Issue #17 - Suspense & Decision PBM magazine

[Rick McDowell]

OK, after much lamentations and without rebooting my computer, it would appear that someone submitted their article to me in A4 page size format, whereas I have been using the more American popular size of 8 1/2 by 11 inches. So, it wasn't the one page that was off, it was a lot of other pages that were off.

Now, we're cooking with Crisco, again.

Hooray!

First, congratulations to Charles for getting S&D #17 out without some expected supporting help.

Just with a quick once-over of the issue, the article quality seemed better, that said even without much attention to Alamaze. 
I liked the Hyborian War article by Charles the best in my first go-through.  I think it is to the important point of where the hobby stands.  And I feel somehow HW is like a PBM sibling to Alamaze.  It actually came out a year after Alamaze won the Origins / GenCon Game of the Year.  So maybe a sprightly 29 instead of 32 or so.  I knew some of the folks at RSI and of course they licensed Alamaze back in the day.

I played Duelmasters more than HW, but RSI was a core figure in PBM over these years and I think it a valid question to ask if they are intending to develop their games.
 
I remember having dinner with Paul Brown of RSI and Michael Gray, designer of Milton Bradley games including Shogun that won the same year as Alamaze at Origins.  I still have an unopened box of Shogun.  Michael wrote the outstanding review in Dragon Magazine of Alamaze that really catapulted us and likely was the key to getting Game of the Year.

Charles and I have many disagreements, including opinions on art, but I really felt the S&D art in this issue served a good purpose and end. 
I will more completely read the rest of the zine, scarce as it is for Alamaze, but with the initial glances I thought all the contributors stepped up their game (literally).  Good job.  At some point, we have to figure out how to work together to not just keep games going, but how to attract bright young minds to the best kind of strategy gaming around. 

Rick
Alamaze Designer