[Fanzine Focus XLIV] The Beholder Issue 9

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 how another Dungeon Master 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. As new fanzines have appeared, there has been an interest in the fanzines of the past, and as that interest has grown, they have become highly collectible, and consequently more difficult to obtain and write about. However, in writing about them, the reader should be aware that these fanzines were written and published between thirty and forty years ago, typically by roleplayers in their teens and twenties. What this means is that sometimes the language and terminology used reflects this and though the language and terminology is not socially acceptable today, that use should not be held against the authors and publishers unduly.

The Beholder was a British fanzine first published in April, 1979. Dedicated to Dungeons & Dragons and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, it ran to twenty-seven issues, the last being published in July, 1981. It was popular and would be awarded ‘Best Games Fanzine’ at the Games Day convention in 1980. After the final issue of The Beholder, the editors would go on to release a number of anthologies which collected content from the complete run of the fanzine such as Beholder Supplement Glossary of Magic, which collected many of the magical items which appeared in the fanzine and collated them into a series of tables for easy use by the Dungeon Master, and Fantasie Scenarios – The Fanzine Supplement No. 2, the first of several scenario anthologies.

The Beholder Issue No. 9 was published in November 1979. After the editorial page, mostly administrative in nature this issue, the first article is ‘Games Day V’. This is a report on the event which took place on Saturday, October, 20th 1979 at the Royal Horticultural Hall and provides a snapshot of the hobby’s public events in its early days. There were demonstration games on PET mini-computers, including being able to explore a dungeon (which is described as pretty dull) and play a Star Wars game (popular); the ‘D&D Comp’ was a quiz followed by a speedy mini-dungeon, the prize being a copy of the then new Dungeon Master’s Guide for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition, signed by E. Gary Gygax; and oddly, a Frisbee demonstration (this was during the Frisbee craze of the time) as well as Tiddlywinks games! Events like Games Day showcased the hobby and show how much Games Workshop built the hobby back in the day.

Keith Andrews’ ‘Quest Dungeon’ is the first of two adventures in the issue. It states that it is not a fully fledged dungeon, but rather intended to be added to a larger complex as a quest location. Designed for six First Level Player Characters, the quest is for them to retrieve a staff belonging to the Thor-worshipping Patriarch Galberra which has been stolen. The staff is located in a dungeon, two miles northwest of the temple. The dungeon is terrible—linear, random, and the prefect example of a zoo-style dungeon. It opens with a cavern with winged goblins, followed by a trap room of two statues staring at each other which animate and attack if the Player Characters if the statues’ eyeline is broken, then a corridor of changing colours that heals the Player Characters, and so on. The last encounter includes a scene of torture and none of this makes sense because there is no explanation as to why the staff was stolen. A terrible dungeon to run in an afternoon and definitely not a good one to add to a larger complex.

Surprisingly, there are two reviews sections in The Beholder Issue No. 9. One is a very positive one-page review of Starfleet Battles. This was ‘Task Force Game #4’, the pocket or microgame version published in 1979 in by Task Force Games before the Starfleet Battles Designer’s Edition was released the same year. The reviewer prefaced the review by stating, “I consider this to be the best non-roleplaying game for a very long time, so this review may be slightly biased!” He described the game as being highly realistic, with the outcome of games being determined by player choice and skill rather than random dice rolls. Overall, the review gives a good feel for the game and of course, is very positive. The other is ‘Mini Reviews’, a page of thumbnail descriptions of various roleplaying games that the readers might want for Christmas. The games include Chivalry & Sorcery (“the ultimate in “realism”), RuneQuest (sadly out of print, but very good despite the “absurd barbarian ducks”), Gamma World (mostly an arms race), Metamorphosis Alpha: Fantastic Role-Playing Game of Science Fiction Adventures on a Lost Starship (has more of an aim to the game than Gamma World, but everyone has the same aim), and Superhero 2044 (“Buy this game! For a little light relief (or even a rare serious game) nothings is better.”). The weirdest description is saved for Traveller. “Players send characters through “space academy” and then send them out into the universe to make their way. Everywhere they go they will find the problems of drugs, frauds, frame-ups, galactic mafia groups and other nasties. The usual course of action is to get involved in all this, and most games turn out as bank robberies, space-jakings [sic] and various other delightful crimes. All great fun!” The combat system is described as disappointing and the rules for spaceship battles as being particularly awful. This is a surprisingly negative reaction to the world’s most venerable Science Fiction roleplaying game and whilst this is before there was much in the way of background for Traveller’s setting of Charted Space, was this really how it was played back then?

In between, Keith Andrews’ second contribute to the issue is in a new column called ‘The Ideas Page’. This is a collection of tricks, traps, and useful ideas, such as driving iron spikes into the heads of statues to sabotage them should they animate; placing a pit or drop behind a door spiked shut that an adventurer has to break down and will then fall into the pit or drop; set smoky fires to drive recalcitrant monsters out of their lairs; let monsters use Molotov cocktails as well as the Player Characters; and since the Player’s Handbook lists the prices of several birds, bring them along in the dungeon to test potions with. Plus, canaries can be obviously used to detect fumes or gases and others set into rooms to set off traps. It is obviously cruel and turns dungeon exploration into a procedure.

Following them is ‘INFO’ which combines elements of ‘The Ideas Page’ with a Classified Section. Nigel Proudfoot suggests replacing the Saving Throw versus Poison or die mechanic with an ongoing damage effect and keeping Saving Throws versus ‘delayed action’ poison effects like paralysation a secret to keep a player from knowing when his character can act. The magic items such as M. Hankin’s Carpet of Welcome and Sean Longmore’s Bracers of Polymorph are nicely inventive and detailed. The Carpet of Welcome is perfect for the villain as it makes anyone who steps over it susceptible to his suggestions—as per the spell, whilst the Bracers of Polymorph let the wearer change shape three times per day, but there is a chance that he will change into a random monster!

‘DM’s Corner’ discusses how to design and run a living dungeon rather than a zoo dungeon. The latter is random, whilst the former is not as it has to be designed as an ecological system where the monsters live, work, and survive and the system as a whole will react to the intrusion and activities of the Player Characters. The article makes clear that this requires not just more work to design, but more work to maintain. It is a good introduction to the concept and a good starting point to anyone wanting to create and run more than simple dungeon hack.

The issue of fanzine has just two monster entries, surprisingly. The first is Alan Bell’s ‘Gnobbleknoll’, a living hill that casts Control Weather, forcing passers-by to take shelter in the cave in the hill, which of course, is its mouth! Those captured can hack their way out, but this requires a lot of damage to be inflicted and there is a limited air supply. The second is the ‘Reaper Skeleton’ by A. Whitcombe, a scythe-wielding skeleton that has a chance to lop limbs off and if it kills an enemy will whisk their body off to serve a demon or devil. Of the two, the ‘Gnobbleknoll’ is the more entertaining, though the idea of idea of a living hill is ridiculous (but then so is a living island).

