer and music critic myself, I was both impressed and a little jealous. Barry was a soft-spoken white guy who helped get me through that first day. Later that morning he introduced me to Bryan Ferry’s smooth solo album Boys and Girls and the music of an English band called Prefab Sprout, whose second album Two Wheels Good (aka Steve McQueen) he was reviewing for the Voice. From the first listen I loved the songs (“When Love Break Down,” “Horsin’ Around,” and “Appetite”) written and sung by Prefab’s bitterly charming leader Paddy McAloon, with whom I connected as I pulled overstock from beneath the bins. With each repeated listening, the album only got better, richer, and more tragically poetic.

At noon my manager instructed me to go upstairs and work bag check. That was the area where, for security purposes, customers checked their various sized briefcases, duffle bags, shopping bags, and knapsacks. It was the most rowdy section of the store. Though there was a security guard a few feet away, that didn’t stop people from not making a line, barking orders, flinging their sacks, and basically treating me like a non-person. What made it worse was that I was alone for the first forty-five minutes—and I was a mess. People were throwing bags and yelling as I handed out numbers and placed the belongings in lockers. I felt as though I’d been jumped, punched, and kicked into a gang. Thankfully, one of the guys from the 12-inch singles section on the mezzanine saw that I was struggling and came downstairs to help. At the end of the hour I bolted to the basement and hid in the back. Later, someone told me that if I learned to work the register I could get out of the bag check nightmare.

I enjoyed running the register and was sometimes impressed with the people who popped up in line. Fourth Street and Broadway was still an arty hood that consisted of various galleries, artist lofts, recording studios, and restaurants. Jean-Michel Basquiat lived a few blocks away at 57 Great Jones Street. One afternoon film director Jim Jarmusch came to the counter carrying an assortment of musical genres. I’d seen Stranger than Paradise the previous year, a flick that inspired me to take a few film classes—until I realized it was cheaper to be a writer.

On another day, artist Keith Haring was my customer, and that time I got excited. “I saw you a few months back in the 145th Street subway station doing one of those radiant babies in chalk,” I said. “I love your work.” Keith smiled. “Thank you,” he replied. Before I knew it I blurted, “Can you do a sketch for me?” He looked at me and nodded his head. “Sure, no problem.” I got my notebook from beneath the counter and handed him a black marker. He drew one of his trademark men dancing across the page. Three minutes later he passed the pad back. There was a plain clothes security guard standing next to me. “Can you do one for me too?” he asked. Keith chuckled, but he complied. Later, the security guy regaled me with stories of catching guys shoplifting. “One was that crazy bassist Jaco Pastorius. He came in and tried to steal Weather Report albums that he’d played on. When I caught him he kept screaming, insisting that the records belonged to him.”

A few weeks after I was hired, New York City was supposed to be hit hard by Hurricane Gloria. I was recruited to be part of the Tower team to tape giant X’s across the windows. While goofing around with one of my co-workers, I saw an earth angel descending the stairs. Her name was Pauline and she was a beautiful black woman with long, curly hair and a full figure. Later, I overheard her Brit accent, which made her even more alluring. I went back to taping the windows, but I never released her from my mind. That night the winds were strong and the heavy rain lasted for hours. 

As the King of Crushes, I instantly fell in love with Pauline, though she had no idea that I existed. Unfortunately, every time I ventured upstairs to play the Romeo role, I chickened out. One night I called Jerry and asked if he’d do me a favor. He agreed and the following day met me outside of the store. I’d written Pauline a secret admirer letter with a poem and bought her a dozen roses. In those days, I was always writing poetry, filling notebooks with words of joyful decadence as though I was an uptown Rimbaud. Jerry was assigned to deliver the package for me. Everything went as planned and the following day I introduced myself. Pauline and I stood in the front of the store next to stacks of Pulse magazine, Tower’s own music rag.

“So you’re my secret admirer,” she smiled. “The poem you wrote was very nice.”

“Thank you,” I said, nervous as a school boy. “I was hoping, maybe… can I take you out to dinner?” As Beaver Cleaver would say, I think I sounded creepy, but she was still smiling.

