The Beauty of the "Non-House" Role Playing Game Magazine
The Introduction to a Series
Why a Series on Non-House RPG Magazines?
You know what I love? I love zines and magazines that focus on the role playing game hobby as a whole rather than being merely house products. While there is some utility in a house magazine when it comes to promoting a company’s products, the non-house magazine grows the entire hobby and introduces people to new genres, mechanics, and ideas.
One of the reasons that D&D overwhelmingly dominates the mainstream consumer market is that there aren’t any mass market magazines discussing the more obscure games in the hobby. There are a ton of great small magazines, some like
are funded via Kickstarter, that discuss the hobby as a whole, but no real mass market magazine that discusses games outside of “Big D&D.” Even the most popular streaming shows like Critical Role (which once played Pathfinder) either focus on D&D or their own house games.One might say, and one often does, that D&D is “where the money’s at” and that if they don’t focus on D&D then there will be no market for them. As true as it is, and it is true, it’s also a self fulfilling prophecy. Sometimes we have to jump out of the comfort of an existing market and push to create another one. What was interesting about the early days of the hobby is two of the biggest companies in the hobby published magazines that promoted not just their own products but the hobby as a whole.
TSR’s Dragon Magazine was a great D&D and TSR Magazine, but it also featured advertisements, reviews, and articles about other games. Games Workshop’s White Dwarf was a cornucopia of articles on a wide variety of games and companies, with shockingly few articles about Games Workshop products.
When TSR imploded in the mid-90s, the old Dragon Magazine died. The “resurrected” Dragon that was published by Wizards of the Coast became more and more of a house organ and by 4th edition was solely devoted to D&D. Eventually, the magazine died completely. I like D&D Beyond a lot, but the articles on the website are a poor replacement for even the house organ version of Dragon.
By the late 80s, Games Workshop’s glorious and diverse White Dwarf became a pure house organ. As much as that saddened me that the magazine became a mere marketing tool, I have to admit that 90s to early 00s White Dwarf was the pinnacle example of how to do a house organ magazine. Not only did the magazine promote Games Workshop games, it had Battle Reports, playtest rules, scenarios, painting guides, mini-games and more. The only problem was that they were all in service to the GW brand rather than the hobby as a whole.
I understand the mentality that makes one shift from being a market sector magazine to a house organ as a market matures, but in many ways the role playing game market hasn’t fully matured and we are still in a place where a rising tide can raise all ships (including the big brand) via a market magazine.
The purpose of this series of articles, which will like my other series be published intermittently as the mood strikes me, is to highlight great examples of non-house magazines. After I get far enough along in the series, I’ll begin to do some deep dives into the articles within the magazines and examine them in detail, but for now I’d just like to introduce some of the attempts to provide broad based market sector focused role playing game magazines.
I’ve already named the big two, so they won’t be the focus of this first entry. Instead, I’d like to begin with a start up that isn’t as well known as many of the other industry magazines. It’s one that can be hard to find, though when you do find it the cost isn’t prohibitive.
Let’s talk about Adventure Gaming.
Back in the obfuscating mists of lore in the year 1981 Tim Kask launched the first issue of Adventure Gaming magazine. The magazine was dedicated to the entire gaming hobby and is currently available in pdf form from the publisher. The magazine launched just as two of the largest "Industry Magazines" (Dragon and White Dwarf) were beginning their slow migration from magazines that covered the entire hobby and into house magazines that covered primarily the products offered by the company publishing the magazine. Tim Kask had been the editor of (The) Dragon for the first 34 issues of the magazine and was highly qualified to launch a new magazine for the growing hobby. Unlike the two previously mentioned magazines, and magazines like Space Gamer, Tim's new venture wouldn't limit what kinds of games it covered. To quote Tim from his "Off the Wall" editorial:
Do you really plan to cover it all? You betcha, Buffalo Bob! The lines that used to separate the types of gamers are becoming more blurred. The amount of crossover interest and participation has never been greater. There can be no disputing the fantasy phenomenon erased a number of those lines, as well as gave the industry an incredible boost in interest in sales. Fantasy remains the dominant force in the industry today, but all areas are showing increased interest and sales. We plan to accurately reflect the hobby whatever direction it may take.
The words that Tim wrote in 1981 were true, but they weren't sufficiently true for him to launch a successful magazine that lasted years. Adventure Gaming published only 13 issues. As a fan of the hobby as a whole, I find this to be a great loss.
Magazines are one of the best ways for modern fans to learn the history of the hobby. They are the primary way we can cut through the "common knowledge" and assumptions about the history of the hobby we so often encounter in conversations across fandom. If you read the article in Fire & Movement magazine about the TSR/SPI merger you get quite a different picture than what you hear from former SPI employees. That merger doesn't look to be a clean merger from either side, and one wonders if TSR's attempt to acquire IP while avoiding debt obligations that would have been demanded during bankruptcy wasn't poorly communicated. It certainly created bad blood, and TSR may have been being too "creative" for their own good.
Add to that the state of nature-esque competitiveness of that growing market, and modern gaming historians are poorer for the fact that magazines like Adventure Gaming, Space Gamer, and Different Worlds didn't do better outside their regional spheres of influence.
Let's just have a look at what ADVENTURE GAMING #1 had to offer:
Scepter & Starship -- A Traveller Variant article. Note that Traveller had a very successful Kickstarter over 20 years after this issue’s publication and is still going strong and sold on DriveThruRPG.
Starting Over: Some Points to Consider Concerning New FRPG Campaigns -- A good how to start a campaign article.
The Joys of Napoleonic Wargaming -- Here you begin to see the breadth of the magazine's coverage.
Reflections -- A "Gamer POV" article about the hobby.
The Adventures of space Trader Vic -- One of the obligatory cartoons.
Campanile -- A column by Kathleen Pettigrew that was a gamer opinion column.
CIVILIZATION: A Game Review -- What it says.
What Makes a Player Good? A DM's View -- An article that looks at a topic that is often under evaluated, that of what players can do to make a better game experience.
Heroic Combat in DIVINE RIGHT -- A cool variant rules article by one of the designers of the game.
Away to the Wars! -- A variant for the KNIGHTS OF CAMELOT game.
Cangames 81 and Canadian Gaming by John Hill -- Yes, that John Hill of SQUAD LEADER fame.
NPCs are People Too! -- An article on how to give more personality to NPCs.
On Being a Gamemaster -- A GM advice column.
Any News of the Questing Beast? -- An overview of KNIGHTS OF CAMELOT
Whither Boardgames -- A column dedicated to the discussion of boardgaming and about how RPGs are hurting boardgame sales and how boardgaming still has value.
It's a pretty interesting lineup and one that I want to examine further in the future.
If you are all interested, I’ll do a follow up article (not this week) digging into individual articles that interest me. I’d also like to know if there are any other magazines (as I continue this series) that you’d like me to crack open and explore.
If you answered that you would like me to dig into the content of Adventure Gaming articles, are there any genres you would prefer me to cover? Please respond with thoughts in the comments.
I remember very clearly the editorial in White Dwarf which stated explicitly that it was becoming a trade magazine for GW. Whatever else one may say about that decision, one can’t say they hid their intentions.
If you ever cover ‘Role Player Independent’ and manage to track down the editor, tell him he still owes me for the two ‘Call of Cthulhu’ articles of mine they published in 1994 😐
As a reader of Role Player Independent and a user of many of the Cthulhu articles published there, I'd like to say thanks! They were much appreciated!