White Dwarf 193

It has been far too long since I wrote one of these (actually it's been even longer than that, given that I started this post and then abandoned it in order to start again). To be honest, the principle reason I have been avoiding them is that I have to go and scan a bunch of pages for pictures which drags out the publishing time of the posts.

But with White Dwarf monthly now officially dead as a concept, it feels like the right time to pursue this with an increased sense of vigour. While my collection doesn't extend to the end of the monthly magazine, I have dipped in and out frequently enough that I can pull together a representative sample of most eras of the magazine, even if I have to abandon the strictly once a year rule. And with the magazine at an end, so to do these entries.

The cover comes from Codex Angels of Death, which covered the Dark Angels and Blood Angels, neither of whom are featured prominently in this issue

To business and White Dwarf 193. We have reached a turning point in that this issue represents the first, and nearly the last, time that the magazine has consciously been re-designed.  White Dwarf has absolutely changed over time, 181 looked nothing like 121, but this is the first time someone has consciously said "That thing we used to do? We're not doing it anymore, we're doing something else." This happened with White Dwarf 191, the second issue to be edited by Jake Thornton.

On the surface the really big changes amount to an increased page count and the introduction of two pages of card pull outs. The latter felt hugely valuable at the time, given how much of Games Workshops games were delivered in the form of cards of one sort or another, from board sections, to magic item cards, to vehicle datafaxes, to army cards, to counters, to wargear cards and on and on. So including a card section was adding a lot of value to the magazine. Of which more later.

Beyond the immediate, not much else appears to have changed. Visually, the magazine is much the same as White Dwarf 181 but turned up to 11. This is exemplified by the replacement of the venerable old White Dwarf logo with a bigger, more angry and cartoony version by Wayne England. Inside, the "red period" is still in full swing with everything painted in bright bold colours. Articles have huge, colour headings, expansive box outs and side bars (one article, on Warhammer 40,000 missions is more side-boxes than article) and huge coloured borders either side of the page into which content occasionally intrudes.

 How much of this is article and how much is sidebar?

So not so much a reinvention or redesign as the same thing further emphasised? Not quite, because if you take an even closer look, there is something else going on below the surface here. But to understand what that is, we have to go back to the start of our journey.

I have written about this before, but back when White Dwarf 121 was published, Games Workshop was chronically inept at the business of producing and distributing rules. They weren't necessarily bad at writing them but there was very little sense of what they were for or how to deliver them to customers. This is why Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 were published as books and everything else as boxed games; why Warhammer had a single slim volume of army lists and Warhammer 40,000 was divided into an odd mix of articles of White Dwarf compendiums; why the Space Marines shared a book with the Imperial Guard and Squats while Chaos and Orks got two thick hard back volumes each. It was a glorious mess and one from which White Dwarf benefited hugely.

White Dwarf 121 contained preview material from Realms of Chaos months before its release, alongside articles for Space Hulk and Advanced Hero Quest that had no planned home in any supplement at all. Add to that a painting guide and showcase that essentially looks at whatever the 'Eavy Metal team felt like working on without any reference to the rest of the magazine content. What's left is an Ork preview, that looks like news, but acts as an introduction to over a years worth of Ork material that would eventually, after much re-editing, find its way into the huge Ork rule books. Its probable that the books only got that big because the designers kept churning out more content.

So what we had was a design studio that seemingly did whatever it felt like, without any sense of how it would be published, and a White Dwarf magazine that simply helped itself to whatever it liked, because there wasn't anywhere better to put it. We end up with magazine articles that look like rule book extracts and rule books full of magazine articles because no-one is clear on what anything is for. Meanwhile, only a small part of White Dwarf actually consists of the sort of content you might find in a conventional magazine.

By White Dwarf 193 this has changed. Games Workshop finally has a definitive model for publishing rules, albeit one with a few rough edges. Release a large boxed game, then a supplement that covers all the bits you couldn't fit in the main game plus some cards. Some lucky games get more than one. For most games, this is enough. For Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000, each army gets its own book which includes all the rules needed to play that army plus an army list. This model makes it far easier to get what you need to actually play the game, albeit at a cost, so that you can focus on actually building an army.

The downside of this for White Dwarf is much of its content dries up. Even then, it takes some time before this is accepted. Consequently the rules articles continue, although now they're re-printing content from recently or soon to be released supplements. The process is gradual, so White Dwarf 157 can still fill up half its pages with a preview army list for the Space Wolves, even while re-printing the Grand Theogonist rules for Warhammer. And the studio occasionally throw them a bone, such as the Chaos Dwarf rules, as no-one is planning to give them a proper book at this point.

Along the way, they also figure out tactics articles and battle reports are a good way of generating content that doesn't belong in a rule book most of the time. But the effects are still patchy.

What we start to see from White Dwarf 191 onwards, is a conscious attempt to restructure White Dwarf as an entity in its own right, and not just a dumping ground for leftover studio material. As a consequence, we start to see material that feels more consciously "magaziney" for want of a better term. The first big thing is the introduction of interviews, some with key members of the GW studio, such as Andy Chambers in this issue, others with "celebrity" gamers or people who have produced nicely painted models or armies. None of these are particularly in depth, but they do provide the kind of behind-the-scenes information that a magazine for GW fans, as opposed to a rules dump, should provide.