“You’re sweet,” she said, “but I’m dating someone right now.”

I chuckled to keep from weeping. “Of course you are,” I sighed. “It’s cool.” Pauline and I became friendly, and a week later she invited me to a get-together at the Rivington Street apartment she shared with her boyfriend. She scribbled the address on the back of a Pulse that had Stevie Wonder on the cover. The night of the party, “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” played at least four times. Outside, a couple of teenagers set fire to Pauline’s boyfriend’s motorcycle. From their fourth floor window, I watched the rising flames.

Preparing for Hurricane Gloria by taping up all the plate glass windows. Photo: Brandi Merolla

Back then “in-stores,” when artists came by for a few hours and signed their latest release, were a major part of the industry. Though I’d never attended any before, I was thrilled when word went around that Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam were coming to the store. The year before, when the group’s debut single “I Wonder If I Take You Home” came out, they’d been a sensation in the city. Radio played Lisa Lisa constantly and at the nightclubs, especially the Roxy and the Funhouse, that track was elevated to an anthem. 

Hours before the band arrived, there were young girls of all races and nationalities dressed like Lisa, with hair swept over to cover their right eye. Thankfully, when the group arrived, they were just as excited as their fans. Lisa’s smile was genuine as she chatted with her fans and signed autographs. I was checking out the scene from the mezzanine with my security guard buddy, who decided to dis Lisa. “She sure has put on weight since the video came out,” he said. Mocking her song, he sang, “I wonder if I take you home if you’ll fit through my door.” I glared at him. “That’s rude,” I snapped. “Why is it always you fat, ugly dudes trying to call somebody unattractive?” Nervously, he chuckled. “Damn Mike, you act like she’s your woman or something.”

Everyone in the cassette department got along, but there was always a little tension when it was time to change the music. One person might want to hear L.L. Cool J or Mantronix while someone else might want to play The Smiths or Eurythmics; my choice was usually Prince or something he wrote, including “The Dance Electric” (André Cymone), “Screams of Passion” (The Family) or “A Love Bizarre” (Shelia E.). After a while it was comical the way people raced to the tape deck to (hopefully) jam their favorite joint.

Upstairs, not far from the employee bathrooms, was where the art team worked. Though not much of a visual artist myself, I’ve always been an aficionado—a fan of comics, commercial illustration, and fine art equally. If I’m not mistaken, it was mostly women working in the art department, and they were overseen by Brandi Merolla. Though I didn’t know her personally, her team’s work was seen throughout the store in the many 3D displays. In 2011, when writer/musician Greg Tate co-founded and edited the lit-mag Coon Bidness with poet Latasha Natasha Diggs, I contributed the short story “Daddy Gone Blues,” about fem-rocker Andrea Holiday, who works in Tower’s art department while trying to be a star. Merolla got to be creative with band posters of Tears for Fears, a-Ha, Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam, Wham!, Scritti Politti, Prefab Sprout, Aretha Franklin, and everybody else who put out a hit record in 1985.

Although Tower Records was a chain, the owners allowed staff to be as creative as they wanted to be and, personally, I never felt any corporate pressure to act or dress in any certain way. Our managers were cool folks who had our backs. One afternoon I went to lunch with my mother at a nearby Mexican place called Camambra where I drank three very strong frozen margaritas and stumbled back to the store with “cocktail flu.” After standing behind the register for a few minutes, the manager came over and whispered, “I’m not firing you, but you have to go home. I can’t have you drunk behind the register.” The following day I apologized. “Don’t worry about it, man, it happens.” If I was anywhere else, I would’ve been picking up my last check. 

For struggling writers, visual artists, musicians, and future record company executives, Tower was the starting place for many creative souls who needed a job, but didn’t want to work around “regular” people. That 4th and Broadway store had many oddballs who went on to greatness, including bassist Melvin Gibbs, jazz producer Brian Michel Bacchus, A&R man Gary Harris, composer/conductor Butch Morris, and Burnt Sugar keyboardist Bruce Mack.

