The Inside Scoop on Gaming

Valkyrie 20 72 pages £3.75 Partizan Press/Caliver Books http://www.caliver-books.demon.co.uk

Disclaimer - Valkyrie has a Chivalry and Sorcery article and scenario, favourable reviews of a couple of C&S products (one of which I contributed to) as well as a cover taken from a C&S product. Not only am I a C&S fan but I am involved with the company. I also received Valk 20 free for review purposes. Just so you know.

This issue of Valkyrie is a first in my experience, coming as it does about a month after the last issue and making a mockery of Valkyrie's "it'll be out when it is out" reputation. It is probably appropriate, being the first after the launch of D&D 3rd edition, that in many ways it has an old feel about it, harking back to the days when White Dwarf covered RPGs. I'm not sure if the relaunch of D&D prompted this nostalgia kick or whether this was a spontaneous decisision by the editor.

For those who skip the editor's ramblings the first note of the retro theme is the "guest appearance" of Grimtooth the Troll, Flying Buffalo's collector of traps back when RPGing was still primarily dungeon bashing and there was an arms race between Party and GM, necessitating larger, ever more complex and ever more ironic mechanisms of death. Mr. Troll is here with a plethora of devices of such lethal cunning as to be considered by a future Gov't for reducing hospital waiting lists, all in a humourous air.

As well as this early 80s prankster resurfacing there is a mini-game evoking the shades of "Snits' Revenge" or "The Awful Green Things from Outer Space" comes "Kobolds vs the Zombie Chickens of Zed", based on 9th level games "Kobolds ate my Baby", a fun little skirmish game to play in between scenarios and the sense of humour is a strand going more trap and dungeon based articles.

It's not all played for laughs, there is an interview with the Managing Dirtector of the UK's second largest RPG company (Steve Turner of Brittannia Game Designs Ltd) regarding an upcoming new edition based on the 1997 3rd edition and illustrated with pictures that are uncredited but were drawn by Dave Bezzina of London, an opinion piece on "Why the munchkin", articles on miniatures and wargaming as well as the scenarios and reviews. There are four of these scenarios, the second part of last month's Star Wars scenario, a scenario examining the aftermath of the dungeon bash, a scenario for Panzerfauste, which I take to be a skirmish game doing for WWII what Flintloque did for the Napoleonic Wars, and a scenario for C&S Light.

Although both the post-Dungeon bash (for {A] D&D)and the C&S scenario declare allegiance to an RPG system, both are devoid of any system statistics and could be adapted to any FRPG if your campaign style suited it. The AD&D one is suited for a playing group where the instinct is to hack first and ask questions later and although lacks all the details required looks quite fun. The Chivalry and Sorcery scenario would suit a more thoughtful group. Both have minor niggles, for example in the AD&D one a character is referred to both as "Cordelia" and as "Cleopatra" and in the C&S scenario a reward of 8 gold sovereigns is mentioned, without any idea of the relative buying power (it would buy a suit of mail armour with plate reinforcement and a longsword). This scenario could also be used as the jumping off point for a campaign and is "very C&S" in that it treats Orcs as beings able to reason rather than as just dumb sword fodder.

Want more nostalgia, D&D NPC/monsters (and one for In Nomine), new spells, though this is mirror magic for 7th Sea. How to use a door, weird shades of the Complete Thieves Toolkit there, oh, and a cartoon strip, the truly forgettable Alcott Squad, to which I say, “Wipe it out, ALL of it”

Some of the content has been seen elsewhere, either on the Internet (for general news, the “Saints and Sinners” column and the "news from the trenches"column) or in another publication (The Dork Tower cartoon) but to give Valkyrie their due they don't claim originality for these and there is enough originality to satisfy even us Net junkies. Of course they still run their SLA industries column.

The reviews are generally good and useful. Even if I don’t agree with the conclusions on all the products I know, I at least can respect the reasoning and live with the opinion. There are only occasional, minor ambiguities such as in the "Babylon 5 Fleet Action" review where you are told that you don't need the new, smaller figures nut aren't told why. E.g. Do they supply counters? If you are interested it is because the game can still be played with the larger figures, but, if you don't have those or you want to play big fleet actions but don't have the room for the big figures then you might still want to use the small figures.

Last month I reviewed the previous issue of Valkyrie marking it as fair in content but having some niggles in style. This month the content is excellent but the general comments on style remain. There are typos, including one just after they accuse Judges Guild products of being typo-ridden. Granted they did that with the knowledge of the irony of the situation, but that was more reason to ensure that they spelled the name of the JG product correctly. (Jay, it's "Tegel", not "Tegal"). Valkyrie still loses white space to an "artistic border" in the reviews section and still puts some background under text in places, as well as using a variety of font sizes depending where you are, all of which I think detracts somewhat from "the reading experience" (sorry). There is also half a page of text that is repeated, losing the end of an article but the editor assures me that that was the Printer's fault, and that the file left him with the article intact.

I recently reread Valkyrie eighteen and found that poor. Nineteen was better and showed promise, twenty I feel fulfils this promise with a fun mix of humour, scenarios and news and reviews. If they downplay the alleged “mature” content, which in the past has really amounted to little more than saying “BUM” in public, continue this standard and manage to produce the magazine on a more regular basis then I think they have something. There seem to be more writers involved, which hopefully will also continue and can only be a good thing if the editor exercises control but all in all though I think this is a fun, and interesting magazine.