The second and main adventure in The Beholder Issue No. 9 is ‘The Pagoda’. This details a strange pagoda built over an ancient burial ground by a hostile nomadic sect and is designed for a party of four to ten Player Characters of Third or Fourth Level. The pagoda has six storeys with balconies on the upper five watched over by black ravens capable of  casting Darkness and is home to a sect of Fighters, Monks, and Assassins led by the vampire, Sihng-ai, and a religious speaker, a Cleric/Fighter/Magic-User. Below the pagoda are the Undertombs (also identified as the ‘Underchambers’), the original tomb complex built into a network of caves and also occupied by the sect. Given the fact that it is located in a pagoda, the scenario has a slightly Asian feel to it, but the design does not belabour this or fall into cultural stereotypes. It is otherwise a decently done evil temple with enough flavour and details that it could be worked into a campaign with a moderate amount of effort. What lets it down is the cartography which does not make clear the means of access between different floors of the pagoda, though the Undertombs has a clean and open style that is identifiably that of The Beholder.

The issue dips its hand into the ‘Magic Jar’ and this time pulls out a single ring, one supposedly not as powerful as listed in the Dungeon Master’s Guide. However, the Ring of Amplification has the potential to be still powerful. It has multiple clasps and each clasp can hold a gem. If a gem with possible magical properties is placed in a clasp and a Mending spell cast on it, the Ring of Amplification will enhance it. For example, an agate ensures restful, safe sleep. When amplified, it grants immunity to Sleep spells, reduces the amount of sleep needed per night, and grants slow healing. Beryl wards of foes, so when amplified can detect enemies nearby and imposes a penalty to attack the wearer! A Ring of Amplification can have up to five clasps and the article describes some thirty different effects for different gems. Even with two clasps this is still a powerful magic item and with more? It is clever idea and one that a player would really want for his character because of its customisation feature, and that makes it both powerful and desirable.

Physically, The Beholder Issue No. 9 is slightly untidy in places, but readable. The layout is tight and that does make it difficult to read in places. Both illustrations and cartography are reasonable.

The Beholder Issue No. 9 is another solid issue of the fanzine, made all the more remarkable by the fact that the editors are publishing it on a regular, monthly basis. ‘The Pagoda’ is probably the standout content in the issue, but the reviews and the ‘Games Day V’ recap are fascinating views from the beginnings of the hobby.

[Fanzine Focus XLIII] The Beholder Issue 8

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 how another Dungeon Master 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. As new fanzines have appeared, there has been an interest in the fanzines of the past, and as that interest has grown, they have become highly collectible, and consequently more difficult to obtain and write about. However, in writing about them, the reader should be aware that these fanzines were written and published between thirty and forty years ago, typically by roleplayers in their teens and twenties. What this means is that sometimes the language and terminology used reflects this and though the language and terminology is not socially acceptable today, that use should not be held against the authors and publishers unduly.

The Beholder was a British fanzine first published in April, 1979. Dedicated to Dungeons & Dragons and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, it ran to twenty-seven issues, the last being published in July, 1981. It was popular and would be awarded ‘Best Games Fanzine’ at the Games Day convention in 1980. After the final issue of The Beholder, the editors would go on to release a number of anthologies which collected content from the complete run of the fanzine such as Beholder Supplement Glossary of Magic, which collected many of the magical items which appeared in the fanzine and collated them into a series of tables for easy use by the Dungeon Master, and Fantasie Scenarios – The Fanzine Supplement No. 2, the first of several scenario anthologies.

The Beholder Issue No. 8 was published in October 1979. The editorial notes that the range and number of articles in the issue grows (though there is increase in page count), such as ‘Developing Campaign’ replacing ‘DMs’ Corner’. It also notes that the number of Dungeons & Dragons fanzines on the market continues to grow, pointing to the increasing popularity in the United Kingdom of Dungeons & Dragons at the time such that its fans want to get involved in the hobby beyond simple play. Both editors—Michael G. Stoner and Guy R.J. Duke—point out that The Beholder, “…[I]s the only British D&D ’zine to appear each month and always on time, while containing highly commended articles. Plus, of course, we are the cheapest ’zine around.”

The actual content begins with ‘The Anti-Paladin’. The article comments that the sub-class never seems to reach ‘official’ status, but the version here is exactly what you would expect. The Anti-Paladin can Detect Good, is immune to disease, emanates Protection from Good in a ten feet radius, can affect commands undead if he was two Levels lower, gains extra benefits from wielding an Unholy Sword, and can gain a Nightmare as a mount. Honestly, there is nothing outstanding about this version. More interesting is the ‘Monster Summoning’ article which presents a family of the Beholder, Genus Occulus. They are all descendants of the Globular Fungus, of which the Beholder itself and the Eye of Darkness are the most recent additions. The Globular Fungus is a fungus, immobile, but with a single tentacle with which it lashes out and attempts to implant spores. Its evolutionary descendent is the Eye Eater, a bulbous eye which moves around by leaping on its tentacles and then attacking its prey’s heads and sucking out of all of its vital matter through the eyes, whilst the Scuttling Orb which has spider’s legs and five eyes round its body from which can cast spell-like effects. The Eye of Darkness is the Chaotic equivalent of the Beholder, but has more teeth and does not radiate heat or cold. In addition, its touch causes Level Drain and it hates light. Originally submitted by A. Shellard, these add some variety to the concept of the Beholder and do that thing that many monsters in Dungeons & Dragons are designed to do, which is to surprise the Player Characters! There is some invention here and some coherency by making them an evolutionary family.

Traveller is one of the few other roleplaying games to be covered in the pages of The beholder. In D. Parrington’s ‘Traveller additions’, he presents expanded details of missiles from Traveller and its starship combat board game, Mayday. It describes mainly light and medium missiles and breaks down their Drive type, Technology, and what they can be fitted with. Stand missiles are light, medium missiles are so large that a ship’s turret needs to be modified and can only be fitted with a single missile. Warhead types run from minifusion to fission and fusion onto gravity bomb and antimatter bomb. There are stats for several starships—a thousand ton ‘E’ Type Cruiser, two hundred ton ‘C’ Type Corvette, one hundred ton ‘G’ Type Gun Boat, and thousand ton ‘T’ Type Transport—as well as heavy weapons like the Gasers, Plasma Bolts, Tractor Beams, Pressor Beams, and (magnetic field) Inductor. This is very much for the group that wants more detail for starship combat in Traveller. The weapons and ships are easier to use than the rules for missile construction which need to be worked through and experimented with to get right.

If you are bored with traditional Dungeons & Dragons Races, the eponymous ‘Leprechauns’ is the suggested option. The Leprechaun is cheeky, mischievous, and often annoying, with a love of wine. The Leprechaun can pick locks, has magic resistance, turn invisible once per day and cast the Ventriloquism Magic-User spell once per day. They tend to make better Thieves and Illusionists. They do not have high Dexterity or Intelligence, but low Strength and Constitution, and they must have either a Neutral or Chaotic alignment. Leprechauns are not an obvious choice, and the annoying aspect of their personality could grate very quickly.

