[Fanzine Focus XL] The Travellers’ Digest #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 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. However, not all fanzines written with the Old School Renaissance in mind need to be written for a specific retroclone. Although not the case now, the popularity of Traveller would spawn several fanzines, of which The Travellers’ Digest, published by Digest Group Publications, was the most well known and would eventually transform from a fanzine into a magazine.

The publication of The Travellers’ Digest #1 in December, 1985 marked the entry of Digest Group Publications into the hobby and from this small, but ambitious beginnings would stem a complete campaign and numerous highly-regarded supplements for Game Designers Workshop’s Traveller and MegaTraveller, as well as a magazine that all together would run for twenty-one issues between 1985 and 1990. The conceit was that The Travellers’ Digest was a magazine within the setting of the Third Imperium, its offices based on Deneb in the Deneb Sector, and that it awarded the Travellers’ Digest Touring Award. This award would be won by one of the Player Characters and thus the stage is set for ‘The Grand Tour’, the long-running campaign in the pages of The Travellers’ Digest. In classic fashion, as with Europe of the eighteenth century, this would take the Player Characters on a tour of the major capitals of known space. These include Vland, Capitol, Terra, the Aslan Hierate, and even across the Great Rift. The meat of this first issue, as well as subsequent issues, would be dedicated to an adventure, each a stop-off on the ‘The Grand Tour’, along with support for it. The date for the first issue of The Travellers’ Digest and thus when the campaign begins is 152-1101, the 152nd day of the 1101st year of the Imperium.

To best run ‘The Grand Tour’, the Referee will need access to The Atlas of the Imperium, Supplement 8: Library Data (A-M), Supplement 11: Library Data (N-Z), Supplement 7: Traders and Gunboats (or alternatively, Supplement 5: Azhanti High Lightning), as well as the core rules. In addition, other supplements would be required depending on the adventure, in the case of this issue, The Travellers’ Digest #7, Adventure 5, Trillion Credit Squadron. Of course, that was in 1985, and much, if not all, of the rules or background necessary have been updated since. The campaign is also specifically written for use with four pre-generated Player Characters. They consist of Akidda Laagiir, the journalist who won the Travellers’ Digest Touring Award; Dur Telemon, a scout and his nephew; Doctor Theodor Krenstein, a gifted-scientist and roboticist; and Doctor Krenstein’s valet, ‘Aybee’, or rather, ‘AB-101’. The fact is, AB-101 is a pseudo-biological robot, both protégé and prototype. Consequently, the mix of Player Characters are surprisingly non-traditional and not all of them are easily created using the means offered in Traveller or MegaTraveller. This is addressed within various issues of the fanzine.

The Travellers’ Digest #7 was published in 1986 and is a ‘Special Starship Issue’, the editors highlighting this and the big interview with Traveller creator, Marc Miller, in the issue. It also highlights the forthcoming publication in early 1987, of the Grand Census, its companion supplement to the Grand Survey, and looks back at some of the previous issues with the publisher’s warehouse manager having found some back issues.

The seventh part of ‘The Grand Tour’ in The Travellers’ Digest #7 is ‘Feature Adventure 7: The Fourth Imperium’, written by Gary L Thomas and Joe D. Fugate Sr. The publishing date for adventure is 344-1112, or the three-hundred-and-forty-fourth day of the year 1112, whilst the starting date for the adventure is 014-1103, or the fourteenth day of the year 1103. The adventure takes place in the Dynam system of the Masionia subsector of the Lishun Sector. This is the site of an Imperial Naval Depot where over a thousand mothballed starships are held. These ships are held in readiness in the event of another interstellar war or emergency and all can be restored to full operation with relative ease. The Player Characters are continuing their journey to Capital and having got half way there, Doctor Theodor Krenstein wants to stop off at the depot in the Dynam system to visit the August, a 75,000-ton battlecruiser on which his great-grandfather served during the Third Frontier war. Admiral Walter, who has been in command of the Dynam Depot for over two decades, readily welcomes them and will even give them a guided tour, the fact that they all have been recently knighted for their bravery being a contributing factor towards their recognition.

The action begins with the Player Character coming aboard the August and beginning the tour, given by Ensign Amherst. The tour is brought to an abrupt halt when another Naval officer is discovered in the bridge of the ship, much to the Ensign’s surprise, as the officer draws his gun and shoots him dead! This leaves the Player Characters unarmed and facing an armed opponent, though ‘Aybee’ can use the laser in his arm. The scenario escalates from there, with the discovery of another four men aboard the ship, all armed, and then, once the Player Characters alert the rest of the base, it becomes clear that more of the mothballed starships are being powered up. And then some other ships turn up… It appears that there is a grand hijacking taking place.

‘Feature Adventure 7: The Fourth Imperium’ presents an interesting situation, but arguably, not one that is actually interesting to play. It starts with a lot of exposition, including directing what the Player Characters, notably, ‘Aybee’ acting oddly before the tour begins. Once past the point where the rogue Naval officers aboard the August have been dealt with, bar a diversion to find out what might be happening to fuel being siphoned off from the depot, the scenario rapidly scales up in terms of scope and away from what the Player Characters are expected to do. At this point, the Player Characters are no longer involved in events, primarily because only one of them has any applicable skills to participating in a grand space battle. Instead, the players are expected to play out the battle using the rules given in Traveller Book 5: High Guard, using the given stats for the various ships and incorporating the highly detailed sensor rules included in the scenario.

If the players are happy to switch from roleplaying their characters to handling such a space battle, then ‘Feature Adventure 7: The Fourth Imperium’ is fine. If not, half of the scenario is wasted. Either way, however the Game Master has had to tailor the adventure to her players, in roleplaying terms, ‘Feature Adventure 7: The Fourth Imperium’ is actually very short and should take no more than a session to play through. The space battle may be longer, but that is optional and the fact it is optional and it ignores the Player Characters is why it is simply underwhelming.

The key feature of the issue is ‘The Future of Traveller: An Interview with Marc Miller’. It covers how he got into gaming and founded Game Designers’ Workshop, and discuses some of the early games published, including its first roleplaying game, En Garde!, before getting into Traveller and its development. It also discusses the development of what would become Traveller: 2300 as a game alongside Traveller rather than replacing it, Miller making clear that he believes that the future of the roleplaying game to be secure. It is an interesting read, capturing the optimism of the period and about the future of the roleplaying game.

The scenario is further supported with background information for the Dynam System and the Masionia subsector, as well as ‘Library Data of the Lishun Sector’. There is also ‘Computer Software for High Guard’ by Dale L. Kemper and J. Andrew Keith, which adds three new programs. ‘Squadron Operations’ enables computer-linked ships to operate more efficiently; ‘Fleet Operations’ does the same for fleets; and ‘Simulation’ offers a means of handling simulations aboard ship without interfering with ship’s operation. These are useful for campaigns which focus on large scale ship operations and combat.