 Now we do interviews

Other subtler changes take place. There is a visible shift towards trying to provide genuinely useful content. The 'Eavy Metal article in this issue takes the form of a response to questions, there is a new modelling workshop article on game boards and we get semi-regular rules FAQ article. The article on the newly-released Imperial Guard Hellhound becomes part rules re-print and part tactics article, giving the magazine some added value. This issue battle report is a follow on from an article in the previous issue, which presented a linked campaign of Warhammer scenarios setting Orcs against Dark Elves, with instructions on how to build Orc huts. The battle report puts the final scenario to the test. The end result is a neat thematic link that demonstrates that article ideas can be put to practical use.

 The battle report shows off Orc huts made from Pringles tubes

The other way way in which White Dwarf tries to carve out an identity for itself is by creating a distinction between the White Dwarf team and the studio team. The WD team are introduced in photographs on the opening page for the first time. These photos are repeated by each article to reinforce a sense of authorship. Members of the team interview studio staff, which has the effect of placing the WD team slightly outside the GW structure and bringing them closer to the reader. Prominent GW staff, Andy Chambers, Jervis Johnson and Nigel Stillman are given semi-regular columns with names that highlight their "guest" status.

 The editorial and meet the team page. Some look happier to be here than others.

The overall effect of this is to give White Dwarf a clear identity of its own, one that is at least in part distinct from Games Workshop and the studio. It is also making a clear attempt to justify itself on its own terms, which means providing useful content to its readers, albeit with varying degrees of success. Say what you like about the aesthetic choices of the era, and they are certainly out of keeping with Games Workshop of today, but there is a sense that the team behind this issue were really trying to produce a good gaming magazine.

A Defined Role

I've been thinking about Roleplaying games a lot lately. Possibly the recent fortieth anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons and the associated articles have put in my head. Ther';s a pleasing circularity to the relationship between wargaming and role-playing. Role-playing was originally a development of historical wargaming, that went on to inspire fantasy and science fiction wargaming, which in turn have influenced historical wargaming. There's probably a blog post in that. But this isn't it.

One thing that is striking, and easily forgotten, about role-playing games, is that in the late 1970s and early 1980s, they were a huge craze. In many ways this was very unlikely. Consider what a roleplaying game actually requires. You need a group of at least two, but preferably three or four, ideally willing to regularly give up a good two or three hours of time together. On top of that, the game places a hugely disproportionate burden on one player, namely the games-master, dungeon-master, referee or whatever else you want to call him or her.

As well as controlling all non-player characters, describing the setting and keeping track of everything that's going on. This player either has to read through adventure books, in detail, possibly adapting them to suit the group, write fresh adventures from scratch on a weekly basis or have the improvisational skills to make it all up as they go along. Often, this player is the only one that fully understands the rules. This a hugely demanding role, requiring a combination of actor, accountant, writer, editor, rules master and referee. Frankly, given the requirements of the job (and it pretty much is a job), its amazing that any role-playing groups were able to get off the ground. Let alone that it became a craze.

There is another oddity about role-playing games. The genre sells itself on the idea of complete freedom. The players can be anything or go anywhere. And yet, so many of them are built around the same basic template. The players roles are a band of highly specialised and dedicated killers committing acts of small-scale genocide against a variety of semi-humanoid opponents in exchange for money that is mostly spent on equipment and training to make them even more effective killers, set in the backdrop of a world whose disaster management is so poor that in times of crisis they have no choice but to recruit a band of freelance troubleshooters. This is the essential template of most role-playing games. The settings vary, fantasy of one sort or another is standard, but the same basic template has been exported to science fiction, the wild west, pulp adventure serials and even various periods in history, albeit with a few liberties taken.

Of course this doesn't represent all role-playing. There have been a number of games that have emphasised other aspects of human experience and have reduced the emphasis on violence. But the interesting thing about these games is that they are taken as being reactions against the norm. And, weirdly, there has recently been a sort of reaction against the reaction in the form of the “old school renaissance” in which a number of games have appeared that actively try to be more like “traditional” role-playing games.

Part of the reason for this emphasis on combat is the fact the RPGs grew out of wargaming. Obviously a game genre that developed from wargaming is going to have an emphasis on combat. But beyond this, it also develops out of a tradition of confrontational gaming in which two, ostensibly, evenly-matched players, attempt to defeat each other on the field of battle. RPGs transfer that conflict to a similar, but slightly different context, in which the group takes on the games-master. It's significant that many early RPGs treat the player/game-master relationship as strictly confrontational.

But, when you think about it, why should that be the case? The concept of RPG's, a collection of players taken through a scenario by a games-master, could have developed from board games, experimental theatre, book groups or any number of places. Why did it develop out of wargaming in the first place?