I was there for a year before I left to work at a homeless shelter the city opened in part of the psychiatric ward at Bellevue Hospital. However, eight years later, when I’d finally become a full-time writer, I was commissioned by Tower Pulse editor Marc Weidenbaum to write the Gang Starr cover story for the May 1994 issue. That relationship lasted for the next two years.

Days before my Tower Records closed down in 2006, I visited the damn near empty store and almost wept. To this day, I’ve never stopped thinking about that music sanctuary for the twenty years it existed at that location. 

Michael A. Gonzales is an essayist/short story writer who has published fiction in The Oxford American, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. He contributes pop culture/true crime features to CrimeReads, Soulhead, and Longreads.

At my day job, my work is increasingly trying to adapt to AI generative techniques. I am not going to go into any details here about that. Suffice it to say that about 20% of my day is given over to AI now. 

I am coming into today's post with about four+ months of doing nothing but deep diving into all sorts of AI tools.  I decided to turn these powerful tools over to what is essentially one of my bread-and-butter topics here; creating new witch characters.

Now before I go on here, I want to state this unequivocally. I have no desire to use AI-generated text in any future blog posts unless it is clearly stated (like this one), and NO desire to put any generated text into my books. 

It's not that I have issues with AI or on moral grounds. I just believe that people like to buy my stuff because it is my stuff; written by me. Having used these tools, you all can go out and do this on your own. You don't need me for that.

But today's post is about seeing just what these powerful tools can do.

For today's post, I am using the tools ChatGPT, Google Bard, and MidJourney. I choose these three because they are right now the most powerful at what they do. Let's see if they can replace me.

Today's experiment. Can these tools create a new witch character with a background, art, and, better still, D&D stats?

I asked both Chat GPT and Bard to generate a legendary witch on par with Circe, Medea, Morgan LeFey, and other mytho-historical witches. I also asked the same of Bard.  Once I got these, I then copied and pasted text into MidJourney to produce an image of this witch. 

Here are the results.

Luna Moonshadow

From ChatGPT:

Born during the Dark Ages in a small village nestled deep in the woods, Luna was known for her mysterious aura and captivating beauty.

From a young age, Luna exhibited a natural talent for magic, drawing power from the moon and the stars. She honed her skills in secret, practicing ancient and forbidden spells that she discovered in ancient tomes hidden in the depths of the forest. As she grew older, her powers grew stronger, and she became known for her ability to control the elements and manipulate time itself.

Luna's reputation as a witch spread far and wide, and many sought her counsel and assistance. She was revered by some as a wise and benevolent witch, using her powers to heal the sick and protect the innocent. However, others feared her power and saw her as a threat to their beliefs and way of life.

In history, Luna Moonshadow played a pivotal role in a conflict known as the "War of the Witches." This was a dark period in history when witches and sorcerers were hunted down and persecuted by the ruling powers. Luna was a staunch advocate for the rights of witches, leading a rebellion against the oppression they faced. Her mastery of magic and strategic prowess led her to become a formidable leader in the battle against the witch hunters.

Despite facing numerous challenges and betrayals, Luna's unwavering determination and bravery inspired others to join her cause. She used her magical abilities to defend her fellow witches and fight for their freedom. Her legend grew as tales of her exploits spread, and she became a symbol of resistance against tyranny.

Ultimately, Luna Moonshadow's efforts led to a turning point in history, as the tide of the war shifted in favor of the witches. Her leadership and sacrifices paved the way for a new era of acceptance and tolerance towards witches and their magical abilities. Luna's legacy endured, and she became a revered figure in history, celebrated as a powerful and influential witch who fought for justice and equality for her fellow witches, leaving a lasting impact on the world of magic.

Not bad. Maybe a bit clichéd. So I asked it to generate "Dungeons & Dragons stats" for her.

Again, ChatGPT: 

Character Name: Luna Moonshadow
Race: Elf
Class: Sorcerer
Background: Folk Hero
Alignment: Chaotic Good

Ability Scores:
Strength: 10
Dexterity: 16
Constitution: 12
Intelligence: 14
Wisdom: 10
Charisma: 18
Proficiencies:

Saving Throws: Constitution, Charisma
Skills: Arcana, Persuasion, Medicine, Nature
Armor: None
Weapons: Daggers, Quarterstaffs, Darts, Slings
Features and Abilities:

Sorcerer's Spellcasting: Luna can cast spells using Charisma as her spellcasting ability, and she knows a number of spells from the Sorcerer spell list.

