TheRPGSite

I mean back in the day, when there was still some variety--the 80s and (early?) 90s. I used to read, in descending order of regularity:

White Dwarf (before it became a Warhammer zine)
JTAS
Dragon
Imagine
Different Worlds
--insert big hiatus between circa 1988 and 2002--
Dedalus (edited by what's his face, author of Dust Devils)

... and one more I can't remember.

I'm sure some us are hardcore enough to own a full run of A&E?

What was that thing called that Andrew Rilstone ran in the 90s? That sounded really good.

Arcane was Rilstone's mag, and very good it was too.

I also bought:

White Dwarf - Pre-GW mouthpiece issues only.

Imagine - Superb TSR UK publication that primarily dealt with D&D.

Valkyrie - Decent UK magazine that fell on its arse a few years ago.

Dragon - Up until the release of AD&D 2e I loved it.

Only one I ever really read was the Rifter.  

By the time I came around, there really weren't any gaming magazines left except the entirely D&D-centric Dungeon/Dragon (which my game store didn't carry anyway), and White Dwarf, which was just an extended advertisment for Warhammer.  It was fun as a kid for the pretty pictures of minis, but basically worthless.  

The Rifter came out when I was still actually playing Rifts/Palladium, so it was at least half interesting because of that.

I used to read InQuest religiously.  I pored over its Magic card encyclopedia until I memorized every card printed before Mirage.

The writing was juvenile, insulting and calculated to sell to boys my age and younger.  It was the RPG magazine equivalent of a Pepsi commercial, except with all the editorial coherency of Steve Justa's High Plains Heavy Metal Iron Master Newsletter.  Early column writer Rick Swan spent three months bringing up his college roommate and young daughter before settling in for a long winter's night of jokes about older sisters.  A Letter from the Editor both excerpted The Notebooks of Lazarus Long and used the term "mundanes" without a hint of irony, winding up one "waffer theen meent" quote away from the Geek Hat Trick that would have awakened Twilight, the Worldcutting Sword.  One article, ostensibly about the history of the succubus, railed against the establishment of a sex offender database.

The lone high point I can look back on was the open feud the editorial staff had with Raven CS McCracken.  You had distilled batshit insanity on one side and writers who held to the geek equivalent of Seventeen's editorial guidelines on the other.  It was like watching lobotomy patients play legless dogs in rugby.  You can decide who was who.

InQuest and the thirteen-year-old-fucktard gaming culture it sold like so many packs of Spellfire were the reasons I walked away from RPGs to go play high school football.  In 1999 I used my collection of issues as tinder for a bonfire.

Nowadays I mostly use IQ as fodder for threads like these. :D

I've got almost every issue of Arcane, that was a good one.

I used to get Dragon every month, until Arcane came along, or possibly the newsagent just stopped stocking it. It wasn't terribly good, but as the only game in town for me at the time, it was worth getting even though I never owned D&D in any version.

I started with Dragon in '81; got that for a couple of years. I had a few issues of White Dwarf too. But they both shot themselves in the foot, because it was them that sold me RQ. So then I started getting Different Worlds and Wyrm's Footnotes, until I stopped buying gaming mags altogether in about '86.

I also had (still have) an almost complete run of Journal of the Traveller's Aid Society.

The best of them all:

Challenge Magazine.

Twilight:2000
MegaTraveller
Dark Conspiracy
Space:1888
Cyberpunk
Battletech
Star Wars

all in one Mag

I forgot to include Warpstone in my earlier post. As single-system mags go it's nigh unbeatable.

White dwarf during the late 80's when I started to really get into GW.
Games Master and then Games Master International when I realised there was a bigger world out there and it didn't only involve Warhammer.
Then Role player Independent followed by Valkyrie.

I tried Arcane but by the time it got good it had folded.

I miss that there isn't a decent rpg mag i can buy; i guess the internet has killed any such prospect, i'd much rather read a mag.