In between, editor Guy R.J. Duke writes ‘Ficklemice’, a cartoon strip about dungeoneering mice. It is a bit cramped and a bit difficult to follow easily. Dave Richards’ ‘Snitch’ is a cartoon strip that is much easier to follow, but again is cramped. Quite literally called ‘Space Filler’, a very tiny article suggests that when selling magical items, Player Characters should not get list price and that if the item is desirable enough, the buyers who were successful might turn on the players. To which the answer is, well, yes. Similarly, ‘fearful phantasms ?’ suggests a way around an Illusionist or Magic-User casting a spell like Phantasmal Force or Polymorph Self in order to cause fear. The first is to ask if the Player Characters has seen the cause of the fear itself, sufficiently enough to be able to emulate it, and then ask if the target seen the same seen the cause of the fear? It also allows for some gradation in terms of that fear effect. Again, it is good advice. The discussion of Illusions continues later with ‘Thoughts on Illusions’. It tackles similar issues with Phantasmal Force as ‘fearful phantasms ?’, though in broader play rather than just in causing fear. The advice given is intended to prevent the players such spells by using them beyond their limits and if applied should do so.

The dungeon in the adventure is ‘Rala’s Block’. This is a four Level dungeon whose Levels ascend, built into a giant featureless stone block atop a hill by the ex-dungeoneer, Rala, to test and kill off younger dungeoneers. There are no exact guidelines as what Level Player Character the dungeon is aimed at, though it does say that a careful First Level Player Character could survive what is a challenging ‘death trap’ type dungeon. However, a mid-Level Player Character is probably better suited. This is a good mix of puzzles, traps, and monsters, though more of the first two than the last one, but this is very much a dungeon for dungeon’s sake. Which makes sense, since it is a test of sorts—but mostly a death trap for Rala’s amusement.

A. Shellard also contributes ‘Expressing Alignment’, which attempts a more accurate measurement of a Player Character or NPC’s alignment. It is plotted on a set of concentric circles with Neutral in the centre and the other alignments mapped onto the edges of the circle. The closer to the edge a character’s Alignment is, the more rigid or stronger it is. The diagram is also designed to allow easier movement that reflect radical changes in Alignment without going through true Neutral all of the time. The suggested system does complicate the Alignment system, so very much a case of a group needing to decide whether they wanted to adopt is as part of its house rules.

Penultimately, ‘INFO’ addresses some of the queries raised by the fanzine’s readers. Probably the most notable one is whether there were going to be future issues of another fanzine popular at the time, Underworld Oracle. The update and what the editors know is a bit gossipy, but it highlights the community that existed at the time around creators and editors of fanzines. Lastly, ‘Developing Campaign’, which provides ‘optional systems for your campaign’, ‘1. Archaic Colleges’ is a way in which Magic-Users can learn their spells. It is written to address this difficulty because the then newly published Advanced Dungeons & Dragons does not. In an advanced civilisation, the article’s solution is to establish colleges of magic that government can tax. There have been whole articles and supplements devoted to this subject in the years since this fanzine, but for the arcane spellcaster this is more loosely structured, enabling the Player Character or NPC to continue studying magic on a day release basis—or rather adventure release basis! Study, go adventuring, earn Experience Points sufficient to go up a Level and hopefully find enough treasure to fund learning a few more spells. This would have been reasonable solution in 1979 and more so if the other Classes had not entirely dissimilar ways and costs of gaining abilities as Levels were acquired.

Physically, The Beholder Issue No. 8 is slightly untidy in places, but readable. The layout is tight and that does make it difficult to read in places. Both illustrations and cartography are reasonable.

The Beholder Issue No. 8 notes a marked shift to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, which should no surprise given that the cost three books were then just available. It still some of the preoccupations as with Dungeons & Dragons though—Alignment, particular spell effects, character advancement, and so on—exacerbated by the publication of the then new rules. There is nothing truly outstanding in the issue, but its solutions to various issues and problems would have been read with interest and thought about and discussed, which is ultimately the point.

[Fanzine Focus XLII] The Beholder Issue 7

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 how another Dungeon Master 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. As new fanzines have appeared, there has been an interest in the fanzines of the past, and as that interest has grown, they have become highly collectible, and consequently more difficult to obtain and write about. However, in writing about them, the reader should be aware that these fanzines were written and published between thirty and forty years ago, typically by roleplayers in their teens and twenties. What this means is that sometimes the language and terminology used reflects this and though the language and terminology is not socially acceptable today, that use should not be held against the authors and publishers unduly.

The Beholder was a British fanzine first published in April, 1979. Dedicated to Dungeons & Dragons and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, it ran to twenty-seven issues, the last being published in July, 1981. It was popular and would be awarded ‘Best Games Fanzine’ at the Games Day convention in 1980. After the final issue of The Beholder, the editors would go on to release a number of anthologies which collected content from the complete run of the fanzine such as Beholder Supplement Glossary of Magic, which collected many of the magical items which appeared in the fanzine and collated them into a series of tables for easy use by the Dungeon Master, and Fantasie Scenarios – The Fanzine Supplement No. 2, the first of several scenario anthologies.

The Beholder Issue No. 7 was published in October 1979. It is the post-DragonMeet II issue and the editors noted that nobody approached them at the event to point out the ‘deliberate mistake’ hidden in the previous issue. They do explain what it was, but you really have to know your Dungeons & Dragons spells to have spotted it. The issue is also the much-heralded ‘SUPER MONSTER ISSUE !’. To that end, its contents start with ‘The Super Monster competition results’. Some seventy-five entries were received and some twenty of those are printed in the first third of the issue. The article leads with the winners. First place went to Peter M. Bright for the ‘Relkor’, a distorted human head with spider’s legs that gnaws off the head of its victims and then shoves its legs into the neck to control the body with the head on atop the stump. It can attack in surprise by leaping from the neck and it keeps its treasure below the neck. Dave Davies won second place with the ‘Stone Creature’. It is an ogre-like creature that can switch back and forth between a flesh form and a stone statue form and then use stealth to pick off its prey. (The issue’s editors suggest buffing it with a stealth ability.) The ‘Bleeder’ from Peter Williams is a version of the Rust Monster that feeds off the iron in blood and so when it bites and feeds slowly off its victims, they also suffer anaemia. These three definitely deserve their top three placement, because the rest are pretty much of a muchness. For example, the ‘Greebly’ by Andrew Whitcombe is a cold- or dungeon-dwelling ape that hates fire; James McRobert’s ‘Firefly’ is an insect so hot that its breath ignites into a jet of flame; and the undead ‘Singing Shadow’ by Martin Stollery can make any sound, throw its voice, and form into any shape.

‘Dragonmeet II’ is a convention report by the editors on the London-based convention and barring the fact that the Dungeon Master’s Guide for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition was on sale for the first time, there was little to enjoy at the event. They complain that other Dungeon Masters can be nasty when it comes to running the game. Both editors played part of G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King and it resulted in a total party kill, whilst the ‘D&D competition’ was described as absurd, with both a Paladin and an Anti-Cleric being in the same party, suggesting that the party should open a door was taken as the player’s character going through the door and almost dying, monsters that were actually other monsters, and arbitrary rulings. It just shows you that not every convention game was guaranteed to be good back in 1979, just as it is not today.

