Winwick Pig Publications 1979
Winwick Pig Publications 1979 (WPP 1979) was a small British publisher of fantasy role-playing game adventures and gaming material, active from 1979 until 1983. Based in Warrington in Cheshire, the company developed from a local gaming group and is chiefly remembered for its inexpensive adventure modules, the short-lived gaming magazine Tankard, its distinctive boar's-head logo and the recurring depiction of an unidentified blonde Elven archer in much of its artwork. WPP 1979 ceased trading in 1983 following mounting financial difficulties and the subsequent conviction of its founder, Roger Roughley, for fraud. Although commercially unsuccessful during its lifetime, surviving WPP 1979 publications later acquired a modest following amongst collectors of early British role-playing material.
History
Winwick Pig Publications originated with the Winwick Gaming Society, an informal group of wargamers and role-playing enthusiasts who met in and around Winwick during the late 1970s. Meetings were held in members' homes, pub rooms and, for a period, a local social club. The group's principal organiser was Roger Roughley, an enthusiastic games master and amateur entrepreneur. Roughley became convinced that adventures created for the group's own campaigns were comparable to the increasingly numerous professionally published fantasy scenarios appearing in British games shops. In 1979, he persuaded several members of the society to contribute towards the cost of publishing one of their adventures.
The resulting enterprise was named Winwick Pig Publications, apparently after the gaming society itself. Its emblem, a snarling boar's head accompanied by the initials WPP, subsequently appeared on almost everything the company produced. The occasionally used slogan “GOOD GAME!” became equally associated with the firm. WPP initially operated on an extremely small scale. Manuscripts were typed rather than typeset, maps were largely hand-drawn and artwork was commissioned from friends, local artists and gaming enthusiasts.
Printing was unusually contracted to a company in the German Democratic Republic, an arrangement Roughley claimed to have obtained through a business acquaintance who could offer substantially lower prices than British printers. No other member of WPP is known to have met this individual. Consequently, early WPP products carry the distinctive statement:
PRINTED IN D.D.R.
Adventure Modules
WPP's principal products were adventure scenarios broadly compatible with the popular fantasy role-playing games of the period. The company developed its own module codes and attempted to give the range the appearance of a considerably larger publishing operation than actually existed.
Among its best remembered titles were Shadow of the Standing Stones by Roger Roughley, The Bone Pinnacle of the Ravaged Coast by Daniel Morgan and The Hubris of the Last Prince of Glory Falls by William Llewellyn.
WPP adventures acquired a reputation for being imaginative, dangerous and occasionally poorly organised. They frequently combined traditional dungeon exploration with wilderness encounters, eccentric non-player characters and situations requiring players to negotiate with suspicious local authorities. Editing was inconsistent. Maps occasionally contradicted the accompanying text, statistics could change between encounters and at least one early printing referred repeatedly to a room which did not appear on the supplied map. Despite these problems, the adventures developed a small but loyal following.
The WPP Elf
One of the most recognisable features of WPP publications was an unidentified blonde female Elf, usually depicted carrying a longbow and wearing some variation of a green tunic and red cloak. She appeared initially on adventure-module covers but subsequently featured in advertisements, catalogues and promotional artwork. WPP never officially named the character.
Readers generally referred to her simply as “the WPP Elf”, although “Winnie” became an unofficial nickname amongst some fans. It is equally possible that the publisher simply discovered that covers featuring the blonde Elf sold better.
Whatever her origins, by 1981 she had effectively become WPP's unofficial mascot.
Tankard
Tankard was a British role-playing and fantasy gaming magazine published by Winwick Pig Publications between 1981 and 1983. It carried the strapline:
ADVENTURES • IDEAS • NEWS • REVIEWS
The magazine began in February 1981 as a small newsletter intended primarily to advertise WPP products to existing customers. Unexpectedly positive reader response encouraged Roughley to expand it into a regular gaming magazine. Later issues included adventures, new monsters, magical items, rules discussions, reviews, cartoons, readers' letters and gaming anecdotes. Its production remained distinctly modest. Layout was largely manual, illustrations varied considerably in quality and publication dates became increasingly approximate.
These shortcomings became part of the magazine's character.
Regular features
Several recurring columns developed their own followings.
From Behind the Screen was Roger Roughley's editorial column. It became notorious for beginning with an explanation of why the previous issue had been late, frequently followed by an assurance that future issues would appear on schedule.
Things Best Left in the Dungeon printed monsters submitted by readers. The quality ranged from imaginative additions to fantasy campaigns to creatures possessing an improbable collection of immunities apparently designed to defeat a particular player's character.
The Empty Tankard was the letters page and became increasingly argumentative as the magazine developed a larger readership.
Morgan's Menagerie, written by Daniel Morgan, presented monsters, unusual encounters and adventure locations and was generally considered amongst the magazine's strongest regular features.