The only gaming magazine I ever got much out of was the double-digit issue numbers of Dragon. I've bought spot issues of other gaming rags up to the present day, but only for the actual content - not because the mag itself inspired me.

White Dwarf and Dragon in the early 80's.  I got a lot of good gaming ideas from W.D.

I read a lot of Shadis, up until the mag started falling apart both on the page and in my hands.  

I'm very fond of 1980s Dragon, and would like to have the full run of arcane, as I found it very good stuff.

For those of you (both of you) who were, like me, fans of "It Was A Time of Darkness", which ran in the back of arcane until they inexplicably decided to replace it with a scene-for-scene recreation of Die Hard but with gnomes (no, seriously), you may be pleased to know that IWATOD in its entirety and original form is available on the author's website at http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/ap2/comments/JN/darkness1.html

The first episode's not much cop, but it gets better.

Dragon and Dungeon, Polyhedron, Roleplayer. I use to start pining for Dragon when it's receipt would get near, then disappear until I'd read it cover to cover, adds and all.

I have issue 100 of Dragon around here somewhere.

There still is Polymancer (http://www.polymancerstudios.com/) and Rifter (http://www.palladiumbooks.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=100&Category_Code=R100).

Dragon
JTAS/Challenge

an occasional issue of:
White Dwarf
Shadis
Different Worlds
White Wolf (before it got screwed over/changed names/whatever)

Quote from: Dr Rotwang!I read a lot of Shadis, up until the mag started falling apart both on the page and in my hands.

Shadis was great up until Jolly left it.

As a kid I started with Dragon, later Battletechnology and StarDate (the latter was a helluva good sci-fi mag).

I had a subscription to Shadis in the mid 90's or so.

Nowadays I pick up lotsa old 80's era mags whenever I get the chance.  I love that old crap.  Different Worlds is my favorite, but I alsa dig Dungeoneer.  I've got a few old White Dwarfs and one or two JTAS and some Challenge.

I read Dragon. My library carried back issues of it, and I used to hand-copy out the various kits etc. for use in games.

I also read Inquest, and remember it as being more or less as fonkaygarry described it. It was rampantly sexist, lacked substantive commentary or thought of any kind, and yet somehow managed to be the source by which I learnt about the existence of Alternity. I can't hate the mag.

Unlike all you cool folks, I read White Dwarf _after_ it became a shill rag. I used to read it for the battle reports mainly, but I stopped when I realised that the guys playing the game were fucking awful at it - they made the kinds of tactical errors that you'd expect from new players, not guys working for the company that put out the game.

I also used to read PC Gamer, but as that magazine has gotten thinner and more packed with advertisements, I've stopped buying it more than once a year or so.

QuoteUnlike all you cool folks, I read White Dwarf _after_ it became a shill rag. I used to read it for the battle reports mainly, but I stopped when I realised that the guys playing the game were fucking awful at it - they made the kinds of tactical errors that you'd expect from new players, not guys working for the company that put out the game.

The sad part is too, that those horrid, horrid games drive development of the game line.  One of the designer's has a bad loss, declares it's because the rules are broken, and starts swinging the nerf bat about.

After they started pulling that crap with LOTR I finally just gave up on GW games altogether.

Hmmm.  One mag that I never see anymore was called Gateways - it was a general roleplaying magazine that never really caught on.

I also got a lot of AADA, Pyramid, and Dragon magazines back in the day.

I remember Shadis being a lot of fun, but never quite enough fun to get me to subscribe.

I'm trying to imagine what a White Dwarf for 2007 might look like, and I'm drawing a big white blank. Given it should be a) largely or completely non-d20, b) not a glorifed in-house mag ("Exalted plus x"), c) about games currently in print... well, I got nothin'.

Story gamers had Dedalus and now Push--quarterly or semi-annual mags with fairly substantial general articles. Even those didn't/don't seem to catch on. And the non-d20/non-WoD mainstream is both so small and so atomized into micro-constituencies now that I can't imagine an equivalent.

