INTRO
Special thanks to Paul Cockburn for his contribution to these podcasts.
This podcast is dedicated to Joe Dever, creator of The Lone Wolf adventure books, who sadly passed away in November.
GAMESMASTERS’ SCREEN with Paul Cockburn
Paul Cockburn is behind The GamesMaster’s Screen to pick out some of the regular highlights from Imagine Magazine: Nick The Novice, Pelinore, and more. He also tells the story of the rise and the untimely fall of the magazine.
THE GROGGIES 2016
Our review of the a year in gaming: Roll 20, Dungeons and Dragons, Tunnels and Trolls, Nights Black Agents, Call of Cthulhu and Numenera are all discussed.
The Last Bit
Thanks to Patreons, reviewers and listeners. Have a great holiday and all the very best for 2017 to you and yours.
Nick the Novice is now a jaded GM, running diceless indie games. I think he drinks.
Once again, Dirk and Blythie, an excellent episode. I really enjoyed Mr. Cockburn’s interview and his discussion of Pelinore. I would love to see a complete book or supplement of this material. I have always wished I could convince a DM to run this city. You have certainly done an exemplary job creating this podcast and growing this community. All the best until the new year!
All the best for the new year Shannon!
I would really love to know how you managed to run NUMENERA. I am still running NBA but I couldn’t even start with NUMENERA. I just couldn’t get a handle on the Ninth World. Who were all these people? What did they want? What could they do? There was no shorthand you could use to explain to the players where their characters were and who they were.
The Ninth World is a place where there’s no such thing as society… or culture for that matter, unless it is expedient to the story. We’re a small group, so we have seen it as an adventure of Vancian eccentric individualism, and we’ve throughly enjoyed it. RBW is right. It’s D&D.
Thanks for another excellent episode – especially the cliffhanger re Ian Marsh…
Happy Christmas to all, and looking forward to another year of relaxing Northern banter about the things that REALLY matter.
Happy New Year to you. Good news … Ian has been in touch!
Another good one, nice to hear from Mr Cockburn, thankyou, and all the inside info about Imagine and the White Dwarf ‘takeover’.
The cartographer Paul C meant was of course Paul Ruiz.
One of the things that would generally make or break my decision to buy a copy of Imagine back then was Paul Ruiz (aka Geoff Wingate), the bloke responsible for some of the best RPG cartography ever IMHO.
If he’d done the maps for a Pelinore area and the scenario, and it wasn’t a special edition on Jugglers, then despite it’s otherwise lacklustre black and white interior i’d be buying it.
His work on the generally impressive UK AD&D modules is stellar, and with lots of them having quite 3 dimensional and conceptually different settings, it needed someone with real talent to get that across, blue OSR grid maps wouldn’t have cut it.
Isometric visualisations of the area, top down plans, all worked together seamlessly, neat and rational maps, with some architectural rigour, yet with that little wobble to the line now and then to keep it human, or some small boulders or dots clinging to a corner, and his trademark handwritten keying.
His work on the B/X10 UK module sets the standard really, helping to keep together and illustrate a sprawling campaign, it’s a work of art.
Sorry if i’m gushing (i could go on) but he really is an overlooked master it seems, doing the buildings in the WFRP rulebook and the maps in Dragon Warriors book 4 and 6 (i think), 6 being the one illustrated by Russ Nicholson, what a combo.
Just a shame maps don’t come across well on podcasts, any chance of a future interview with him Dirk?.
The Chaosium early maps are great with their heavy black ink and quick spiky detailing and text don’t get me wrong, and there’s an excellent cartographer Dyson Logos doing some amazing map work now, over at Dysons Dodecohedron, but for me Paul (Geoff) is the master.
Cheers.
Thank you for the comments, Rog. I’ve contacted Geoff and I’m trying to bring him out of retirement. It may disappoint you to learn that he doesn’t make any art whatsoever and hasn’t done for a long time. I’ll send him your comments and see if it does the trick!!
Fingers crossed. Cheers Dirk.