Barbarian Prince – Ultimate Edition

Many readers of this blog will no doubt already be familiar with the classic "solitaire game of heroic adventure in a forgotten age of barbarism and sorcery," Barbarian Prince. Originally published in 1981 by Dwarfstar Games, a division of Heritage Models, it was designed by none other than Arnold Hendrick, whose early review of OD&D is the stuff of legends. At its initial release, Barbarian Prince was very well received and continues to be highly regarded to this day. Those unfamiliar with the game – or no longer possessing a copy – are directed here for complete (and completely legal) electronic files of its components, along with those of other Dwarfstar games.

According to this thread – thanks to Jacob Houck for pointing it out to me – Simon Cogan, a fan of the original game since his teenage years, is in the process of putting together an "ultimate edition" with expanded events and optional rules, as well as fixing a few errors and omissions from the original. Back in 2021, Cogan was responsible for producing a 40th anniversary edition of Barbarian Prince, so this is not new territory for him. This "director's cut" of the game will be released on August 26 in a fashion similar to his previous 40th anniversary version. 

Though not official or endorsed by Dwarfstar Games, I'm nevertheless quite curious about what Cogan has in store. He's been posting weekly updates of his work on the thread linked above. Check it out if you're interested.

Different Worlds: Issue #18

Issue #18 (January 1982) features a very striking cover by Kevin C. Ellis, which presages the issue's heavy science fictional content. The first example of this content is Paul Montgomery Crabaugh's "Swords on Deck." It's a very short article focusing on melee combat in Traveller, offering expanded rules for archaic weapons like swords and animal attacks. A second Traveller article immediately follows, "Changes for Trillion Credit Squadron" by Doug Houseman. Houseman reflects on the first year of GDW's Trillion Credit Squadron convention tournaments and makes some suggestions on how its rules could be changed in light of what he has observed. 

More science fiction content follows, in the form of another article by Crabaugh, this one for Heritage's Star Trek: Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier. His article, called "Beyond the Final Frontier," provides seven pages of new and expanded rules for use with the game. It's a very good article, filled with many good ideas. Within a year, though, FASA would produce its own Star Trek roleplaying game and Heritage's version would become a forgotten relic of the early days of the hobby. John Sapienza follows up Crabaugh with an in-depth study of the Star Trek miniatures available from Citadel. 

Sapienza is the author of a second article, "Is It Magic? What Does It Do?" This is a D&D variant on how to handle the detect magic spell. As with many such variants, what Sapienza offers is more detail and complexity through the use of a series of random tables. I have mixed feelings about such variants. On the one hand, I recognize that some campaigns genuinely benefit from such elaboration; on the other hand, I've personally found the opposite to be the case. Henry J. Padilla's "Starfreighter Athena" presents a well-armed merchant vessel for use with Traveller, including a set of deckplans. Mart Connel's "Fast Towns" harnesses the idea of chronographs – graphic representations of how long it takes to travel between points on a map – to aid the referee in quickly generating towns for use in a fantasy roleplaying game. An interesting idea! Meanwhile, Patrick Amory's "How to Design Cities" looks to history and geography as a guide toward its titular purpose.

 "The Tale of the Jolly Soldier" by Ken Rolston is a lengthy, non-Gloranthan scenario for use with RuneQuest. Greg Stafford reviews the infamous Fantasy Wargaming under the title "Another Editorial Blunder." Its a lengthy – and brutal – review and deservedly so, I think. That said, Fantasy Wargaming remains one of those objectively awful RPGs with which I nevertheless retain a weird fascination and even fondness. The majority of this issue's other reviews are science fictional, most focused on Traveller, like Ordeal by Eshaar, High Passage, Simba Safari, and Action Aboard. It's a reminder of just how significant Traveller once was in the RPG world that so many products could be published to support it. 

Gigi D'Arn's column includes a report about the ongoing legal disputes between Metagaming's Howard Thompson and Steve Jackson. This is something of which I was not aware at the time, so I find these contemporary accounts intriguing. D'Arn also notes that, when the economy is bad, sales of games tend to rise, as people stop traveling and instead stay home to do things with close friends and family. Consequently, she predicts that 1982 will be a good year for the hobby. 

Given my science fictional predilections, I really enjoyed issue #18 of Different Worlds. Even so, I also think this is one of the best issues published to date, filled with plenty of good and useful articles. I hope it presages more to come.

