The gaming magazine is dead. After all, when was the last time that you were able to purchase a gaming magazine at your nearest newsagent? Games Workshop’s White Dwarf is of course the exception, but it has been over a decade since Dragon appeared in print. However, in more recent times, the hobby has found other means to bring the magazine format to the market. Digitally, of course, but publishers have also created their own in-house titles and sold them direct or through distribution. Another vehicle has been Kickststarter.com, which has allowed amateurs to write, create, fund, and publish titles of their own, much like the fanzines of Kickstarter’s ZineQuest. The resulting titles are not fanzines though, being longer, tackling broader subject matters, and more professional in terms of their layout and design.
—oOo—
Most magazines for the roleplaying hobby give the gamer support for the game of his choice, or at the very least, support for the hobby’s more popular roleplaying games. Whether that is new monsters, spells, treasures, reviews of newly released titles, scenarios, discussions of how to play, painting guides, and the like… That is how it has been all the way back to the earliest days of The Dragon and White Dwarf magazines. Wyrd Science is different—and Wyrd Science – Expert Rules (Wyrd Science Vol. 1/Issue 2) is different in comparison to Wyrd Science Session Zero. Neither contain a single monster, spell, treasure, review, scenario, or the like, but with Wyrd Science – Expert Rules gone is the organisation of ‘Common Items’ and ‘Rare Items’ of the inaugural issue. Instead, it is divided between a ‘Quick-start’ section providing reasonably short introductions to various aspects of the hobby, whilst the ‘Features’ provides even longer pieces that together look at the old and the very new.
Wyrd Science – Expert Rules (Vol. 1/Issue 2) was published by Best in Show in September, 2021 following a successful Kickstarter campaign. If Wyrd Science Session Zero took a little of its cue from the red box edition of Basic Dungeons & Dragons, then with its pastel blue cover and subtitle of ‘Fantasy Adventure Game Expert Magazine’, the second issue of Wyrd Science takes its cue from Expert Dungeons & Dragons—or rather the expert rules of the Moldvay/Cook B/X Dungeons & Dragons published in 1981 and which was forty years old in 2021. However, the modern reader should allay any fears that Wyrd Science – Expert Rules (Vol. 1/Issue 2) is all about the ‘Old School’. No, whilst this issue definitely looks back, it very much looks forward to the here and now with its coverage of current gaming releases outside of the Old School Renaissance. The result is a pleasing mix of contrasts and thoroughly engaging reads.
The ‘Quick-start Section’ dives straight in with a series of interesting interviews. ‘Cast Pod: What Would The Smart Party Do?’ interviews Baz Stevenson of the UK’s long running podcast, What Would The Smart Party Do? This follows on from ‘Zoom Of Horrors – The Smart Party On Gaming Online In 2020’ from Wyrd Science Session Zero which explained how they adapted to playing online in 2020 and how it came to dominate much of their social life and how they coped with so many roleplaying games competing for their attention. This article looks more at Stevenson’s experiences both playing and hosting the podcast, providing a good overview and introduction to the prospective listener. ‘Work In Progress: Coyote & Crow’ is an interview with Connor Alexander, the designer of the now released Science Fiction and fantasy roleplaying game set in a First Nations alternate future where colonisation never happened and created by Native authors and artists. This highlights some of the challenges of creating and then running a highly successful Kickstarter campaign—over one million dollars—and how that affected the design of the game, and again, another good interview.
If ‘Work In Progress: Coyote & Crow’ was looking at a modern design, ‘HEX LIBRIS: Jon Peterson – The Elusive Shift’ is the first article in Wyrd Science – Expert Rules to look back. The magazine’s third interview is with Jon Peterson, who has just then had published The Elusive Shift – How Role-Playing Games Forged Their Identity. This history explores early role-playing games evolved in the nineteen seventies whilst searching for that point where they became roleplaying games. Anyone who has read that book will still find much to be of interest in the interview, whilst anyone else should be intrigued enough to go find a copy.
‘ART OF DARKNESS: The 1000 Year Play-through’ follows on from Anna Maxwell’s ‘Quickstart – Alone In The Dark’ from Wyrd Science Session Zero, which explored the growth of solo play during the COVID-19 periods of lockdown, highlighting in particular the superb storytelling to found through playing Tim Hutchings’ Thousand Year Old Vampire. Here the magazine interviews the Wellington-based designer, Tim Denee, who began illustrating his play-through of the game. The interview is short and to the point, but is undone by only having two illustrations taken from that play-through. Thankfully, they can be found here, but another page highlighting them would not have gone amiss.
