DATELINE - ONCE UPON A TIME Armageddon was narrowly averted the other day, as dozens of characters from all over literature gathered in Newton, either to stop the impending doom or help it along.

• Story continued on page 10

DATELINE - ONCE UPON A RUNTIME During the game, many people wrote various notes, articles, advertisements and such. Some were going to be put in an in-game newspaper (but other concerns, such as the end of the world, seemed to take precedence), while other works adorned the walls of our fair city. Here is what we managed to recover.

• A progress report written by by our own Captain Hornblower.
• An arrest warrant for none other than Don Montoya.
• An unsigned work simply entitled "A Kiss."
• A newpaper article questioning Captain Love's activities.
• A variety of advertisements for the newspaper, both commercial and personal.

Lose Something?

• For a complete list of stuff we found, turn to Page 732

We Have a Winner!
The staff of this publication held a pre-runtime contest, in which contestants had to name the book and author from which each of 22 first lines were drawn. The competition was fierce, but we eventually came out with a clear winner.

Congratulations to Paul Dwyer (who played, mostly, Leopold Bloom), for correctly answering no less than 18 titles and authors.

• For a complete list of answers, turn to Page 23

Poetry Corner
This poem by Hugh Eckert is still a staff favorite. Here is is again in case you haven't had a chance to read it.

• For the complete poem, turn to Page 14

Filler Article Scandal Strikes Kane Publishing!
It was discovered today that Kane Publishing, the premier publisher in Newton, sometimes uses 'filler' articles to fill out the bottoms of some columns.

Mr. Kane had only this to say: "Sure, we do it all the time. We have several methods, but the nonsense trick is my favorite. You fill space with words like aardgfv, ytrthrh, and htujiyuk."

Thank You!
If we haven't thanked you yet (and you know who you are), then we thank you, the players, for taking our game and breathing it to life. We only set the scene and said "Action!", you made the game.

We also need to thank al the wonderful cast, who, under minimal management, and practically at last-minute notice, helped create a role-playing environment that was much more enjoyable than it would have been without them. One of them (curse me for a fool, I can't remember who) came up with that brilliant notebook-on-a-string-flip- over-name-badge idea, which I'm sure we'll be seeing more of in future games. Anyway, we can't thank them enough, and there names are as follows:

• Laurie Bean,
• John Brunkhart,
• Jaki Demerest,
• Driver Lorey,
• Rachel Schmutter, and
• Paul Wayner

We also want to thank Gordon Olmstead-Dean for producing the Influence Points used in the game. We'd also like to thank Rebecca Ellis for drawing the illustrations used in the rulebook the very day before the game started.

• For the complete thank-you list from the rulebook, turn to Page 2