Different Worlds: Issue #8

Issue #8 of Different Worlds (June/July 1980) features a cover by Steve Oliff and opens with an article by Robert Harder entitled "Teaching Role-Playing," another entry in the continuing "Better Game Mastering" series. Despite its title, the article is not about how to teach someone to play a RPG but rather about the process of becoming and developing one's skills as a Game Master. I have a fondness for these kinds of articles, especially older ones, since they sometimes offer unique perspectives on the art of refereeing. Harder has a number of worthy insights to share, including his emphasis a gaming session as a "social gathering" and his belief that a session "should not exceed three hours." The latter point is one I feel very keenly these, though I would never have accepted it in my youth, when four to six hours – or longer – was a more common length.

John T. Sapienza has written D&D variant article called "Sleep vs. Mixed Parties." Sapienza's concern is that, as written, the sleep spell is difficult to adjudicate against enemies with mixed hit dice. Consequently, he proposes rewriting the spell to be both clearer and somewhat less powerful, while also leaving the door open to higher-level versions of the spell. I don't have much to say about Sapienza's specific point, but I will say that I generally appreciate seeing articles like this, since they reflect a culture of play and reveal the idiosyncrasies of individual referees. To my mind, this is where roleplaying lives and it ought to be applauded.

"Alien and Starships & Spacemen" by Leonard Kanterman is a both a review of the 1979 science fiction film, Alien, and a scenario inspired by it for use with the aforementioned RPG. It's fine for what it is, though it's very grim for a game inspired by the original series of Star Trek. John T. Sapienza re-appears with another article, "Talent Tables," intended as a follow-up to his "Developing a Character's Appearance" piece in issue #5. This article is in a similar vein, providing a D1000 table that confers minor (+1 or +2) bonuses in a wide variety of situations to characters. For my tastes, it's a lot of unnecessary work for very little mechanical benefit, but, again, I think articles like this arose out of the play of individual campaigns and, for that reason alone, I have a certain affection for them nonetheless. Sapienza also penned a review of four RPG products from a company called Bearhug Game Accessories. The products are a series of counters for keeping track of equipment and treasure – an idea I've seen in other contexts and that definitely has something to recommend it.

Lewis Pulsipher's "Defining the Campaign: Game Master Styles" is an overview of the kinds of decisions a referee must make in describing his campaign, such its degrees of believability, risk, reward, the extent to which the referee is truly impartial, and so on. Pulsipher does a good job, I think, of outlining many of the big questions. Simon Magister's "Composite Bows" is a historical article about the development and use of these weapons and interesting if you're into this kind of thing. There's a review of Heritage's Dungeon Dwellers line of miniatures by – guess who? – John T. Sapienza. I didn't own many of this line, but I enjoy retrospectives on old school minis like this; they're a terrific blast of nostalgia.

Anders Swenson provides a very positive review of the D&D module The Keep on the Borderlands. Ron Weaver's "Zelan the Beast" is a Gloranthan cult for RuneQuest. Dave Arneson and Steve Perrin review the two volumes of Walter William's Tradition of Victory Age of Fighting Sale wargame and RPG. Perrin also reviews Advanced Melee and Wizard by Steve Jackson, both of which he highly praises. Lee Gold, meanwhile, describes "How I Designed Land of the Rising Sun," her RPG of feudal Japan. This is a fine article, since Gold talks not just about how she designed the game's rules but also the process of research, writing, and rewriting that led to the game's final form – very fascinating stuff! "Alignment on Trial" by David R. Dunham is exactly what you'd expect: another entry in the hoary genre of why alignment is too simple/limited/inadequate/just plain dumb. To be fair to Dunham, his perspective is more nuanced than that, though it does at times have the air of a teenager reading philosophy for the first time and suddenly thinking he's thought things no other human has ever thought. 

The issue ends with Gigi D'Arn's column, filled, as ever, with terrific tidbits from gaming's past. For example, it notes that the three volumes of Dave Hargrave's Arduin series have sold 40,000 copies! Not bad. There's also a reference to TSR's ending of its exclusive distribution arrangement with Games Workshop, no doubt a prelude to the establishment of TSR UK. Apropos recent discussions, Gigi notes that the name of SPI's then-upcoming fantasy RPG had run into a trademark snag with Martian Metals, which is not what I was expecting to read. There's also mention that school board of Heber City, Utah has "chucked D&D" (whatever that means in this case) because "townspeople found it un-Christian, communistic, liable to leave players open to Satanic influence, etc." I've said before that I never personally experienced much pushback against RPGs because of their supposed Satanism, but it was apparently a very real thing in some places and this is evidence of that, I guess.