Gary L. Thomas examines the role of the Social Standing attribute in Traveller for ‘The Gaming Digest’ in ‘Characters with Class’. The article begins by acknowledging that Social Standing has little effect on game play if it is not ‘A’ or higher and a Player Character is not a noble. It breaks down the social classes according to Social Standing and suggests that a Player Character spend Cr250 per point of Social Standing per month to maintain it. Otherwise, it falls. This is fine in a static game in which Social Standing is important, but Traveller is about travel, the Player Characters typically moving from one star system to another. In which case, who is a Player Character trying to maintain his standing against? It also suggests that by spending more, a Player Character can improve his Social Standing. It should be pointed that this will only go so far and not beyond Social Standing ‘A’, since the Player Character is likely to be looked down upon as nouveau riche. Snobbery counts, after all. Also, a Player Character with high Social Standing spending time with someone with a lower Social Standing will also affect their Social Standing, which means that Player Character with high Social Standing will suffer for it by spending time with his fellows. The article comes to a close with guidelines for when a Player Character of higher Social Standing wants to throw his weight around, which are useful. Bar the breakdown of what Social Standing ratings mean, the rest of article is not, since it is divorced from the style of play at the core of Traveller—travel where few NPCs are going to know who a Player Character is versus a static location or even organisation where more NPCs are going to know who they are.

Rounding out The Travellers’ Digest #7 is more background support for the scenario, ‘Feature Adventure 7: The Fourth Imperium’. Part of the fanzine’s ‘Traveller Tech Briefs’, ‘Starships in Mothballs’ by Joe D. Fugate Sr. and R. Leibman, is a guide to putting a starship into and taking it out of mothballs. This is solid explanation of how it is done and nice background detail.

Physically, The Travellers’ Digest #7 is, as with all of the issues so far, very obviously created using early layout software. The artwork is not great, but it does its job and it is far from dreadful.

The Travellers’ Digest #7 is the ‘Special Starship Issue’, which it is and is not. Yes, there are lots of articles about starships and a scenario involving starships, but none of the content about starships in the issue is relevant to a Player Character. It is all pitched at a level above the core play of Traveller and whilst it is interesting, it fills out details of the Traveller universe rather than being immediately playable content. Similarly, unless the players are really keen on running large scale starship battles, the scenario does not offer the amount of play that scenarios in previous issues did. Overall, interesting, but not enough playable content.

[Fanzine Focus XXXIX] The Travellers’ Digest #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 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. However, not all fanzines written with the Old School Renaissance in mind need to be written for a specific retroclone. Although not the case now, the popularity of Traveller would spawn several fanzines, of which The Travellers’ Digest, published by Digest Group Publications, was the most well known and would eventually transform from a fanzine into a magazine.

The publication of The Travellers’ Digest #1 in December, 1985 marked the entry of Digest Group Publications into the hobby and from this small, but ambitious beginnings would stem a complete campaign and numerous highly-regarded supplements for Game Designers Workshop’s Traveller and MegaTraveller, as well as a magazine that all together would run for twenty-one issues between 1985 and 1990. The conceit was that The Travellers’ Digest was a magazine within the setting of the Third Imperium, its offices based on Deneb in the Deneb Sector, and that it awarded the Travellers’ Digest Touring Award. This award would be won by one of the Player Characters and thus the stage is set for ‘The Grand Tour’, the long-running campaign in the pages of The Travellers’ Digest. In classic fashion, as with Europe of the eighteenth century, this would take the Player Characters on a tour of the major capitals of known space. These include Vland, Capitol, Terra, the Aslan Hierate, and even across the Great Rift. The meat of this first issue, as well as subsequent issues, would be dedicated to an adventure, each a stop-off on the ‘The Grand Tour’, along with support for it. The date for the first issue of The Travellers’ Digest and thus when the campaign begins is 152-1101, the 152nd day of the 1101st year of the Imperium.

To best run ‘The Grand Tour’, the Referee will need access to The Atlas of the Imperium, Supplement 8: Library Data (A-M), Supplement 11: Library Data (N-Z), Supplement 7: Traders and Gunboats (or alternatively, Supplement 5: Azhanti High Lightning), as well as the core rules. In addition, other supplements would be required depending on the adventure. Of course, that was in 1985, and much, if not all, of the rules or background necessary have been updated since. The campaign is also specifically written for use with four pre-generated Player Characters. They consist of Akidda Laagiir, the journalist who won the Travellers’ Digest Touring Award; Dur Telemon, a scout and his nephew; Doctor Theodor Krenstein, a gifted-scientist and roboticist; and Doctor Krenstein’s valet, ‘Aybee’, or rather, ‘AB-101’. The fact is, AB-101 is a pseudo-biological robot, both protégé and prototype. Consequently, the mix of Player Characters are surprisingly non-traditional and not all of them are easily created used the means offered in Traveller or MegaTraveller. This is addressed within various issues of the fanzine.

The Travellers’ Digest #6 was published in 1986 in the wake of the success of the Origins Convention, which took place from July 3rd to 6th in Los Angeles, very much still on the minds of the editors. The event cemented the relationship between Digest Group Publications and Game Designers Workshop and laid the groundwork for a number of forthcoming products, including 101 Robots. The editorial also gave an overview of future issues of the fanzine and where they would take the heroes of ‘The Grand Tour’.

The sixth part of ‘The Grand Tour’ in The Travellers’ Digest #6 is ‘Feature Adventure 6: The Most Valuable Prey’, written by Nancy and Robert Parker. The starting date for the adventure is 212-1102, or the two-hundredth-and-twelfth day of the year 1102 and surprisingly, the adventure does not need anything other than the standard books required by the campaign. The adventure itself is set on the world of Kaiid in the Shuna Subsector of the Lishun Sector. It is hot, wet world, described as a paradise, and is the seat of Count LeMorc, who permits parts of the world to be used as a hunting reserve. The primary target for the hunters is the Minlad, a bipedal creature that is easy to hunt and valued for its fur. However, its numbers are falling, a bone of contention between hunters who want to continue hunting it unabated, the hunters who want to limit the numbers that can be hunted, and environmentalists who want it stopped all together. Add into that is the fact that there are ongoing rumours and supposed sightings of giants out in the jungle.

The aim of the scenario is for Player Characters is to discover and prove to others that the Minlad are not just some simple species to be hunted, but a sentient species. Of course, hunting a sentient species is illegal in the Third Imperium—if it can be proved! This includes not only to the hunters, but also an on-world Scout team already conducting a survey and Count LeMorc himself. The Minlad are a primitive species, but they are capable of communication and part of the adventure involves interacting with the Minlad and learning to understand their speech. This is a fascinating scenario that really will challenge the Player Characters as they try to save and understand the Minlad without the hunters reacting badly to the loss of income and potentially, to the realisation as to what they have done.

The world of Kaiid is described in some detail. This includes silhouettes and descriptions other fauna found on the planet, a map of the single large settlement near the Starport, and full information about the Minlad and their language. The adventure also includes a list of ‘Rumours, News, and Other Activities’ which can be used to drive the scenario and as well as a specialised crowd-swaying task for use with the Universal Task Profile.