‘The Goblin Complex’ answers the fanzine’s readers’ request for a dungeon after the wilderness adventures of the previous two issues. It sets out to be what it calls a ‘coherent’ design with rooms that have a purpose and monsters that have reasons to be there and potential consequences to the actions of the Player Characters. In other words, this is not a ‘zoo’ dungeon with the underground complex being populated at random. It is suggested that the dungeon be run with miniatures and floorplans and gives some answers to questions raised in the playtest, such as “How far does the sound of a battle travel?” and “How easy is it to get up after being knocked down in heavy armour?”. It is designed for a party of six Player Characters of Third Level. The background to the dungeon is that after successful riads by Goblins from the mountains, retaliatory action against them has forced them to flee and many bands have dug refuges into the mountain. The scenario describes one of these. The Dungeon Master is warned that the Goblins will act intelligently, will surrender if forced to (rather than dying in a suicide charge), and will ransom prisoners—though the Hobgoblins are more likely to sacrifice them to their god, ‘Gax’. There is the occasional bit of tactical advice too as to what the Player Characters’ best course of action is, such as using the Cleric spell of Silence or the Wizard spell Sleep to ease their entry into the complex unannounced. It is a serviceable dungeon that in places does undermine the intended coherency such as the Hobgoblins wanting to sacrifice captives (though the Player Characters could persuade Goblins to ransom them instead, potentially leading to a squabble between the Goblins and Hobgoblins), there being pet giant scorpions and tigers, martial arts Hobgoblins, and even a (young) Black Dragon being effectively the last room in the dungeon. It is still playable and its design intent is obvious and well meant if not quite clearly carried through.

There is no playtest report of ‘The Goblin Complex’, but instead, the ‘Play Test’ is about an adventure set in a samurai castle. Only a page in length, it depicts a brutal raid on the castle to capture the Samurai King that ultimately goes wrong. The write-up does not outstay its welcome, but without the context of the adventure itself, it lacks context.

The publication and availability of the Dungeon Master’s Guide for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition mentioned previously in ‘Dragonmeet II’ leads to ‘The… AD&D Dungeon Master’s Guide – A Precis’ by co-editor, Guy R. J. Duke. It provides an overview of then the new book and notes rules chances such as the Monk now attacking on the Cleric/Druid table rather than the Thieves table, praises the ‘secret’ section on magic for the Dungeon Master, which expands the rules for magical research, potion concoction, scroll preparation, and more. The precis is less enamoured of the appendices randomly generating dungeons and wilderness as experienced Dungeon Masters are less likely to want them, but found that the alphabetical listing of the monsters with their attack and defence modes, Hit Dice, Experience Point rewards, and so on, to be very useful. Duke concludes by saying, “I can only advise you to buy the Guide as you can. The hardback version is well produced with impressive illustrations and a few jokes to relieve the overwhelming impression that the book has.” He continues, “Indeed, who can afford not to buy the Guide; it was guaranteed as a sell-out since its very conception. Those who don’t move with the time will be left far behind. The Dungeon Master’s Guide is not a thing to miss out on. Compared with the primary rules and its additional booklets of Greyhawk etc. Advanced Dungeons and Dragons is superior and above all cohesive.” Here then, what you have is that shift away from what Dungeons & Dragons was, which was rough and modular, to more coherent, singular point of reference, as seen through the eyes of a player and commentator.

The last article in the issue is ‘Magic Jar’, a collection of new magic items. The entries in the article include Fazzan’s Howling Skull, a magical skull which can be set as a surveillance device and which will howl and cause fear if any intruders are detected; the Cursed Illusion Sword which will make its wielder think it is a Dancing Sword; and a Ram Head of Terrible Destruction, a tough skull of a ram that if applied to a battering ram is more effective than a Horn of Blasting! These are all suitable additions to setting with a lot of magical items.

Physically, The Beholder Issue No. 7 is slightly untidy in places, but readable. The layout is tight and that does make it difficult to read in places. Both illustrations and cartography are reasonable.

The Beholder Issue No. 7 is interesting to read because it is a good snapshot of the hobby in 1979 and what the preoccupations of its players were. Notably more monsters and ways in which to test or surprise the players and their characters, and the eager anticipation with which the next big release from TSR, Inc. was expected. This is a solid issue, not necessarily great, but not bad either. It is interesting to see how the hobby occupies the attention of the editors and how much time they would have needed to devote to both it and the very regular releases of the fanzine.

[Fanzine Focus XLI] The Beholder Issue 6

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 how another Dungeon Master 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. As new fanzines have appeared, there has been an interest in the fanzines of the past, and as that interest has grown, they have become highly collectible, and consequently more difficult to obtain and write about. However, in writing about them, the reader should be aware that these fanzines were written and published between thirty and forty years ago, typically by roleplayers in their teens and twenties. What this means is that sometimes the language and terminology used reflects this and though the language and terminology is not socially acceptable today, that use should not be held against the authors and publishers unduly.

The Beholder was a British fanzine first published in April, 1979. Dedicated to Dungeons & Dragons and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, it ran to twenty-seven issues, the last being published in July, 1981. It was popular and would be awarded ‘Best Games Fanzine’ at the Games Day convention in 1980. After the final issue of The Beholder, the editors would go on to release a number of anthologies which collected content from the complete run of the fanzine such as Beholder Supplement Glossary of Magic, which collected many of the magical items which appeared in the fanzine and collated them into a series of tables for easy use by the Dungeon Master, and Fantasie Scenarios – The Fanzine Supplement No. 2, the first of several scenario anthologies.

The Beholder Issue No. 6 was published in September 1979. It is heralded as the DragonMeet II edition and even has a competition that would be run at the convention. The editors—Michael Stoner and Guy Duke—implore readers to submit ides for the forthcoming monster issue, likely to be Issue 7 or Issue 8, but otherwise, the issue covers a broad of Dungeons & Dragons-related topics. There are dungeons and adventures, monsters and more. This issue is very much a grab bag of topics and articles, and so varies in quality. It is not entirely clear as to who wrote what in the issue.

The first article is ‘Sounds’. This explores the role of generic sounds in dungeons and their possible effects. They range from ‘Laughter’ and ‘Howling’ to ‘Singing’ and ‘Bangs’. The possible effects are obvious, such as ‘Groaning’ making the Player Characters uneasy and if a Saving Throw versus magic is failed, imposing a penalty on to hit rolls, and even lowering their Morale. It feels overdone, but the effects could be lessened essentially to provide atmosphere in a dungeon. This is followed by ‘Runes’, which is interesting because it is not simply a reiteration of classic Norse Runes done for Dungeons & Dragons Dwarves or Elves. Essentially, they are one-use magical gold runes that when slapped onto a surface have particular effects. For example, ‘Rune of Tremors’ is slapped on the floor or ground, and when it vanishes the ground begins to shake, slightly at first, and then with increasing intensity, causing localised earthquake. A ‘Rune of Resurrection’, which is an evil run, will restore someone to life, but will turn one of the undead to dust! Weirdly, Runes are clever and will actually try to teleport away if someone tries to identify magically, or even activate itself if it has an effect that would work that way. There are some intriguing ideas here, but the ramifications of the way in which they are set-up are not as fully developed as they could be.