In any case, Different Worlds is clearly growing more confident and interesting. I very much enjoyed this issue and will be curious to see where the magazine goes in future issues.

Different Worlds: Issue #7

Issue #7 of Different Worlds (April/May 1980) features a cover by Cora L. Healy, an artist known for her work on science fiction periodicals throughout the 1970s and early '80s. The issue proper begins with an installment of the "Beginner's Brew" column that lists "all the more popular role-playing games (RPGs) and magazines available." The games and magazines are divided up by publisher, sixteen for RPGs and fourteen for magazines. There are also fifteen miniatures manufacturers listed. The list are interesting, most especially for the "forthcoming" games mentioned, such as Chaosium's Dark Worlds and Elric RuneQuest and Heritage USA's Heroes of Middle Earth. 

"Ten Days in the Arena of Khazan" by Ken St. Andre is a seven-page outline of a campaign for use with Tunnels & Trolls. More than that, though, it's an overview of a portion of the game's setting of Trollworld, with lots of interesting tidbits about its history and peoples. I really enjoyed this article, because it gave me some insight into what it's like to play in St. Andre's home campaign, a topic that never ceases to interest me. 

I find it hard to disagree with Richard L. Snider's effusive review of Cults of Prax, one of the truly great RPG supplements of all time. He rightly deems it "the best extant cosmology designed for use with any FRP" – which was probably true in 1980 and, even today, it stands head and shoulders above most other treatments of similar topics. "Gloranthan Birthday Tables" by Morgan O. Woodward III is a series of random tables to determine when a Gloranthan character is born, with special attention given to those during Sacred Time (and the special abilities that might come from such an auspicious birth). 

Part two of the "Vardy Combat System" by John T. Sapienza appears in this issue. A variant combat system for use with Dungeons & Dragons, this article provides expanded rules and tables for handling parries, shields, hit points, and more. What I appreciate about the system is that it strives to be genuinely compatible with D&D's existing combat system rather than simply replacing it. The article even offers a further option that uses D20 rolls rather than percentile ones, for even further compatibility. As I said previously, I have not tested this system and have no idea how well it works in practice, but, from reading it, I think it might be worthy testing out in play.

"Foundchild Cult" by Sandy Petersen is a cult for use with RuneQuest and its setting of Glorantha. Meanwhile. Steve Perrin reviews In the Labyrinth by Steve Jackson. Perrin thinks very highly of the game, his main complaint being that, like Tunnels & Trolls before it, allows characteristics to increase as a character gains experience, something that he thinks inevitably leads to an "incredibly strong, lightning fast, cosmically intelligent character who seems to have stepped directly from the pages of Marvel or DC Comics." I think that's a fair criticism and one of the reasons I prefer the more grounded approach taken by many older RPGs. 

James M. Ward offers "Power Groups and Player Characters in RPGs," in which he talks specifically about the importance of factions in a campaign. He then provides examples from his home Metamorphosis Alpha campaign, showing how the characters became involved with them and how this involvement affected the development of the campaign. It's a solid, though short, article, covering a topic that is increasingly near and dear to my heart. "Two from Grenadier" by John T. Sapienza is a lengthy, five-page article that reviews in detail two AD&D boxed sets from Grenadier Models, Woodland Adventurers and Tomb of Spells. His review is quite positive overall and a nice bit of nostalgia for me, since I once owned both of the boxed sets in question.

"System Snobbery" by Larry DiTillio is an early entry in the now well-worn genre of "there are no bad RPGs, just bad GMs" articles. It's fine for what it is; its main interest to me was DiTillio's recounting of his experience with various GMs over the years. Gigi D'Arn's gossip column this month mentions the departure of Tim Kask from the editorship of Dragon and eludes to "dubious circumstances." There's further mention of a D&D movie, as well as a reference to something called the "AD&D Companion," a collection of variants for use with D&D and AD&D. I suspect this is either simply untrue or a garbled rumor of something like the Best of Dragon anthology, the first of which did appear in 1980. Concluding the issue is "Oriental Weapons for RuneQuest" by Sean Summers, with additional material by Steve Perrin. It's pretty much what you'd expect for this type of article, a staple of the '70s and '80s, when all things Asian were the rage in RPG circles.

