Danger Magnet Magazine Premier Issue

Danger Magnet is a brand new Gaming magazine specifically geared towards Pulp adventure. The offerings are written for the Ubiquity gaming system, the system used for Exile Games “Hollow Earth Expeditions”, but they can be very easily adapted to any pulp style system with very little effort.

First off, I have to say the magazine is beautiful. It sports a wonderful action packed cover full of pulp flavor. The layout is crisp and stylish. I was very impressed by the look of Danger Magnet.

Since this is a PDF product I have to suggest two points to consider in future issues.

#1 Numbered pages. The table of contents has page references but as I printed it up there were no page numbers.
#2 No black backgrounds. Black backgrounds eat up a lot of ink and may keep people from printing it up. Making the magazine as “printer friendly” as possible will insure that your readers print up a copy and use it rather than looking at it once and then leaving it on their hard drive to soon be forgotten.

The feature articles include:

Professor Scrumtumbler’s BEASTiary
A “New Monsters” feature that not only introduces new creatures but also offers hooks for using them in adventures. This issue featured “Tomb Beetles” very similar to the ones that wreaked havoc in the movie “The Mummy” (1992).

The Society Page
This issue was devoted to Howard Carter the archeologist responsible for discovering King Tutankhamen’s tomb. It also gave information on incorporating Professor Carter into the “Hollow Earth” game world. This article also offered hooks or “Seeds” to help get the Professor involved in your campaign. Good stuff.

Next up is an adventure titled “The Thule Death Ray”
This is a nice solid adventure (with handouts) that adds Game master tips for setting mood and describing conditions by the sense. Good tips that even experienced game masters forget from time to time.

The Twelve Talismans of Tali’ Theus
This article introduces a dozen items for use in your adventures, either as rewards, treasures to discover or heirlooms to be passed down in the battle against the forces of evil.

Desolation
This appears to be a licensed product for the Ubiquity system. A bit of D&D meets Gamma World as the survivors of a post apocalyptic fantasy world struggle for survival. This offering is a locale (a cave complex) that can be inserted in a campaign. I would have preferred a write up of desolation itself. Something that would tell me in detail what the game offers and such. While the article was well written, I think it would have better been left for a future issue, after a introduction article to Desolation was done.

Finally we have an article called “Tools of the trade”
“Tools of the trade” goes over, in nice detail, the various accoutrements used by Indian Jones on his various adventures. Very well researched and fun. This is the type of “Meat and Potatoes” article that I love, very useful to any Pulp GM no matter the system being used.

The whole issue comes in at a healthy 35 pages, and was a very enjoyable read with quite a few handy tips and adventure ideas.

This premiere issue is free, though you can donate a few bucks to the cause.

For those of us who enjoy Pulp gaming we have been experiencing a renaissance as of late with great games like Savage Worlds, Spirit of the Century, Hollow Earth Expeditions, Dime Heroes and Two Fisted Tales, just to name a few. But what we haven’t seen is a magazine that addresses the genre in full and with such style as Danger Magnet. I would implore all of you to not only download the free copy but to also pony up a few bucks to insure that this effort continues. The production values of this magazine are excellent and rival any other PDF product out there. $5.00 is a very decent price for the amount of content that you’re getting. So be sure to give Danger Magnet a chance, I’m positive you won’t be disappointed. And be sure to tell them the Evil DM sent ya!