The monsters in ‘Monster Summoning’ are not particularly interesting. They include the Chameleonmen, evil humanoids that have all the abilities of a Chameleon; the Giant Chameleon, a ten-foot version, but otherwise the same as the normal reptile apart from the powerful tongue which as a stun effect; similarly, the Giant Snail; the Tarhospehk is a bovine creature with a human face and ivory horns summoned to guard ancient tombs, burial barge, and pyramids; the Living Hole which lies in wait for the unwary, waiting for them to fall in and dissolve in the acid at the bottom; the Mushroom which uses its head to attack; the Sound Eater, which looks like the demon, Juiblex, and uses its tentacles to suck up sound and so grow Hit Die by Hit Die; and the Flame Spirit. None of the monsters really stand out and ultimately feel as if they should be thrown into a table of random monsters rather than be used to populate a setting, let alone a dungeon. The Giant Snail and the Tarhospehk are attributed to Barney Sloan later in the issue.

‘DM’s Corner’ is the first of a series new to The Beholder. This gives good advice for the then prospective Dungeon Master such as placing tougher monsters deeper into the dungeon, theming levels if not the whole dungeon, make the dungeon tough for the players and their characters, that monsters do not always wants to fight to death, and ensure that it is fun to play. It gives a checklist for the Dungeon Master to work through prior to the campaign, much like a ‘Session Zero’, and also an example of play in a living dungeon as well as an analysis of it. The advice is solid and would have been useful at the time, but would likely have been repeated at the time as it subsequently has. The example of play and its analysis is interesting as it illustrates how the monsters in the example, a tribe of Kobolds, are acting intelligently and used the Player Characters’ mistakes against them. Overall, good advice for 1979, and solid advice today, if familiar.

There are two scenarios in The Beholder Issue No. 6. The first is ‘Micro-Dungeon’, a well-designed little Kobold lair whose occupants make good use of their terrain. So, there are rocks that they can roll down a slope onto any intruders, a big Kobold hides in ambush ready to block of their movement with a Wand of Web, and so on. Apart from a group of Living Holes, which are a much deadlier threat, this is a low Level addition that could be run as is, or added to an existing dungeon without too much difficulty.

If ‘Micro-Dungeon’ is serviceable, then ‘Of Brae-Land and Wold’ is a much more sophisticated and interesting affair. Designed for Player Characters of Third to Fifth Level, it is a Tolkienesque pastiche directly inspired by the flight of the Hobbits from Bree eastwards towards to Weathertop as detailed in The Fellowship of the Ring. The scenario is a hex-crawl across the region north of the road, starting at the village of Brae-bank, with the Player Characters as agents of the Gods having to contend with ‘The Evil Forces of Static Economy of Brae-land and Wold’. Or simply, the Foe. They will be sent out again and again by the mysterious Wayfarer (and definitely not Aragon, and nor is the fake Wayfarer who attempts to ambush them) each time to find one of the three ‘Forces’, artefacts that they need to cast into the Spring of Romen and so help them defeat ‘The Evil Forces of Static Economy of Brae-land and Wold’. The Player Characters will be harried along the way by ‘Black Riders’ as they travel back and forth.

‘Of Brae-Land and Wold’ is expansive, but not as easy to run as it could be. Although there is advice on running it, the scenario is densely presented and difficult to parse and so challenging for the Dungeon Master to present to her players. It does not help that the maps provided for the scenario are a little too difficult to read in the case of the area map and in the case of the other two, are not of the adventuring locations for the scenario, but of notable villages in the scenario’s version of not-Middle-earth. Which means that Dungeon Master has to work harder to visualise the adventuring locations and try impart that to her players. Given the influence of Tolkien and Middle-earth on Dungeons & Dragons, it is no surprise to see a scenario like this appear in a fanzine, but it is just a little too ambitious. Lastly, in keeping with Middle-earth and Tolkien, there is very little treasure to be found and so the scenario recommends that the Game Master reward the Player Characters with a generous Experience Point bonus as recompense.

Surprisingly, given that it is a fanzine, what The Beholder does not have is a letters page. A letters page can be a boon and a bane. It can help foster a sense of community around the fanzine and it is a good way to fill a page or two of each issue, but the content has to be carefully curated lest it devolve into a fractious bearpit. The Beholder Issue No. 6 introduces a ‘Letters’ page. Kept to a single page, it is not so much a letters page as a ‘Questions & Answers’ page in response to some of the feedback that the editors have received. The answers in turn explain why a month is not put on each issue (because the editors wanted to avoid issues slipping from schedule and to avoid dating issues); why the fanzine does not do dungeon write-ups, that is, write-ups of a group exploring a dungeon (popular at the time, and the reason the editors had not included them because it was something another fanzine, Underground Oracle, was renowned for and they did not want to step on, but with that then being no more, dungeon write-ups would be included in future issues); and the call for more dungeons, especially competition dungeons (the editors say that the dungeons are popular, but appear to want to include non-dungeon scenarios too, and planned to include competition dungeons in the future). Oddly, no one letter writer is named and the result is not very much not what you would expect a traditional letters page to be.

‘Info’ is really an extension of the editorial inside the front cover, highlighting upcoming events and giving some corrections. The penultimate article ‘Alignment’ highlights how Alignment is the most controversial part of Dungeons & Dragons, and so the article gives some suggestions as how the editors play them. This is with tight interpretations of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition’s Alignment. Thus, Chaotic Evil is “One for psychopaths.”, whereas Chaotic Neutral is easy in that a Player Character of this Alignment act randomly, his player roll for choices and actions at each and every turn. Lawful Good is described as, “…[p]robably the most sickening of alignments.” as its adherents are typical nice guys. The result is an article that is likely to be as controversial as any other on the subject, especially given the rigidity of it interpretations.

The issue comes to a close with ‘Mini-Review’. This is a thumbnail review of the classic, S1 Tomb of Horrors. It opens with, “TSR continue to turn out dungeons at an impressive rate. Of these the best so far is, without doubt, S1 Tomb of Horrors.” It highlights the need for high-Level Player Characters and says that, “This is a thinking man's dungeon, packed full of tricks and traps many of which are fatal if tackled wrongly.” The review is short, and more helpful than insightful. S1 Tomb of Horrors is, of course, one of the most reviewed and analysed of scenarios for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition. It is interesting to see what someone thought about the scenario at the time, but does not add anything of note to the discourse about the scenario.

Physically, The Beholder Issue No. 6 is slightly untidy in places, but readable. The layout is tight and that does make it difficult to read in places. The illustrations are reasonable, but the cartography, certainly for the scenario, ‘Of Brae-Land and Wold’, does not support the issue as well as it should. The cover is notable as having been drawn by Simon Washbourne, later designer of roleplaying games such as Lashings of Ginger Beer.

The Beholder has a high reputation for content that is of good quality and playable and in coming back to these issues, it is clear that these early issues do not yet meet that reputation. There are highlights in any issue, but not yet the consistency of that reputation, and The Beholder Issue No. 6 reflects that as a whole. This is because there are no real highlights in the issue and the potential highlight, the scenario ‘Of Brae-Land and Wold’, fails to meet the ambitions of its authors. The Beholder Issue No. 6 is possibly worth picking over for some of its ideas, such as ‘Runes’, but this is only a serviceable issue at best.