Retrospective: Dungeon Floors

I have a conflicted relationship with miniatures. On the one hand, they played a big role in drawing me deeper into the hobby. Seeing painted minis used at local games days was a huge thrill. Even seeing unpainted ones in the display glass cases at the hobby shops I frequented fired my young imagination. My friends and I would spend a lot of time staring at these tiny metal figures and discussing which ones most looked like player and non-player characters in our campaigns. 

I bought quite a boxes of Grenadier miniatures, as well as loose figures by Ral Partha and others. I tried my hand at painting them, but never developed any significant skill at it. Consequently, most of my miniatures remained unpainted. Despite this, my friends and I did make some use of them, typically for representing marching order and similar mundane purposes. 

That changed somewhat when I came across Dungeon Floors by Heritage USA. Dungeon Floors contained a collection of set of cards on which had been printed stone and wooden floor pieces, in addition to stairs, doors, and other furnishings. By cutting them apart, the cards could be arranged in any number of ways, thereby creating the layout of a dungeon or other adventure locale. 

This was a revelation to me at the time. I had previously seen photos of gamers who had constructed elaborate three-dimensional dungeons for use with their miniatures, but I can't recall ever encountering them "out in the wild," so to speak. Even if I had, I lacked the talents and resources to make such dungeons. Thus, the appearance of Dungeon Floors was a godsend. I went through a brief but intense love affair with this product, which I supplemented with additional pieces I made out of cardboard. I'm almost embarrassed to admit it, but, until I came across this little box, I had never really considered the idea of using cardboard geomorphs scaled to 25mm miniatures. Such a simple idea and yet it was beyond my adolescent mind!

My love affair was Dungeon Floors eventually ended, not because of the floors themselves, which served me well. Rather, the issue was that I didn't have enough miniatures, nor did I have the "right" ones. If I were going to make good use of Dungeon Floors, I'd need figures to represent all the monsters they characters would encounter over the course of an adventure. Even had I unlimited money with which to buy these minis, I don't think it was possible at the time to find figures for every creature or opponent I had in mind. This realization took the wind out of my sails when it came to using miniatures or dungeon floors. I drifted away from both and only in recent years have I begun experimenting with them again.

It's a pity, because I continue to see the appeal of visual representations in an adventure. I simply lack the skills or, frankly, finances needed to support such an approach to the hobby. Fortunately, there are inexpensive alternatives, like the Cardboard Heroes line from Steve Jackson Games. I also understand that 3D printing is becoming better and less expensive, though, again, I have no real experience with it. For now, I'll stick with the "theater of the mind" approach I've been using for years, though part of me will always look back wistfully on Dungeon Floors and imagine what it'd be like to use them again.

Retrospective: Barbarian Prince

One of the many odd phenomena of the glory days of the hobby was solitaire gaming. Many wargames and even RPGs, such as Traveller, touted their suitability for solo play, which, at the time, I found bizarre. Why would you want to play a game by yourself? Of course, this was back before computer and video games were widespread, but, even after they became more commonplace, I still tended to look on them as different than games that had physical components. Playing a game that had fold-out maps and cardboard counters by yourself struck me as almost perverse, especially since, back then, I never had any difficulty finding players for just about any game I really wanted to play.

Regardless, games like 1981's Barbarian Prince, while not commonplace, were common enough that I often saw them on store shelves. Designed by Arnold Hendrick and published by the miniatures company Heritage USA, Barbarian Prince was a solitaire game in which the player assumes the role of the dispossessed Cal Arath, rightful heir to the throne of the Northlands. The game centers on Cal's attempts to acquire 500 gold pieces in 10 weeks in order to raise an army to defeat those who usurped your place in the Northlands. The game comes with a keyed hex map that is used in conjunction with an events booklet to represent Cal's travels on his quest. In addition to acquiring treasure, the barbarian prince can also engage in combat, explore ruins, meet people, and many other things. There's a remarkable amount of depth to the game and, because of random factors, it's quite possible to play the game many times with each time being different.

On each of the 70 game days available to the player, he can choose to undertake several actions, from traveling to exploring to seeking audience with NPCs and more. Each of these actions takes a certain amount of time and effort and, owing to the aforementioned random factors, none are guaranteed to pay off. It's a bit like playing a mixture of a sandbox hexcrawl and a choose-your-own-adventure book, though it's not as heavily scripted as the latter. It's also a lot more difficult than in most choose-your-own-adventure books I remember reading, since, like many sandbox campaigns, there's no way to be sure that the ruin over the next hill isn't inhabited by foul demons beyond your ability to defeat. At the same time, you really can go anywhere (on the provided map) and do almost anything and Barbarian Prince is noteworthy for the wide variety of actions it covers in a fairly simple ruleset.