Valkyrie 20
Valkyrie 20 Capsule Review by Colin D. Speirs on 29/04/01 Style: 3 (Average) Substance: 4 (Meaty) Good sense of humour and a silly game along with some good scenrios. Product: Valkyrie 20 Author: various Category: Magazine Company/Publisher: Caliver Books Line: Cost: UKP 3.75 Page count: 72 Year published: 2000 ISBN: NK SKU: NA Comp copy?: no Capsule Review by Colin D. Speirs on 29/04/01 Genre tags: Fantasy Historical Conspiracy	Valkyrie 20 72 pages £3.75 Partizan Press/Caliver Books http://www.caliver-books.demon.co.uk Disclaimer - Valkyrie has a Chivalry and Sorcery article and scenario, favourable reviews of a couple of C&S products (one of which I contributed to) as well as a cover taken from a C&S product. Not only am I a C&S fan but I am involved with the company. I also received Valk 20 free for review purposes. Just so you know. This issue of Valkyrie is a first in my experience, coming as it does about a month after the last issue and making a mockery of Valkyrie's "it'll be out when it is out" reputation. It is probably appropriate, being the first after the launch of D&D 3rd edition, that in many ways it has an old feel about it, harking back to the days when White Dwarf covered RPGs. I'm not sure if the relaunch of D&D prompted this nostalgia kick or whether this was a spontaneous decisision by the editor. For those who skip the editor's ramblings the first note of the retro theme is the "guest appearance" of Grimtooth the Troll, Flying Buffalo's collector of traps back when RPGing was still primarily dungeon bashing and there was an arms race between Party and GM, necessitating larger, ever more complex and ever more ironic mechanisms of death. Mr. Troll is here with a plethora of devices of such lethal cunning as to be considered by a future Gov't for reducing hospital waiting lists, all in a humourous air. As well as this early 80s prankster resurfacing there is a mini-game evoking the shades of "Snits' Revenge" or "The Awful Green Things from Outer Space" comes "Kobolds vs the Zombie Chickens of Zed", based on 9th level games "Kobolds ate my Baby", a fun little skirmish game to play in between scenarios and the sense of humour is a strand going more trap and dungeon based articles. It's not all played for laughs, there is an interview with the Managing Dirtector of the UK's second largest RPG company (Steve Turner of Brittannia Game Designs Ltd) regarding an upcoming new edition based on the 1997 3rd edition and illustrated with pictures that are uncredited but were drawn by Dave Bezzina of London, an opinion piece on "Why the munchkin", articles on miniatures and wargaming as well as the scenarios and reviews. There are four of these scenarios, the second part of last month's Star Wars scenario, a scenario examining the aftermath of the dungeon bash, a scenario for Panzerfauste, which I take to be a skirmish game doing for WWII what Flintloque did for the Napoleonic Wars, and a scenario for C&S Light. Although both the post-Dungeon bash (for {A] D&D)and the C&S scenario declare allegiance to an RPG system, both are devoid of any system statistics and could be adapted to any FRPG if your campaign style suited it. The AD&D one is suited for a playing group where the instinct is to hack first and ask questions later and although lacks all the details required looks quite fun. The Chivalry and Sorcery scenario would suit a more thoughtful group. Both have minor niggles, for example in the AD&D one a character is referred to both as "Cordelia" and as "Cleopatra" and in the C&S scenario a reward of 8 gold sovereigns is mentioned, without any idea of the relative buying power (it would buy a suit of mail armour with plate reinforcement and a longsword). This scenario could also be used as the jumping off point for a campaign and is "very C&S" in that it treats Orcs as beings able to reason rather than as just dumb sword fodder. Want more nostalgia, D&D NPC/monsters (and one for In Nomine), new spells, though this is mirror magic for 7th Sea. How to use a door, weird shades of the Complete Thieves Toolkit there, oh, and a cartoon strip, the truly forgettable Alcott Squad, to which I say, “Wipe it out, ALL of it” Some of the content has been seen elsewhere, either on the Internet (for general news, the “Saints and Sinners” column and the "news from the trenches"column) or in another publication (The Dork Tower cartoon) but to give Valkyrie their due they don't claim originality for these and there is enough originality to satisfy even us Net junkies. Of course they still run their SLA industries column. The reviews are generally good and useful. Even if I don’t agree with the conclusions on all the products I know, I at least can respect the reasoning and live with the opinion. There are only occasional, minor ambiguities such as in the "Babylon 5 Fleet Action" review where you are told that you don't need the new, smaller figures nut aren't told why. E.g. Do they supply counters? If you are interested it is because the game can still be played with the larger figures, but, if you don't have those or you want to play big fleet actions but don't have the room for the big figures then you might still want to use the small figures. Last month I reviewed the previous issue of Valkyrie marking it as fair in content but having some niggles in style. This month the content is excellent but the general comments on style remain. There are typos, including one just after they accuse Judges Guild products of being typo-ridden. Granted they did that with the knowledge of the irony of the situation, but that was more reason to ensure that they spelled the name of the JG product correctly. (Jay, it's "Tegel", not "Tegal"). Valkyrie still loses white space to an "artistic border" in the reviews section and still puts some background under text in places, as well as using a variety of font sizes depending where you are, all of which I think detracts somewhat from "the reading experience" (sorry). There is also half a page of text that is repeated, losing the end of an article but the editor assures me that that was the Printer's fault, and that the file left him with the article intact. I recently reread Valkyrie eighteen and found that poor. Nineteen was better and showed promise, twenty I feel fulfils this promise with a fun mix of humour, scenarios and news and reviews. If they downplay the alleged “mature” content, which in the past has really amounted to little more than saying “BUM” in public, continue this standard and manage to produce the magazine on a more regular basis then I think they have something. There seem to be more writers involved, which hopefully will also continue and can only be a good thing if the editor exercises control but all in all though I think this is a fun, and interesting magazine.