[Fanzine Focus XL] The Beholder Issue 5

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 how another Dungeon Master 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. As new fanzines have appeared, there has been an interest in the fanzines of the past, and as that interest has grown, they have become highly collectible, and consequently more difficult to obtain and write about. However, in writing about them, the reader should be aware that these fanzines were written and published between thirty and forty years ago, typically by roleplayers in their teens and twenties. What this means is that sometimes the language and terminology used reflects this and though the language and terminology is not socially acceptable today, that use should not be held against the authors and publishers unduly.

The Beholder was a British fanzine first published in April, 1979. Dedicated to Dungeons & Dragons and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, it ran to twenty-seven issues, the last being published in July, 1981. It was popular and would be awarded ‘Best Games Fanzine’ at the Games Day convention in 1980. After the final issue of The Beholder, the editors would go on to release a number of anthologies which collected content from the complete run of the fanzine such as Beholder Supplement Glossary of Magic, which collected many of the magical items which appeared in the fanzine and collated them into a series of tables for easy use by the Dungeon Master, and Fantasie Scenarios – The Fanzine Supplement No. 2, the first of several scenario anthologies.

The Beholder Issue No. 5 was probably published in August 1979, given that the fanzine was published monthly and on a regular basis throughout its run. The issue’s concerns are typical of the period for a fanzine devoted to Dungeons & Dragons—problems with different aspects of the roleplaying game and possible solutions, new monsters, new spells, an adventure, and so on. The editors—Michael Stoner and Guy Duke—implore readers to submit ides for the forthcoming monster issue, likely to be Issue 8 to coincide with Games Day V and note that, “In a few weeks the long-awaited DM’s Handbook will be on sale. Watch out for a review of it in issue 7. There is no doubt that it will have a large impact on the way many people play D&D , and will most probably alter several basic parts of the game. We hope to be able to “move with the times” and cater for the many new players who will be coming into D&D because of this (just as many started when the “Basic Rulebook” first appeared). However, if you still play “old style” D&D, don’t panic! We will try to ensure that articles are of use to everyone, from rank amateur to top-class pro.” Thus, the issue comes at a point when there is a definite shift in the hobby from Dungeons & Dragons and Basic Dungeons & Dragons to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, a split that would mark the first of the edition wars that followed over the years. This split then will not be as sharp since mechanically the similarities between the two really are very strong.

The issue’s content opens with ‘View Point: Specialised Clerics Are More Interesting’ [sic] by John Norris. His viewpoint is that the Cleric Class as presented is unsatisfying and vague, calling Gygax’s design simplistic and the only thing that distinguishes one Cleric from another is the plain and boring Alignment system. He suggests that real clerics have “…[A]ll sorts of interesting foibles, some of which stem from the particular tenets of their various faiths and others which seem to be a kind of professional “occupational hazard” of clergy in the society to which they belong.” The article highlights one of the longstanding and oft-addressed complaints about the roleplaying game, in that Clerics are depicted as a holy warrior a la the Crusades, when in the fantasy of Dungeons & Dragons, Christianity was not the faith of choice and there were plenty of other options. The solution is typically to design pantheons with gods that grant different spells and demand different tenets and the article more or less suggests that with a detailed example of a ‘Subclass’. This is ‘The Way of Anubis’, which believes that it is the proper doom of all living things to die and that it is wrong to interfere with the dead, especially via resurrection. There is some divide in the faith too, between those that believe that the process should not be interfered with and those that believe its process should be hurried. In game terms, Clerics of the Way of Anubis better turn and dispel the undead and they cast Lay Undead better and more effectively than the standard Animate Dead spell. Counter to this, Clerics of the Way of Anubis do not use healing magic and are opposed to its use, even seeking to reverse the effects of such magic if used! Clerics of the Way of Anubis also seek to kill anyone who has been resurrected.

‘The Way of Anubis’ is a fascinating creation. One that follows through on the author’s initial complaint about the Cleric Class, but to an extreme. ‘The Way of Anubis’ is a Cleric Subclass is unplayable as a Player Character type since it is antithetical to what a standard Cleric is supposed to do in play and that is heal. One way which the author suggests getting around this is to keep the ‘The Way of Anubis’ Cleric’s faith hidden until the full meaning of his tenets are realised in play. This is odd in itself since a reason would have to be given why this was kept hidden and keeping it hidden feels like a dirty trick to play upon the players by the Dungeon Master. In a way, the article shows the reader how not to do it when it could have been exploring more options.

‘Monster Summoning’ gives eight new monsters. They include the Wood Golem for the Druid to create; the Thin Giant, essentially a giant with invisibility due to permanent Duo-dimension spell having been cast on them; the Bactos, a living cactus that uses its offshoots to pin victims against it and drain all moisture from their bodies, making resurrection impossible; and the Death Grub, an flying insect related to the Rot Grub, which does not attack, but instead infests dead bodies and again, resurrection impossible. The daftest monster is the Time Rat, a rat from the future with time travel powers that likes to come to the past and explore dungeons and is curious about adventuring parties. If attacked, it can cast Time Stop, after which it will steal any item its can, especially magical items, and then phase out back to the future. It is essentially a means to deprive Player Characters of their hard won magical items and it could have been a whole lot more interesting. Lastly, the Thin Giant is simply boring.

‘Monster Reaction Roll Tables’ provides a more detailed means of handing interactions between the adventurers and the dungeon denizens if the former are looking to do more than fight, whilst Andreas J. Sarker’s ‘More Gem Tables’ provides a means for the Dungeon Master to detail the gems that might be found as treasure. The included ‘Computer Program’ is a simple BASIC computer program, running to just fifteen lines of code and designed to generate attribute values for Dungeons & Dragons characters. This dates to a time when home computers could easily be programmed at home to run programs typed in.

‘The Dragon Race’ presents the Dragon as a playable Race. As a playable Race, the Dragon has high minimum attributes, can only be a Magic-User or a Fighter—and cannot cast magic if the latter, and has a breath weapon that inflicts damage equal to its Hit Points and can be used a limited number of times a day. They have a natural claw and bite attack, but the bite attack gets better for the Fighter Dragon. All Dragons can attack creatures and enemies that require magical weapons or attacks to hit, but need to be higher Level to attack creatures and enemies with higher magical protection. However, there are two downsides to the Dragon as a playable Race. One is that all Dragons are suspicious of everyone and everything and they are only accepted in society because they are feared, and mechanically, they suffer a high penalty to Experience Point gain. This is -20% for the Fighter Dragon and a massive -40% for the Magic-User Dragon! Honestly, this is not a bad version of the Dragon as a playable Race as the penalties do offset any advantages that the Dragon has and a player of a Dragon will see the characters of his fellow players racing ahead in terms of power and ability.