This is a challenging scenario to roleplay because the Player Characters will need to a do a lot of persuasion and learn another language. It is also challenging to run, and that is due to its organisation. The scenario is presented as a series of ‘Nuggets’, a format which would be developed in later issues and in scenarios for Mega-Traveller. This compartmentalises the scenario’s information and/or scenes into separate sections to make it both non-linear and easier to run, but it is not as effective as it should be. Ultimately, what it is missing is a good reason for the Player Characters to want to visit Kaiid and a better overview of the nuggets. Otherwise, a genuinely fresh and interesting scenario.

The ’Playing the Characters’ series continues its deeper look at and guide to roleplaying the four pre-generated Player Characters for ‘The Grand Tour’. This time, it should be no surprise given the first contact nature of ‘Feature Adventure 6: The Most Valuable Prey’, it is the turn of the ex-scout, Dur Telemon. With these, it is almost worth holding starting a playthrough of ‘The Grand Tour’ so that every player has one for their character. The scout/scout service strand to the issue continues with Nancy Parker’s ‘Persons and Unpersons’, which looks at what signifies Intelligence and how the Imperial Interstellar Scout Service defines it. The article first looks at the primary indicators—language and tool use—and then how the scout service reacts to it. This is an interesting read that nicely supports the adventure in the issue.

The Travellers’ Digest #6 details the Shuna Subsector, Subsector I of the Lishun Sector and part of the Domain of Antares and develops the Lishun Sector with ‘Library Data of the Lishun Sector’. All decent background, whilst Joe Fugate continues the fanzine’s examination and development of the UTP or Universal Task Profile in ‘The Gaming Digest: Tasks’ with a look at uncertain tasks. At the time, this would have been an interesting herald of what was to come, foreshadowing the upcoming adoption of the UTP for MegaTraveller. Today, it is less interesting unless the reader has a specific interest in the mechanical and rules development of Traveller. Lastly, the Traveller Tech Brief in this issue is ‘Grav Belts’. This fully details and describes the appearance, function, and operation of the grav belt. It includes a section on the use of grav belts in military operations which will certainly have application in some Game Masters’ campaigns.

Physically, The Travellers’ Digest #6 is, as with all of the issues so far, very obviously created using early layout software. The artwork is not great, but it does its job and it is far from dreadful.

—oOo—

The Travellers’ Digest #6 was the first issue of the fanzine to be reviewed. This was by Herb Petro in The Imperium Staple Issue #8 (October, 1986). Of the Feature Adventure in the issue, he wrote, “The feature adventure, The Most Valuable Prey, uncovers the truth about the mysterious “Giants” on the world of Kalid in the Lishun sector. I don’t want to give away anything to those who might be potential players, but it is very good. In my opinion better that the feature adventure in issue #5.” He praised several of the other articles in the issue, of which he said overall, “TRAVELERS’ Digest has been growing. This issue is better than the last and the next promises to be even better.”

—oOo—

Where The Traveller’s Digest #6 is at its weakest is making the connection in ‘The Grand Tour’ with the events of the previous issue and making clear why the Player Characters are on a minor hunting world. However, once they are, ‘Feature Adventure 6: The Most Valuable Prey’ is a very good scenario once the Game Master has it set up and worked her way around its Nuggets. The rest of the issue is good, but it is the scenario that really stands out for its depth and detail, as well as the demands it is going to place on the players (and their characters).

[Fanzine Focus XXXVIII] The Travellers’ Digest #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 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. However, not all fanzines written with the Old School Renaissance in mind need to be written for a specific retroclone. Although not the case now, the popularity of Traveller would spawn several fanzines, of which The Travellers’ Digest, published by Digest Group Publications, was the most well known and would eventually transform from a fanzine into a magazine.

The publication of The Travellers’ Digest #1 in December, 1985 marked the entry of Digest Group Publications into the hobby and from this small, but ambitious beginnings would stem a complete campaign and numerous highly-regarded supplements for Game Designers Workshop’s Traveller and MegaTraveller, as well as a magazine that all together would run for twenty-one issues between 1985 and 1990. The conceit was that The Travellers’ Digest was a magazine within the setting of the Third Imperium, its offices based on Deneb in the Deneb Sector, and that it awarded the Travellers’ Digest Touring Award. This award would be won by one of the Player Characters and thus the stage is set for ‘The Grand Tour’, the long-running campaign in the pages of The Travellers’ Digest. In classic fashion, as with Europe of the eighteenth century, this would take the Player Characters on a tour of the major capitals of known space. These include Vland, Capitol, Terra, the Aslan Hierate, and even across the Great Rift. The meat of this first issue, as well as subsequent issues, would be dedicated to an adventure, each a stop-off on the ‘The Grand Tour’, along with support for it. The date for the first issue of The Travellers’ Digest and thus when the campaign begins is 152-1101, the 152nd day of the 1101st year of the Imperium.

To best run ‘The Grand Tour’, the Referee will need access to The Atlas of the Imperium, Supplement 8: Library Data (A-M), Supplement 11: Library Data (N-Z), Supplement 7: Traders and Gunboats (or alternatively, Supplement 5: Azhanti High Lightning), as well as the core rules. In addition, other supplements would be required depending on the adventure. Of course, that was in 1985, and much, if not all, of the rules or background necessary have been updated since. The campaign is also specifically written for use with four pre-generated Player Characters. They consist of Akidda Laagiir, the journalist who won the Travellers’ Digest Touring Award; Dur Telemon, a scout and his nephew; Doctor Theodor Krenstein, a gifted-scientist and roboticist; and Doctor Krenstein’s valet, ‘Aybee’, or rather, ‘AB-101’. The fact is, AB-101 is a pseudo-biological robot, both protégé and prototype. Consequently, the mix of Player Characters are surprisingly non-traditional and not all of them are easily created used the means offered in Traveller or MegaTraveller. This is addressed within various issues of the fanzine.

The Travellers’ Digest #5 was published in 1986 in the run up to the Origins convention, which took place from July 3rd to 6th in Los Angeles and moved the date on from the 324th day of the 1101st year of the Imperium to 005-1102, the fifth day of the 1102nd year of the Imperium. The opening ‘Editors’ Digest’ celebrates the fanzine’s first birthday and the increase in page count to sixty pages due to advertising revenue! It highlights the fact that two books would be on sale at Origins ’86 designed by the team behind the fanzine—Grand Survey by J. Andrew Keith, published by Digest Group Publications and Traveller Book 8: Robots, published by Game Designers Workshop. In addition to providing an overview of the content of the current it announced the contents of the next four issues.

The fifth part of ‘The Grand Tour’ in The Travellers’ Digest #5 is ‘Feature Adventure 5: The Humaniti Experiment’, written by editor Gary L. Thomas. In addition to the standard books required by the campaign, the supplements Beltstrike! and Traveller Alien Module 6: Solomani are also useful. As a result of the events in ‘Feature Adventure 3: Tourist Trap’ in the previous issue, the Player Characters were knighted and are now on their way to Capitol, the heart of the Third Imperium where they will be formally ennobled by the emperor. They have now reached Vland, the home of Vilani culture and capital of the Sector in the Vland Subsector of Vland Sector in the Domain of Vland.

