[Fanzine Focus XXXVII] The Valley Out of Time: Danger Valley

On the tail of 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 how another Dungeon Master and her 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 be 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 and the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game from Goodman Games. Some of these fanzines provide fantasy support for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, but others explore other genres for use with Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. One such fanzine is The Valley Out of Time.

The Valley Out of Time is a six-part series published by Skeeter Green Productions. It is written for use with both the Dungeon Crawl Classics RolePlaying Game and Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic, ‘The Valley Out of Time’ is a ‘Lost Worlds’ style setting a la X1 The Isle of Dread, and films such as The Land that Time Forgot, The Lost World, Journey to the Centre of the Earth, One Million years, B.C., and others, plus the artwork of Frank Frazetta. Combining dinosaurs, Neanderthals, and a closed environment, it is intended to be dropped into a campaign with relative ease and would work in both a fantasy campaign or a post-apocalyptic campaign. It could even work as a bridge between the two, with two different possible entries into ‘The Valley Out of Time’, one from a fantasy campaign and one from a post-apocalyptic campaign.

The Valley Out of Time: Danger Valley is the third issue in the series and it is difficult to describe just how disappointing this issue actually is. Then again, the second issue, The Valley Out of Time: Exploring the Valley, was almost as disappointing. What the series promises is set out on the back cover: “The Valley Out of Time is a series of ’zine-sized adventures from SGP. This valley can be placed in any ongoing campaign, and is set in the “Neanderthal Period” of development. Huge monsters – both dinosaurs and otherwise – and devolved humanoids plague the area, and only the hardiest of adventurers will prevail!” The key word here is ‘adventure’. There is not a single adventure in the issue of the fanzine. An adventure has a plot and interaction and motivation and other elements that the players and their characters can grasp and engage with. The Valley Out of Time: Danger Valley does not offer any that. What it does give is a series of fights with some prehistoric monsters, which vary between the Player Characters noticing something over a hill which turns out to be a monster that will attack them and coming upon a fight between two monsters in which they can decide to help one side or the other or run away. All start with the Player Characters wandering through this lost valley and coming across what they are—encounters. They are not adventures and the author even confirms this by describing several of them as an ‘encounter’. The question is, why does the author promise the reader adventures, only to deliver one combat encounter after another, and then to compound them all, make them boring?

Worse, having provided full stats for the monsters in the encounters, the author gives the monsters full write-ups in the first of the issue’s appendices. Why? Why repeat material when there is such a limited page count?

The problems continue with the framing of what the fanzine is. Under ‘Hooks/Motivations’, the author writes. “These ’zines offer a “mini-setting” with some quick and dirty encounters, locations, and obstacles to help fill in a night (or two) of gaming when other plans go astray.” To be fair, this issue offers some encounters—a fight with some Xoth-man raiders, a fight with a cave giant, a fight with some axe beaks, and so on. All nine of them. But not locations or obstacles, and definitely, definitely not a setting, ‘mini’ or otherwise. There is no map, there is no sense of place, in fact, there are no places, and there is barely anyone to interact with—and when there is, the motivations of the NPCs are scarcely touched upon. The author does tell the reader that the NPCs’ village is a good source of rumours and campaign hooks, but not what those might be.

Penultimately, there is some flavour text in the second appendix. ‘The Timeless Valley’ is a short creation myth told to some of the peoples within a lost valley. It may or may not be a foundation myth of the ‘Valley Out of Time’ of the fanzine’s title, but it is engaging and it is interesting and used in conjunction with the some of the people of the valley, it would add to their background. So, the next question is, why is the author not using this to create a setting and to bring the ‘Valley Out of Time’ of the fanzine’s title to life instead of shovelling out one prosaic monster fight after another?

Lastly, The Valley Out of Time: Danger Valley includes three pages left blank for ‘GM Notes’. Three whole pages where the author could have been providing the mini-setting that the issue promised or even an actual encounter that had scope for roleplaying and interaction rather than just another boring fight. Or alternatively, this could be seen as the author being kind enough to leave a space in fanzine for the Judge to write down some details of an actual setting or even an adventure that he steadfastly refuses to provide as promised.

Physically, The Valley Out of Time: Danger Valley is well presented and well written. The artwork is of a reasonable quality.

If the Judge is looking for a collection of fights with prehistoric monsters to pitch at her players, then The Valley Out of Time: Danger Valley is perfect. However, if the Judge wants more than fights and monsters, wants adventures and setting, wants content around which she can build her own campaign, then The Valley Out of Time: Danger Valley is a frustrating failure. Which sadly, is due to the author’s broken promises.