A to Z of UK RPG in the 80s - C is for Citadel

As some of you are aware I am based in the UK and I've blogged before about how the roleplaying scene differs in Blighty to that across the pond (and probably that over in the Eurozone to boot).  Here's an attempt to pick out some of the highlights of what it was like to be a roleplayer back in the dark days of Thatcher's Britain of the 1980s (cue the V for Vendetta trailer)...

C is for Citadel Miniatures

I'm not going to recant the life story of this company, just tell you what it felt like from my perspective.  In my early days as a gamer my dad took me along to wargames conventions in an around the north of England from the age of 5.  Shows such as Northern Militaire, Sheffield Triples or Leeds Fiasco.  Roleplaying and Fantasy wargaming in general was often seen as the young punk of the wargaming scene, but it was very much part of the scene and not a seperate hobby.  All the miniatures manufacturers were present so I got to see everything that was readily available.  It wasn't particularly impressive to be honest.
 

The miniatures hadn't really evolved from the primitive "tin soldier" sculpts of earlier decades.  For many wargamers in the 70s, my Dad included, it was all about Napoleonics.  Large formations of miniatures which looked impressive due to their numbers and so they were sculpted to "stand off scale" quality.  Yes you could see a nose and maybe an ear, but there was never any expression (or maybe that was cos they really were that stiff upper lipped back then).  I ws never going to get excited about a featureless figure with no facial detail, this is my character I want to represent, he has to have a face!!

Early Boxed Set Packaging

Then along came Citadel Miniatures, they were sculpted with charisma, a lone barbarian facing off against the goblin horde had a facial expression, you could tell he was pretty angry.  The poses were far more dynamic and they had musculature, it was almost like the before and after shots in a Mr Universe advert.  Of couse this was the only encouragement I needed to beg some extra pocket money and start my collection with the Dungeon Adventurers Starter Pack.

The early miniatures looked pretty primitive, by todays standards, and when in the Citadel launched it's slotta base ranges in the early 80s it was quite frankly a revolution.  Gone were the mishappen lumps of solid lead at the bottom of each figure, which were never flat and which you had to file down (generating lots of lead dust) to make the mini stand up straight.  Instead between its legs the mini had a strip of lead bearing the range number and the Citadel stamp of approval.  An unintended consequence of this being that you can now easily identify any vintage miniature you pick up on ebay and prices of vintage miniatures particularly citadel have sky rocketed.

Early slotta base minis from my own collection
(LtoR: C10 Guard, ADD11 Female Magic User [Low Level], C10 Brave)

My friends and I would drool over the Citadel Compendium and choosing a new miniature became a bit of a ritual as you scanned the contents of each page or jiggled the miniatures around in their "blister pack" to see if the one you wanted was in there.

There were some really useful ranges back then, Games Workshop released the first Warhammer Fantasy Battle rules in 1983 and White Dwarf was still mainly a roleplaying magazine.  Highlights included:

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (ADD): The Player Character Packs featured 3 versions of the same AD&D class minis per blister pack.  Designed to represent your character as it evolved through the levels you got a Low, Medium and High level version of each character, all sculpted by Aly Morrison.  There were also Monster Packs with a varying number of minis all of the same race usually.  There's a great photo archive of the AD&D range over at Stuff of Legends.

Talisman: All the player characters from the original Talisman Boardgame were represented and were designed to replace the original card standees which came inside the gamebox, and came with distinctive hex bases.  As further Talisman supplements were released the range expanded to include the characters from Expansion, Adventure, Dungeon and Timescape.  These are some of the more sought after minis.

Two figures from the Talisman TL10 Blister Pack - Gypsy and Martial Artist

Gothic Horror: For players of Call of Cthulhu, Citadel released this range even though at the time they did not hold the license for CoC minis, they did distribute CoC in the UK for Chaosium and later created the Halls of Horror floorplans to expanding their Dungeon Floors range of cardstock floorplans.

Citadel quite literally broke the mould and pretty soon other mini companies started to smell the coffee.  Wargamers demanded better quality sculpts and new manufacturers were started up, some by the Citadel sculptors themselves, those that didn't re-design their lines just faded into obscurity.

Collecting Citadel Miniatures

Collecting these tiny replicas of the 80s is getting quite expensive as Citadel miniatures (particularly the pre-slotta base era) command high prices.  There are still bargains to be had and I particularly enjoy searching for job lot miniatures on eBay.  As soon as you search for Vintage Citadel Miniatures on eBay you will find a host of traders competing with hobbyists clearing out their stashes.  There are still bargains to be had but be prepared for some eye-watering prices.

Next: D is for... Dungeon Floors

Old Skool Accessory: Dungeonworks Magnetic Dungeons

Before Bendy Walls... before Dwarven Forge... before Hirst Arts... there was...

