Different Worlds Magazine
Issue 1 1979, cover by Steve Swenston
EditorTadashi Ehara
Frequencybimonthly
Publisher
FounderTadashi Ehara, Greg Stafford
Founded1979
First issueFebruary/March 1979
Final issue
Number		Fall 1987
47
CountryUSA
LanguageEnglish
Websitediffworlds.com

Different Worlds was an American role-playing games magazine published from 1979 to 1987.

Scope

Different Worlds published support articles, scenarios, and variants for various role-playing games including Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, Traveller, Call of Cthulhu and others; play techniques and strategies for players and gamemasters of role-playing games; reviews of games and miniatures; and reviews of current books and movies of interest to role-playing gamers.

Notably, Different Worlds also featured early works by artists Steve Oliff, Bill Willingham, and Steve Purcell; ″Sword of Hollywood″, a regular film review column by Larry DiTillio from issue seven onward; the irregular autobiographical/interview feature ″My Life and Roleplaying″; and the industry scuttlebutt column ″A Letter from Gigi″ by the pseudonymous[1] Gigi D'Arn.

Different Worlds also published books, including:[2]

  • Tékumel Sourcebook: The World of the Petal Throne, book 1, 1987
  • Tékumel Sourcebook: The World of the Petal Throne, book 2, 1988
  • Blackwatch Technical Reference Manual, 1989

Publication history

Different Worlds was launched in 1979 by Tadashi Ehara and Greg Stafford of Chaosium as a general-interest role-playing magazine.[3] At that time Chaosium was primarily a board games publisher, but had also published its own role-playing game, RuneQuest, in 1978. RuneQuest was designed primarily to be played in Glorantha, Stafford's fantasy world and the setting of the board games White Bear and Red Moon (later Dragon Pass) and Nomad Gods.

Chaosium had previously published the magazine Wyrm's Footnotes, which ran for fourteen issues from 1976 to 1982. Wyrm's Footnotes was conceived primarily as support for White Bear and Red Moon and other Chaosium board games, but quickly became a forum for discussion of Glorantha, and was rebranded to be the official RuneQuest magazine with its 11th issue (Spring 1981).[4]

Different Worlds was published bimonthly from 1979 to 1987, for forty-seven issues. Chaosium published the first thirty-eight issues from 1979 to 1985, and Sleuth Publications published the final nine issues between 1985 and 1987. Tadashi Ehara was the magazine's editor at both publishers.[5]

Notes

  1. ↑ Lindke, Christian (2 May 2012). "Gigi D'arn -- Who is/was she?". Advanced Dungeons & Parenting. Archived from the original on 30 January 2013. Retrieved 26 January 2013.
  2. ↑ Appelcline, Shannon (2014). Designers & Dragons. '80-'89 : A history of the roleplaying game industry (2nd ed.). Silver Springs, MD, USA: Evil Hat Productions. p. 346. ISBN 978-1-61317-081-6.
  3. ↑ Tadashi Ehara, Origins of Different Worlds Magazine
  4. ↑ Shannon Appelcline, Wyrm's Footnotes index
  5. ↑ rpg.net index to Different Worlds
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