John D. Rateliff's Blog, page 56
August 18, 2020
Ensemble hero
So, as I mentioned in my last post, I had trouble getting my head around Gygax's answer to one crucial question: the origin of one of D&D's most iconic features: the ensemble hero -- that is, a group of characters with widely divergent abilities, that very diversity being crucial for the group's success. Along with providing the main PC races (and a goodly chuck of the default monsters), Tolkien's major influence on D&D was the concept of the PC party.
Here's the exchange, to be found on page 90 of CHEERS GARY:
Question:"A lot of Fantasy novels focused on a single hero (Conan, Tarzan, etc.) or perhaps a hero and a sidekick.
"How did you come up with the idea of a whole party of characters adventuring in a dungeon? . . .
"Especially since D&D grew out of table-top wargames, and tabletop wargames tended to be 1 on 1 or 3 vs. 3 types of scenarios. Most table-top wargames (unless they involved hidden movement) don't have a referee."
Gygax's answer: "Fortunately I read in a lot of genres other than fantasy, including the historical war fiction one. Even there, though, crafting a story around a large cast of characters is difficult, and from such a number one or two main protagonists, and possibly an antagonist or two emerge.
"In tabletop games, the LGTSA would have teams of players, sometimes as many as six on a side. There was usually one person as umpire or referee, the one who set up the game to be played, although that individual would sometimes play as well. When I ran my later games they were usually the 'Man-to-Man' medieval ones, and as pretty common on the tabletop, each player had a command figure. A team of several defenders would plan and cooperate to try and defeat a like team of attackers.
"It wasn't much of a leap from that to single 'command figures' operating as an adventuring group. Do keep in mind that original D&D had provisions for and pretty well assumed that each PC would hire a few men-at-arms -- the old tabletop force of soldiery."
[the rest of Gygax's post talks about the time-honored D&D tactic of running away, Mordenkainen being named as a prime practitioner]
--It seems to me that Gygax is sliding around the point without answering it, since instead of a diverse group of divergent abilities he focuses instead on an earlier stage, of commanders of similar powers and stature. Or am I just missing something here? Perhaps if I came out of wargaming myself this all be simpler.
I had recently realized that there's another major fantasy novel from that era that offers up a masterful handling of an ensemble group of heroes: Richard Adams' WATERSHIP DOWN. But that came a little too late to be an influence on D&D.
And it was nice to learn that of post-D&D fantasy Gygax was a fan of Terry Pratchett and also liked the LotR movies.
--John R. --current reading: a bunch of old gaming magazines, as part of the ongoing sort-out
Here's the exchange, to be found on page 90 of CHEERS GARY:
Question:"A lot of Fantasy novels focused on a single hero (Conan, Tarzan, etc.) or perhaps a hero and a sidekick.
"How did you come up with the idea of a whole party of characters adventuring in a dungeon? . . .
"Especially since D&D grew out of table-top wargames, and tabletop wargames tended to be 1 on 1 or 3 vs. 3 types of scenarios. Most table-top wargames (unless they involved hidden movement) don't have a referee."
Gygax's answer: "Fortunately I read in a lot of genres other than fantasy, including the historical war fiction one. Even there, though, crafting a story around a large cast of characters is difficult, and from such a number one or two main protagonists, and possibly an antagonist or two emerge.
"In tabletop games, the LGTSA would have teams of players, sometimes as many as six on a side. There was usually one person as umpire or referee, the one who set up the game to be played, although that individual would sometimes play as well. When I ran my later games they were usually the 'Man-to-Man' medieval ones, and as pretty common on the tabletop, each player had a command figure. A team of several defenders would plan and cooperate to try and defeat a like team of attackers.
"It wasn't much of a leap from that to single 'command figures' operating as an adventuring group. Do keep in mind that original D&D had provisions for and pretty well assumed that each PC would hire a few men-at-arms -- the old tabletop force of soldiery."
[the rest of Gygax's post talks about the time-honored D&D tactic of running away, Mordenkainen being named as a prime practitioner]
--It seems to me that Gygax is sliding around the point without answering it, since instead of a diverse group of divergent abilities he focuses instead on an earlier stage, of commanders of similar powers and stature. Or am I just missing something here? Perhaps if I came out of wargaming myself this all be simpler.
I had recently realized that there's another major fantasy novel from that era that offers up a masterful handling of an ensemble group of heroes: Richard Adams' WATERSHIP DOWN. But that came a little too late to be an influence on D&D.
And it was nice to learn that of post-D&D fantasy Gygax was a fan of Terry Pratchett and also liked the LotR movies.
