History Magazine / WhiteDwarf

* SuperiorSuccessor: In ''The Dice Men'', the official recollection of GW's early history, founder Ian Livingstone noted that the first GW publication was a fanzine called ''Owl and Weasel'' which was an rpg review. When GW grew to sufficient size, ''Owl and Weasel'' was no longer enough. So GW took a gamble and discontinued the fanzine and instead went for a glossy expensive magazine ''White Dwarf'' that featured more than just reviews. Despite high initial costs, ''White Dwarf'' quickly became profitable and was GW's main money maker at that time (Warhammer hadn't been made yet).
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''White Dwarf'' is the house magazine of UK TabletopGames company Creator/GamesWorkshop. It was first published in 1977, having developed from an earlier newsletter, ''Owl and Weasel'', and is still going as of 2022. It is known today as a regular source of support material for that company's miniature figure wargames; however, when it first appeared, Games Workshop was primarily an importer and occasional publisher of tabletop roleplaying games, and for its first eighty or so issues, in the late '70s and early '80s, ''White Dwarf'' existed to provide support for those, becoming a central feature of the British RPG scene. Those issues are still remembered by older roleplaying gamers for a handful of innovative or exceptional articles (and some roleplayers remained [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks angry about the magazine's transformation]] for ''years''), and the magazine published the earliest work of a number of British games writers, and of one or two writers who went on to become well known in other fields.

* CoversAlwaysLie: In its days as a roleplaying games magazine, ''White Dwarf'' evidently used whatever cool SF or fantasy art that the editors could lay hands on. There was no intent to deceive; the covers just hardly ever related directly to any of the contents. After it became a ''Warhammer'' wargames support mechanism, it simply used art from and for the game, making the covers reliably relevant, in a general way.
* DoubleMeaningTitle: A "white dwarf" is of course a category of star in astronomy, but from its first issue, the magazine has featured imagery of a (usually white-bearded) fantasy dwarf, who is sometimes acknowledged to be "the white dwarf". This is all very appropriate for a magazine that covers both SF and fantasy games.

''White Dwarf'' is the house magazine of UK TabletopGames company Creator/GamesWorkshop. It was first published in 1977, having developed from an earlier newsletter, ''Owl and Weasel'', and is still going as of 2017. It is known today as a regular source of support material for that company's miniature figure wargames; however, when it first appeared, Games Workshop was primarily an importer and occasional publisher of tabletop roleplaying games, and for its first eighty or so issues, in the late '70s and early '80s, ''White Dwarf'' existed to provide support for those, becoming a central feature of the British RPG scene. Those issues are still remembered by older roleplaying gamers for a handful of innovative or exceptional articles (and some roleplayers remained [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks angry about the magazine's transformation]] for ''years''), and the magazine published the earliest work of a number of British games writers, and of one or two writers who went on to become well known in other fields.

The shift in ''White Dwarf'''s focus from being a wide-ranging roleplaying-focused magazine to being one devoted entirely to Games Workshop miniature gaming happened in two stages from 1987 through 1991. First, non-Games Workshop material was dropped, with the last AD&D adventure appearing in Issue #93 (September 1987), though general RPG and book reviews continued for a while. However, while this was a definite switch, Games Workshop was at the time still publishing ''TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasyRoleplay'' and held the UK licences for ''TabletopGame/{{Paranoia}}'', ''TabletopGame/CallOfCthulhu'' and a few other [=RPGs=], so the magazine still published adventures and other roleplaying material. By issue #100 (April 1988), though, even these games were being pushed out by a focus on the miniatures-based wargames ''TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasyBattle'' and ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' and their spinoffs. The last ''Paranoia'' material appeared in Issue #112 (April 1989) and the last roleplaying material of any kind, for ''Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay'', was in Issue #140 (August 1991).

The shift in ''White Dwarf'''s focus from being a wide-ranging roleplaying-focused magazine to being one devoted entirely to Games Workshop miniature gaming happened in two stages from 1987 through 1991. First, non-Games Workshop material was dropped, with the last AD&D adventure appearing in Issue #93 (September 1987), though general RPG and book reviews continued for a while. However, while this was a definite switch, Games Workshop was at the time still publishing ''TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasyRoleplay'' and held the UK licences for ''TabletopGame/{{Paranoia}}'', ''TabletopGame/CallOfCthulhu'' and a few others, so the magazine still published adventures and other roleplaying material. By issue #100 (April 1988), though, even these were being pushed out by a focus on the miniatures-based wargames ''TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasyBattle'' and ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' and their spinoffs. The last ''Paranoia'' material appeared in Issue #112 (April 1989) and the last roleplaying material of any kind, for ''Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay'', was in Issue #140 (August 1991).

