a special letter from the advertising manager

There was a situation a few years back in my gaming group, where my character in our regular Middle Earth Role-Playing Game campaign had the occasion to be the general of an army that was given the dubious task of taking back a strategically significant bridge held by the invading enemy. With the initial reconnaissance a success, my character discovered that his meager force of elite cavalry, and irregular infantry was outnumbered roughly three to one, but my character was rather handy with his "war" skill. You see, my GM, although very good, was prone to listen in on our inter-player conversations, and then use the information against us, so we decided to meet in private to sketch out our battle plan.

My decision was to divide our forces into three independent detachments. The cavalry was split in to two groups, each going up and down river to cross at known fords, and move their way back toward the enemy position from his rear. The infantry would wait for my signal to launch their assault on the bridge. With a scheduled attack to take place on the morning of the third day from departure, and a very confused GM wondering why we would take so great a risk, my character set out with one of the cavalry detachments.

Much to the GM's surprises the dice gods were also in our favor, and when the assault was launched from three directions, with the enemy caught literally sleeping, my GM admitted defeat, and the day was won. After the fact, he asked where I had gotten the idea to take such a risk against a numerically superior foe. At that point, I proceeded to take out my copy of Shelby Foote's The Civil War: A Narrative. I gleefully turned to the pages I had marked detailing the same risk General Robert E. Lee took with the Army of Northern Virginia in the Spring of 1863 at the Battle Of Chancellorsville. In one game session, I had managed to bridge the ever widening gap between wargaming and role-playing.

You see, I do a lot of gaming. All kinds. You name it, I've probably played it, but wargaming is my first love. I have quite a collection of wargames, I have a gaming group that gets together every so often to play wargames, the majority of the books I read are military history, and I watch way too much of the History Channel. One of the first non-family home games I remember playing as a kid, even before Dungeons & Dragons, was Afrika Korp by Avalon Hill. The seed was planted. I spent countless dollars of allowance money on other Avalon Hill games like Tobruk, and Trireme. I was becoming a wargamer, and a passionate history enthusiast without even knowing it.

Years later when I had given up wargaming for lack of players who shared my passion, I was introduced to Ed Blomgren while working in a game store. This man did more to influence my view of gaming than any other. Twice my age (day job & family included), he went out of his way to dedicate time to teach me the art of wargaming, and most of all, how to apply it to the other games I was playing. He was my wargaming guru. I wouldn't buy any wargame without his opinion, and I bought every game he recommended. He even gave me a few collectors items, because he knew I would play them, and love every minute of it. This one man had shown me that I could be a gamer with no classification.

For many years now, I have been noticing the rift between wargamers and role-players growing ever wider. Why? There's no real reason for it. Could it be the stereotypes? Perhaps, but not all wargamers are grumpy old men, and warmongering soldiers. Not all role-players are young alternative-rock junky liberals. Both groups attend conventions, have day jobs, families... they have lives. But the rift is there because the two won't mingle, because the two won't learn from each other.

It is a rare breed of gamer that can truly say that they play both wargames and role-playing games, and I am proud to be one of those. I'm even proud to call my editor, Jim Pinto, one of my best wargaming and role-playing buddies [lies]. You'd even be surprised to know how many of your favorite game designers started off as, and still are, wargamers. Heck, we wouldn't even be playing role-playing games if Dave Arneson & Gary Gygax (both wargamers) hadn't given Chainmail a fantasy theme, and created Dungeons & Dragons. How, about the guys that designed Dead lands or Babylon Wars? I'd bet that you didn't even know that famed authors Larry Bond, and Tom Clancy are published wargame designers (Harpoon Modern Naval Miniatures).

From the very moment I joined the SHADIS staff, I wanted to do an issue that was a tribute to wargaming, and that could show how the these two wonderful facets of our hobby could be used together, and the result of my vision is SHADIS Goes To War! I would like to thank Jim Pinto, for sharing this idea, to the designer of Afrika Korp (his name escapes me at the moment) for my first taste, a very special thanks to Edward C. Blomgren (who passed away last Fall), John Leggit, Larry McIntyre, Domingo Ramos, and John Vogal for continuing to drive my passion for wargames. This issue's because of you!

SHADIS Goes To War! is a two year labor of love. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did seeing it happen.

In Loving Memory Of Edward C. Blomgren, 1940-1997

--Marcelo A. Figueroa Advertising Manager, SHADIS Magazine

Troll Gone

The following letter was posted on the AOL Game Company Publications Forum. Readers interested in visiting us on AOL can do to Keyword: GCS, then Messaging, Publications, SHADIS.

For those of you who wonder what happened to Troll, according to the industry news on Pyramid Online, it's gone as of issue #2. Long live SHADIS! Still, I can't help but think that it's not a good sign when quality magazine after quality magazine goes the way of the flesh... Makes me glad that SHADIS has continued, and is continuing to change with the times to meet the market's demands.

The problem with most gaming magazines is that they start out too ambitiously. Jolly Blackburn [the earliest editor and publisher of SHADIS] at least knew to start small, and work his way up into a top flight magazine, rather than try to start out with full gloss covers and tons of art on the inside. It's the same for Dragon magazine, it wasn't always the high gloss, chock full of art magazine that it is today; it was downright primitive when it began.