Dungeonworks(TM) Magnetic Dungeon!

Released in 1991, the set consisted of a 10" square felt backed metal board with 1" square stone tiles printed on it's face.  The plastic walls and doors had a rectangular recess in the base to house a strip of magnetic plastic, a sort of thick version of that used in magnetic sign boards.

The corners of each wall section were mitred at 45 degrees so you could make convincing corners and but walls together to make corridors.  Door archways were also included in the set, but there were no doors themselves.  As you can see I added some resin cast doors to a few of the walls in my set.

There was one huge problem with the whole set which I found almost immediately during play.  The walls are way too high and the board too small.  In fact my experiences with this set were partly behind my reasons to go with a 1.5" square floorplan scale and 1" hinch walls in my foamcard 3D dungeon, a winning combination in my opinion.

The miniatures end up being crammed into a tiny area and the board can only handle a maximum room size of 50'x50'.  I guess they were expecting you to buy more than one set, but it was too heavy to carry around compared with a box of cardstock floorplans, not to mention the price.

A to Z of UK RPG in the 80s - B is for Beast Enterprises

As some of you are aware I am based in the UK and I've blogged before about how the roleplaying scene differs in Blighty to that across the pond (and probably that over in the Eurozone to boot).  Here's an attempt to pick out some of the highlights of what it was like to be a roleplayer back in the dark days of Thatcher's Britain of the 1980s (cue the V for Vendetta trailer)...

B is for Beast Enterprises

Tortured Souls! - Issue 5

Publishers of Tortured Souls! magazine from 1983 to 1986 which was a scenarios only title in the same vein as Dungeon but pre-dating it by a whole 3 years!.  It's primary focus was of course D&D / AD&D and specifically the Zhalindor campaign, but there was always an attempt to reach out to the Runequest DM so stat blocks also featured RQ conversions.

The genius idea (which was probably made out of necessity rather than anything else) was that they worked in close partnership with a few other companies, namely:

Integrated Games - Producers of the Complete Dungeon Master Series of boxed-set scenarios each containing everything you needed to run an entire game from the scenario itself (written by Simon Forest and Basil Barrett) to the floorplans (Brendan Hickling), A4 scenic illustrations (by Judith Hickling) and even a GM's screen.  The boxed sets were:

• CDM1 - Halls of the Dwarven Kings - I appear to have 2 copies.
• CDM2 - The Lost Shrine of Kasar-Khan - own this but without the box
• CDM3 - The Watchers of the Sacred Flame - I own this
• CDM4 - The Feathered Priests
• CDM5 - Deep Water Shallow Graves (never released although 3 copies are allegeded to exist)

Endless Games - Produced A range of very detailed architectural floor plans known as Endless Plans, drawn by Allen and Brendan Hickling which featured in all of the Integrated Games products and Tortured Souls! issues.  This mutually beneficial arrangement (from a GMs perspective) is much like that of  Ptolus where Monte Cook teamed up with Ed Bourelle (Skeleton Key Games) to produce high quality campaign material with equally high quality floorplans.

TM Games - Manufactured (in partnership with Endless Games) a range of accessories such as the A4 character record pad and the ever useful hex map pad.

Back to Tortured Souls

Looking back at Tortured Souls! I find it odd that the scenarios were never credited to anyone.  They were always well constructed although they shared the same densely packed san-serif typography which was to be frank a little tireing on the eye.

The covers always stood out in a minimalist kind of way being almost exclusively black with a single illustration in the center.  Interior art was supplied by Paul Ward and Jon Baker, who also supplied interior artwork for the CDM series and both had very distingtive styles.

My Collection Includes

Tortured Souls #6

Tortured Souls #11

Tortured Souls #12

These are pretty rare these days but you still find them when you search for Tortured Souls Magazine on eBay.

Next: C is for... Citadel Miniatures 

A to Z of UK RPG in the 80s - A is for Adventurer Magazine

As some of you are aware I am based in the UK and I've blogged before about how the roleplaying scene differs in Blighty to that across the pond (and probably that over in the Eurozone to boot).  Here's an attempt to pick out some of the highlights of what it was like to be a roleplayer back in the dark days of Thatcher's Britain of the 1980s (cue the V for Vendetta trailer)...

A is for Adventurer (Superior Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine)

Adventurer was the first of the "independent" roleplaying magazines that made it out of specialist stores (in the US read FLGs) and into the High Street newsagents like John Menzies and W H Smiths.  Published by the liverpool based Mersey Leisure Publications, it  ran for a total of 11 issues between April 1986 and July 1987 and appeared in the wake of TSR UK's IMAGINE magazine which had closed the previous year.

It was put together by a small team on a small budget and the quality of the interior artwork sometimes suffered as a result, but that was always made up for by the glossy full-colour front covers.