‘New Spells’ are taken from the ‘Barad-Dur Spellbook’. The eight spells include Mirage for the Illusionist, which makes something appear very attractive, like a fine meal or a pile of gold, and can be used as a distraction for all but the most intelligent and similarly, for the Illusionist, Premonition, with which the caster runs his finger across his neck as if to cut and then points at the victim of the spell, who gets a bad feeling that his about to die, and if he fails a Saving Throw, runs away! Effectively, a Fear spell then. The Clerical spell Cure Paralysis is good for after encounters with Ghouls and Ghasts and the like; Death Bomb turns a Magic-User into a living bomb if he is killed, potentially destroying every item on his body, if not his actual body, so good for the Dungeon Master to use on a villainous wizard; and Probability Travel gives the spell’s recipient the ability to see a few seconds into the future, see what he is going to do, and give him the opportunity to improve on it. In game terms, Probability Travel lets a player roll twice for his character’s next action and take the best result. So, Advantage in 1979, then?

Lastly, ‘Thoughts on NPC’s’ (sic), suggests ways of getting away from anonymous NPCs who are just there to provide services such as Cure Disease and Resurrection. Ultimately, the point of half the article is not about NPCs as such, as more finding ways of making the Player Characters work to access spells such as Cure Disease and Resurrection, whether that is through simple, but big payments or more interestingly, require a quest to get the right ingredients or components, or fulfil a task required by the caster. The other half is a call to make normal NPCs more interesting, especially those that adventure with the Player Characters, such as having an Assassin pose as a Paladin in a party of Good-aligned Player Characters. Arguably, this is a call to make NPCs more of a threat—in this case, an internal threat—than necessarily interesting.

The highlight of any issue of The Beholder is its scenario. ‘Legend of Leshy’ is what it calls a ‘stage-by-stage’ mini-scenario. What this means is that its plot and story will be revealed in discrete sections or scenes. Roughly designed for a group of five Player Characters of First and Second Level, one of whom should be a Druid, the scenario is based on Slavonic mythology and calls upon them to capture the ‘Leshachikha Bond’. The Leshachikha is the mortal wife of Leshy and bearer of the Leshonki, the children of Leshy. By capturing the ‘Leshachikha Bond’, it will free her from her subservience to Leshy. He is the spirit of the forest and tends to be good natured, though he does lead travellers astray. The scenario begins at the Ivanovich family farm where the Player Characters are staying, put up in a barn overnight. This barn is locked and the Player Characters are warned about the Keeper of the Barn and told not to enter the yard after 11 pm as there will be strange spirits about.

The farm and its inhabitants are nicely detailed and will be a challenge to get past as the Player Characters will need to break out of the barn and into the house in order to really get the scenario going. This is to begin the quest that spirit of the barn sets, which includes actually setting fire to the barn(!), and puts them on the path to capturing the ‘Leshachikha Bond’. Much of the scenario is an exploration of the surrounding wilderness, almost jump-cutting from one scene to the next, one encounter with a mystical inhabitant of the forest to the next, as the Player Characters go in search of the ‘Leshachikha Bond’. In places, the scenario can be quite tough physically, such as attempting to get across a battered rope bridge, but bar the occasional random encounter, is low in terms of combat. Most of the encounters will give clues as to where to search next and ultimately, if the Player Characters complete the quest, they will be well rewarded.

In 1979, ‘Legend of Leshy’ would have been a fine scenario. It is rough around the edges and the background to the scenario, based on Slavonic folklore, would not have been familiar to many players or Dungeon Masters, so adding it to a campaign would have been a challenge. (Today, there is at least a Wikipedia page.) More background would have helped and it would have been good if the possibility of the Player Characters returning to the Ivanovich family farm after the quest ends had been addressed. The main problem is the lack of detail on the otherwise large, two-page spread map of the region. The Dungeon Master really needs to work through the scenario hard in order to extract clues as to where various locations are on the map. That aside, ‘Legend of Leshy’ is a fine fantasy folkloric adventure, possessing an at time eerie and unsettling atmosphere that would have been enhanced by the lack of familiarity with the folklore.

Rounding out The Beholder Issue No. 5 is the ‘Contacts & Info’ section. Not only does this gives details of the then forthcoming Games Day which would take place on October 20th later that year, but lists a couple of players looking for players. This was how it was done back in the dawn of the hobby and people were then quite happy to hand out their address as contact details! One of the two is Simon Washbourne, later designer of roleplaying games such as Lashings of Ginger Beer.

Physically, The Beholder Issue No. 5 is slightly untidy in places, but readable. The layout is tight and that does make it difficult to read in places. The illustrations are reasonable, but the cartography simply lacks the detail its scenario requires. Of course, every issue of the fanzine was published when personal publishing was still analogue and the possibilities of the personal computer and personal desktop publishing were yet to come. In the case of The Beholder that would never be taken advantage of.

The Beholder has a high reputation for content that is of good quality and playable. The Beholder Issue No. 5 does not yet match that reputation, but as with previous issues, the signs are there and there is content aplenty that the Dungeon Master could have used in her game at the time and in some cases, still use to today. The standout piece is the scenario, ‘Legend of Leshy’, which is a rough, but interesting attempt to write a folklore-based scenario that just about works. It is certainly the best scenario in the fanzine to date. Elsewhere, the other articles are not quite as interesting or as thoughtful as in previous issues, though still very much concerned with what would have been traditional topics for Dungeons & Dragons at the time. The Beholder Issue No. 5 would have been a solid issue of the fanzine in 1979 and even today in 2025 is an enjoyable read.

[Fanzine Focus XXXIX] The Beholder Issue 4

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 how another Dungeon Master 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. As new fanzines have appeared, there has been an interest in the fanzines of the past, and as that interest has grown, they have become highly collectible, and consequently more difficult to obtain and write about. However, in writing about them, the reader should be aware that these fanzines were written and published between thirty and forty years ago, typically by roleplayers in their teens and twenties. What this means is that sometimes the language and terminology used reflects this and though the language and terminology is not socially acceptable today, that use should not be held against the authors and publishers unduly.

The Beholder was a British fanzine first published in April, 1979. Dedicated to Dungeons & Dragons and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, it ran to twenty-seven issues, the last being published in July, 1981. It was popular and would be awarded ‘Best Games Fanzine’ at the Games Day convention in 1980. After the final issue of The Beholder, the editors would go on to release a number of anthologies which collected content from the complete run of the fanzine such as Beholder Supplement Glossary of Magic, which collected many of the magical items which appeared in the fanzine and collated them into a series of tables for easy use by the Dungeon Master, and Fantasie Scenarios – The Fanzine Supplement No. 2, the first of several scenario anthologies.

The Beholder Issue 4 was probably published in July 1979, given that the fanzine was published monthly and on a regular basis throughout its run. The issue’s concerns are typical of the period for a fanzine devoted to Dungeons & Dragons—problems with different aspects of the roleplaying game and possible solutions, new monsters, new traps, new magical items, a dungeon, and so on, though no new spells. The editors—Michael Stoner and Guy Duke—state in their editorial that, “We feel that this issue is the best one so far.” whilst also noting that, “Contributions are now coming in in fair numbers and quite a lot of this issue is made up from them.” The latter is certainly true, whilst the quality of the fanzine, something that it was renowned for, shows slight improvement. The Beholder is yet to hit the highlights of its great adventures, but the promise is there in this issue. Similarly, even if the subject matters of the issue look familiarly parochial some thirty years on, the fanzine addresses them in a thoughtful manner.