--John R. --current reading: a bunch of old gaming magazines, as part of the ongoing sort-out
August 17, 2020
more Gygax forum postings (2002-2008)
So, I've now finished CHEERS GARY, the collection of online posts by Gygax in which he answered a lot of questions about the history of TSR, the origin of many specific features of D&D, shared yarns from early sessions, et al. As it turns out, it's a good forum for him: relaxed, informal, and filled with people who admire him. Favorable conditions brought out his best side; at times he was positively avuncular. As when he Tells Us About His Character, leading to the discovery that those early gaming session that have passed into legend, when Mordenkainen and Bigby and Robilar were regular PCs, and their exploits a lot more like a regular session of our average weekly group than we'd imagined. Even the mighty Castle Greyhawk had only twelve levels plus a secret hidden level. All this is good stuff.
There is the occasional sour note, as any time he mentions the Blumes, and I was disappointed to see him take swipes at Skip Williams (p. 360) and Zeb Cook (p. 359), who I think deserve better. And I think it's fair to treat his accounts of all he achieved and would have achieved in Hollywood with skepticism.* But on the whole this book is well worth reading.
Me being a Tolkien guy, I naturally took special note of material connecting to Tolkien, like the Saul Zaenz cease-and-desist story mentioned in a previous post.
The first such post goes directly to a major point:
Question:
"[T]his very small thing has nagged me for years , , ,
"In Appendix N (inspirational reading) of the DMG, you write: 'The most immediate influences upon AD&D were probably de Camp & Pratt, REH (Howard), Fritz Leiber, Jack Vance, HPL (Lovecraft), and A. Merritt.'
"In listing the primary authors that influenced the AD&D game, you left out J. R. R. Tolkien (you put him in a much larger list of sources of fantasy but did not include him among the 'most immediate influences'). As many people (erroneously) consider D&D to be a rather close copy of Tolkien's world, leaving out Tolkien seems conspicuous.
"Is there any particular reason you didn't single out Tolkien as one of the major influences on AD&D?"
Gygax's answer:
"I omitted JRRT's work as a primary one because it didn't inspire me in regards to gaming, to create the material in A/D&D that made it what it is at its core. While I enjoyed THE HOBBIT, the trilogy was not an exciting read for me.
"The listed authors and works were what moved me to want to design a game that allowed participants to have exciting fantasy adventures. The 'influences' from JRRT's work that I included in the game were mainly there to interest others in playing it, not what caused me to want to create it." (p.72)
--Here I think Gygax was just identifying himself as one of those who read and enjoyed Tolkien but didn't get swept up in it, like so many of us do, reading it over and over again. Fair enough. But I still think he is being disingenuous over the lack of influence, perhaps to the point of fooling himself.
There's another example in his answer to a question (p. 90) about the ensemble hero--along with the character races Tolkien's greatest contribution to D&D-- but I found his answer so oblique that I gave up trying to make sense of it here; I'll have a go at making it a separate post in itself and if that fails just give up.
He did concede that the Ranger was derived from Tolkien's Aragorn but rather downplays this as a character class not created by Gygax but one of his players (p. 123).
One minor puzzle is his stating that he did not derive the gnoll from Dunsany himself but from a Dunsany pastiche published in a science fiction/fantasy magazine: Margaret St. Clair's 'The Man Who Sold Rope to the Gnolls", THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY & SIENCE FICTION (p.163). On the one hand, this may explain why he spelled Dunsany's name wrong in the original three-booklet text of D&D. On the other, the fact he credits Dunsany and not St. Claire is odd if she not he were the source.
--John R.
--current reading: GIRL ON A SWING by Rbt Adams
* as when he talks of how Orson Welles was eager to play the villain in the D&D movie Gygax was putting together in the early eighties, and how John Boorman's team wanted in on the deal. Given how awful the Hollywood projects from the early eighties were, and how terrible those that followed were, I don't think we lost much when Gygax's spin-off of the cartoon sputtered out or when his version of the D&D movie (described on p. 171) bit the dust.
There is the occasional sour note, as any time he mentions the Blumes, and I was disappointed to see him take swipes at Skip Williams (p. 360) and Zeb Cook (p. 359), who I think deserve better. And I think it's fair to treat his accounts of all he achieved and would have achieved in Hollywood with skepticism.* But on the whole this book is well worth reading.
Me being a Tolkien guy, I naturally took special note of material connecting to Tolkien, like the Saul Zaenz cease-and-desist story mentioned in a previous post.