That's too bad, because I'd much rather read a bunch of well-written, well-edited essays in a single volume than sift through the blog blather in hopes of finding a gem.

Quote from: SettembriniThe best of them all:

Challenge Magazine.

Twilight:2000
MegaTraveller
Dark Conspiracy
Space:1888
Cyberpunk
Battletech
Star Wars

all in one Mag

Word.

I loved me some Challenge magazine back in the day.  Sadly those days are long gone now.

Other magazines I read:  

Shadis:  It started off as something different with some really good articles in there.  Even the stuff for games I didn't play was interesting.  After Jolly left it went downhill fast.

White Wolf:  Had it's ups and downs.  The killer was the whole 'Inphobia' thing.  That was bad.  But back when there were Jorune articles in there regularly it was the bee's knees.

Dragon:  Who didn't read this?  Never was a player of AD&D or D&D back then but I stole lots of adventure ideas and such from here.  Plus the Ares section was nice also.

That's all I really remember right now.

Challenge was my favorite. Then White Wolf. Then Shadis. Everything else was crap (in my mind at the time, and probably now too if I looked at one again).

Challenge had a good variety of stuff for all different systems/games and it was always available in my FLGS back then.

Quote from: PseudoephedrineI read White Dwarf _after_ it became a shill rag.

I'm with you on that one.  I read maybe one or two issues before Jake Thornton took over as EIC.  Even at eleven I remember thinking that there was no way the mag could ever be worse than it was under JT.

They managed to prove me wrong time and again, though.

The Fat Bloke run was pretty sweet, I thought.  Lots of content, even if half the mag was nothing but vanity shots of Viggo and the crew.  Naturally, he's nowhere to be seen anymore and the mag is, I've heard, the worst it's been in years.

The ones that I can think of off the top of my head are:

• Dragon
• White Dwarf
• Imagine
• Challenge
• JTAS
• Dungeon
• A&E
• Shadis
• Roleplayer
• Pyramid
• Autoduel Quarterly
• Adventurer's Club
• Journeys
• White Wolf
• Rifter

Challenge.

Space gamer.

I grew up in a small town and the only magazine I had easy access to - at the bookstore in the slightly larger small town an hour down the highway - was Dragon.  I started buying that around, erm, 1983 or thereabouts.  I knew there were other mags out there but since all I ever really played was D&D and Star Frontiers, and I would have had to have subscribed to them to get them, they didn't hold much interest.

I actually just sent close to fifty issues of Dragon to the recycling depot.  They were a lot like my childhood comics - don't really read 'em any more, and they're all tattered from being leafed through for many years previous so nobody else wanted 'em, either.  I was tired of having them just sitting in box downstairs waiting to be lugged around as part of my next move, though.

What WAS Space Gamer, exactly? A very early scifi mag, yes? Strictly RPG, or wargamey, or both? Did they focus on games by particular companies? I've never even seen a copy.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityWhat WAS Space Gamer, exactly? A very early scifi mag, yes? Strictly RPG, or wargamey, or both? Did they focus on games by particular companies? I've never even seen a copy.

I've got a couple of Space Gamers sitting around somewhere. It had some Traveller and some GURPS. Greg Costikyan's article on why Traveller is not hard SF appeared in SG.

I actually prefer the net to magazines. It's cheaper and more varied.

Quote from: droogGreg Costikyan's article on why Traveller is not hard SF appeared in SG.

Good ol' Costikyan.  Some days I suspect he's one of those people who was born a grumpy old man.  But I still love his work.

Quote from: jcfialaHmmm.  One mag that I never see anymore was called Gateways - it was a general roleplaying magazine that never really caught on.

Haikeeba!  I have the "TFOS" issue of that mag!

