THROWBACK THURSDAY: Different Worlds

Forget your White Dwarf and your Dragon, for me the only role-playing magazine during the 1980s was Different Worlds (originally published by Chaosium, the Call of Cthulhu people).

Different Worlds was the first gaming magazine that really understood the fun of the hobby, emphasising wild ideas and story over the technical details.

Sure, it ran its fair share of house rules, character class suggestions, magical variants etc, although nothing that compared to, say, White Dwarf's Monster Mark grading system - the dread precursor of the whole "balanced encounter" nonsense that dominates modern, corporate-led gaming products.

Does anyone else remember the Monster Mark system? It was some scientific formula to grade and compare monsters, based on their statistics, that would have make Stephen Hawkin's head spin!

Of course, White Dwarf has survived as the monthly catalogue of Games Workshop - ditching its roleplaying content - and The Dragon survived for a while as the organ of Wizards of The Coast's Third Edition/d20 empire, packed to the gills with power combos and winning strategies like a video game magazine; so I guess there's an object lesson there...

Did it see 4th and 5th edition? Honestly, I can't remember.

However, Different Worlds wasn't about the crunch, it was about the story - and if needs be the rules needed to add a little narrative sparkle to your game: for instance one issue I picked up from eBay had an article on using HP Lovecraft himself as a character in your Call of Cthulhu game!

Early issues ran a semi-regular feature called My Life And Role-Playing where industry folk (gentleman hobbyists all, not number crunchers) would recount how they had gotten into the business, often with interesting insights and stories from their own games and campaigns.

As well as Runequest and Cthulhu - Chaosium's own systems - the magazine ran articles on games which are now quite obscure, but still fondly remembered by us "old timers", such as Arduin, Tunnels & Trolls, Villains & Vigilantes and Bunnies & Burrows.

Looking back at my modest collection, there is an innocence and enthusiasm about Different Worlds that made it stand out from the crowd.

The only magazine I can recall that came close to capturing the same spirit was Arcane, the short-lived British publication which vanished from the shelves an issue after I finally decided to subscribe to it!

THROWBACK THURSDAY: My Life and Humanoid Ducks In Roleplaying Games

Part of the reason for my passionate support for Darcy Perry's wonderful DuckQuest roleplaying game - and why I backed several of his anthropomorphic duck-related miniatures Kickstarters - stretches right back to my earliest days of gaming.

In the late '70s and early '80s the bulk of my long-form (rather than random one-shot) gaming was with Gublin, a friend who lived five doors down the road from me.

Although created for a specific Dungeons & Dragons adventure at our local gaming club, my enduring character from those days was a female half-elf fighter/cleric/magic-user called Staghind, who enjoyed a storied adventuring career, before becoming a queen of her own nation and retiring.

At some stage in her life she adopted an anthropomorphic duck called Quincy as one of her many children and he taught her Quack Fu. Or she was taught Quack-Fu by a master and then she adopted Quincy. My memory from those days is like Swiss Cheese!

My ideas about humanoid ducks were entirely shaped by reading Steve Gerber's bonkers Howard The Duck comics, rather than RuneQuest (which officially introduced ducks into the roleplaying consciousness).

This is also why I have a copy of this issue framed and hanging on the wall in our lounge with other key comics from my years of collecting and reading. 

Not just because of the incredible impact it had on me as a nascent comic book reader, exposing me to the gonzo possibilities of the medium, but also for the influence it had on me as a fledgling gamer.

Whilst my anthropomorphic duck gaming ended rather abruptly with Staghind's retirement, the concept endured with the help of one of my mum's delightfully random fandoms.

Once I was of working age (and writing nonsense for the local paper), my mum somehow became a massive fan of the late '80s kids cartoon Count Duckula, so I used my salary to ensure she had an extensive collection of VHS tapes and annuals (as that was the only merch available at the time).

These days duck characters can be found roleplayng games such as Dragonbane (from Free League Publishing), where they are called "mallards", and Twilight Sword (yes, this was a deciding factor in me backing this game).

In the latter game the duck kin are also known as "mallards" and were available, in print form (as a set of cards), as an early bird sweetener to entice backers to get the ball rolling on the crowdfunding campaign.

I hesitated and missed out on this bonus "kin", but understand it will still be available to all backers as a PDF. I can't NOT have ducks as a playable race in my version of Twilight Sword!