[Fanzine Focus XIX] Time & Tide

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed another DM and group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. 

Another fanzine, another different fanzine. Time & Tide is a fanzine dedicated, to SLA Industries, the 1993 Scottish roleplaying game set in a far future dystopia of corporate greed, commodification of ultraviolence, the mediatisation of murder, conspiracy, and urban horror, and serial killer sensationalism, recently expanded with the supplement, SLA Industries: Cannibal Sector 1. Published by Tanya Floaker following a successful Kickstarter campaign as part of the first Zine Quest, Time & Tide is subtitled ‘A fanzine examining why people love SLA Industries and the World of Progress’. It is of course not the only fanzine for SLA Industries. In the early noughties, tTH bIG pICTURE showcased another role for the fanzine, that is serving as a focal point for a roleplaying game’s fandom and support, often when that roleplaying game is between editions or out of print. As was the case with SLA Industries.

Time & Tide comes as thick sheaf of paper, a wodge of white text blocks on all dark photo backgrounds and scrappy art which screams late eighties, early nineties do-it-yourself layout. It is all filler, no game, but nevertheless all love, no hate. As the subtitle says, this is a fanzine about the love that the fans have for SLA Industries. At a hundred pages in length there are actually very few articles in the fanzine—just eight in all. There is also quite a bit of white—and more often than not—black space. The fanzine includes fiction, interviews, cake recipes, and more.

Time & Tide opens with ‘So Dark it’s U.V.’, a discussion of just why SLA Industries continues to be popular in spite of its sporadic publishing history. It also looks at the elements and themes of the game—of constantly changing technology, of suppression of knowledge, and of a truth that has its own dangers in knowing, overlaid by a Splatterpunk sensibility that reinforces the notion that life is cheap, that death can be comical, and that thrills meaning ratings (until the next thrill gets better ratings). It is a solid opening piece which lays the groundwork for the rest of the fanzine.

The highpoint of the fanzine is the ‘Interview with Nightfall Games’. The first of two interviews in the Time & Tide, this is with Jared Earle, co-author of SLA Industries and Mark Rapson of Word Forge Games, the new publisher of the roleplaying game. Conducted before the publication of SLA Industries: Cannibal Sector 1, this is a lengthy piece which looks at the history of the game and its future, in particular, its evolution as a war game setting in addition to being a roleplaying game. This is an informative and entertaining piece which really explains both Nightfall Games and Word Forge Games in the run up to the publication of SLA Industries: Cannibal Sector 1 and SLA Industries, Second Edition. The other interview is ‘Real Time’. This is with Ste Winwood about his involvement in running SLA Industries fan groups. Again, this is another personable interview highlighting the effectiveness of the fans in keeping a game alive with their support.

Between the two interviews is a much longer article, ‘The Mall of Progress’ by Ed Hill. This supports the new wargaming aspect of SLA Industries as the author takes the reader through the evolution of the terrain that he used to fight confrontations between the various factions in the World of Progress. So it goes from Cannibal Sector One over the Wall into Downtown and onto Garbage Alley and out again into the Ruined Mall and the Mall of Progress, and then back in again to a wretched housing block called Grim House. The step-by-step process looks at construction methods and the changing technology used and is accompanied by innumerable photographs. Unfortunately, these photographs hamper the article at every turn, being too dark and too murky to discern any detail. Whilst murk fits the World of Progress, it is not what you want in a wargames article where photos should bring to life what the designer has been doing. Worse, the layout of the article means extends the article over and over, and at a quarter of the fanzine’s page count combined with the poor resolution of the photographs, it just feels bloated and boring.

Tamsyn Kennedy’s ‘Underneath It All’ is the first of two pieces of fiction in Time & Tide. It tells of an Ebon’s almost worker drone existence before an encounter forces her awake and brings her to the notice of those that make her take the next step in ‘evolution’. This balances the humdrum with the eventual realisation that there is an alternative path in the ‘World of Progress’ to climbing the corporate ladder. The other piece of fiction is ‘Your Hole/Their Hole/My Hole’ by Roger Duthie which is very much the opposite of ‘Underneath It All’, telling of the wet, dank, stagnant, often horrifying nature of living on the dole in Downtown. It is quite a creepy piece, capturing life in the Mort City equivalent of a 1980s Glasgow council flat—elements of SLA Industries being a reaction to growing up and being unemployed in Thatcher’s Britain—from multiple points of view, intruders mundane and monstrous, as well as the dwelling’s occupants.

Quite literally filler, Coz Winwood’s ‘Cake Sector One’ gives recipes for SLA-themed baked goods. Three recipes are given—in oddly American measurements given the roleplaying game’s Scottish origins—and their inclusion would have been fine if they had there to offset something more substantial in terms of content in the fanzine. As it is, ‘Cake Sector One’ is all too light and fluffy in all too light and fluffy issue. Nice wordplay on the title though and there really ought to be a cooking show aimed at Shivers on duty in Cannibal Sector One within the game itself. Lastly, ‘The Bigger Picture’ is a more personal piece about SLA Industries played a role in his life and helped him when times were difficult. Hopefully the new edition of the roleplaying game and the chance to play again will make his better.

Physically, Time &  Tide is scrappy and scruffy as mentioned earlier. It certainly echoes the style of fanzines from their heyday in the eighties. Overall, it is difficult to come right out and recommend Time & Tide. It is just too light and fluffy in its content—even if that content is dark and oppressive in tone, but then what would expect, it is for SLA Industries after all—to be anything more.Time & Tide will of course appeal to devotees of SLA Industries, but it is nothing more than a diverting read as it does not include any support for the roleplaying game or the war game rules. Had it done so, then there might have been reason enough for the reader to look at it more than just the once. Time & Tide is very much not essential to playing SLA Industries and so nice enough to have if a fan, but you will not miss it from your gaming shelves if you don’t have it.