I've collected Dragon on and off since the '80's. In the past 10 years, I've collected some issues of White Dwarf and Inquest, and a handful of others.

I started with Dragon.  Got heavy into DUNGEON Adventures for a while (getting published by them a few times certainly got me to keep up my subscription). :)  My favorite, however, was Conan and Savage Sword of Conan.  Not a gaming mag, you say?  That's funny, because I eagerly awaited each new issue, copied them almost word for word into adventure format, and then ran them for my friends when I was, I guess about 12, 13---even AFTER they had read the same issue.  It was still pretty rad.  

Pete

Pete, that's beautiful.  And another reason for me to scrounge up back issues of Conan mags.

Quote from: fonkaygarryI'm with you on that one.  I read maybe one or two issues before Jake Thornton took over as EIC.  Even at eleven I remember thinking that there was no way the mag could ever be worse than it was under JT.

They managed to prove me wrong time and again, though.

The Fat Bloke run was pretty sweet, I thought.  Lots of content, even if half the mag was nothing but vanity shots of Viggo and the crew.  Naturally, he's nowhere to be seen anymore and the mag is, I've heard, the worst it's been in years.

It's awful. I bought two issues last year and haven't bought a single one since because of how bad they were.

Dragon
The Space Gamer ("TSG")
Different Worlds
JTAS
White Dwarf
High Passage
Far Traveller
Fantasy Gamer
Autoduel Quarterly
The Gamer
Shadis
Interactive Fantasy
Arcane

Let's see...

Dragon - the first issue I picked up on the newsstand was 50. I immediately bought 45 through 49 at the same store after reading it. Haven't missed an issue since, and have the Dragon CD-ROM collection. I pitched a ton of those mags, as they were falling apart. The heyday of it was back when it covered games other than D&D, and the Traveller issue is still a highlight, as well as the issue that had a Traveller adventure which included a million-ton battleship and a planet that had just suffered a nuclear war. The current run is really pretty good, but the focus on D&D alone does get tiresome. The current readership reacts negatively to anything that isn't D&D, which is a shame. Hell, it'd be nice even to see articles about d20 Modern/Future/Past etc., just to provide some variety.

Dungeon - I only sporadically bought Dungeon until the release of 3e, and I haven't missed an issue since. Probably the best value when it comes to playing D&D.

Most other gaming magazines simply weren't available in my area when I was first getting into gaming. There were few outlets in the late 70s/early 80s for gaming mags in northeastern Ohio. There were a few I was able to get my hands on, though:

Journal of the Traveller's Aid Society - hard to find, but I managed to land a few copies in the day. The first was the "best of" collection, which was a treasure trove.

Challenge - This became more common, ironically enough, about the time GDW went under. A decent mag. I wish it'd come back.

White Dwarf - the first gaming magazine besides Dragon I ever read. I think my first issue was bought in 1981 or 1982. Fun and with a decidedly different "feel" than Dragon. I only bought a few issues. I have bought a few issues in the past few years, mostly because I enjoy looking at pics of really well-painted minis, and reading the scenarios and battle reports. I'm still a bit wistful for the old magazine, though.

Valkyrie - a magazine shop I haunted carried this for a while. I never thought much of it. It was good to see something besides Dragon, but the content never really impressed me.

Quote from: jrientsPete, that's beautiful.  And another reason for me to scrounge up back issues of Conan mags.

Hey, you know they revived the Conan line, right?  Its fantastic.  Great art, great storyline.  Brings back a lot of good memories.  

Pete

I never read much Dragon. I used to read Inquest regularly; it was from Wizard Press, so it was natural for me to check it out. I did like some of the humor, but it was never terribly informative and insightful. And 'twas WAY too CCG-heavy. Bunch of posers. But I can't really rip on it any better than Fonkaygarry masterfully has.

