Just Sit Right Back and You’ll Hear a Tale… (Desert Island RPG’s List)

Right. Memes are a good way to ease back into blogging again. So here goes.

This has made the rounds lately. I found it on Superhero Necromancer for what it’s worth, so that’s who is getting the credit here.

The object is to simply pick your ten desert island role-playing games. I trust that in my exile on this desert island I have a decent group of players to participate in these games with me, otherwise it wouldn’t be much fun just reading the books over and over again. I suppose I could play them on my own, but then I’d end up talking to myself all day long, and it’d become a bit like Castaway then, wouldn’t it?

In no particular order, my desert island RPG’s are…

- Rules Cyclopedia Dungeons & Dragons by TSR
This is the best iteration of the ‘basic’ rules to take, I reckon. There’s so much stuff crammed into this single volume, it’s ridiculous. Easily one of my all-time favorite RPG books.

- Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay by Games Workshop
For a bit of grim fantasy, lethal combat, and for the fantastic job system (which doesn’t always work so well in actual play, but that’s what house rules are for… and come on, dwarven trollslayers!).

- Middle Earth Role Play by Iron Crown Enterprises
For even more lethal combat, but this time in Tolkien’s world. Would also be a handy reference guide if I got really bored and wanted to start writing Middle Earth fanfiction. The book is that detailed. Not that I really care for fanfiction at all (or have ever written any), but I’m stuck on a fucking desert island, you know?

- Ghostbusters by West End Games
This would fulfill my need for a comedy/lighthearted game every once in a while. The D6 system is brilliant, and it also helps that I’m a closet Ghostbusters fanboy (though I doubt I would dress up as one for Halloween like some people I know… ahem).

- Mutant Future by Goblinoid Games
Yeah, I’d actually give Mutant Future the nod over any edition of Gamma World. I guess I just love the Labyrinth Lord rules that much (which are the BD&D rules, more or less), and MF does a great job of taking those rules and applying them to a completely different setting. You need some magma plants and spider goats on your desert island, trust me.

- Call of Cthulhu by Chaosium
I’d be a total dick if I was the Keeper, too. I’d run a scenario that featured a tropical desert island, the Bermuda Triangle, a killer Cthulhu-mutated shark (ala Jaws), and a bunch of savage kids running around the island butchering everyone (ala Lord of the Flies).

- Star Frontiers by TSR
For a bit of straight space opera sci-fi. Never played Star Frontiers enough, so I suppose being stranded on this island would give me plenty of time to catch up on it.

- Paranoia (2nd edition) by West End Games
More lightheartedness, I suppose. This is for when we’ve been stuck on the island for a few years and are all starting to go a bit mad…

- Shadowrun (1st or 2nd edition) by FASA
A bit of cyberpunk mixed with fantasy for those days when I feel like I can understand what the hell William Gibson is talking about in his novels. I’d probably take Earthdawn with me too, but I already have enough straight fantasy on this list as it is…

- Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (2nd edition) by TSR
Yeah, I already have a version of D&D on here, but this one surely has enough differences to be considered its own game. Why 2nd edition? Because with all its campaign settings and source books, it became quite a versatile little game, and I’d totally cheat by sneaking Ravenloft and Planescape books onto the island with me. Ha!

I Miss Shadis

Warning: The following post is nothing more than a nostalgic whine. Proceed with caution.

Well, what can I say? I really miss Shadis magazine.

In case you missed it, Shadis: the Science Fiction and Fantasy magazine was this tiny little fanzine started in the early 90′s by one Jolly Blackburn, which eventually transformed into a small circulation magazine. It won the Origins Award three times, and perhaps most famously, it was the magazine in which Jolly, needing to fill in a couple of empty pages at the back of one issue, debuted his Knights of the Dinner Table comic strip as nothing more than a silly joke. KODT is still going strong to this day, and as far as I’m concerned remains the only humorous RPG-related comic worth a damn (sorry Dork Tower fans).

But this is not really about the Knights, although every time I do see a strip today it does bring back memories of seeing them in the back of the early issues of Shadis. I really just miss the magazine in general. It’s been gone for ten years now, so you’d think I’d have come to terms with its death, but alas, I think I’m still in a state of denial. Each issue was packed with useful subject matter for your games, thought provoking articles by a number of now more famous writers still involved with the hobby, and some really cool short stories of varied genres.

Of course, it didn’t have the production values of the more sleek rival Dragon, but the ‘homegrown’ look of Shadis only added to the charm. I always got the sense that Shadis readers didn’t gravitate towards it for the pretty pictures, anyway. I personally liked it because it gave off the perception that it wasn’t a loyalist to any one game company; it reviewed and covered the new products on the market equally and fairly. That, and it seemed to feature content for damn near every game under the sun. While I still read Dragon at the time and loved the D&D content, without Shadis I probably would have never been introduced to a heap of games — Shadowrun, Call of Cthulu, Vampire: The Masquerade, Castle Falkenstein, Toon, Cyberpunk 2020, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Middle-Earth Role Playing… the list goes on. The ‘little zine that could’ really broadened my horizons as far as the role-playing hobby is concerned.

I vividly recall an article from issue # 20.5 (a special wedged between 20 and 21) about a generic setting, the ghostly town of San Diablo, intended for use in a western RPG of your choice (too bad Aces & Eights was about eleven years away!). This is perhaps the only western RPG feature I’ve read that really, truly nailed the genre without tacking on silly science-fiction or horror elements for no good reason. Hell, I can’t even remember any other gaming magazine even attempting to go near the Old West.

This was also back before the rise of the internet, when play-by-mail games were all the rage for gamers who couldn’t get a proper fix in their location, so there was usually half a dozen ads in each issue promoting the latest play-by-mail game to hit the market. In fact, a forum page eventually developed (‘Market Platz‘), where folks could advertise whatever they wanted, those searching for a group, buy/sell/trade requests, convention promotion, or quaint little ads for a fledgling FLGS or two. Some issues came with free bonus content, like CD-ROM’s or small packs of Magic: The Gathering cards. Great incentives to buy the magazine (I realize that if you live in the UK, where a free CD is glued to the front of every other magazine on the rack, this is not such a big deal, but to those living in the States, outside of the computer mags, we are sadly deprived of these free gifts).

Ultimately, reading Shadis felt like a good substitute for yakking it up with folks at your FLGS (especially if you didn’t have one in town). There was a swathe of house rule articles that popped up in the ‘zine over the years, but it wasn’t just that. It was something organic, like you had a finger on the pulse of the hobby. It was a undefinable feeling, but you know what it reminds me of? The RPG blogosphere of today. Take a look around: you’ve got authors from the old and new schools (and some in-between) ranting and raving about many different games in many different genres, house rules left and right, campaign and convention reports, books, comics, films, nostalgia, humor, art… it’s turned into a great little community.

You can still buy select issues from certain RPG sites and the old ebay, but some of the prices, especially for the early issues, can be a little steep. Thankfully, RPGNow.com has some of the early issues for sale as PDF’s for very reasonable prices.