A to Z of UK RPG in the 80s - D is for Dungeon Floors

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)...

D is for Dungeon Floors

No self respecting DM in the 80s could get away without using cardstock dungeon floor plans.  Back in the 80s we didn't have photoshop and photo-quality printers, so if you wanted nice floorplans you needed to either make your own (and be very arts and crafty) or you could pop-along to your local specialist retailer and buy some ready made ones.  There were quite a few ranges to choose from:

Endless Plans (Endless Games 1983-?) - Not much info has survived about these other than that they were mostly two colour plans and were also featured in The Complete Dungeon Master series of boxed sets and Tortured Souls magazine.  There were at least 8 sets, with Set 8 being Forests, and they were very architectural in design.  As I recall you were meant to cut them out along the dotted lines and you could then build up quite intricate and irregular dungeons by layering pieces one on top of another.  This approach was novel, but futile and unplayable unless you had access to plenty of magic tape and an A3 photocopier.  The wilderness tiles did have overlayed crosses for movement but they were far too intricate to be really useful (in comparison with the Dungeon Planner or Dungeon Floor Plans sets around at he same time.

Example of Endless Plans floorplans
(as found in CDM3 The Watchers of the Sacred Flame)

Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Floor Plans (Games Workshop 1979) - Published by under license from TSR these are the granddaddy of all the Games Workshop floorplan sets and were reprinted in 1982 without any reference to the Dungeons and Dragons brand and also form the basis for the Dungeon Planner series reusing the same ground artwork. 

Dungeon Planner (Games Workshop) - Neither of these are the traditional type of floorplans.  Each box set came with an A2 map of the area in question (1in to 5ft scale) and a booklet for the DM to write scenario specific information in blocks corresponding to the numbered locations.  The covers of the booklets also doubled as a DM's screen containing Encounter Tables and a black and white DM's version of the map with the rooms and doors numbered.  I particularly liked the fact that the doors were seperately numbered as it is irritating when running a commercial scenario to find the status of the doors in the last line (or worse buried in the middle) of the room description. 

• Set 1: Caverns of the Dead (1984) - (Artist: Gary Chalk) - This map depicted a typical dungeon and came with an extra A4 map of the region of Koss.
  
  
• Set 2: Nightmare in Blackmarsh (1984) - (Artist: by Albie Fiore and Robert Neville) - This set was part of a waterside village called Blackmarsh.

Set 1: Caverns of the Dead	Set 2: Nightmare in Blackmarsh

Dungeon Floor Plans (Artist Uncredited) - Designed in the same style as the Dungeon Planner series and based on the original Dungeons and Dragons Floorplans tile design.  The latter sets included an overlayed cross grid to aid movement which was also used in the Judge Dredd RPG floorplans which were included in the boxed game.  This series included: 

• Dungeon Floor Plans (1982) - 12 Sheets of generic dungeon floors including;  4 sheets of grey "crazy paved" stone floor, 3 sheets of beige flagstone floors, 1 sheet of wooden floors and 1 sheet of stone steps.
  
  
• Dungeon Floor Plans 2 (1982) - 12 Sheets of exterior floors including; 3 sheets of grass, trees and Hedges, 3 sheets of water, 2 sheets of grey corridor features, 2 sheets of beige and 2 sheets of beige flagstone floors.
  
  
• Dungeon Floorplans 3 (1983) - 12 Sheets of exterior features including; 4 sheets of roof tiles, 2 sheets of roof junctions, 2 sheets of timber features, two sheets of boats and two sheets of stone/dirt features.
  
  
• Dungeon Floorplans 4 (1984) - 12 coloured sheets including; 5 rocky cavern floor Three Tunnel and Cavern walls 2 sheets of junctions openings and corners, 1 sheet of Cave features and 1 sheet of mine rails, rail junctions and accessories such as wagons, wheelbarrows and buffers.

Dungeon Floor Plans	Dungeon Floor Plans 2
Dungeon Floor Plans 3	Dungeon Floor Plans 4

DUNGEON Floor Plans (Games Workshop) - The previous sets released by GW all had a very flat feel to them, being at most 3 spot colours and no attempt was made to light, shadow or texture them.  The next floorplans series attempted to fix that and hence moved to a full colour printing process but the lack of a defined grid made them far less useful for roleplay even though they were very pretty.  The series was made up of:

• Dungeon Floor Plans 1 (1986) - (unknown artist) - A re-imagineering of the 1982 set with full colour artwork including doors and furniture.
  
