[Fanzine Focus XLIV] Back to BasiX – Issue #1

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 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. Most of these retroclones are based on either the original version of Dungeons & Dragons or an edition of Basic Dungeons & Dragons. One such fanzine and one such edition of Basic Dungeons & Dragons is Back to BasiX, ‘A new quarterly Fanzine dedicated to a simpler time of RPGs—covering the Basic and Expert editions of Dungeons & Dragons’, published by ThrowiGames, based upon the edition designed by Tom Moldvay and David Cook.

Back to BasiX – Issue #1 was published in June, 2017 and though designed to support all editions of Basic Dungeons & Dungeons though with a slight emphasis placed the Moldvay/Cook version of 1980. In ‘Publishing News’ the author notes the lack of new support for B/X Basic Dungeons & Dragons, referring back to 2007’s Labyrinth Lord from Goblinoid Games and the B/X Companion from Running Beagle Games as being the best available at the time, whilst giving a ‘Product Spotlight’ to the Moldvay/Cook edition of Basic Dungeons & Dungeons that he was given in 1981, noting that, “For me, it is the benchmark for all rulebooks; it is concise, has a clean layout style, and is full of inspiration.” and that “The cover illustration by Erol Otus is one of the most inspirational early images of roleplaying. That single illustration tells a story of adventure; treasure, heroes and a terrible dragon looming in the background made all my friends and I want to pick up dice and roll up a character.” What is interesting about this is that it captures a moment when this edition of Basic Dungeons & Dragons was little supported, when the author and the Old School Renaissance had little idea of what was to come in 2019 with the publication of Old School Essentials by Necrotic Gnome that pushed the Moldvay/Cook edition to forefront of the hobby with a superbly presented and accessible update of the rules. Even seven years on, Old School Essentials continues to be a highly popular retroclone.

Back to BasiX – Issue #1 is short at just twelve pages long, but it packs in quite a bit of content. This starts with an ‘Interview with a Legendary Gamer — Merle Rasmussen’, the designer best known for designing Top Secret, but also the author of three adventures for Basic Dungeons & Dragons and Expert Dungeons & Dragons. These are X6 Quagmire!, XSOLO Lathan’s Gold, and BSOLO Ghost of Lion Castle. Given the few pages in the inaugural issues, it is no surprise that the interview is short, but Rasmussen gives a quick overview of his time at TSR, Inc. and expounds on how he enjoyed working on BSOLO Ghost of Lion Castle.

The ‘Winged Snakeman’ of Mythicology, the fanzine’s monster column, begins a serpentine theme that runs through the playable content in the issue. The creature is a merged species created by the failed experiments of a wizard or a spell gone wrong, which rarely lives for long. The snake theme continues with the inclusion of the Magic Sword, +1 vs. Snakes in ‘The Magic Shop’ and then in the ‘Quarterly Dungeon Crawl’. This is ‘Cavern of the Winged Snakemen’, a short scenario for three to five Player Characters of First and Second Level. It details a group of Winged Snakemen that have escaped an experiment and taken up residence in a small cave network. The wizard who created them is trying to find them and destroy them, whilst an evil Cleric and his acolytes have set up a shrine and recruited the Winged Snakemen. Local townsfolk are spreading rumours of the flying men being seen and this should be enough to spur the Player Characters to act. More of a location than an adventure, it is a simple, straightforward affair that is easy to drop into a campaign and use however the Game Master wants.

‘Spellbound’ discusses the choice and use of various spells. It asks if Game Masters let the players of Magic-Users, Elves, and Clerics in their campaign choose their spells or roll for them randomly? The author’s preference is for Magic-Users and Elves to choose theirs as they will have been studying and he has their players tell him which spells are being studied, whilst he has players of Clerics roll for theirs. His choice of spell to examine is Floating Disc, which with its limited duration is not always a very useful spell, and whilst it can carry a lot of weight, a Bag of Holding would be better. When a player selects it, he increases its duration which means a Magic-User has a better chance of getting out of the dungeon with it still running and carrying its load.

‘Crimson Abbey of the Broken God — Part 1’ turns the episode of the comic that follows, ‘Dungeon Delver’ by Travis Hanson into playable content. In the comic, three adventurers have set out on their first quest to retrieve a mysterious artefact from a long deserted abbey. In the comic, they do not get far before discovering a trapped secret door as a way across a chasm. The article gives the location as if written in a scenario and then the background and stats for the trio, a Dwarf, a Magic-User, and a Thief. A solid little introduction to the setting and its cast.

Physically, Back to BasiX – Issue #1 is well written and well presented. The artwork is decent and the cartography is serviceable.

Back to BasiX – Issue #1 is a solid introduction to the fanzine. The Back to BasiX Compilation collects the first ten issues in print whilst all twelve issues are available as a bundle and provides good support for any retroclone.