I think part of the reason is the demands placed on the games-master. Given the amount of work required to be a good games-master, any reduction in the workload is going to be helpful. The advantage of the simple confrontational setup, is that it significantly reduces the amount of work that has to be put into the scenario. Writing, adapting or improvising a complex plot that can go in any direction is a lot more complicated than filling a dungeon, cavern or evil Wizard's tower with monsters is a much simpler task. And the players know what to expect and don't react against the template. At least not in groups that actually work.

If seen from that point of view, Role-playing games could only have grown out of wargaming. It's the only setup that makes it practical.

And yet, by placing such an emphasis on clearing monsters out of dungeons (or variations on that idea), RPGs place an inherent limit on their central concept that leaves them fatally exposed to their competition. I'm talking about computer and video games. The kind of “do anything, go anywhere” that RPG's could theoretically offer isn't anything that video games could duplicate, even today and certainly not in the early 1980s. On the other hand, populating a dungeon full of monsters is simple.

So the very limitation that allowed RPGs to develop in the first place is the very thing that ensured they would be overtaken by something that could do the same thing just as well, but with less effort. Of course pen and paper RPGs have continued to influence the development of computer RPGs to the point where MMORPGS even replicate the need for groups of people to set aside time to play together. But, by taking over the role of games-master, they replace the most difficult part of the experience.

Experiment update

There are now only seven copies of Warhammer Visions, which means one has been sold or stolen which, to be fair, is one more than I expected.

The experiment continues

As of this morning, there were still eight copies of Warhammer Visions at the railway station Smiths. If there is a market for this, it hasn't mobilised yet.

A small experiment

There were eight copies of Warhammer Visions in the branch of WH Smith at the station this morning. Let's see how many are left at the end of the month.

I suspect a reasonable number of people will have bought the first issue simply to find out what it was about. The second issue is more indicative of whether there is actually an audience for it. Personally, it has no appeal to me whatsoever, but I concede that others may not share this view.

More-ish

Recently, I've been doing my best to cut back on the amount of miniatures I've been buying. For the first time in about five years I skipped the "Call to Arms" show in Theale, on the grounds that I would just bring back more stuff that I didn't have time to assemble or paint. Of course, I blew it slightly by taking a trip into London and buying two more models for Bushido instead.

Bushido has acted as something of an exception to my "no new models" rule, largely because I want to keep up to date with the Temple of Ro-kan faction. But the fact that I have allowed this exception, says something about the effectiveness of GCT's marketing.

Games Workshop games are all but armies for me. I pick an army and buy models until it feels big enough. And then GW try to encourage me to start a new army. I don't expect to collect every model or unit available for the army and I may even restrict my choices to make it more thematic. While I wouldn't describe any of my armies as "finished" exactly, they are all of a size were I don't feel any great pressure to add any more models to any of them.

Oddly, Games Workshop's release pattern helps reinforces this behaviour. Every five years or so they release a new army book, I buy it and maybe one or two units or characters and that's it. My army is up to date. I don't feel the need to replace my existing models. Take the new dwarf book, I will probably grab it, King Duregar and a Gyrobomber and leave it at that. I won't replace my carefully painted metal hammerers with the new plastics any more than I replace my beloved metal miners when the plastic miners came along.

Bushido is different. For some reason, Bushido doesn't feel bounded in the same way as my Warhammer armies, so every time a new release comes along for the Temple of Ro-Kan, I buy it. Due to a combination of the small number of models required to play the game and the relatively low cost of each, I have started thinking of my Bushido models as a "collection" and not an army. Which means I need to buy the lot. Because new models are released every two months or so, there is never a natural pause and so I keep buying.

Bushido isn't the only game to do this. Warmachine/Hordes, Infinity, Malifaux, Helldorado, even Anima Tactics if it was more organised, all depend on a model of steady and constant releases, which keeps you army/gang/warband/crew in a permanently incomplete state.

It reminds me of when I was seriously into Magic the Gathering. Every time a new expansion appeared I had to buy a few boosters or feel like the game was leaving me behind. Consequently, the collection was never complete only constantly expanding. This is great for the company, as they get a steady income. The drawback is that players have to be pretty devoted to the game to keep up. Part of the reason I never really got into Warmachine was because I couldn't get the old models assembled painted and on the table before the next expansion came out, not when there was so many other games out there. As a marketing strategy, it encourages the fanatic at the expense of the casual gamer.

Of course much of the pressure is self-imposed. I have more than enough Bushido models to game with and I really don't need any more. And yet the pull is still there and, for the moment at least, I can keep up with the new releases without it totally monopolising my time.

In the last few months I have found myself drawn back to games that have effectively "died." Games Workshop's Epic and Mordheim and Confrontation. It's the lack of new releases that is the draw in these cases. With no more support coming, the games are "finite" and I can concentrate on painting and gaming with the models I have without feeling a compulsion to buy any more. Except, of course, for those last one or two Mordheim models I might get from Ebay...

And so it begins?

News is in that Hasbro have formed a partnership with a 3D printing company.

Of course the news report is all about 3D printed Transformers and "My Little Pony", but Hasbro owns Wizards of the Coast. Could we be seeing 3D printed Dungeons & Dragons miniatures in the not too distant future?