From the editor-in-chief's description of the issue:
How many of you out there have always wondered how a game company works? Okay, how many of you out there have sometimes wondered how a game company works? When you play FILE 12, the latest game to come out of Tom Wham's creative cranium, you may not learn an awful lot about how a real game company operates, but you'll be having so much fun you won't care any more.
For something in a less lighthearted vein, check out Gary Gygax's official presentation of the new cavalier sub-class for the AD&D game; just like paladins are inclined to do, cavaliers take themselves very seriously.
All that glitters is not a gold piece - a point that's made emphatically in "Gems Galore" by Ed Greenwood. You'll find dozens of gemstones and other goodies described in the space of a few pages - and you don't even need a hammer or a chisel to dig 'em out.
The barbarian, as a character class for use in AD&D play, has been the topic of much discussion on these pages in recent months. Now, Katharine Kerr has come up with a new twist on an old subject: "The Real Barbarians," an account of what the folks who originally earned that name were like.
It had been our policy, for lo these many issues, to not publish an article that had previously appeared in another publication. But when "The Ecology of the Piercer" showed up on our doorstep, we suddenly decided that policies are made to be changed. Why? Because it was too good to pass up.
As a followup to his essay on play-by-mail games in issue #68, Mike Gray has put together an overview of "The PBM scene." If you've been agonizing over which game to spend your hard-earned turn fees on, this article won't make that choice for you, but at least you'll get a good idea of what to choose from.
Names, of one sort or another, are the topic at hand in two short pieces: John Sapienza's Up On a Soapbox essay, concerning his low opinion of the level titles used in the D&D and AD&D rules, and Jay Treat's description of how to combine elements of Old English into names for FRP characters that are both authentic and meaningful.
Agents and administrators alike may find their missions in life a little less confusing after perusing the latest installment of "Spy's Advice," wherein master spies Merle Rasmussen and Allen Hammack unravel some of the more mysterious parts of the TOP SECRET rules.
Finally, in case you were wondering if we let our favorite time of year slip past unnoticed - well, we didn't. It just wouldn't be April without a little foolishness, now, would it? - KM