  
• Dungeon Caverns (1986) - (Artist: Dave Andrews) - 12 Sheets of Caverns including 3 cavern floors, 1 cavern floor with stream, 3 curved cavern tunnels, 1 straight cavern tunnel with mine rails, 2 junctions 1 entrance and 1 sheet of cavern features such as steps, planks, treasure and weapons and a magma river.
   
• Dungeon Rooms (1986) - (Artists: Tony Ackland, Dave Andrews, Colin Dixon) - 12 sheets including 23 rooms: Torture Chamber, Necromancer's Study, Armoury, Temple, Bedroom, Mausoleum, Apothecary, Guardroom and Cell, Treasure Room, Throne Room, Alchemist's Laboratory, Orc's Den, Wizard's Study, Great Hall, Forge, Kitchen, Barracks, Mortuary, Gladiatorial Pit, Library, Large Stairwell, Magic Well, Dragon's Lair plus Corridors and Passageways.
  
  
• Dungeon Lairs (1987) - (Artists: Dave Andrews, Colin Dixon) - 10 sheets of monster lairs including: Sewers, Tunnel Complex, Troll Cave, Chaos Cavern, Chaos Temple, Ancient Temple, Barrow, Goblin Hall, Mossy Cave, Tree Root Cavern, Water Filled Cave, Ice Cavern Chaos Throne Room.

Dungeon Floor Plans 1	Dungeon Caverns
Dungeon Rooms	Dungeon Lairs

Role-Play Floor Plans (Playtwice Ltd)  - I have one sheet (I have no idea when or where I acquired it) from one of the two sets published and they mimicked the Dungeon Floor Plans Set 1 but were slightly more colourful.  No lighting effects were present but you did get a good spread of floor accessories as can be seen in this period advert from Adventurer Magazine.

Other NoteableFloorplans from the Era

• Halls Of Horror: Gothic Floor Plans (Games Workshop 1986) - (Artists: uncredited) - Although not technically in the "DUNGEON Floor Plans" series these came out at the same time and were squarely marketed at Call of Cthulhu players even though GW did not brand them as such (probably due to licensing issues).  12 Sheets of floorplans depicting a gothic mansion including 11 Rooms; Hall, Dining Room, Kitchen, Conservatory, Laboratory, Guest Bedroom, Drawing Room, Library, Scullery, Attic or Cellar, Master Bedroom, Bathroom and 2 sheets of accessories including 2 cars, staircases sarcophagi and some
  corpses.
  
  
• Heroquest (Games Workshop / MB Games 1989) - This boardgame featured a big full colour dungeon which although it has some unfavourable design characterstics it is still quite useable for smaller dungeons. 
  
  
• Advanced Heroquest (Games Workshop 1989) - Came with some really nice floorplans with jigsaw connectors so they didn't slide all over the place.  Far nicer and more useable than the DUNGEON Floor Plans which GW released 3 years earlier.
  
  
• Judge Dredd: Slaughter Margin (Games Workshop 1986) - (Artist: Dave Andrews) - A campaign scenario boxset which included 8 A3 playsheets depicting scenes from the scenario but designed to be quite generic and 3 sheets of accessories like furniture and machinery.
   
  
• Judge Dredd: Citi-Block (Games Workshop 1987) - (Artist: Dave Andrews) - 8 A3 Floorplans representing an open area, park, entrance plaza, office units, helipad/hover bus stop, 2 pipeway/corridors, and sky-rail station and 4 A4 sheets of cardstock vehicles, street furniture and machinery to populate your own Mega City block.  Fully compatible with the earlier Slaughter Margin and very useable for all manner of Sci-Fi games. 

Collecting Dungeon Floors

Despite the rise in popularity of digital roleplaying platfroms such as Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds, there is a large base of players still using analog floorplans.  As result the products above can command high prices for what is essentially pieces of cardboard.  If you are a completist that doesn't matter you just have to search for Dungeon Floors on eBay.

Next: E is for Elric of Melniboné

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:

image	image	image
image	image	image
image	image	image

---