The shift in ''White Dwarf'''s focus from being a wideranging roleplaying focused magazine to being one devoted entirely to Games Workshop miniature gaming happened in two stages from 1987 through 1991. First non-Games Workshop material was dropped with the last AD&D adventure appearing in Issue #93 (September 1987), though general rpg and book reviews continued for a while. However while this was a definite switch Games Workshop was at the time still publishing ''TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasyRoleplay'' along with the UK licence for ''TabletopGame/{{Paranoia}}'', ''TabletopGame/CallOfCthulhu'' and a few others so the magazine still published adventures and other roleplaying material. By issue #100 (April 1988) even these aspects were being pushed out by focus on the miniatures based wargames ''TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasyBattle'' and ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' and their spinoffs. The last ''Paranoia'' material appeared in Issue #112 (April 1989) and the last roleplaying material of any kind, for ''Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay'', was in Issue #140 (August 1991).

Tropes associated with ''White Dwarf'' at one time or another include:

''White Dwarf'' is the house magazine of UK TabletopGames company Creator/GamesWorkshop. It was first published in 1977, having developed from an earlier newsletter, ''Owl and Weasel'', and is still going as of 2016. It is known today as a regular source of support material for that company's miniature figure wargames; however, when it first appeared, Games Workshop was primarily an importer and occasional publisher of tabletop roleplaying games, and for its first eighty or so issues, in the late '70s and early '80s, ''White Dwarf'' existed to provide support for those, becoming a central feature of the British RPG scene. Those issues are still remembered by older roleplaying gamers for a handful of innovative or exceptional articles (and some roleplayers remained [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks angry about the magazine's transformation]] for ''years''), and the magazine published the earliest work of a number of British games writers, and of one or two writers who went on to become well known in other fields.

''White Dwarf'' is the house magazine of UK TabletopGames company Creator/GamesWorkshop. It was first published in 1977, having developed from an earlier newsletter, ''Owl and Weasel'', and is still going as of 2015. It is known today as a regular source of support material for that company's miniature figure wargames; however, when it first appeared, Games Workshop was primarily an importer and occasional publisher of tabletop roleplaying games, and for its first eighty or so issues, in the late '70s and early '80s, ''White Dwarf'' existed to provide support for those, becoming a central feature of the British RPG scene. Those issues are still remembered by older roleplaying gamers for a handful of innovative or exceptional articles (and some roleplayers remained [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks angry about the magazine's transformation]] for ''years''), and the magazine published the earliest work of a number of British games writers, and of one or two writers who went on to become well known in other fields.

''White Dwarf'' is the house magazine of UK games company Creator/GamesWorkshop. It was first published in 1977, having developed from an earlier newsletter, ''Owl and Weasel'', and is still going as of 2015. It is known today as a regular source of support material for that company's miniature figure wargames; however, when it first appeared, Games Workshop was primarily an importer and occasional publisher of tabletop roleplaying games, and for its first eighty or so issues, in the late '70s and early '80s, ''White Dwarf'' existed to provide support for those, becoming a crucial feature of the British RPG scene. Those issues are still remembered by older roleplaying gamers for a handful of innovative or exceptional articles (and some roleplayers remained [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks angry about the magazine's transformation]] for ''years''), and the magazine published the earliest work of a number of British games writers -- and of one or two writers who went on to become well known in other fields.

''White Dwarf'' is the house magazine of UK games company Creator/GamesWorkshop. It was first published in 1977, having developed from an earlier newsletter, ''Owl and Weasel'', and is still going as of 2015. It is known today as a regular source of support material for that company's games; however, when it first appeared, Games Workshop was primarily an importer and occasional publisher of tabletop roleplaying games, and for its first eighty or so issues, in the late '70s and early '80s, ''White Dwarf'' existed to provide support for those, becoming a crucial feature of the British RPG scene. Those issues are still remembered by older roleplaying gamers for a handful of innovative or exceptional articles (and some roleplayers remained [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks angry about the magazine's transformation]] for ''years''), and the magazine published the earliest work of a number of British games writers -- and of one or two writers who went on to become well known in other fields.

''White Dwarf'' is the house magazine of UK games company Creator/GamesWorkshop. It was first published in 1977, having developed from an earlier newsletter, ''Owl and Weasel''. It is known today as a regular source of support material for that company's games; however, when it first appeared, Games Workshop was primarily an importer and occasional publisher of tabletop roleplaying games, and for its first eighty or so issues, in the late '70s and early '80s, ''White Dwarf'' existed to provide support for those, becoming a crucial feature of the British RPG scene. Those issues are still remembered by older roleplaying gamers for a handful of innovative or exceptional articles, and the magazine published the earliest work of a number of British games writers -- and of one or two writers who went on to become well known in other fields.