The first issue featured:

• The Black Tower (John S Davies) - A Rolemaster/AD&D scenario in two parts (Issue 2 containing the second part)
  
  
• White Fire (Uncredited) - A Call of Cthulhu scenario featuring an amazingly detailed cut-a-way illustration of the mansion which was the main location.
  
  
• How to become a Method Role-player (Steve Rawlinson) - An article discussing approaches to method acting in RPGs.
  
  
• Gumshoe (Peter England) - A preview of the detective RPG of the same name set in the "gangster-ridden" streets of 1930's Chicago.  I've never played Gumshoe, but it was released by Sleuth Publications who were also responsible for the bookcase boardgame Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective which is well worth picking up if you can get it as it is the closest you'll ever come to a Boardgame / RPG crossover.
  
  
• A review of the First British Play By Mail (PBM) Convention - The concept of PBM (ie: posting off your turn every week (including the small fee) to the GM for them to send you back a letter telling you how it went)  seems so quaint looking back from this high-speed broadband always on mobile internet world that we live in, but it was the great granddaddy of the MMORPG, just done via snail mail.
  
  
• Psychology in Games (Stephen Dillon) - A Roleplaying Theory article explaining the basic concepts of Psychology (ie: Motivation and Personality) and how they manifests themselves during play in PC and NPC interaction.  Padding anyone?
  
  
• Blood Loss (Paul Evans) - An article which offers an alternative way to describe damage to characters (particularly those high level characters with 50+ HP).  Death by a thousand cuts anyone?

Regular Columns were also present in the shape of:

• Figures Front (Martyn Tetlow and Will Hannah) - doing a reasonable job at reviewing new miniatures and featuring a page of full colour painted miniatures although the photography and printing were pretty grim by todays standards.

• Live By The Sword - The defacto "letters page" including a letter requesting submission guidelines from Marcus L Rowland who was a contributor to White Dwarf and has since gone on to create supplements for GDW's Space 1889, Call of Cthulhu and his own RPGs Diana Warrior Princess, Flatland and Forgotten Futures.
  
  
• Shop Window - Reviews of new RPG releases including; A View to a Kill (007 RPG), Gods of Glorantha (Runequest), Send in the Clones (Paranoia), Alone against the Wendigo (CoC), Fluffy Quest (Generic Fantasy scenario), Super-Power the boardgame (Games Workshop) and Time & Time Again (A Timetravel RPG)
  
  
• Town Crier - A news section discussing products in development and new releases.
  
  
• Once Bitten  - A regular comic strip with artwork clearly inspired by the work of underground comic artist Robert Crumb.

The Adventurer Team:

Editor: Stephen "Ste" Dillon - Is this the same Steve Dillon who has since gone on to be a celebrated comicbook writer? you decide (see inset pics).   

Miniatures Reviews - Martyn Tetlow and Miniature Painting Tips - Will Hannah.  

Artists: Robin Parry (who created the cover for issue 1) and George Jones.

When I could get hold of a copy I would pour through it avidly as it had a certain homebrew appeal and was pitched at a slightly maturer reader. 

This was at a time when the other dominant force in the UK RPG (Games Workshop's White Dwarf) was still publishing RPG material for CoC, Golden Heroes and my favourite Judge Dredd and it had yet to morph into the Warhammer brochure that it is today. 

I've since discovered that they're all available online via mediafire, if anyone else would like a slice of RPG nostalgia along with their cup of tea.

My Collection Includes:

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Scenario Writing: Non-Linear Plots and Node-Based Design

A fine post from Justin (The Alexandrian) about Advanced Node-Based Design with respect to scenarios made me realise that I'd been been doing this for years without realising that there was a formal theory surrounding it.  In an earlier article I described some of the techniques I've used to write linear plots, which can also be described in this node-based design approach like this:

Although the example is deliberately simple it demonstrates how taking this approach can and does prepare you for almost any eventuality and may even reap rewards in the design stage by focusing your writing (in a similar way to a mind map) and offer other plot possibilities that you hadn't thought of initially.  Why does the patron want the artifact? Can it be used to control the Evil?  Was the patron behind the event which threatened the PCs life?

However, this node-based design approach works best with non-linear adventures, particularly those where investigation is required and the DM has left clues which send the PCs off in one direction or the other as in this example:

Again the deliberately simple diagram above only details Two Clues per node and I cannot reccomend enough the importance of following The Three Clue Rule lest your scenario grind to a halt in a choke point.  However, as you can see, the PCs may take any route through the scenario they choose and you will have already done the hard work of designing each node in advance and be prepared for most eventualities.

As Justin quite rightly points out these do not have to necessarily be clues, they can be events, objects or rumours which PUSH players into moving to the the next node or equally their desires can PULL them in a particular direction.  It's quite fun to watch your players sweat over equally enticing possibilities or for them to choose what they think is the easy option only for it to turn nasty.