The Beholder Issue 4 opens with ‘Wishes’, a short look at one of the perennial bugbears of high-level play in Dungeons & Dragons—the power of the wish. Whether from the Magic-User spell or the Ring of Three Wishes, the wish is open to abuse, both by players and the Dungeon Master. The players by demanding too much of it and the Dungeon Master by simply negating its effects and thus impeding the players’ enjoyment of the game. The solution is that powerful sources of wishes be guarded by, or in the possession of, suitably powerful monsters and that the Dungeon Master play the roll of the gods who do not want the heroes to overstep their bounds, such as using a wish to render themselves immortal, for example. There is discussion too, of the application and limitations of the Limited Wish and Altered Reality spells and overall, the advice is solid and useful.

‘Magical Weapons’ provides a new set of tables for rolling random magical weapons to account for the number of new weapon types presented in The Player’s Handbook for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and the lack of magical weapons available for certain Character Classes, such as the Druid, the Monk, and the Magic-user. Thus, there is a sub-table for the weird weapons at the end, such as the bo stick and the pick, plus of course, all of the polearms, like the bec de corbin and the guisarme-voulge. The tables are followed by a handful of new magical weapons, such as Flaming Arrows; the Chaotic Evil Pirate’s Cutlass, which is +1, +2 versus Good, +3 versus sea monsters, and detects hidden treasure within 25”; and the Illusion Quarterstaff, +1, which can appear as any weapon and inflict its damage as long as the defendant believes it to be a weapon of that type. These are nicely inventive and could easily find their place in a Dungeons & Dragons-style roleplaying game today.

The first of several contributions to the fanzine by Martin Stollery is ‘Competition Chronicles: An account of an adventure in the Pyrus Complex (TB 1)’. This is a recounting of his play through or running of ‘Pyrus Complex’, the competition dungeon in The Beholder Issue One. The Player Characters are fractious and selfish, and barely co-operate throughout. The ‘every man for himself’ style of play—though exacerbated by the competition nature of the dungeon—looks dated and immature now, but it was common enough at the time and beyond.

The issue’s monsters are presented in a new style for the regular ‘Monster Summoning’ department—a style that is reminiscent of the Fiend Factory department of White Dwarf magazine at the time, even down to the inventive founts used for the monster names. There are eight monsters in total, three of which, the Leech Plant, the Vart, and the Bonwack, are the contribution of Andrew Whitcombe, editor of another fanzine of the time, Droll Drivel. There is some inventiveness here, but several also serve little function other than to confuse the players and their characters because they are new and will not have been encountered before. The Quazzle is inventive because it is harmless, but it looks too much like a Roper, so that adventurers keep attacking it, but it protects itself by teleporting away weapons used to attack it! The Dralt is a puffball-like and non-psionic variant of the Intellect Devourer which uses darkness magic to hide and charms its victims to attack each other. The Leech Plant is a bloodsucking plant which attaches itself to the calves of unwitting walkers and sucks their blood, increasing its Hit Points in doing so. The silliest creature is the Bonwack, blind balls of fur with large pincers on stalks and single legs on which they hop about the dungeon hunting for food. It should be noted that all of the creatures have a Monstermark System as devised by Don Turnbull and presented in the first three issues of White Dwarf and also The Best of White Dwarf Articles Vol. I.

The scenario in The Beholder Issue 4 is ‘The Mines of Mentorr’. Written by Martin Stollery, it is another competition dungeon and thus comes complete with pre-generated Player Characters—including a Trickster, as detailed in The Beholder Issue 1, and a scoring system. Designed for Player Characters of Fourth Level, it details a small Dwarven tin mine which was chosen by the great dwarven king Mentorr to house the tombs for himself and his descendants. Centuries later, the mad alchemist, Farjet, led a band of Gnolls, Bugbears, and evil mercenaries into the mines, slaughtered the Dwarves, and unaware of the tombs, expanded the mine into a laboratory where he could conduct his experiments far from the eyes of the lawful authorities. More recently, word has reached the outside world that he has perfected the Elixir of Life, giving him immortality. This is an affront to the gods, and whether in service of the gods of Law or Chaos, the Player Characters are sent into the complex to put an end to this blasphemy!

The adventure really has three strands to it. One is the old mine, the other is the secret tombs, and the another is the laboratory facilities, whilst the scoring system allows for various different objectives rather than just killing everything. Although the map is plain, the dungeon is decently thought out and so does not suffer from the randomness of the competition dungeons that appeared in the previous three issues. With a little updating, ‘The Mines of Mentorr’ could be run today without any difficulties and the players would be none the wiser. The adventure’s combination of decent design, theme, and background mean that it could also be added to a Dungeon Master’s campaign and again, the players would be none the wiser.

‘Tricks & Traps’ discusses the editors’ philosophy of trap design—challenge the players and their characters, rather than simply killing the latter and the use of monsters and their abilities in an intelligent manner. The article is supported by ‘Dangerous Digressions’ which presents a number of traps, all of them old of course, but some of them familiar today. ‘The Magic Mouth “Party Killer” Trap’ is a temple dedicated to demon worship. Apart from some statues, the only features of note are a candle and a statue of dragon’s head. If the candle is lit, the Magic Mouth on the dragon statue activates and says, “Demogorgon, Orcus, Juiblex” again and again until the spell expires. Even with a small chance to summon any one of these demon lords, this is simply evil… Others, like ‘The Round and Round Teleport Pit’, an infinite teleporting pit, is a very slightly less dangerous version of the classic, whilst ‘The Balanced Boulders Pit’ has a plank poking out of the wall of the pit, which when grabbed by a falling character, pivots and tips four boulders on top of him as he falls onto the single spike at the bottom of the pit, is equally familiar.

Lastly, ‘Thoughts On Ideas’ continues the discussion of Dungeon Master fiat begun in ‘Wishes’ at the beginning of the issue. It looks at the sort of ideas that players come up with in play and then repeat over and over. In addition to suggesting ways round simply banning player ideas that make game play stale or unbalanced, such as offering Experience Points to their characters or ruling it as being against the wishes of the gods, the article also gives its own good ideas. For example, having the Magic-User or Illusionist cast Invisibility several times over the course of several days so that the entire party is invisible before beginning an adventure or buying ‘padded’ belt pouches and backpacks to prevent bottles and phials of potions or holy water from breaking when a Player Character falls into a pit. These are all quite inventive and showcase the then style of play in which the players sort to gain an advantage for their characters against the Dungeon Master.

Physically, The Beholder, Issue 4 is slightly untidy in places, but readable. The layout is tight and that does make it difficult to read in places. The illustrations and the cartography are not actually that bad. Of course, every issue of the fanzine was published when personal publishing was still analogue and the possibilities of the personal computer and personal desktop publishing were yet to come. In the case of The Beholder that would never be taken advantage of.

The Beholder has a high reputation for content that is of good quality and playable. The Beholder, Issue 4 does not yet match that reputation, but the signs seen here and in The Beholder, Issue 3 are not only present, but getting stronger. Not everything is good in the issue, but that is offset by the fact that it does contain a number of thoughtful articles on what would have been traditional topics for Dungeons & Dragons and the adventure is the best to date. The Beholder, Issue 4 feels almost on the cusp of achieving the high quality it was renowned for.