‘KICKSTOPPING: The Shipping Forecast’ examines the impact of the Pandemic on shipping and gaming—and the forecast is not good, whilst ‘CREDIT CARDS: MAGIC COLLECTORS In The Black’ highlights the recent rise in price at auction of some of the rarest cards for both Magic: The Gathering and Pokémon. Anna Blackwell examines another trend in ‘DESIGN OF THE TIMES: Small Games, Big Ideas’. This is the concept of designers challenging themselves to create playable games in as small a format as possible. These include on a business card, on a single page, and in mint tins and even jam jars! There is an emphasis here on the boardgame rather than the roleplaying game, but there are plenty of those to be found if you go looking. There are lots of examples given and these are useful pointers, though the article does lack illustrations. The ‘Quick-start Section’ comes to close with ‘Pierre Mortel’s CROOKED TALES: The Found Diary of a Crowman adventurer – Chapter 2’ which chronicles the further adventures of a hapless adventurer, whilst Mira Manga goes out with ‘MANGA’s MUSINGS: LARPing Around’ taking herself away from the computer screen (mostly) and back into the gaming world.
The Features section begins with coverage of the roleplaying game which inspired the issue—B/X Basic Dungeons & Dragons with a trilogy of articles. ‘Dungeon Life Begins at 40’ is an interview with the surviving members of the team involved in the creation of this version of Basic Dungeons & Dragons—David ‘Zeb’ Cook and Stephen Marsh—and explores the genesis of the edition and its continuing influence today. Along with some crisply produced piece of artwork from this edition, this captures the flavour and intent of the edition, laying the groundwork for the subsequent two articles. Peter Bebergal’s ‘Words Against Wizardry’ highlights how the ‘Inspirational Source Material’ in B/X Basic Dungeons & Dragons was in many ways better than that offered by E. Gary Gygax’s ‘Appendix N’ to be found in the Dungeon Master’s Guide for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, whilst ‘B/X to the Future’ looks at how the Old School Renaissance came about and was really kicked off with Troll Lord Games’ 2004 Castles & Crusades, before coming up to date to examine the many retroclones and near-retroclones have been inspired by B/X Basic Dungeons & Dragons. At the head of them in 2020 when Wyrd Science – Expert Rules was published, and still there today, is Old School Essentials. The article points out that the Old School Renaissance is not all dungeon-delving, and that there are other options within with the movement when it comes to roleplaying and storytelling, such as Troika, Mausrítter, and MOTHERSHIP Sci-Fi Horror RoleplayingGame. Together this is a lovely trilogy of articles which showcase just influential this edition of Basic Dungeons & Dragons has been.
If the first part of the Features section is a trilogy of articles about one game and its influence, the next trilogy focuses on three, much more modern titles, starting with Thirsty Sword Lesbians. Romance is not a new subject in roleplaying, but for the most part, it has been explored in storytelling games rather than mainstream titles. Wyrd Science – Expert Rules leaps into the definite here and now with ‘Violence is Easy. Romance is Hard.’, Rob Wieland’s look at Thirsty Sword Lesbians. This roleplaying game not only brought romance front and centre, it put it into the mechanics, it puts it in the title too. It is a game which promises ‘Queer Action Romance’, and whilst that may not be for everyone, it is nevertheless a valid and exciting genre in which to roleplay, and this article not only makes that clear, it makes the prospect sound fun and entertaining. ‘Hammers Ready, Prepare to Smash!’ leaps into the future of the Warhammer ‘World That Was’ with an examination of Warhammer Age of Sigmar Soulbound, the heroic, action-orientated high fantasy roleplaying game. The Player Characters are the Soulbound, an ancient order of individuals granted a measure of a storm god’s power, drawn into bindings, and assigned missions to fulfil that god’s will. Combining an interview with its creative director at Cubicle Seven Entertainment, Emmet Byrne, it emphasises the strange mix of character types, Daughters of Khaine alongside Priests of Signar; whilst how they are heroes, they cannot necessarily solve every problem they are presented with; and a very different set of mechanics versus Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay as well as the change in tone. The third roleplaying game examined here is Wanderhome in ‘In Wanderhome, They’ll Be Okay, They’ll All Be Okay’, Aimee Hart provides an examination of the anthropomorphic and pastoral roleplaying game set in world that is healing following a great war in which the Player Characters wander and explore the world, as well as interviewing the designer, Jay Dragon. The Player Characters are involved in part of this healing, helping to ease traumas where they cannot solve issues, and where they can, very rarely resorting to violence or combat. Wanderhome comes across as a roleplaying game in which the Player Characters are definitely trying to make the world better, and sounds a fascinating prospect.