Font of Magic: Luna has access to sorcery points, which she can use to fuel her metamagic abilities or to convert into additional spell slots.

Metamagic: Luna can use her sorcery points to manipulate her spells, choosing from options such as Twin Spell, Quickened Spell, or Subtle Spell, among others.

Fey Ancestry: Being an Elf, Luna has advantage on saving throws against being charmed, and she can't be put to sleep by magical means.

Folk Hero Background: Luna is well-respected among her fellow witches and is seen as a hero for her role in the War of the Witches. She has proficiency in Animal Handling and gains a set of artisan's tools.

Equipment:
Quarterstaff
Component pouch
Explorer's pack
Common clothes
A pouch containing 15 gold pieces

Spells Known:
Cantrips: Eldritch Blast, Mage Hand, Prestidigitation, Ray of Frost
1st Level Spells: Shield, Sleep, Charm Person, Thunderwave
2nd Level Spells: Invisibility, Misty Step, Scorching Ray
3rd Level Spells: Fireball, Counterspell, Fly

Luna Moonshadow is a powerful sorcerer with a keen understanding of magic and a reputation as a folk hero. Her abilities as a sorcerer and her determination to fight for the rights of witches make her a formidable and respected character in any Dungeons & Dragons campaign.

Well...not exactly right, but not bad for an AI. It defaulted to some strange version of D&D 5e. I ran the same thing in Google's Bard:

Race: Human
Class: Warlock
Background: Sage
Alignment: Chaotic Good

Strength: 8 (+0)
Dexterity: 14 (+2)
Constitution: 12 (+1)
Intelligence: 16 (+3)
Wisdom: 14 (+2)
Charisma: 18 (+4)

Hit Points: 12 (1d8 + 2)
Armor Class: 12 (studded leather)
Speed: 30 ft.

Skills: Arcana +6, Deception +8, History +6, Insight +6, Investigation +6, Nature +6, Perception +6, Persuasion +8, Prestidigitation +6, Stealth +4

Senses: darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 16

Languages: Common, Elvish

Equipment: a dagger, a component pouch, a book of spells, a set of common clothes, and a traveler's clothes

Spellcasting: Morrigan is a 1st-level warlock. She knows the following warlock spells:
Cantrips (0-level): light, mage hand, prestidigitation
1st level (4 slots): hex, magic missile, shield

Luna's Other Abilities:
Shapechanger. Luna can use her action to polymorph into a crow or raven, or back into her true form. She can remain in her alternate form for up to 1 hour. Any equipment she is wearing or carrying melds into her new form. She reverts to her true form if she dies, falls unconscious, or chooses to do so (no action required).

Witch Sight. Luna can see innately into the Ethereal Plane. She can see invisible creatures on the Ethereal Plane, and she can see into the Border Ethereal as if it were lightly obscured.

Fey Presence. Luna has advantage on Charisma (Deception, Intimidation, Performance, Persuasion) checks against humanoids. She can use her action to frighten humanoids that can see her within 30 feet of her. Each frightened humanoid must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw (DC 14) or be frightened of Morrigan for 1 minute. A frightened creature can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success.

Not too dissimilar, but I like it a bit better. Again, D&D 5e and Bard told me it grabbed all this data from the 5e d20 SRD. So that was a nice touch, really. 

My next test was can it do the same thing if I specified AD&D 1st Edition.  The results were pretty interesting and surprising.