I had a couple of scattered issues of Shadis. It was a fun magazine with some pretty good content; at least they talked about practical ideas for roleplaying, even if they weren't always good. AND it introduced me to Knights of the Dinner Table, so yay! (Sadly, i'm not into Knights much anymore. It seems to me that somewhere along the line Jolly stopped getting his own joke.)

I discovered Arcane when it was first released and LOVED it, but it stopped showing up in local stores after a few issues. It was a great marriage of Flash and Substance, wich great reviews, thoughtful columns and articles, and beautiful design. A couple of years ago I acquired a crap-ton of the issues on Ebay, and I've delighted in reading through them. Even years later, the content is still great even if the news is out of date.

Peace,
-Joel

Quote from: Pierce InverarityDedalus (edited by what's his face, author of Dust Devils)

Matt Snyder.

I started with a subscription to The General (Avalon Hill's in-house-only-content wargame rag) and probably kept that up longest. I think I stopped when too many issues focused on a specific game or topic that just didn't interest me, but I eventually went back and spot-ordered a bunch of back issues. I also subscribed to Strategy & Tactics, and I have a bunch of copies of The Wargamer and Moves which I picked up one way or another. Even a few issues of Casus Belli and Vae Victis, both of them general wargame/RPG magazines published in France.

Never read Dragon much but I admire its all-hobby approach, at least as it was back in the 70's/80's. I mean, useful articles about Squad Leader and D&D in the same magazine? Cool.

I still have a complete run from my subscription to Ares, SPI's SF&F gaming magazine (had some good fiction & nonfiction articles, as well, plus book & movie reviews). Up till the TSR takeover, I devoured every issue from cover to cover. Many of the games were pretty good to boot, ranging from an arena version of Dragonquest's combat system, various fantasy/SF wargames, a marvellous space merchant game, and several solitaire paragraph-driven games. (I did sell off the game Citadel of Blood, though, a pretty useless random dungeoncrawl type game.)

I should have subscribed to The Space Gamer; instead I read a lot of issues in the store and bought a few here and there. It was more SF&F focused than The Dragon, and more focused on Metagaming (and later SJG) products, but covered a variety of stuff.

I also remember reading some other magazines in the store--probably Different Worlds and Shadis, but they didn't make as much of an impression on me.

I had a subsciption to the original Journal of the Traveller's Aid Society.(JTAS)

 Also subscribed to Shadis for awhile - mostly for the free games they used to give away as part of their subsciption offer.

 Used to love The Dragon - back when they would cover other games besdes D&D. This was in the pre- House Organ edays and before the whole D20/OGL/3.o/3.5 thing started.

 Bought and liked ADVENTURE GAMING magazine - mostly because it was being produced locally and I had met half or the mag's writers at local gaming events. (In the '80s Cincinnati used to have TWO gaming conventions a year . VERY active con scene for awhile)

Liked WHITE DWARF in the '80s - before they went GW all he time. They used to have decent TRAVELLER articles in it back then.

 Be great if there was a more general Gaming Magazine out there , kind of like Shadis was for awhile  or "Kinightrsof the Dinner Table" - but without the comics sections.

 These days I just buy DUNGEON if it has a gorgeous map included that I think I might be able to work into a GURPS game.

- Ed C.

I loved reading Dragon back-issues at my local library when I was a kid, but that was a long time ago. Makes me lament the present zine market. House organs that are  way too hit and miss, and theory mags that would make an academics journal proud.

Both SJG rags: The Space Gamer and The Fantasy Gamer. Also had a subscription to Dragon (or was it The Dragon, at the time--I don't recall).

-Marco

dragon, from issue 64 or so until issue 109-ish.  resubscribed when i got into 3.x, until sometime last year.  also dungeon in my 3.x phase

white dwarf, from issue 62 to around 103.  still get the occasional issue to enjoy the painting pics etc.

jtas, then traveller digest until it ended.  issue 21?  greatest traveller mag, even if you couldn't stand the rebellion bit.  

nothing else with any regularity.