The scenario opens with Doctor Theodor Krenstein dealing with a possible memory glitch in ‘Aybee’, before they descend to the surface of Vland. Amongst the many tourist attractions on offer, Doctor Krenstein wants to visit the ‘Argushiigi Admegulasha Bilanidin’, the ‘Vilani Repository of All Knowledge’, also known as the ‘AAB’ or ‘the Encyclopaedia’. A combined museum, library, research centre, and publishing house, it is largest facility of its kind in explored space and it should be no surprise that Doctor Krenstein has an old friend there that he wants to visit. Doctor Issac Imlu is pleased to see him and happily gives the Player Characters a tour of the facility when he is approached by a belter who shows him an extremely old First Imperium data disk. The scenario concerns not only what is on the disk, but also where it came from. The belter explains that he has more disks, but will not readily reveal where he found it beyond the name, ‘Star Harbour’. Fortunately, the facility does have a First Imperium data disk reader and getting past the security code is not too difficult. The recording turns out to be a report on the manipulation of a human subspecies on the world of Uradanid to enhance their technological development past the use of the nuclear weapons. Analysing the information on the data disk reveals that the world was in the Solomani Rim and that this manipulation took place over three thousand years previously.

The inference of the information on the data disk is that the world of Uradanid is in fact, Terra, and that the Vilani made covert contact with the Terrans and manipulated their technological advancement so that they discovered Jump Drive technology before they might have done otherwise without this manipulation. This does not negate the Solomani status as a Major Race, that is, one of the species to discover Jump Drive technology independently, but it does call it into question. This is an astounding discovery if true. Certainly, Doctor Theodor Krenstein would want to research it further simply for its historical significance, whilst for the journalist, Akidda Laagiir, it would be an amazing scoop. However, when the Player Characters go looking for the belter who gave Doctor Imlu the data disk, they first find that he has left Vland and then discover that he is dead!

The second half of the scenario leads the Player Characters to the ‘Star Harbour’ system and the discovery that the belter was up to no good and ultimately, that the recording is a sham. Getting to this information is not as structured as the set-up to the scenario’s core mystery, which itself in terms of the Traveller background is both interesting and intriguing. The scenario, although underwritten in this second half, does expose the Player Characters to one of the pro-Vilani/anti-Solomani groups active the sector. These are expanded upon by the scenario’s ‘Library Data’ which describes several of these groups, some of which are extremist in their outlook.

The Travellers’ Digest #5 contains two big articles, both by big names in the Traveller community. The first is ‘Vland! Cradle of the First Imperium’ by J. Andrew Keith. It ties with ‘Feature Adventure 5: The Humaniti Experiment’ earlier in the fanzine, but also provides a map and a complete description of Vland, complete with statistics generated using the rules from Grand Survey. It is followed by ‘Library Data of the Vland Sector’ by Nancy Parker that complements the previous article and the adventure. The Vland Subsector is also detailed. The second big article is ‘The First Imperium’ by Marc Miller. This charts the history of the Vilani from their origins as part of the Ancients colony on Vland and their survival during the Final War between the Ancients, through their industrial and cultural development to their first space exploration and beyond. The discovery of the Jump Drive led to rapid economic dominance of the systems around Vland and the establishment of the three Bureaux that would control vast swathes of space for centuries to come. Within two millennia of this, the ‘Ziru Sirka’ or ‘Grand Empire of Stars’ was declared to govern over the whole of the territory it consolidated before fully instituting an emperor and governing in peace for over another millennia. Ultimately, the article details the Solomani making contact with the Ziru Sirka and the war that followed that would see the Vilani defeated. There is also a map that shows the extent of the Ziru Sirka and the areas controlled by the three bureaux, as well as list of other references available at the time of publication. Together though, the two articles form a very good introduction to one of the Major Races in Traveller and in 1986, they would have been major developments of the background to the roleplaying game.

The issue switches subject with Henry R. Neufeld’s ‘Playing in Character – Effective Role Playing’. As the title suggests, it is a guide to good roleplaying and roleplaying etiquette. It applies as much to the player as it does the players and it topped and tailed by an example of poor play and an example of good play. In between is a list of dos and don’ts that look obvious today, but perhaps might not have been obvious in 1986—at least to some players and Game Masters. It is still good advice though, but a surprising addition to the pages of The Traveller’s Digest though and one has to wonder if the author has had some poor roleplaying experiences…

Lastly, the issue includes the ‘Traveller’s Digest Astrographic Index for Issues 1—4’. This collates all of the mentions of the worlds, subsectors, and sectors mentioned in the first four issues of the fanzine. It is a useful addition for the Game Master wanting to find a location and its specific mention.

Physically, The Travellers’ Digest #5 is, as with all of the issues so far, very obviously created using early layout software. The artwork is not great, but it does its job and it is far from dreadful. What is noticeable about the issue is the first use of colour on its front and back cover.

The Traveller’s Digest #5 picks up the Grand Tour with an episode that does not develop quite as well as its set-up suggests, but remains interesting and intriguing nonetheless. However, it is the inclusion of authors such as J. Andrew Keith and Marc Miller that really elevates The Traveller’s Digest #5 into a thoroughly interesting read that develops the background to the roleplaying game. Overall, this is good issue.

[Fanzine Focus XXXVII] The Travellers’ Digest #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 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. However, not all fanzines written with the Old School Renaissance in mind need to be written for a specific retroclone. Although not the case now, the popularity of Traveller would spawn several fanzines, of which The Travellers’ Digest, published by Digest Group Publications, was the most well known and would eventually transform from a fanzine into a magazine.

The publication of The Travellers’ Digest #1 in December, 1985 marked the entry of Digest Group Publications into the hobby and from this small, but ambitious beginnings would stem a complete campaign and numerous highly-regarded supplements for Game Designers Workshop’s Traveller and MegaTraveller, as well as a magazine that all together would run for twenty-one issues between 1985 and 1990. The conceit was that The Travellers’ Digest was a magazine within the setting of the Third Imperium, its offices based on Deneb in the Deneb Sector, and that it awarded the Travellers’ Digest Touring Award. This award would be won by one of the Player Characters and thus the stage is set for ‘The Grand Tour’, the long-running campaign in the pages of The Travellers’ Digest. In classic fashion, as with Europe of the eighteenth century, this would take the Player Characters on a tour of the major capitals of known space. These include Vland, Capitol, Terra, the Aslan Hierate, and even across the Great Rift. The meat of this first issue, as well as subsequent issues, would be dedicated to an adventure, each a stop-off on the ‘The Grand Tour’, along with support for it. The date for the first issue of The Travellers’ Digest and thus when the campaign begins is 152-1101, the 152nd day of the 1101st year of the Imperium.

To best run ‘The Grand Tour’, the Referee will need access to The Atlas of the Imperium, Supplement 8: Library Data (A-M), Supplement 11: Library Data (N-Z), Supplement 7: Traders and Gunboats (or alternatively, Supplement 5: Azhanti High Lightning), as well as the core rules. In addition, other supplements would be required depending on the adventure. Of course, that was in 1985, and much, if not all, of the rules or background necessary have been updated since. The campaign is also specifically written for use with four pre-generated Player Characters. They consist of Akidda Laagiir, the journalist who won the Travellers’ Digest Touring Award; Dur Telemon, a scout and his nephew; Doctor Theodor Krenstein, a gifted-scientist and roboticist; and Doctor Krenstein’s valet, ‘Aybee’, or rather, ‘AB-101’. The fact is, AB-101 is a pseudo-biological robot, both protégé and prototype. Consequently, the mix of Player Characters are surprisingly non-traditional and not all of them are easily created used the means offered in Traveller or MegaTraveller. This is addressed within various issues of the fanzine.