In ‘Making Waves – Pamela Punzalan On The Rise Of RPGSEA’, Wyrd Science Session Zero gave space to voices not usually heard in the roleplaying community—those from South-East Asia. Wyrd Science – Expert Rules follows this up with a pair of articles that examine the roleplaying scene in Latin America. The first is ‘South of the Borderlands’, in which Diogo Nogueira examines the scene in Brazil. It is a good introduction to the state of the hobby in the country, noting that it began with imported and photo-copied editions of titles from the English-speaking market and how interest was spurred by the very popular Dungeons & Dragons cartoon. However, it only really mentions a handful of homegrown titles and it lacks a timeline or history that a better overview would have given. Certainly mention and highlighting more of the former might have served as a better hook for anyone intrigued by what might be available would have been useful. The second article, ‘What Was Written Must Be Destroyed’, an interview with the Argentinian designer, Gavriel Quiroga. This focuses on his then new dark Science Fiction fantasy roleplaying game WARPLAND in which science and learning has been shunned as the cause of a barely remembered, now-incomprehensible cataclysm, and in its stead, a hollow religion’s iron-clad fist forces ignorance on surviving members of humanity. This is to ensure that such a disaster never happens again. This is a brief overview of the game that looks to worth examining to really get a fuller idea of what it is about. This pair of articles point to the creativity brimming in Latin America, but only really skims the surface. It deserves another, more comprehensive visit.
‘Let’s Open Up This Pit’ takes the issue into the realms of wargaming to looking at how that hobby has diversified with a range of new, often radical designs. The article points to shift to simpler styles of play and the shift in role-players entering or re-entering that hobby with the simplicity of designs such as Frostgrave: Fantasy Wargames in the Frozen City and its family of titles. Its coverage of the Indie design movement is backed up with a solid selection of examples. The article also mentions how wargamers miss the old Games Workshop title, Mordheim, of which Frostgrave is similar, and in ‘Streets of Rage’ Luke Frostick goes in search of that long-lost skirmish game to see it is still played and supported. Of course, with the Internet it is. This is an interesting little article which will have certain gamers getting out their boxes of Mordheim rules and miniatures once again. Continuing the miniatures theme on from his earlier ‘Model Behaviour – Luke Shaw On Building Miniature Communities’ in Wyrd Science Session Zero, Luke Shaw enters the community of figure painters to interview four professional miniature painters who offer video tutorials and run YouTube channels. Again, this is another solid article exploring an aspect of the hobby that is being enhanced by social media. The wargaming theme comes to a close with ‘Craft, Work’, Willard Foxton Todd’s lengthy interview with the prolific Science Fiction and Fantasy author, Guy Haley, best known for his Warhammer fiction. Another good piece.
‘A Space Where We Belong’ does feel pushed to the back of Wyrd Science – Expert Rules, which is probably not the intention. Ellen Knight’s interview with four women involved in the industry, including roleplaying and board games, explores some of the attitudes they unfortunately have to face, but it really explores what they are doing to change those and made either hobby a more welcoming space. That is no bad thing, but again, this piece could easily have been more upfront in the issue.
‘Escape to New York’ interviews Pontus Björlin, the Swedish designer of ALTNYC88, the fanzine roleplaying game inspired by The Warriors and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and set in the rundown New York of the nineteen eighties, whilst rounding out Wyrd Science – Expert Rules is over twenty or so review of board games, wargames, and roleplaying games. There is a decent mix here, although some games get more space than others, and then in ‘HIT POINTS: FILM/TV’, Will Salmon gives a round up of watchable content in 2020. Lastly, there is ‘TIMESLIP’, with which Ian Livingstone takes us back to 1976 and memories of Gen Con triggered by a very special photograph.
Physically, Wyrd Science – Expert Rules is impressively bright and breezy. The layout is clean and tidy, with decent use of photographs against pieces of art as more like spot fillers. The issue does need another edit in places though.
Wyrd Science – Expert Rules is less parochial than Wyrd Science Session Zero. This is not say that the first issue was bad, but rather that Wyrd Science – Expert Rules has broadened its coverage of the gaming scene, so less of roleplaying, boardgaming, and miniatures gaming in the United Kingdom, per se, but more of it around the world. Consequently, it feels less constrained, primarily because it is not written with COVID-19 in mind, although its influence is there as you would expect. It covers its broad range of subjects with what is for the most part, an excellent series of articles and interviews, never less than entertaining and informative. In places, it could have done with more history and more context, especially the Latin American article, which would have made the content of Wyrd Science – Expert Rules more useful. Nevertheless, Wyrd Science – Expert Rules contains an excellent mix of interesting and engaging articles that are a real pleasure to see in print.
No comments:
Post a Comment