Treasure Nobody Asked For offered unusual magical objects. Among those remembered by readers were the Socks of Continual Warmth, the Helm of Moderate Hearing and the celebrated +1 Spoon.
Seen at the Table collected humorous incidents submitted by gaming groups and became one of Tankard's most popular pages.
Controversies
Tankard developed several lengthy reader disputes. The so-called Paladin Argument began after publication of an article entitled Your Paladin Is Probably Doing It Wrong. Correspondence on the subject continued for seven issues. This was followed by the Great Crossbow Debate, prompted by Daniel Morgan's suggestion that existing fantasy gaming rules considerably underestimated the effectiveness of crossbows. The original argument was rapidly overshadowed by increasingly technical letters from readers.
A separate production error resulted in one adventure having its concluding section printed before its opening pages, revealing the principal villain before readers had begun the scenario. Roughley publicly attributed the mistake to the magazine's East German printers. There is no evidence that the printers were aware of this.
The Christmas 1981 issue
The Christmas Special 1981 became Tankard's best-known issue. Its cover featured the increasingly ubiquitous WPP Elf, this time wearing a festive green outfit and raising a tankard while retaining her longbow. The issue also included a promotional WPP Elf pin-up poster.
The poster was clearly intended to appeal to the predominantly young male readership of fantasy gaming at the time. The character was presented as glamorous rather than explicitly sexual, dressed in her familiar green ranger's costume, red cloak and boots and posed dramatically with her longbow against a wilderness landscape.
Neither the magazine nor the poster identified her by name. The poster merely presented the mysterious blonde adventurer who had by then become instantly recognisable to regular WPP customers. The Christmas issue reportedly sold unusually well. Subsequent WPP publications featured the Elf with noticeably greater frequency.
The Obsidian Ziggurat controversy
Perhaps the most notorious unpublished WPP adventure was the Obsidian Ziggurat of Unspeakable Night, written by Daniel Morgan for characters of levels 10–14. Intended as one of WPP's more challenging adventures, it was considerably darker in tone than most of the company's earlier material and was scheduled for publication during 1982. The adventure itself appears to have been substantially complete. Its failure to reach publication instead resulted from an increasingly acrimonious dispute surrounding its cover.
WPP commissioned Ivor Fondell, a freelance fantasy artist based in Prestatyn, to produce the illustration. By this time Roger Roughley had become convinced that the recurring blonde Elven archer appearing on WPP products was a significant factor in their sales. Fondell was therefore specifically instructed to include the character prominently, despite Daniel Morgan reportedly pointing out that she did not actually appear anywhere in the adventure. Fondell's first painting proved unexpectedly controversial. Attempting to give the module a darker and more adult appearance, he depicted the WPP Elf fighting amongst the ruins surrounding the Ziggurat with her clothing extensively torn during battle. Several members of WPP considered the resulting image far too revealing for a product likely to be sold to children and teenage gamers.
Morgan was particularly unhappy. Although his adventures had acquired a reputation for being amongst WPP's darker and occasionally riskier material, he objected to what he regarded as the deliberate sexualisation of the cover merely to increase sales. Roughley disagreed. He reportedly argued that the popularity of the Christmas 1981 Tankard cover demonstrated perfectly well what WPP's customers wanted. Fondell defended the painting on artistic grounds, while other members pointed out that a glamorous Christmas magazine cover and an adventure module marketed partly towards younger players were rather different things. The argument became sufficiently serious to cause a genuine rift within the company.
Fondell eventually produced a substantially more restrained second version in which the Elf remained glamorous and somewhat battle-worn but was properly covered. By then, however, relations between the artist, Morgan and Roughley had deteriorated badly. Production was repeatedly postponed, and WPP catalogues began listing the module simply as:
S5 — The Obsidian Ziggurat of Unspeakable Night - Delayed owing to a disagreement with the illustrator.
It never appeared. When WPP collapsed the following year, Obsidian Ziggurat was still officially awaiting publication. Both versions of Fondell's cover artwork were subsequently believed lost. A photograph purporting to show the original rejected painting circulated amongst collectors during the 1990s, although its authenticity has never been established. The surviving second version, showing the more conventionally dressed WPP Elf confronting the undead outside the Ziggurat, is known principally from a printer's proof discovered amongst former WPP material. The unpublished module consequently became one of the most sought-after pieces of WPP ephemera.
Daniel Morgan later maintained that the entire affair was ridiculous because the blonde Elf wasn't supposed to be in the bloody thing in the first place.
Decline
By late 1982, Tankard was probably the most successful element of Winwick Pig Publications, with a small but established readership extending beyond WPP's original north-western customer base. The company's underlying finances, however, were deteriorating. Publication became increasingly irregular. Contributors complained of delayed payments, planned products failed to appear and advertisements continued accepting orders for material whose publication dates repeatedly slipped.