The Travellers’ Digest #4 was also published in February, 1986 and moved the date on from 335-1101, the 335th day of the 1101st year of the Imperium, to 324-1101, the 324th day of the 1101st year of the Imperium. The opening ‘Editors’ Digest’ comes with what would have been then good news. The Travellers’ Digest #3 announced that the publisher would have the supplement Grand Survey by J. Andrew Keith ready for Origins ’86 in Los Angeles. The editorial confirms this and that there would be further coverage in The Travellers’ Digest #5. In addition, Game Designers Workshop would be publishing Traveller Book 8: Robots, written by Digest Group Publications.

The fourth part of ‘The Grand Tour’ in The Travellers’ Digest #4 is ‘Feature Adventure 4: The Gold of Zurrian’, written by editor Gary L. Thomas. In addition to the standard books required by the campaign, the books Alien Module 3, Vargr, Adventure 11: Murder on Arcturus Station, Adventure 13: Signal GK, and the article ‘Jumpspace’ from Journal of the Travellers’ Aid Society, No. 24. As a result of the events in ‘Feature Adventure 3: Tourist Trap’ in the previous issue, the Player Characters were knighted and are now on their way to Capitol, the heart of the Third Imperium where they will be formally ennobled by the emperor. They are travelling aboard the Gold of Zurrian, a Tukera Lines 1000-ton long-liner from the world of Gishuli in the Voskhod subsector of Vland Sector to Iren in the Kagamira Subsector of Vland Sector in the Domain of Vland. All have High Passages and the scenario opens all four are in the ship’s Starlight Lounge where they meet some very interesting fellow passengers. This includes Onggzou, a Vargr diplomat and high-ranking member of the Church of the Chosen Ones, the Marquis and Marchioness of Gemid, the provocative and highly successful journalist Terra Porphyry, and Arde Le, a retired Tukera Lines executive and his partner, Melissa Diimish, a minor actress. Terra Porphyry either knows or knows of virtually everyone aboard. She and Doctor Theodor Krenstein were once engaged; she has written controversial books about the Church of the Chosen Ones and the Scout Service, including Dur Telemon and the captain of the Gold of Zurrian; and she wants to write about the Marquis and Marchioness of Gemid, as well as the newly ennobled Player Characters. She is also involved in a messy divorce with Arde Le. Almost every has reason to hate her, which explains why almost immediately after the long-liner enters Jump space, she is found dead!

With the Gold of Zurrian in Jump space, the Marquis of Gemid, as ranking noble aboard ship has seven days to solve the murder and the number one suspect is AB-101! Because the Marquis of Gemid is lazy, this should default to the Player Characters. Presented in a linear fashion, what this adventure is, is effectively a combination of a ‘locked room’ murder mystery in a ‘ship in a bottle’ episode! It is more of a serviceable adventure than a good adventure, a classic murder mystery that would work well in any Science Fiction setting as much as it does in Traveller. Its main problem is that whilst the solution makes sense, actually getting to it is not as easy as it should be, especially considering brevity of the plot and the fact that the scenario should really take more than two or sessions to play through. And whilst it does offer a change of pace from the previous scenarios in ‘The Grand Tour’, it is an obvious plot to run aboard a starship in Jumpspace when normally, the time spent travelling from one star system to another is ignored.

As with previous issues, ‘Feature Adventure 4: The Gold of Zurrian’ is very well supported. Not just with details of all four Player Characters as is standard, plus the explanation of the Universal Task Profile, but also full stats and details of all of the NPCs in the scenario and full details and deckplans of the Tukera Lines 1000-ton long-liner. Drawn by Guy Garnett, the deckplans are given a pullout in the centre of the fanzine. There is a list too, of the clues for the murder mystery that the Player Characters can search for in the Library Data, though it makes clear that this is a slow process even by the standards of the day! There is even a full write-up of the Church of the Chosen Ones, more cult than proper church, and it should be noted that the Vargr diplomat in ‘Feature Adventure 4: The Gold of Zurrian’, Onggzou, comes across as too polished and just not Vargr-like...

As part of its continued exploration of the Third Imperium along the route taken by ‘The Grand Tour’, The Traveller’s Digest #4 details the Kagamira subsector of the Vland sector with Nancy Parker providing some library data for the Vand sector. Much of this pertains to the scenario in the issue, such as the description of the word of Daama in the Anarsi sector, a non-aligned world renowned for being a haven for smugglers and a source of blackmarket goods, ineffectually governed by the so-called Marquis of Gemid—who appears in the scenario, and Zurrian in the Vland being the source of the famous iridescent surshi cloth.

The issue also continues the fanzine’s development by Joe D. Fugate Sr. of the Universal Task Profile that would later appear in Game Designer Workshop’s MegaTraveller in 1987. As the name suggests, the aim of the Universal Task Profile was to provide a coherent and consistent means of handling skills and actions in the roleplaying game. And the fanzine has been developing this over the course of the four issues and here it reaches the subject of ‘Accidents and Mishaps’. The article highlights what the Universal Task Profile is trying to avoid and that is seeding an adventure with a series of ‘mini-situations’, each one handling by a slightly different means of resolution. It would then have been a relatively modern drive away from the ‘individual rulings’ style of play, one that the more nostalgic sector of the hobby often still harks back to. The article is well thought through and there is a good example of how it works and how it works when the players fail their rolls.

Given that a crime is committed in ‘Feature Adventure 4: The Gold of Zurrian’, it makes sense that the last part of The Traveller’s Digest #4 is devoted to law enforcement, though of course, none of the Player Characters will benefit from it because they are not officers of the law and because they do not have any forensics training! ‘Law Enforcers – A New Character Type’ by Robert Parker provides a new Career, the police officer, noting that for worlds with a Law Level of ‘E’ or more, the Marine Career is more appropriate as law enforcement is paramilitary in nature. It is obviously good for creating NPCs, ex-police officers, and even private detectives, and it adds two new skills. These are ‘Interview’ and ‘Forensic’, with the latter being quite detailed. It is a solid addition and a version of the Career would appear in MegaTraveller and subsequent versions of the roleplaying game.