If you're the least bit curious about Barbarian Prince, you can download a legal copy for free here. Reaper Miniatures apparently holds the rights to Heritage USA's catalog of games, including this one, and has released them as freeware PDFs. I can't applaud them enough for this, both because they've decided to do this at no cost but also because they've made a classic game of the Golden Age of the hobby available to new generations of gamers. Too many great designs from days of yore languish in limbo because the person or, worse yet, corporation that owns them foolishly believes that they're inherently valuable and thus should only be released if they can find a way to profit from doing so. That's a shame on many levels, which is why Reaper deserves kudos for their actions with regard to Heritage USA's games.

Retrospective: Star Trek: Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier

Earlier this year, I talked about FASA's Star Trek: The Roleplaying Game and, more recently, about FGU's Starships & Spacemen. Each represented a different take, one official, one not, on Gene Roddenberry's brand of science fiction adventure in roleplaying form. However, they were not the only such takes in the early days of the hobby. In 1978, miniatures manufacturer, Heritage Models released a 40-page RPG to be used in conjunction with their line of official Star Trek miniatures. Called Star Trek: Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier, it was written by Michael Scott and is both the earliest licensed Trek RPG and one of the earliest science fiction RPGs of any kind.

As one would expect from a RPG with only 40 pages, Heritage's Star Trek is a very simple game. Indeed, its rules are so minimal that it's barely a game at all. The "basic game" does not have any character creation rules, assuming the players will select pregenerated PCs based on characters from the Original and Animated series. Like D&D, all characters have six abilities (Strength, Dexterity, Luck, Mentality, Charisma, Constitution), ranging in value from 3 to 18. Characters also have Hand-to-Hand (melee combat) and "Initiation" (i.e. initiative) abilities. There is no skill system; instead, a series of 3D6 rolls under abilities is used to handle most activities in which a character might engage, with Luck being used as a saving throw. Melee combat is based on opposed rolls, with a defender subtracting his result from the attacker's and positive numbers being used to determine damage, which is subtracted from a character's Constitution score. Ranged combat is a bit more complex and relies on a chart that cross-references a character's Dexterity score. There are also some very basic rules for equipment, such as communicators and medi-kits, as well as a sample scenario.

The Advanced Game enables players to create their own PCs by rolling 3D6, modified by bonuses or penalties based on species. There are two new abilities introduced here: Size and Movement. Psionics, which were treated simply through the use of a Mentality roll in the Basic Game, are given slightly greater coverage, including differentiation between types of psionic powers (the Basic Game included only a mindlink). Alien races and lifeforms from the series are given short write-up, along with rules for creating one's own. There's a similar collection of short descriptions for many types of equipment. The Advanced Game's combat rules are noteworthy primarily for being more "fiddly," particularly with regard to time and movement (hence the new stats). There are many more modifiers, in addition to rules for armor and shielding. There is a sample adventure for the Advanced Game, along with guidelines and advice to the "Mission Master" in creating his own.

All in all, Star Trek: Adventure Gaming in the Final Frontier is more a sketch of a roleplaying game than anything else. It's painted in very broad strokes, far moreso than even OD&D or Metamorphosis Alpha, two early games that often get knocked for their brevity and rules lacunae. Compared to Traveller or even Starships & Spacemen, both released the previous year, Star Trek doesn't seem to have much to recommend it beyond the fact that it was "official." Of course, my opinion clearly wasn't shared by all, as there were several interesting expansions to the game included in various gaming publications well into the early 80s, including a lengthy "mini-supplement" in issue 18 (January 1982) of Chaosium's Different Worlds by Paul Montgomery Crabaugh. Crabaugh's article greatly expands the rules of the game, adding mechanics for rank, experience, skills, aging, salaries, world generation, and warp travel. It's hard to imagine trying to use Star Trek without Crabaugh's expansions and, even then, there's still a lot of ground, such as starship combat, that isn't even touched upon.