The first such post goes directly to a major point:
Question:
"[T]his very small thing has nagged me for years , , ,
"In Appendix N (inspirational reading) of the DMG, you write: 'The most immediate influences upon AD&D were probably de Camp & Pratt, REH (Howard), Fritz Leiber, Jack Vance, HPL (Lovecraft), and A. Merritt.'
"In listing the primary authors that influenced the AD&D game, you left out J. R. R. Tolkien (you put him in a much larger list of sources of fantasy but did not include him among the 'most immediate influences'). As many people (erroneously) consider D&D to be a rather close copy of Tolkien's world, leaving out Tolkien seems conspicuous.
"Is there any particular reason you didn't single out Tolkien as one of the major influences on AD&D?"
Gygax's answer:
"I omitted JRRT's work as a primary one because it didn't inspire me in regards to gaming, to create the material in A/D&D that made it what it is at its core. While I enjoyed THE HOBBIT, the trilogy was not an exciting read for me.
"The listed authors and works were what moved me to want to design a game that allowed participants to have exciting fantasy adventures. The 'influences' from JRRT's work that I included in the game were mainly there to interest others in playing it, not what caused me to want to create it." (p.72)
--Here I think Gygax was just identifying himself as one of those who read and enjoyed Tolkien but didn't get swept up in it, like so many of us do, reading it over and over again. Fair enough. But I still think he is being disingenuous over the lack of influence, perhaps to the point of fooling himself.
There's another example in his answer to a question (p. 90) about the ensemble hero--along with the character races Tolkien's greatest contribution to D&D-- but I found his answer so oblique that I gave up trying to make sense of it here; I'll have a go at making it a separate post in itself and if that fails just give up.
He did concede that the Ranger was derived from Tolkien's Aragorn but rather downplays this as a character class not created by Gygax but one of his players (p. 123).
One minor puzzle is his stating that he did not derive the gnoll from Dunsany himself but from a Dunsany pastiche published in a science fiction/fantasy magazine: Margaret St. Clair's 'The Man Who Sold Rope to the Gnolls", THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY & SIENCE FICTION (p.163). On the one hand, this may explain why he spelled Dunsany's name wrong in the original three-booklet text of D&D. On the other, the fact he credits Dunsany and not St. Claire is odd if she not he were the source.
--John R.
--current reading: GIRL ON A SWING by Rbt Adams
* as when he talks of how Orson Welles was eager to play the villain in the D&D movie Gygax was putting together in the early eighties, and how John Boorman's team wanted in on the deal. Given how awful the Hollywood projects from the early eighties were, and how terrible those that followed were, I don't think we lost much when Gygax's spin-off of the cartoon sputtered out or when his version of the D&D movie (described on p. 171) bit the dust.
August 12, 2020
GDW TRAVELLER
So, in sorting though some old gaming magazines, skimming before discarding, one thing that strikes me are the number of companies that thrived back then that have long since vanished from the shelves at hobby stores. I suspect many have vanished from the memories of gamers as well. Certainly I assume most younger gamers (e.g. those who came into the hobby at the time of 3e/d20 or since) may have heard of these older game companies (e.g. Judges Guild, FGU) and early games but have never actually played them.
This made it an interesting experience to read through an issue of CHALLENGE (#65, October 1992), published by the once-mighty GDW. If I had at the time been guessing which of the major companies of that era wd still be around three decades later I might well have picked GDW (Game Designers Workshop) as a likely candidate. After all, they were among TSR's very first competitors (EN GARDE came out not long after the original three-book set of D&D) whose TRAVELLER was the most successful of all science fiction games, holding its own against all comers, until it was eventually unseated by STAR WARS.
In retrospect three events suggest bad judgment may have played a bigger role than bad luck. The first was the publication of SPACE: 1889. Roleplaying games were not exactly known as a bastion of progressive thought, but even so the years of the run-up to the celebration of Columbus's 500th anniversary were marked by a lot of re-evaluation that you wd have thought wd make a company think twice before launching a celebration of colonialism.
The second came from their decision to blow up their world -- specifically, to make a new edition of TRAVELLER, their iconic game, starkly different from the game their fans had known and loved for years by radical shifts in the setting. Lord knows we fans of 1st edition AD&D complained bitterly over the changes made to create 2nd edition, but in retrospect the changes were relatively minor and, importantly from TSR's point of view, the new edition sold extremely well. Whereas I get the sense that MEGATRAVELLER, as it was known, failed to capture most of classic TRAVELLER's fan base.*
The third is the weirdest: the decision to publish Gygax's new D&D-ish fantasy rpg, despite the fact that Gygax's previous game (Cyborg Commandoes) had conspicuously bombed and the company that put it out (New Infinities) sued out of existence by the notoriously litigious TSR. Who promptly sued GDW over DANGEROUS JOURNEYS, forcing the game off the market and stalling out the planned further releases in the line (including a GAMMA WORLD clone); the whole mess ended with GDW turning over its entire unsold stock to TSR, who buried them in its warehouse.