But both magazines knew that content was more important than flashy graphics, and included strong articles that could appeal to a large share of the gaming market, which at the time of Dragon's early issues was basically all AD&D.

SHADIS used to have strong general content, and was far less system specific, but then it started entering into all these giveaway deals with gaming publishers, and had to pay them back with articles about their systems, and thus has become much more system specific, and thus less useful to those not using that system.

Dragon, on the other hand, while running articles specific to AD&D, prints a lot of articles that are useful to folks running a nonAD&D fantasy campaign. Because, while they do include AD&D stats, if you practice a bit, you can usually change them into whatever fantasy system you are using fairly easily enough, and the rest of the information can be quite useful, and even fun to read sometimes, even if you don't use it.

They print all types of articles that expand on the backgrounds of various races, places, creatures, villains, classes, etc., whereas Shadis prints articles specific to certain systems, whatever their house system of the month is, as well as a few others, but most of these systems have their own genre, which does not adapt easily to other games.

Yes, Dragon does have lots of flash and gloss, but it also has good solid content that is easily adaptable for other fantasy campaigns, which is why it will probably never die. But most other gaming magazines are either too system specific or have mediocre to poor content, and try to make up for it with lots of flashy stuff. Yet the folks who like that flashy stuff over solid content tend to get bored and move out of gaming after awhile, and it's us hardcore gamers who support the magazines on a regular basis.

So, in summation, despite the fact that we hardcore gamers, who prefer content over visual flash, are the ones who support the magazines, they aim themselves at the transient gamers, who treat gaming like the flavor of the month, before getting bored and moving on to something else.

That is why gaming magazines fail.

--Michael Lampman

Wow, Mike. That was a mouth full. We would like to think that SHADIS gives readers what they want. We would like to think that SHADIS readers are a little smarter than people that listen to talk radio and that they know what they like and why. We would like to think that perhaps everything in gaming is good, because someone somewhere likes it. And we would like to think that even angry readers have a right to be published in SHADIS. And if gloss and flash work for Glam-Rock, then...

Titanic the Best

Dear SHADIS -

Being an avid gamer, it was with interest that I picked up issue #45 of your publication, after seeing the words "Timeship: TITANIC!" on the cover. Also being a devout Titanic Buff, I bought a copy. Browsing through it once I got home, I read a delightful series of articles revolving around the premise that an alternate version of the famed ship was wandering through dimensional realities, encountering all manner of races and worlds in her travels. The author seemed to be a genuine Titanic fan like myself, and his words conveyed his love of adventure. The illustrations were also first rate, my favorite being the view of a small sailing vessal approaching the liner, while a Dragon leaned against the rail.

Skip forward one month. Issue 46 of SHADIS hits the stands, and to and behold, another Titanic therned article appears. However, this is an obviously hastily written affair in order to cash in on the popularity of the James Cameron blockbuster, and what's worse, yet another dark and gloomy scenario involving the occult, and supernatural. Doesn't our hobby suffer enough without articles like this to stoke the fires for the god-Nazis, and other forces who want to portray all garners as social deviants?

"Timeship: TITANIC!" in my opinion portrayed all that is the best that is gaming, namely escaping from the everyday world by embarking on a grand adventure for a time. On the "Timeship", I could sense that there would be a spirit of comradery as the crew worked together to solve whatever problem faced them, as they sought to return home. In "Oblivion's Daughter", everyone is a soulsucking zombie, for cripes sake! Several years ago there was an excel- l lent game system known as SPACE: 1889, offering bold adventure. It too failed because of more darker therned games on the market. It' makes you wonder about this hobby and the majority of those involved in it. They moan and grown about how everyone persecutes them, yet do nothing to change the general view that people have.

This is what the game industry, and magazines like SHADIS need to do; show that this is a wholesome hobby by producing more fine works like "Timeship: TITANIC!" and less like "Oblivion's Daughter".

Thank you for your attention.

--Ted Anderson Arlington Heights, II

Actually this article was not hastily written. It was accepted in September of last year, and the writer (in his opinion) took much care to treat the wreck with reverence and poise, while still making it a viable setting for the Wraith: Role-Playing Game. In all honesty, when I first read it, I didn't like it (not being a fan of Wraith it was hard to get excited about spirits and dead people). I argued with Rob Vaux, the previous editor, about whether to accept it or not. He was adamant, being a big Titanic fan and all. If space had permitted we would have published it in issue 45. After a long bout of editing and typing and research, the article grew on me, and I found some of its darker elements sad and disturbing... and it made me feel something for the fated people of the Titanic. I had seen the movie (I enjoyed it, despite the hype) and I realized that this was a really tragic affair, not something to be treated lightly (like so many late night jokes). Suddenly the article took on a different light for me. I began to find the tragedy in the faces of the forlorn and the sadness those that survived must have felt. Most of the quotes were of my fault as I tried to add sympathy to what Micheal had written. I hope you understand that SHADIS is all for "great" articles. We just think they come in a lot of different styles.