I know nothing of the origins and history of this RPG; I never even saw a copy of it until comparatively recently. Nevertheless, I can't shake the feeling that it was created primarily to create a larger market for Heritage's miniatures line, thus explaining the greater detail given to things like movement and range in the Advanced Game. Remember that, in 1978, Star Trek, though popular in certain circles, was not yet the media franchise that it would become in the aftermath of its big screen adventures, the first of which was still a year away at the time of the RPG's release. That might well explain why Heritage never did much with the game and it became one of the great mysteries of the hobby, unknown to the vast majority of gamers, including those who love Star Trek. Of course, it might also be because the game isn't particularly good or memorable.

Retrospective: Swordbearer

The early 80s were a funny time in gaming, both for me personally and for the hobby generally. By "funny," I mean a combination of "interesting" and "unusual." Gaming, particularly fantasy gaming, was now firmly ensconced as a popular pastime, with everyone trying to cash in on the craze. And there was lots of experimentation with different rules, formats, styles of presentation, and so on.

The result was a kaleidoscope effect, making my visits to places like The Compleat Strategist simultaneously exhilarating and confusing. What were all these different games and which ones would I like? There were reviews in Dragon and White Dwarf, of course, as well as the opinions of the guys in the game store, but, even then, I knew that reviews didn't tell the whole story and that the opinions of reviewers didn't always jibe with my own preferences.

There was also the fact that, then as now, D&D exerted a strange effect over most gamers. By 1982, D&D was starting to feel a little "stale" to me and I was keen for new gaming horizons. It's not that I didn't play other RPGs -- I did, particularly Traveller and Call of Cthulhu -- but D&D was my introduction into the hobby and had left its mark on my imagination in a way no other game ever would. Consequently, even when I was looking to replace D&D with another game, D&D was still there in my mind. It was the game against which I was judging other games and I know now that that probably lessened my ability to give other RPGs the fair shake they deserved.

It was in this context that Swordbearer entered my life. I knew Heritage Models quite well, having purchased many of their miniatures and having enjoyed their Dwarfstar microgames like Barbarian Prince and Outpost Gamma (both of which, along with the rest of the line are available as free electronic downloads at this site, thanks to the kindness of their current copyright holder, Reaper Miniatures). So, when I saw this odd little boxed game, which proclaimed its contents to be "realistic, fast-playing, complete, expandable," I picked it up, hoping to find a game to cure my D&D malaise.

I read Swordbearer with great relish. Consisting of three landscape-format books of varying length (illustrated throughout with black and white art by the then-unknown Denis Loubet), Swordbearer wasn't quite what I expected. The game has no classes, being a skill-based one in which any character can conceivably learn any skill. The system isn't particularly complex by today's standards, but it seemed a fair bit more involved than D&D. That made it harder for me to get into it than I'd hoped, but I soldiered through nonetheless. The magic system is interesting and based on a node system that's inspired by a modified version of Asian elemental theory. There's also spirit magic that's based on the four humors of classical Western medicine.

What set Swordbearer apart, though, was its broader "social" focus than D&D. There were many, many more playable intelligent races, including the bunrabs, an obvious nod to designer Dennis Sustare's earlier Bunnies & Burrows RPG. This made it possible to create a campaign that felt very different than the implied pseudo-medieval setting of most of the fantasy RPGs with which I was familiar at the time. There were also rules about social status that tied into the game's abstract wealth system, as well as just what being a member of a particular social class meant in the context of the game world.

All of this may seem like old hat nowadays, but, in 1982, it was a revelation to me and it gave Swordbearer a "serious" feel to it that both impressed and frightened me at the same time. I very much wanted to play Swordbearer, but didn't think I was "good enough" a referee to do so, a feeling I'd also gotten from RuneQuest, another game I owned but never really managed to play. Looking back on it now, I feel bad I never had the chance to try out Swordbearer with my friends. I think, even though the gravitational pull of D&D ultimately proved irresistible, my gaming would have benefitted a lot from having had the chance to test out some of Swordbearer's innovations.

After my recent interview with its designer, I dusted off my copy from the garage and have begun re-reading it and it's quite the trip down memory lane. It's also sparking some ideas in my head that might see use in my Dwimmermount campaign. Copies of the game pop up on eBay fairly regularly and the ghost of Fantasy Games Unlimited (which published the game's second edition) sells both PDF and print copies here. You might consider picking up a copy, if only to see firsthand some of the diversity the gaming of the early 80s had. It really was a magical time, both for the hobby and the industry, and we shall not see its like again.