Certainly! Here's a character sheet for Luna Moonshadow in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition:

Name: Luna Moonshadow
Class: Witch
Race: Elf
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Level: 10

Ability Scores:
Strength: 10
Dexterity: 16
Constitution: 12
Intelligence: 14
Wisdom: 10
Charisma: 18

Saving Throws:
Paralyzation/Poison/Death Magic: 10
Rod/Staff/Wand: 12
Petrification/Polymorph: 11
Breath Weapon: 13
Spell: 14

Hit Points: 55
Armor Class: 6 (Leather Armor)

Weapons:
Quarterstaff: 1d6
Dagger: 1d4

Equipment:
Quarterstaff
Dagger
Component pouch
Backpack
10 torches
Bedroll
Rations (1 week)
Waterskin
Healing potions (2)
Spellbook

Spells:
1st Level: Charm Person, Detect Magic, Light, Sleep, Magic Missile
2nd Level: Invisibility, Levitate, Web, Mirror Image, Scorching Ray
3rd Level: Fireball, Lightning Bolt, Fly, Counterspell, Dispel Magic

Special Abilities:
Familiar: Luna has a familiar in the form of a black raven named Shadow, who aids her in her spellcasting and grants her additional abilities.
Witchcraft: Luna has access to various witchcraft abilities, such as brewing potions, divination, and the ability to curse or bless others.

Luna Moonshadow is a skilled and experienced witch who has honed her craft through years of study and practice. Her expertise in spellcasting, combined with her wit and resourcefulness, make her a formidable ally in any AD&D 1st Edition campaign. Her reputation as a folk hero and her dedication to fighting for the rights of witches further add depth and intrigue to her character.

OK! It's not a perfect write-up by any means, BUT it is surprisingly close. 

I then dumped all of this into MidJourney and had it render out a witch for me based on the descriptions.  That is the art you see here.

What To Do With This?

I am sure of one thing here. I am not out of a job just yet. Luna is a lot of fun, but there is not much to her. Well, not yet anyway.

Since I generated every aspect of her via AI tools, I am releasing her into the public domain. Not that I have to, she already was there by means of how she was made, but this particular combination of all of this text and imagery is unique. So I am releasing that. 

What does this mean? It means you are all free to take her and use her as you like. 

Put her into your games. Make her an NPC. Hell put her in a book and publish it and make a lot of money. You don't even need to tell me about it, but I would like to hear about it, though. If you kill her out of spite in your games because you don't like AI, well, I'd rather not hear about it, but you do you.

I'll tweak her myself later using my own witch rules. Based on both versions, I would make her half-elf and, given some of the other material generated, make her Patron the Morrigan. I do love that "War of the Witches" bit above too. I'll have to work that in.

I can see a lot with her now that I have been doing this. AI may have been the ground she grew in, but the seed was mine, and how I take it from here on out will be mine as well. 

Or yours.

I'll put this at the end again for the good serial position effect.

I will not use any AI generative text in any published book. Also, I will not use any AI generative text in any blog post unless I clearly mark it.

You see the "AI" label below? That is how you will know, BUT I will also clearly indicate it.

Of all the secondary characters (not companions), one of the standout successes has been the ongoing adventures of Henry Gordon Jago and Professor George Litefoot. Jago & Litfoot were first introduced to us in the wonderful Tom Baker-era story "The Talons of Weng-Chiang" in 1977.  The pair, a somewhat shady theatre manager and a semi-retired academic went on to solve mysterious crimes and mysteries in Victorian London courtesy of various audio dramas from Big Finish Audio.

They were popular in their time but grew increasingly popular with the airing of the Tom Baker Doctor on PBS.

The audio dramas have also been big hits for Big Finish, with 17 completed dramas. Each one features the original actors, Christopher Benjamin and Trevor Baxter, resuming their roles. Some even feature other Doctor Who companions such as Leela (4th Doctor) and Strax (11th Doctor). They are even sometimes guests on their contemporaries' Madam Vastra & Jenny (11th Doctor) audio dramas.

 Of course, I love the Victorian-era. So I liked "Talons" from the word go. Yes, there is some unfortunate "Yellowface" going on in the episode, something the cast and production team (who are still alive) regret and have mentioned many times. But the story is good, and the characters from this tale are wonderful. 

If Jago and Litefoot have been given new life in these audio dramas, then their Victorian-era contemporaries Vastra & Jenny (and Strax) have been given continued life in the Cubicle 7 Doctor Who RPG.