One advertisement notoriously promised: SIX NEW WPP MODULES BEFORE CHRISTMAS!
Only two appeared. One was late. Nevertheless, Tankard continued to assure readers that WPP was expanding. The final published edition, generally identified as Issue 11, April 1983, contained no indication that the magazine was about to cease publication. Roughley's editorial instead promised that the forthcoming Issue 12 would be “the biggest Tankard yet.” Issue 12 never appeared.
Collapse of WPP 1979
Investigations into Winwick Pig Publications' finances revealed irregularities extending considerably beyond poor bookkeeping. Money had reportedly been transferred between WPP, the original gaming society and several associated ventures. Investigators also discovered false invoices, fictitious expenditure and financial transactions involving businesses whose actual existence proved difficult to establish. Roger Roughley was subsequently convicted of fraud. Winwick Pig Publications ceased trading shortly afterwards. Several contributors claimed they were still owed money when the company collapsed. A quantity of WPP stock also reportedly disappeared from storage shortly before liquidators obtained control of the company's remaining assets. Roughley denied any knowledge of its whereabouts. Curiously, unopened boxes of WPP modules continued appearing at British gaming conventions for several years afterwards.
The Lost Tankard
Following WPP's collapse, former contributors discovered that substantial material had already been prepared for Tankard Issue 12. The unfinished issue reportedly included a complete adventure, new monsters, cartoons, readers' letters and a particularly unfavourable review by Daniel Morgan of an adventure written by Roughley himself. Photocopied compilations of this material circulated amongst British gamers during the later 1980s and became collectively known as “The Lost Tankard.”
No complete original production copy is known to have survived.
Legacy
WPP 1979 remained obscure even during its brief existence and was never a major participant in the British role-playing industry. Its later reputation rests largely upon nostalgia for the highly amateur character of early hobby publishing: hand-drawn maps, eccentric adventures, enthusiastic contributors and production standards determined more by available money than professional expertise.
Original WPP modules subsequently became minor collectors' items.
Copies carrying the original boar's-head WPP logo and PRINTED IN D.D.R. marking are particularly sought after, while the Christmas 1981 issue of Tankard is generally regarded as the most desirable regular WPP publication.
Copies retaining the original, unfolded WPP Elf pin-up command considerably higher prices. The identity of the woman the Elf was intended to portray remains a minor subject of debate amongst WPP enthusiasts. Former members of the Winwick Pig Gaming Society have generally maintained that the adventures themselves were considerably better than WPP 1979's subsequent reputation might suggest. Their recollections of Roger Roughley have tended to be rather less charitable.
Addendum — The Return of the WPP Elf
Despite the collapse of Winwick Pig Publications 1979 in 1983, the company's mysterious blonde Elven archer made one final and entirely unauthorised appearance two years later. In 1985, the Widnes-based gaming magazine Goblet produced a special issue to coincide with D&D Week UK. Seeking an eye-catching cover, the magazine resurrected the familiar WPP Elf, despite possessing no apparent rights to either the character or the original WPP artwork.
The resulting cover was considerably more provocative than anything WPP had dared publish during its lifetime. The Elf appeared carrying her familiar bow and quiver but otherwise wrapped in a strategically arranged Union Jack, an unsubtle attempt to combine fantasy gaming, patriotic imagery and the sort of mildly risqué artwork increasingly used to attract the attention of the hobby's predominantly young male readership.
More remarkable was Goblet's decision to advertise the character openly as the “WPP ELF”, accompanied by the claim: “EXCLUSIVE! The mystery of the WPP Elf uncovered!”
The promised article did nothing of the sort. It largely repeated rumours already circulating amongst gamers, including the theory that the character had been based upon a real adventurer whose exploits inspired several WPP scenarios. No convincing evidence for her identity was produced, and Goblet carefully avoided actually naming the supposed woman.
The cover nevertheless caused a minor controversy amongst former WPP contributors. Daniel Morgan reportedly found the whole affair hilarious, while Roger Roughley, by then no longer involved in publishing, was said to have complained loudly that Goblet had stolen WPP property. This attracted limited sympathy from several people who pointed out that questions of intellectual property were perhaps not an area in which Roughley possessed an especially strong moral position. Goblet never used the character again.
Consequently, the May/June 1985 D&D Week issue represents the last known contemporary appearance of the WPP Elf. It is also something of an anomaly for collectors: not technically a WPP publication, but frequently included in complete WPP collections because of its notorious cover. Ironically, Goblet's unauthorised revival may have done more than anything else to preserve the character's later reputation. By 1985, WPP was already disappearing into the obscurity reserved for unsuccessful small publishers. The Goblet cover introduced its nameless blonde Elf to a new generation of gamers who had never bought a WPP module.
Exactly who she was supposed to represent remained unanswered. And, perhaps appropriately, the WPP Elf disappeared from gaming for the final time without anybody ever learning her name.