As I said, weird. But I can say that the Powers That Be at TSR had a healthy respect for GDW's creative team's talent, hiring away Tim Brown, Bill Connors, Rob Lazzaretti, Julia Martin, and Lester Smith (who had been Gygax's editor on DANGEROUS JOURNEYS).**
Strange times.
--John R.
*again, it didn't help when they came out with third edition TRAVELLER a few years later and decided to rename it, leaving the all-important word 'Traveller' out of the game's name, instead redubbing it 2300 AD.
**just as several years later (circa 1995) they hired away quite a lot of West End Games' staff
This made it an interesting experience to read through an issue of CHALLENGE (#65, October 1992), published by the once-mighty GDW. If I had at the time been guessing which of the major companies of that era wd still be around three decades later I might well have picked GDW (Game Designers Workshop) as a likely candidate. After all, they were among TSR's very first competitors (EN GARDE came out not long after the original three-book set of D&D) whose TRAVELLER was the most successful of all science fiction games, holding its own against all comers, until it was eventually unseated by STAR WARS.
In retrospect three events suggest bad judgment may have played a bigger role than bad luck. The first was the publication of SPACE: 1889. Roleplaying games were not exactly known as a bastion of progressive thought, but even so the years of the run-up to the celebration of Columbus's 500th anniversary were marked by a lot of re-evaluation that you wd have thought wd make a company think twice before launching a celebration of colonialism.
The second came from their decision to blow up their world -- specifically, to make a new edition of TRAVELLER, their iconic game, starkly different from the game their fans had known and loved for years by radical shifts in the setting. Lord knows we fans of 1st edition AD&D complained bitterly over the changes made to create 2nd edition, but in retrospect the changes were relatively minor and, importantly from TSR's point of view, the new edition sold extremely well. Whereas I get the sense that MEGATRAVELLER, as it was known, failed to capture most of classic TRAVELLER's fan base.*
The third is the weirdest: the decision to publish Gygax's new D&D-ish fantasy rpg, despite the fact that Gygax's previous game (Cyborg Commandoes) had conspicuously bombed and the company that put it out (New Infinities) sued out of existence by the notoriously litigious TSR. Who promptly sued GDW over DANGEROUS JOURNEYS, forcing the game off the market and stalling out the planned further releases in the line (including a GAMMA WORLD clone); the whole mess ended with GDW turning over its entire unsold stock to TSR, who buried them in its warehouse.
As I said, weird. But I can say that the Powers That Be at TSR had a healthy respect for GDW's creative team's talent, hiring away Tim Brown, Bill Connors, Rob Lazzaretti, Julia Martin, and Lester Smith (who had been Gygax's editor on DANGEROUS JOURNEYS).**
Strange times.
--John R.
*again, it didn't help when they came out with third edition TRAVELLER a few years later and decided to rename it, leaving the all-important word 'Traveller' out of the game's name, instead redubbing it 2300 AD.
**just as several years later (circa 1995) they hired away quite a lot of West End Games' staff
Seattle in 2020 (projection from 1992)
So, it can be disconcerting when we catch up with near-future predictions, when the future becomes the present. A good case of this I recently came across is in a CYBERPUNK adventure that had appeared in CHALLENGE magazine back in 1992. It includes the following map (by Rob Lazzaretti) depicting Seattle in 2020, predicting correctly that we'd still have the Space Needle but wrongly assuming the Kingdome stadium wd still be standing.
Here's the map, from the adventure "The Dank Pit" by 'Legion' (which I assume is a house name for in-house generated material for the magazine).
--John R.
Here's the map, from the adventure "The Dank Pit" by 'Legion' (which I assume is a house name for in-house generated material for the magazine).
--John R.
August 7, 2020
Tolkien Enterprises vs. TSR
So, for years I've been convinced that the old story about the Tolkien Estate having gone after TSR for their use of hobbits, ents, balrogs et al in early printings of D&D was wrong and that it was actually Saul Zaentz's group, Tolkien Enterprises (the movie merchandising people) who'd issued that cease-and-desist back in 1976. But while I've able to build up a probable case I've been lacking direct proof. Now Gygax has provided it.
