Saturday 29 December 2012

Living Stone Magazine Issue #1

Introducing Living Stone - the gaming magazine with a British sensibility focusing on cross-media game design, creative content and useable gaming material to provoke,  provide inspiration and entertainment for mature gamers and game designers.



Issue 1 features:
  • Front cover by Jon Hodgson
  • Editorial Column by Ian Livingstone
  • Tabletop game scenarios and rules expansions
  • Short Game Reviews written by game designers, focusing on
    • Tabletop
    • Gamebooks
    • electronic crossovers and notable digital games.
  • Game designer profiles Retrospectives and Interviews
    • Albie Fiore - from dungeons deep to cryptic crosswords
  • Game design + production articles
  • Minigames
  • Decades
    • What was going on in the games industry: 1973, 1983, 1993, 2003. 
  • Letters page
  • Zine reviews
  • Classified ads (5p a word)
  • Ads, lots and lots of glorious ads - Fantasy Flight Games, Black Library, TinManGames, Atlas Games, Steve Jackson Games, Cubicle 7, WoTC, 22Cans, Esdivium Games, LoTFP,
  • Half page cartoon by Lew Stringer
A4 96pp, Black and white interior, some pages 2 colour. 4 colour covers, full-page color ads inside covers. PDF & Print.

No, no, it's not real.

Post originally due to the imminent launch of Gygax magazine, which follows the design of mid-80's Dragon magazine and I thought well, Steve and Ian probably had more of a direct influence on my gaming than Gary, so I thoight I'd do a hommage and reinvent early 80s White Dwarf  for the world of today. Half an hour later - ta-da!

And then Ian gets a CBE in the New Years Honours List on his birthday too (congratulations all round!). And that's one reason there is a "programming for non-programmers" series in there. Ian has worked really hard to get ITC education in the UK moving on a different track "teach children to create technology rather than just being passive users of it", and while Living Stone magazine is not aimed at children, a series of articles about writing a game or a game aid could be very interesting, and a fitting nod.

While I'm here, talking about Fighting Fantasy and stuff, Jonathan Green is running a Kickstarter to write his "History of Fighting Fantasy" book You are the Hero. There are about 7 days left, and it needs another 4k to fund.

And speaking of Kickstarter,  imagine Living Stone magazine is up on there, gauging support,  would you pledge to help make this happen? Would you subscribe? Conversely, if your name is above, would you contribute? would advertisers advertise?

Monday 17 December 2012

Dungeons & Dragons & Demons & Drugfiends

Silent post. I'm just going to post these images and make no comment regarding them, so draw your own conclusions. Or better yet, draw a map and populate a dungeon.

Jay Lynch | Last Hit | BOGEYMAN #3 |1970 found at

Trampier | AD&D Players Handbook | 1978


Larry S. Todd | Tales of the Armorkins #1 | 1971 | via or via

Sutherland | Kobolds |
Roslof | Goblin (left) | Kobold (right) AD&D Monster Cards | via
Trampier | AD&D Players Handbook (1978) via
Deitch | Night Toad | via

Friday 7 December 2012

Trolling for Podlings

Podlings, The Dark Crystal, Brian Froud,  1982


...but when podlings eat a banana, an amazing transformation occurs...

Trolls, TheHobbit, Weta,  2012
...because podlings are Bannana-trolls.



Calm down Derek, it's only a movie - Ed.