Lastly, ‘Forensic Science – Traveller Tech Brief’ by Robert and Nancy Parker looks at forensic science in the Science Fiction setting of Traveller. This is a solid overview, looking in particular at the use of the ‘volitile chemical molecular analyser’ or ‘sniffer’ at Tech Level 12 and above in the use of crime analysis, and noting also that the blood groups differ not just between Aslan, Droyne, and Vargr, but also between the various groups of Humaniti, including Solomani, Vilani, and Zhodani. Different types of evidence are also discussed, focusing on that left behind by individuals and on that left behind by weapons, since after all, the sorts of crimes investigated by Player Characters tend to be violent, if not deadly. Of course, the article really is only of use if a Player Character was a member of law Enforcement or the Game Master is running a campaign focused on law enforcement, though it could come in to play if the Player Characters get into trouble with law enforcement, which has been known to happen…

Physically, The Travellers’ Digest #4 is, as with all of the issues so far, very obviously created using early layout software. The artwork is not great, but it does its job and it is far from dreadful. The deckplans are very good. Whilst it looks slightly rough by modern standards, this would have looked clean and semi-professional at the time.

The Travellers’ Digest #4 is not an improvement on The Travellers’ Digest #3, which was an improvement on The Travellers’ Digest #2. The issue feels as if it is waiting to move on to bigger things, primarily because ‘Feature Adventure 4: The Gold of Zurrian’ takes place between the usual avenues of adventure and because it does not push the plot of ‘The Grand Tour’ along, but rather put it on hold. The rest of the content in the issue is decent though and there is content here that would go be incorporated into Traveller canon. The Travellers’ Digest #4 is a serviceable issue rather than a good one.

Friday Filler: The Top Gun Strategy Game

The last time there was a board game based on the 1986 film, Top Gun, it was Top Gun: The Game of Modern Fighter Combat, published by FASA, also in 1986. It was a game of aerial combat which took the players from Pensacola: Flight School to Miramar: Top Gun School and pitched them into simulated battles between the fighters from the USA, the USSR, and other world powers of the late Cold war period. It even included rules for incorporating the game into FASA’s BattleTech universe and allowed players to field atmospheric fighters against aerospace fighters, although the technologies between the two differ greatly. The Top Gun Strategy Game is the second board game based on the 1986 film and it is a very different beast.

The Top Gun Strategy Game is designed by Prospero Hall, the collaborative game design studio responsible for games such as Horrified and Jaws. Both of which are fantastically thematic designs and highly playable adaptations of their source material. Published by Mixlore, the Top Gun Strategy Game is designed to be played two to four players, aged ten and up. It draws directly upon the film itself, but does not send the players into direct combat—only mock combat—and employs the same two-stage game play as seen in Jaws. The players take the roles of Team Maverick/Goose and Team Iceman/Slider, pilot and WSO or Weapons System Operator, respectively. In the first half of the game, the ‘Volleyball Phase’, the two teams face off against each other on the volleyball court. The team that beats the other gains self-confidence or intimidates the team, which grants them an advantage in the ‘Hop Phase’ when the two teams engage in an aerial dogfight in an attempt to acquire valuable target lock on their opponent and so secure a swift victory. The game play will switch back and forth between the ‘Volleyball Phase’ and the ‘Hop Phase’ until one team scores sufficient points to win.

The components for the ‘Volleyball Phase’ consist of nineteen Volleyball cards, a Volleyball token, and a Volleyball Net, the latter two items in thick card. The Volleyball cards are divided into two identical sets, the same for each team, a pink set for Maverick and Goose, and a blue set for Iceman and Slider. Each set is laid out face down as a three-by-three grid on each side of the Volleyball Net and consists of five card types. When revealed, the Set card and the Bump cards allow the player with control of the ball to move it orthogonally to another card and reveal it. This can be one of his own cards or his rival’s across the net. The Set card allows the ball to be moved one space and the Bump card one or two spaces. The Spike card enables the controlling player to place the ball on one of his opponent’s cards which is still face down. The aim for each team is to find and reveal its opponent’s Whiff cards. When this happens, the team who reveals this, can draw Pilot Tiles or WSO Cards which will provide an advantage in the ‘Hop Phase’. Each team has three Whiff cards and once a team has revealed all three of its opposing team, it wins the volleyball match. The winning team decides who will play as the Attacker and the Defender in the ‘Hop Phase’.

In addition, there is a fifth card type, the Bump Save card. Each team can use it once to prevent a face-down card from being revealed. It is instead used as a Bump. Overall, the ‘Volleyball Phase’ plays quickly and easily, and has the feel of a volleyball game.

The components for the ‘Hop Phase’ are more complex. Each team has a Cockpit Shield, a set of Pilot Tiles and WSO cards, and a plane. In addition, there is a Hop Board, six Hop Scenario cards, a set of Waypoint Tokens, Target Lock Tokens, green Pilot Tiles, green WSO cards, and a set of four dice. The Cockpit Shields are used to keep each Team’s decision hidden, whilst the Pilot Tiles are used to determine a plane’s movement. Each Pilot Tile consists of two joined hexes, one indicating the plane’s starting position and finishing position and direction, as a potential change of elevation. Each plane slots into a stand on which its elevation can be adjusted to one of four positions. Each WSO card shows a hex grid at the centre of which is marked a plane. In front of it are several numbered ‘Target lock Attack Hexes’, whilst behind it are several ‘Countermeasure Defence Hexes’, again numbered. Each WSO card in a team’s hand can only be played once unless the Retrieve card is played, which returns all played cards to a team’s hand, but prevents them from attacking or defending that turn. The Hop Board shows a seven by eight grid of hexes of the skies near TOPGUN, the Naval Fighter Weapons School at Naval Air Station Miramar. The Waypoint Tokens are placed on the Hop Board on spaces marked on the Hop Scenario cards. These are double-sided and as well as hexes indicating where the Waypoint Tokens are placed, each Hop Scenario card gives the starting position and elevation for each plane. The four dice are marked with blanks and Target Lock icons and are rolled when attempting a target lock. The green WSO cards and the green Pilot Tiles show different ‘Target lock Attack Hexes’ and ‘Countermeasure Defence Hexes’ and manoeuvres to the standard ones which each team starts play with.

To play, a Hop Scenario card is selected, and the Hop Board set according to its layout. Each team chooses two Pilot Tiles and a WSO card. The Pilot Tiles are played, the defending team moving first, followed by the attacking team. This will result in a change of position and potentially, elevation. The WSO cards are revealed and if a defending plane falls within the ‘Target lock Attack Hexes’ marked on the WSO card, the attacking team rolls a number of dice equal to the number on hex that the targeted plane is in. The number of dice can be reduced if the attacking plane is in the ‘Countermeasure Defence Hexes’ marked on the defending team’s WSO card. Being at a higher elevation will grant an extra die, or lose a die if at a lower elevation. If a Target Lock symbol on any of the dice is rolled, Target Lock is achieved, and the attacking receives a Target Lock token.

Play continues like this from turn to turn until one team achieves a Target Lock, the defending team has collected three of the Waypoint tokens, or either team manages to achieve the ‘Flipping the Bird’ manoeuvre as per the film. Once achieved, the ‘Hop Phase’ is over. At this point, if a team has scored a total of twelve or more points from achieving Target Locks and/or collecting Waypoint Tokens, it has won the game. If not, play switches back to the ‘Volleyball Phase’, then to the ‘Hop Phase’, and so on until one team wins.

