I discovered that one of the free promo downloads this week was issue #49 from Challenge Magazine. Unlike the B'Tech RPG rules, I immediately downloaded a copy for perusal.
Challenge was the long-standing house organ for Game Designer's Workshop (GDW), but even in the death throes of gaming mag era, GDW always included material for other games, the only criteria was that the game was roughly sci-fi or supernatural in nature.
Issue #49 fulfills my needs with just the front cover of some special ops climbing a sea cliff, with an exploding cruiser in the waters below:
The mag starts off with Twilight: 2000. Pennsylvania Crude, is a organized scavenger scenario to extract oil from the Northern Tier of PA. Given all the Marcellus Shale natural gas drilling that's occuring today, I had to giggle a bit. Like most Twilight 2000, scenarios, it's pretty free-form, providing additional material for the Game Master to adapt and overcome his player's actions. The details on roads between Erie and Warren, PA are still accurate. Thanks PennDOT for keeping the roads in the same shape twenty years later, for better or for worse.
How To: Obtain Maps for Gaming is a nice pre-internet how to on where to find various types of maps. Again, it's still very valid today.
There are three MegaTraveller articles. One covering a certain sector in space, a scenario, and an article recommending special considerations when dealing with a pre-gunpowder civilization. I'll also include a 2300 AD scenario with this, as there is enough similarities despite different flavors.
There is a Space: 1889 article covering the trade city of Thymiamata, with a noticeable appearances of those pesky Yanks. Oh to have a group to play this with and an excuse for some Victorian Sci-Fi minis!
Rounding out the back end of the issue is are scenarios for Cyberpunk, GURPS: Space, Star Trek (FASA), Star Wars (d6), and freaking Renegade Legion, as well as notes for Paranoia and Morpheus!
While you would never see this level in any gaming mag (that's left) in the last ten years, the nostalgia totally kicked in looking at the ads. This was the March 1991 issue, so GDW was hawking the new Dark Conspiracy, Cadillacs and Dinosaurs, heck, Vampire (no Masquerade) was scheduled for Summer release!
What truly warmed the cockles of my heart was in the convention section:
LEHICON IV, March 15-17, at the George Washington Motor Lodge in Allentown, PA,
sponsored by the Lehigh Valley Gamers Association.
The only other amusing item of note was in the Briefs section (aka New Releases of Companies not called TSR). GDW had released the Desert Shield Fact Book, which was their best-selling item of all time. Twenty years later and we're STILL flubbing around in Iraq, but that's for a different blog.
I also perused the other freebies (there's over a thousand) on the the website. There's dozens of items the seem useful to anyone who's running a consistent fantasy rpg. Free pdfs mean no buyers remorse, even if it is junk, and you can print out what pages you want and not lug around another book.
The direct link for the free issue: http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/advanced_search_result.php?keywords=challenge+magazine+49&quicksearch=1&search_filter=0_0_0_0&filters=0_0_0_0&search_free=&search_in_description=1&search_in_author=1&search_in_artist=1&x=9&y=0
You will need to register to download, but otherwise, it's pretty painless.
Challenge was the long-standing house organ for Game Designer's Workshop (GDW), but even in the death throes of gaming mag era, GDW always included material for other games, the only criteria was that the game was roughly sci-fi or supernatural in nature.
Issue #49 fulfills my needs with just the front cover of some special ops climbing a sea cliff, with an exploding cruiser in the waters below:
The mag starts off with Twilight: 2000. Pennsylvania Crude, is a organized scavenger scenario to extract oil from the Northern Tier of PA. Given all the Marcellus Shale natural gas drilling that's occuring today, I had to giggle a bit. Like most Twilight 2000, scenarios, it's pretty free-form, providing additional material for the Game Master to adapt and overcome his player's actions. The details on roads between Erie and Warren, PA are still accurate. Thanks PennDOT for keeping the roads in the same shape twenty years later, for better or for worse.How To: Obtain Maps for Gaming is a nice pre-internet how to on where to find various types of maps. Again, it's still very valid today.
There are three MegaTraveller articles. One covering a certain sector in space, a scenario, and an article recommending special considerations when dealing with a pre-gunpowder civilization. I'll also include a 2300 AD scenario with this, as there is enough similarities despite different flavors.
There is a Space: 1889 article covering the trade city of Thymiamata, with a noticeable appearances of those pesky Yanks. Oh to have a group to play this with and an excuse for some Victorian Sci-Fi minis!
Rounding out the back end of the issue is are scenarios for Cyberpunk, GURPS: Space, Star Trek (FASA), Star Wars (d6), and freaking Renegade Legion, as well as notes for Paranoia and Morpheus!
While you would never see this level in any gaming mag (that's left) in the last ten years, the nostalgia totally kicked in looking at the ads. This was the March 1991 issue, so GDW was hawking the new Dark Conspiracy, Cadillacs and Dinosaurs, heck, Vampire (no Masquerade) was scheduled for Summer release!
What truly warmed the cockles of my heart was in the convention section:
LEHICON IV, March 15-17, at the George Washington Motor Lodge in Allentown, PA,
sponsored by the Lehigh Valley Gamers Association.
The only other amusing item of note was in the Briefs section (aka New Releases of Companies not called TSR). GDW had released the Desert Shield Fact Book, which was their best-selling item of all time. Twenty years later and we're STILL flubbing around in Iraq, but that's for a different blog.
I also perused the other freebies (there's over a thousand) on the the website. There's dozens of items the seem useful to anyone who's running a consistent fantasy rpg. Free pdfs mean no buyers remorse, even if it is junk, and you can print out what pages you want and not lug around another book.
The direct link for the free issue: http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/advanced_search_result.php?keywords=challenge+magazine+49&quicksearch=1&search_filter=0_0_0_0&filters=0_0_0_0&search_free=&search_in_description=1&search_in_author=1&search_in_artist=1&x=9&y=0
You will need to register to download, but otherwise, it's pretty painless.
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