In both mediums (audio and RPGs) there are some cross-overs. But for me I love the RPG structure the best for further adventures (though the audio dramas are very, very close!)

The best thing about Jago & Litefoot is the implication that once the Doctor enters someone's life, they are forever changed and want to do more to improve their world. This has been an explicit detail in the newer series. 

All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.

Going all the way back to Room 9 there were two tunnels, left and right.  Choosing the left tunnel (previously the right) takes the party on a twisty path that almost doubles back to a small cave.

This cave is swarming with 6 Rhagodessa. These giant spider-like monsters feed on the victims the trolls didn't finish off. Due to the influence of the chaos stone, these creatures are now Chaotic.  

They have collected treasure (U x6) in a small pile. 

Busy time. I have not written anything in over two weeks, but I am hardly idle.  On my plate this week?  Playtesting the newest game from Elf Lair Games.

Wasted Lands: The Dreaming Age

This is a new Swords and Sorcery RPG set in a savage lost epoch, millions of years ago. A time lost to current humanity.  Players will take on the roles of human (near human) characters struggling against the remains of the Old Ones, ancient gods and alien threats. 

These characters will fight, and struggle and eventually, they will become the Gods we know today. 

This game uses the same rule system as NIGHT SHIFT: Veteran of the Supernatural Wars.

Playtest is now underway.

I am hoping to use some of the material I have created for my own One Man's God posts in my Wasted Lands game.  In particular, I will use this to flesh out my Roman-Norse Pantheon, actually play out the legends that would later become these gods.  And of course, because I have a rep to maintain, expect to see some gods/goddesses of magic and witchcraft.

I am quite excited about this game and I hope to get you all excited about it as well. 

Something a little different again since I will talk about a single serial of Doctor Who. This time it is 1970's "Inferno."  It is the second serial (from the seventh season) to feature Jon Pertwee as the Doctor in exile on Earth.  The Time Lords have crippled his TARDIS and removed all knowledge of how to Time Travel from his mind. He is stuck on Earth and not taking it well, so he tinkers with the TARDIS all the time with mostly disastrous results. 

In Inferno he manages to slip into a parallel universe with a Fascist Britain. In both universes there is an experiment to drill through the Earth's crust, but at the point they are doing will cause catastrophic problems. The fascist universe is slight ahead in time as the "prime" universe so the Doctor knows what needs to be done.

I liked this episode for a lot of reasons. First it played into my growing interest in the idea of the Multi-verse, something that I began to explore in the comic "Crisis on Infinite Earths" and later in books like "Job: A Comedy of Justice" and "The Coming of the Quantum Cats."  It was something that at the time I was really ready to enjoy.  

Secondly, and this is the big one, it was the Doctor Who episode that introduced me to other Doctors. 

Growing up I watched Doctor Who on my local (St. Louis) PBS station KETC.  Now KETC has a huge market, and they played the Tom Baker era almost exclusively. But they were not the only local PBS station. Just to the north of me was WILL out of Urbana IL and it was connected with the University of Illinois at Urbana.  While I did not get that station on our cable package there were some in town that had access to it. Also there was a steady stream of VHS tapes coming down from Urbana to my hometown from people going to school there. Inferno was one such tape.

I remember watching it in, of all places, my High School's library. One of my friends had it and was watching in the "media room" which was supposed to be off limits to general students unless you worked there. I didn't. But I was fascinated by this episode and mostly by this "new to me" Doctor. I knew Pertwee came before Baker and that his Doctor was a different sort, but this episode was an eye-opener for me.

Recently, I had the chance to rewatch in prep for today's post. It is slower than I remember, but just as good.  Though I do find it very odd that I am right now older than Pertwee was in this episode (he was 51).

I have made a habit since first watching this one to check out all the Pertwee/3rd Doctor episodes I can. I know there are a few I have never seen. I have not sought them out because I do enjoy the joy of stumbling upon them just like I did with Inferno.

Since moving to the Chicago area I have had the chance to talk to others who watched Doctor Who from the same time period and how their PBS stations differed from my local St. Louis one. It has been very interesting and I'll talk more about it on "P" day.

All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.