GameMaster Publications was a small company of TSR staff writers after Imagine in the UK was discontinued by TSR. These were basically adventure magazines in the tradition of Tortured Souls magazine and Dungeon magazine. Aside from these basic comparisons GameMaster Publications is probably the only true hybrid that could easily fit in either the Fanzine or NonTSR departments here at Tome of Treasures. The only distinguishing feature that would lend it towards the one department over another is the unique title of a single adventure attributed to each published effort. Otherwise, one could argue that its 'periodical' release, editorial articles, game reviews, and advertisments force it the other direction. Quite an unusual effort indeed.

As a magazine, this item appears to be everything any independent gaming magazine of its time could want... a very slick look with sharp art and excellent writing. On the inside you see a portrait of the times when a small publisher at once owes its fortune and demise to the TSR juggernaut. As mentioned the people starting up the magazine have very important connections and experience with TSR UK division. This connection actually gave them the experience necessary to launch such a good looking slick. It also helped that TSR carried a full page color advertisements on the back cover and inside cover!

What should be noted is long standing tradition of UK zines having an independent and critical voice within the gaming community. Reviews on products from TSR are usually treated in a brutally honest fashion. This type of discourse is a must for an independent mag to be taken seriously and sell within the boundaries of the UK gaming community. Unfortunately for GameMaster Publications, this adopted standard was not thought of so well by the hand that fed their earliest efforts. A few placed less-than-glowing reviews and comments by the editors and a final scathing assessment of TSR's abandonment of Imagine led to TSR to pull its advertising interest out of GameMaster Publications. GM4 has all of the full color ads going for it but GM5 is devoid of such advertisement. Further, GM5 has a rather sad story about the state of the magazine and why that was to be their last issue. The issues were taking longer and longer to get to press with the editors taking full time jobs with Games Workshop. The pulling of the advertisements was the nail through the heart. The comments were not taken lightly by TSR and no amount of 'smokum the peace pipe' with Don Turnbull (then UK chief) could repair the rift. Gygax had been forced from the company and a much less forgiving ownership had come into the fold in the name of L. Williams. If TSR had been a pitbull in the market before they were certainly 1,200lb lions under this tutelage. GameMaster Publications had come to the end of what could have been a very cool journey.

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