Physically, the Top Gun Strategy Game reflects it low price. The cards are a bit thin and do need to be sleeved if the game is be played more than a few times. The Volleyball Net is difficult to set up and to be honest does not add that much to the game anyway. The planes and their stands with their poles for changing elevation are decently produced and although slightly fiddly to use, do add a lot to the game and give it a sense of space. The rules are easy to read and understand. One last issue is the choice of colours. Pink and blue neon. Which do give the game a singular look.

The Top Gun Strategy Game is two games in one. The ‘Volleyball Phase’ is a short, primarily luck-based mini-game whose game play will quickly pale in comparison to the complexities and options in the ‘Hop Phase’. It also does not really work as a game for more than two players as there are not enough decisions to be made in playing it, whereas the ‘Hop Phase’ actually works better with four players rather than two. With two players on each team, one can be the pilot and one the Weapons System Operator, responsible each turn for selecting the Pilot Tiles and WSO card respectively. This forces them to work together as shown in the film as attacker and defender attempt to out manoeuvre each other and line up the Target Lock needed to win each ‘Hop Phase’. The Waypoint Tokens add a tactical element too, as the defending plane races through them to collect them and the attacking plane chases, attempting to stop it from collecting too many whilst the remaining Waypoint Tokens predict where the defending plane might be headed.

The Top Gun Strategy Game is an odd game. An aerial combat game combined with a volleyball game and done in neon colours like the cover to an eighties’ computer game. Nor is it a ‘strategy’ game, but rather one that is tactical and that really only in the dogfights. The ‘Volleyball Phase’ does not add all that much to the play of the ‘Hop Phase’ and actually having to go back, set it up again and replay it soon becomes a chore, especially if there are four players, because it leaves a player on each team with little to really do. It is possible to alternate, but it does not really matter that much in what is a random phase anyway. Thankfully, the ‘Hop Phase’ offers actual decisions and a little deduction to work out the best Pilot Tiles and WSO card to use, and whilst the Hop Scenario cards add some variety in terms of set-up, it is not that much.

Ultimately, the Top Gun Strategy Game is a game for the fan of the film who does not mind playing the odd board game. For the regular board game player, there is not enough depth to the game to really want to replay it more than once or twice and it is certainly too light a game for devotees of aerial combat games. Prospero Hall has designed some excellent games, matching up mechanics with theme to create some excellent emulations of the films they draw from, but the Top Gun Strategy Game is not one of them. The best of the Prospero Hall designs do two things. One is to engage the players in the story of the film or source material, the second is to enable them to play and make that story their own, but the Top Gun Strategy Game only just achieves the first and never manages the second. If you feel the need for speed, then the Top Gun Strategy Game might be all you need, but there are definitely better and more fun air combat games available that do not require you to simulate a game of volleyball.

TEW: The Enemy Within

The publication of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Fourth Edition by Cubicle Seven Entertainment is a reminder that once upon a time, Games Workshop published roleplaying games. Chief amongst these was of course Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, which even thirty years on, remains the definitive British roleplaying game. Its mix of fantasy, European history, Moorcockian cosmology, humour, grim and perilous feel, disease and damnation, and mud and shit underfoot, very much set it apart from the fantasy found in other roleplaying games of the time—and arguably since. Perhaps the best expression of those elements is not in the roleplaying game itself, but in what is arguably the greatest British roleplaying campaign ever published—The Enemy Within. Published in six parts—The Enemy Within, Shadows Over Bögenhafen, Death on the Reik, Power Behind the Throne, Something Rotten in Kislev, and Empire in Flames—between 1986 and 1989, it thrust a band of lowly adventurers into a conspiracy that threatened the Empire not from without, but within, pushing them onto a larger stage which will bring them to the attention of the great, the good, and the bad and ultimately place the fate of the Empire in their hands. Mostly.

The Enemy Within as a campaign has been much discussed and examined over the years, the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay fanzine, Warpstone, which ran for thirty issues from 1996, paying particular to the campaign through histories and interviews with the authors and designers. My own history with the campaign begins in 1986 as a fan of  Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, playing through much of it three times—playing different characters each time—as published and then with different groups in the 1990s, before reading through the campaign as whole twice as a Hogshead Publishing employee. In the twenty years since, there has been discussion of revisiting The Enemy Within campaign, whether the original campaign using Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Second Edition, or the version of the campaign published by Fantasy Flight Games for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Third Edition. With the publication of the campaign again by Cubicle Seven Entertainment there may well be a chance that I will revisit it at the gaming table again, but in the meantime, it is worth looking again at the constituent parts of The Enemy Within campaign.

The first part of The Enemy Within is of course, The Enemy Within. Later reprints amalgamated this with Shadows Over Bögenhafen and Death on the Reik as Games Workshop’s Warhammer Adventure and Warhammer Campaign, or with Shadows over Bögenhafen as Hogshead Publishing’s Shadows Over Bögenhafen. The original came as a folio, much like the scenarios for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons from TSR, Inc., thick with content—a fifty-six page campaign booklet, a full colour poster of The Empire, and eight pages of handouts, the latter including letters and other clues for scenario included in the booklet, as well as six pre-generated player characters, and a map and calendar of The Empire for the players.

From the off, The Enemy Within clearly states what it is about and what the player characters will be facing. The Empire—described as the greatest land in the Old World—is under attack, but not from the many mutants, Beastmen, and Chaos Warriors that lurk in the all-too thick forests on the edge of civilisation, but from within the mighty civilisation itself. Whilst they do attack and maraud the lands and peoples near to their forest lairs, the true threat comes the members of the guild, merchant, burgermeister, and noble classes who have turned to the worship in secret of the Chaos Gods in return for promises of power, pleasure, and worse. Whether they understand the true perfidy they will unleash on The Empire or not with vile devotions, they are the true enemy, which will only be revealed as campaign progresses and the adventurers are pulled deeper into the horrors hidden behind façades of nobility and civility…

Having set out its remit, The Enemy Within booklet gives good advice for the Game Master in running both the campaign and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. Notable amongst this advice is being flexible, being dramatic, and being humorous in presenting the Old World and the campaign. Certainly the humorous aspect to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay is one that sets it apart from other roleplaying games, though as the campaign progresses, the authors’ predilection for puns and bad German word play becomes more groan worthy than actually funny. Then as well as covering travel in the Empire—primarily via its canal network and its coaching companies—more than half of the booklet expands upon the background of The Empire and the Old World given in the core rulebook, which was not really as extensive as it could have been. This covers the history of the Empire, from its founding with the unification of the tribes by Sigmar Heldenhammer and defeat of the Goblin armies, right up to the present day, its accompanying list of Emperors including a sly dig at eighties politics with the election of Empress Magraritha in 1979. (The inclusion of Boris the Incompetent on the timeline is just coincidence. Hopefully.)

The background covers not just the Empire’s history and emperors, but the current figurehead of an emperor, his advisors, and the Electors, the latter the members of the nobility who elect the Emperor. Below this, it examines the political and economic structure of the Empire; its guilds, nobility, and ordinary folk; its religion—primarily the Cult of Sigmar, the Empire’s state religion, but also prescribed cults like those devoted to Kháine and the Chaos gods; and its geography and means of communication over long distances, plus a short gazetteer. This is followed by stats for Soldiers of the Empire and Standard NPCs for The Enemy Within campaign. These are accompanied by illustrations of the typical dress worn in the Empire, a guide to herbs found in the Empire, and Mutants in the Empire.

