The old ones

Hi,

There are times when the world of history becomes a bit too much and I sit there contemplating something not real  such as sci-fi games or good old pnp rpgs.

No game review, nor silly things like new games coming out, instead a listing of different web sites that help keep the "old" games and magazines alive.  

1) Everyone has heard of Avalon Hill games (correctly called TAHGC from a law suit).  But not everyone has seen "The General", TAHGC house magazine.  Here is a link to every one of the Generals published, click here to read.

One can also download TAHGC house magazines on their sport games and a short lived Role Playing Game (RPG) mag, "Heroes".
 

2) Of course sometimes one needs to find that "something" for a TAHGC game, maybe a new game board, a counter or who knows???.  If so, look here, as one may find it,  click here.

3) From Metagaming came "The Space Gamer".  This was Metagames house magazine. Howard Thompson was the owner and over the years, he has disappeared.  No one knows if he finally "lost it", hiding from creditors, or died.  But I do know he let several great games slipped thru his fingers and just got plain weird towards the end.  Again, these are available  in .pdf format. Click here to read.

 

The Fantasy Trip (aka TFT) was one of my favorite RPGs. Still have them including all the solo adventures.  Worn out, played to death and hopefully getting ready to introduce this series to the neighbor kids.  Steve Jackson was able to get the rights to this series. And he brought them back out. 

 

4) One of my favorite S&T spin offs in the Sci-Fi world was "Ares" magazine.  Each issue (except two special issues) had a small capsule type game.  Some were fun to play, some sucked.  Again, available for download including the games in .pdf format.  Click here to read. 

5) Speaking of SPI or S&T games, here is a link to SPI Wargame Resources.  A very good site that has all sorts of items related to these old games.  Click Here.

6) There is one additional RPG game book that I bought and played in the 80's. This is Knights and Magick. I lost my copy when we had some of our house hold goods stolen coming from the UK.  Nothing like thieves stealing from folks and one can find it here. 

Brought back out by Jeff McAleer of "The Gaming Gang", a crazy large RPG site.  Available once again in several versions from a .pdf to hard bound book.  197 pages of good role playing. Heritage Games brought it out originally to go with their 25mm lead miniatures. The rules are available here - It is available here (same as above).

Speaking of Heritage, I met Duke Seigfried at a model convention in Phoenix Az, back in 1981 when I was stationed at Luke AFB.   I took best in show with a 25mm diorama, best in 25mm, and best in 54mm with my miniatures. He was giving out the trophies and we just started talking after the show as I guess I must have impressed him for the two 25mm minis were Heritage USA. The 54mm was a horse and knight from Michael Stackpole (yes, that Mike Stackpole) that I was commission for mounting and painting.

Anyway, Duke invited me to his room and showed me how to paint using his new method for putting out a large group in the quickest time. I believe this was called "stain" painting.   I still have a bunch of Heritage 25 mini's of knights, monsters, etc.  Somewhere I have the original brochure that Heritage put out. I need to find it and put it up.  Note - in this reprint is Duke's own stain painting manual.  😉

Most people who offer .pdfs on a web site, say one needs to download Adobe pdf reader, a very bloat-ware piece of crap. Bull shite. I use  Sumatra PDF reader.  Free, lightweight and no bloat-ware. Click here to download.

7) And Heritage also came out with their "Dwarfstar Games"back in 1980 to 1982. Reaper Miniatures gave their blessing to allow 7 of the 8 games to be downloaded. Click here to download.  

 

The one game missing is Dragon Rage. Flatlined Games does not own it anymore with the copyright going back to the original designer, since 2010.  

 

 We will probably never see it again.

 

 

Status

Out of print - rights reverted to the author

Author(s) Lewis Pulsipher

Of course Reaper Miniatures still owns the copyrights of 7 of the games and one cannot print and publish these games for selling.   But it sure is nice that they are available.  Thank you Dennis Sustare of Reaper Miniatures.

8) Wargame Academy (WGA) is also online for various games from different publishers. Click here to go there.

I am sure there are other web sites that have game parts and other items for us folks who enjoy the older games, I just need to close this posting now.  If you know of some of these, let me know in the comments section below.  

And honestly, thank you for stopping by! I would like to hear any comments you may have on any game, or this post, either good or bad.
-ab

Updated to correct an error. 

This blog is considered to be a living blog. Changes will be made to it as needed to clarify, correct errors or update with new information.