INTERACTIVE FANTASY: THE ONLY 'SCHOLASTIC' MAGAZINE COVERING RPGs

Magazines about gaming and role playing games have been numerous, especially in the heyday from the beginning of the '80s to the middle of the '90s of the last century, but there was just one that tried to become somekind of academic journal on RPGs: the British publication Interactive Fantasy (née Inter*Action but forced to change name due to copyright issues). 

The magazine was published in mook (magazine + book) format, just like many academic and scientific publications, to enhance perhaps its 'scholastic' appeal and it was 160 pages long (only the first issue was 128 pages long). Graphics was book like (ie, essential), artwork inexistant except for covers of reviewed RPGs because most of space was devoted, of course, to articles and essays. 

Interactive Fantasy second issue (undated)

Interactive Fantasy was subdivided in various sections (Contents, Overviews, Technology, Recreation, Analysis, Design, Reviews, Letters albeit they were not always present in all issues) with Andrew Rilstone as Editor and Hogshead (James Wallis publishing company, mostly noted for its Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay reprint)  as a Publisher. 

Interactive Fantasy third issue (undated)

The first issue was priced at $ 9,99 while issues 2-4 were priced at $ 7,95 and the claim for issues 1-3 was The journal of role playing and storyteling systems, changing to The magazine for the thinking gamer (note the change from 'journal', used mostly for academic publications, to 'magazine', more adequate for a general interest gaming publication). Issue 1 was published in 1994 while the other three appeared in 1995, it seems that Interactive Fantasy hoped to be a quarterly journal, and issue 4 has a schedule for issues 5 - 7 going to 1996 but publication stopped with issue 4.  

Interactive Fantasy was indeed a publication apart from all its brothers and cousins - no scenarios, no new rules, no playing aids, no interviews, no (mopre or less) snazzy graphics, no (more or less) illustrations - just some reviews, very long and detailed ones - because its ambition was to be different, more scholarly and mature. The idea behind the magazine was exploring role playing as an art form and an intellectual pursuit, discussing and confronting design techniques hoping to break new ground, analyzing bias and prejudices in RPGs, evaluating impact of new technologies on RPGs... and much more. Its articles were often very long, as happens in academic publications, and detailed. Many contributors to Interactive Fantasy were (and in some times still are) major names in the game design and game critique fields: Paul Mason, Johnathan Tweet, Lee Gold, Phil Masters, Patrice Mermoud (from France), Sandy Antunes, Greg Stafford, Greg Costykian - just to name a few. Interactive Fantasy was indeed an intelligent and intellectual magazine and, so, doomed to low sales because its very own features made it attractive to a very limited group of people, the elusive 'intelligent gamer' who loved in the past The Space Gamer, Different Worlds and The Gamer (for example) but whose number was not enough to support a magazine. Interactive Fantasy as a medium, the only one, for serious analysis and reflection on the genre, was a gem and some articles are still very interesting and thought provoking (Greg Costykyan's "I have no words and I must design" it's still an outstanding piece of work), it failed from a financial point of view so it stopped publishing in 1995. James Wallis of Hogshead sold it to Andrew Rilstone that announced plans to continue Interactive Fantasy but nothing came of it (Rilstone would have got a column in Arcane magazine). The magazine is now quite rare, albeit not costly whemn it surfaces on auction sites, but issues may be downloaded from Drivethru with a "pay what you want" system. It was a very interesting magazine, if you are interested in a scholastic and academic discussion of role playing and role playing games.