All of which is useful material for the Game Master. A lot of this will come into play during a Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay campaign, not just The Enemy Within campaign, though that will involve mutants, it will involve the Empire’s Electors, and one of the pre-generated player characters is a herbalist. Much of this and The Empire is inspired by the history of the Germanic principalities, duchies, and other states of the Holy Roman Empire, which gives Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay its mittel-European sensibility and thus much of its identity which sets it apart from other fantasy roleplaying games. 

The scenario in The Enemy Within is ‘Mistaken Identity’. This begins with a cliché—the player characters answering a call for adventurers wanted in the Imperial capital, Altdorf—but is it? Perhaps in any other fantasy roleplaying game, but here it works because the player characters are at the bottom of the heap and cannot really expect to improve themselves except by answering this call. Some players may grumble at the admonishment that no Dwarves apply, but since no Dwarves are included in the six pre-generated characters, this is not really an issue. Of course, by the time the adventurers get to Altdorf to sign up, the potential employer will have already departed having hired everyone he needed. And by then, the adventurers will also have been distracted by other events…

‘Mistaken Identity’ is a travel adventure. The need for the player characters to get from Delberz to Altdorf more or less hides the linear nature of the scenario’s storyline, which is really designed to get the player characters from one plot point to the next. These plot points are twofold. The first is to get the player characters to discover the dead body of one Kastor Lieberung, a man who is the spitting image of one of their number and who happens to have a letter informing him of an inheritance in the town of Bögenhafen. The possibility of riches and elevation to the nobility is the real hook here, the fact that only one or two of the player characters is literate is a further reason to keep everyone together, since it is unlikely that doppelganger will be able to read the letter. The second is to wonder why certain men are taking a desperate interest in the player character—or rather Kastor Lieberung who the player character is impersonating—and third, why someone else wants those men and then Kastor Lieberung, dead. Of course, Kastor Lieberung is actually a dead Chaos cultist, and understandably, this will have repercussions throughout the rest of The Enemy Within campaign as death and murder follows in the adventurers’ wake (and not just at the end of their swords and axes, The Enemy Within campaign involving a fair bit of combat)...

Along the way, the Game Master has some fun scenes to portray. These begin with a night at the Coach and Horses Inn, populated with a range of characters ready to set out aboard the coach the next day. Here the player characters get to rub up against and probably rub up the wrong way various members of society, including a cardsharp on the make, an imperious noble who will employ her bodyguards to keep the player characters away, a cultist (from another cult!), and two very drunk coachmen. The player characters are free to do what they want here and roleplay their characters in the inn and on the road, before throwing them into the plot proper following a combat with Mutants on the road. This will have nasty consequences for one of the player characters as it turns out one of the Mutants was a friend. After this, there is the famous ear-scratching scene by cultists in Altdorf, a run-in with Hooray Heinrichs spoiling for a fight between their bodyguards and the oiks, and meet-up with an old friend, circumstances around these pushing the player characters to scarper from Altdorf—and on to Shadows Over Bögenhafen, the next part of The Enemy Within…

The Enemy Within comes with six pre-generated player characters, all in their first Career, and all ready to play except for each player needing to select his character’s first Advance. They are all complete with an illustration, background, and personality description. They include an Elf Minstrel, a Halfling Herbalist, and Human Boatman, Labourer, Thief, and Wizard’s Apprentice, and despite this range, they are a fairly ordinary lot. This though nicely plays off against the extraordinary series of events that they will find themselves thrust into as The Enemy Within progresses. The first part of the campaign also includes six player handouts, all nicely done on heavy stock.

Physically, The Enemy Within is an engaging product. The writing is excellent, the advice solid, and the new background useful. Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay has always been renowned for its artwork, but in coming back to The Enemy Within, it is artistically disappointing. Much of it is cartoonish even as it tries to evoke the Old World’s ‘grim and perilous’ feel. This is not to say that some of it is not good, but on the strength of this first part of the campaign, it needs work. Conversely, the maps are all well done.

Both Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and The Enemy Within were reviewed in Dragon #124 (August 1987) by Ken Rolston, who would go on to write Something Rotten in Kislev, the fifth part of The Enemy Within campaign. He commented that, “...The Enemy Within makes a very good first impression. Though that first impression weakens slightly on careful examination, it’s nonetheless a stand-out product, highly recommended, and a promising initial release for WFR’s line of campaign and adventure supplements.” Of the adventure structure, he said, “The adventure also depends on an unusually egregious use of plot manipulation to get the PCs from one encounter to the next. The encounters are excellent – elaborately staged, with detailed NPCs, GM presentation tips, and fine role-playing opportunities. The adventure materials are complete to current industry standards – prepared character sheets, with character personality and background notes, player handout props, GM reference summary sheets, attractive, functional maps and diagrams. But the creaking of the plot mechanisms for shuttling the PCs from encounter to encounter is a bit distracting. The adventure could be run without all the dubious coincidences – but the best parts of the adventure depend on those coincidences. If I ran this adventure, I would earnestly and shamelessly steer the PCs right into them. But I’d be a lot more careful about eroding my players’ trust in the plot devices. “Say, what a coincidence – again…”” Nevertheless, he was ultimately positive about the adventure. Similarly, Space Gamer/Fantasy Gamer Number 82 (July/Aug 1988) reviewed not just The Enemy Within, but also its sequels, Shadows Over Bögenhafen and Death on the Reik. Of The Enemy Within, reviewer Richard A. Edwards said that, “If you want to bring your roleplaying group a new experience in roleplaying and introduce them to new complexities of plot then run, do not walk, to your game store and purchase a copy.” The late Stewart Wieck reviewed both Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, The Enemy Within, Shadows Over Bögenhafen, and Death on the Reik in White Wolf Magazine #9 (February, 1988), focussing in the main on the roleplaying game itself. He said, “The Enemy Within, Shadows Over Bögenhafen, and Death on the Reik are all very attractive and worthwhile supplements. The Enemy Within forms the basis for all of the WFRP adventures that follow. It begins an entire campaign for WFRP.” before awarding The Enemy Within a score out of eight out of ten.

The Enemy Within consists of two parts. In the first, it gives the Game Master the background—political, legal, travel, geographical, religious, and more—to The Empire, providing the background against which the events of The Enemy Within campaign as a whole will play out. At this initial stage, this is not obvious, but as the campaign progresses, it will become so, for one of the things that the authors do not do is lay out the whole plot. That will only come when it is complete. As to ‘Mistaken Identity’, it is easy to complain that the scenario is linear and too much of a railroad, but if so, it does what it is designed to do—pull them into the adventure before waylaying them with a completely different plot and shoving them into the campaign proper. As a set-up, it takes a session or two, and perhaps its plot is heavy-handed in places (though it hides it well), but The Enemy Within is a solid start to the definitive British fantasy roleplaying campaign.

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With thanks to Shannon Appelcline for arranging access to White Wolf Magazine #9.