owling's Full Review: Knights of the Dinner Table Magazine
I'm really not much of a magazine person.
No, that's wrong. I get plenty of magazines, but I keep most of them around for research. I don't tend to read them from cover to cover month after month - with one exception:
Knights of the Dinner Table!
I found out about KoDT (as it is affectionately known) a few years ago. I'm a member of the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design (people who make roleplaying games - the tabletop pen-and-paper kind, not computer games), you see, and every year we get to nominate items for the yearly Origins Awards, which honor excellence in roleplaying games. Since it's hard for everyone in the Academy to be familiar with all the items that are eligible, companies are encouraged to put up pdf excerpts to view, send out samples, give discounts on products, and so on. The company that publishes KoDT, Kenzer & Co, regularly sends out an issue or two so that people can see whether it deserves to be nominated in the best periodical category.
On this particular occasion I received my first-ever issue of this magazine as a sample. And I loved it! So much so that I immediately sent in an order for a subscription.
A Little History
KoDT was originally created by Jolly R. Blackburn (his real name, and yes, the R. stands for Roger) as filler material. You see, at the time he published a nice magazine called Shadis (another magazine for roleplayers). One month he was a bit short on material, so he created a comic strip about roleplayers and called it Knights of the Dinner Table. It became something of a tradition, and soon it caught on. People didn't want him to stop writing it. Shadis died (tragically), but the Knights had become so popular that they lived on in their own comic book! (Apparently no one was more surprised than Jolly.)
The Comic
While KoDT has become something much more than it used to be, roughly the first 32 out of 100 pages still contain the same old stuff as always - an editorial from Jolly, letters from fans, and a whole lot of comic strips!
The strips tell the adventures of B.A. (the harried game master), and his players: Bob, Dave, Sara, and Brian. These guys represent the best and worst of what gamers have to offer, from Brian's intense tactics and rules-lawyering to Dave's utter reliance on heavy weaponry. KoDT has given rise to a number of catch-phrases you'll hear repeated again and again by gamers: "I waste him with my crossbow!" comes from Bob, and is probably the most famous.
Over the course of the comic strip various friends and enemies of the Knights have entered play. There's another gaming group called the Black Hands, led by Nitro. It includes Weird Pete, the local game store owner. (In another bit of bleed from KoDT to the wider world of gamerdom, many people have come to refer to their local game store owner as their Weird Pete.) We even see bits and pieces of Hard Eight, the fictional game company that produces HackMaster, the game the Knights play.
HackMaster and Other KenzerCo Products
HackMaster, you see, is the game that the Knights and their cohorts play. It started out as a fictional game, a parody of Dungeons & Dragons. Now Kenzer & Co. has turned fiction into reality - HackMaster not only exists, but it won "Game of the Year" at this year's Origins Awards! KenzerCo also publishes the world of Kalamar, an official setting for Dungeons & Dragons.
Why is this relevant? Because the latter half of KoDT is full of game material for gamers. But we'll get to that in a moment...
Aesthetics
The comic isn't exactly the height of high art - it's very simplistic in style, and Jolly has long argued that he doesn't know how to draw. But so many people love his style that those few times he's tried to find a "real artist," the public outcry stopped him.
The full-color covers are hilarious. They typically spoof some other thing - such as this month's cover, which is "I Know What You Role-Played Last Summer." It shows BA in the mask and hood from "Scream." He's reading Sara's diary while she creeps up behind him with a baseball bat. Bob's in the chandelier, Dave is hiding on the floor, and Brian's calling 911.
KenzerCo typically includes a couple of pages of comics from someone else. Sometimes they'll keep the same "guest comic" going for a while; sometimes they'll spotlight new people. It helps to vary the style a bit.
The RPG Material
The other half of the magazine is material of various types for roleplayers, most of it compatible with either HackMaster or Kalamar. Typically you might find whole articles full of magic items, from the helpful to the truly silly. (Digger's Spurs of Wondrous Speed vs. Becknor's Spurious Spurs of Hindrance.) Each comes with interesting back-story as well as statistics. You might also find some fairly unusual items - this last issue, for example, included "Portals of Death: a Half-Dozen Deadly Dungeon Doors for Your D&D 3E Campaign." Yes, this does mean that KoDT sometimes includes articles providing material for other games, not just HackMaster and Kalamar. You'll usually find a few characters and a new monster for HackMaster.
Various rules, suggestions, and systems of all kinds are presented for game masters (GMs): armor repair articles for HackMaster, MechWarrior primers, use of miniatures in roleplaying games, finding people to game with, handling fumbles in D&D, how to game with younger kids, and so on. There's a little something for everyone here.
"Critical Mass" encourages readers to send in reviews of games they love. Once a certain critical mass of reviews is reached on a game, the various opinions are summed up and presented in one column, presenting a wide range of viewpoints on a game. "Under the Hood" brings in an outside game publisher to explain the behind the scenes history of one of their games. "Face Off" brings up a "hot topic" in gaming and quotes readers' views in support of one side of the topic or another.
"Summon Webscryer" checks out various gaming-related web sites. A page of industry news tidbits, courtesy of GamingReport.com, will keep you up-to-date on the latest happenings in the world of RPGs. There's KenzerCo's convention calendar, in case you want to meet the folks who put out the magazine. "Game Mechanic" provides a forum in which readers can share their home-brewed rules for their favorite games (everything from D&D to Axis & Allies). "Back Room at the Games Pit" is an open opinion forum for readers. "Brian's Small Press Picks" will introduce you to some cool little games you might not have heard of.
A Very Friendly Company
One of the things I love about Kenzer & Co. is that it is, at the moment, one of the friendliest RPG companies I've ever seen. KoDT has a very personal, we're-all-friends-here kind of feel to it, with photo galleries from cons, reminiscences from folks at the company about past follies and triumphs, amusing tales from fans, and so on. They're much more open about including tidbits from readers than any other magazine I've seen. Jolly is one of the true "nice guys of gaming" (and there aren't all that many of those, believe me).
KenzerCo even provides an extensive set of web forums on their web site, some of which are dedicated to HackMaster, and many of which are devoted to the various KoDT departments.
The Best Magazine for Roleplayers
I believe that, hands down, Knights of the Dinner Table is the best magazine for roleplayers. It has a strong slant toward HackMaster and D&D, but publishes articles of value to any gaming group. Best of all, where other RPG magazines are a bit like sitting and listening to a lecture, KoDT is much more like holding a dialogue. There have to be at least a half-dozen different ways for readers to become involved in the content, from the "Critical Mass" reviews, to letters to the editor, tales from the gaming table, the "Back Room" forum, and more.
The comics portion of the magazine will mostly be of interest to roleplayers - there are a lot of jokes that won't be nearly as funny if you aren't familiar with gaming and the gaming community. On the other hand, I've seen several letters to the editor from "gaming spouses" (people who've never gamed whose spouses game) who say that they really enjoy the comic even though they don't game. So who knows - give it a try and you might enjoy it anyway. If you aren't sure whether you'll like it or not, then go to the company's web site (http://www.kenzerco.com/ ) - they've started putting up "web strips" a couple of times a week. It'll give you a taste of what the comic's like and what it looks like before you spend any actual money on it.
KoDT is 100 pages of great material (very recently increased from 80), presented monthly. It is available by subscription from your local game store or KenzerCo. KenzerCo also sells back issues and bundled issues, in case you decide you just have to know what you've missed!
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