The question Gygax was asked was
What were the circumstances on the hobbit race being removed
from the original game? Was a letter from Tolkien properties
sent to TSR threatening legal action? or was it a more friendly
phone call to remove the buggers from the game?
to which Gygax replies
TSR was served with papers threatening damages to the tune of half a mil by the Saul Zantes (sp?) [sic]division of Elan Merchandising on behalf of the tolkien [sic] Estate. The main objection was to the boardgame we were publishing, The Battle of Five Armies. The author of that game had given us a letter from his attorneyclaiming that the work was grandfathered becauseit was published after the copyrights for JRRT's workshad lapsed and before any renewals were made. The action also demanded we remove balrog, dragon,dwarf, elf, ent, goblin, hobbit, orc, and warg from the D&D game. Although only balrog and wargwere unique names we agreed to hobbit as well,kept the rest, of course. The boardgame was dumped,and thus the suit was settled out of court at that.
--CHEERS GARY p.108
While clearly an off-the-cuff response made years after the event, this account clearly grasps the distinction between Tolkien Enterprises (Saul Zaentz's movie merchandising company, later the licensers of MERP) and the Tolkien Estate (Tolkien's family, who had control over the books themselves, rather than all the paraphernalia). It correctly portrays Tolkien Enterprises as the more aggressive of the two. And there was a period when Tolkien's copyrights were challenged in the courts, which eventually ruled that the rights had not lapsed and that the Tolkien family still had control. Even the story about asking for legal assurance and getting bad advice sounds familiar; I've heard a similar story about Iron Crown's TOLKIEN QUEST and (especilly) NARNIA QUEST pick-a-path books.
There are quite a few other references to Tolkien and the early days of D&D, which I'll try to pull together into a third and final post regarding the CHEERS GARY book once I've finished with it and read all the way through. But the Tolkien Enterprises bit more than makes picking up this book worthwhile.
--John R.
--current reading: CHEERS GARY
The question Gygax was asked was
What were the circumstances on the hobbit race being removed
from the original game? Was a letter from Tolkien properties
sent to TSR threatening legal action? or was it a more friendly
phone call to remove the buggers from the game?
to which Gygax replies
TSR was served with papers threatening damages to the tune of half a mil by the Saul Zantes (sp?) [sic]division of Elan Merchandising on behalf of the tolkien [sic] Estate. The main objection was to the boardgame we were publishing, The Battle of Five Armies. The author of that game had given us a letter from his attorneyclaiming that the work was grandfathered becauseit was published after the copyrights for JRRT's workshad lapsed and before any renewals were made. The action also demanded we remove balrog, dragon,dwarf, elf, ent, goblin, hobbit, orc, and warg from the D&D game. Although only balrog and wargwere unique names we agreed to hobbit as well,kept the rest, of course. The boardgame was dumped,and thus the suit was settled out of court at that.
--CHEERS GARY p.108
While clearly an off-the-cuff response made years after the event, this account clearly grasps the distinction between Tolkien Enterprises (Saul Zaentz's movie merchandising company, later the licensers of MERP) and the Tolkien Estate (Tolkien's family, who had control over the books themselves, rather than all the paraphernalia). It correctly portrays Tolkien Enterprises as the more aggressive of the two. And there was a period when Tolkien's copyrights were challenged in the courts, which eventually ruled that the rights had not lapsed and that the Tolkien family still had control. Even the story about asking for legal assurance and getting bad advice sounds familiar; I've heard a similar story about Iron Crown's TOLKIEN QUEST and (especilly) NARNIA QUEST pick-a-path books.
There are quite a few other references to Tolkien and the early days of D&D, which I'll try to pull together into a third and final post regarding the CHEERS GARY book once I've finished with it and read all the way through. But the Tolkien Enterprises bit more than makes picking up this book worthwhile.
--John R.
--current reading: CHEERS GARY
The New Arrival: CHEERS, GARY
So, a few posts ago I mentioned how I'd love to get ahold of a copy of the book CHEERS GARY, a collection of posts from an ENWORLD forum in which a number of fans asked Gary Gygax, the co-creator of roleplaying games and cofounder of TSR, all kinds of questions, mostly about the early days of the game.
Thanks to the generosity of someone who was lucky enough to pick up a copy at GenCon 2011 and was now willing to pass it along (thanks H).
It's a dip-able book rather than a concentrated read-through, and I've been enjoying reading it a few pages a day. Much of its appeal comes from Gygax's relaxed tone. Unlike some of his infamous editorials in DRAGON years before, these are low-key and approachable: more a sharing of what he remembers off the cuff.
Plus there's some TSR/Tolkien material in here worthy of its own post, which I'll see about pulling together and posting tonight.
--John R.
--current reading: CHEERS GARY (2011), THE WORLD OF TOLKIEN (2020), A VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS (1920)--current music: 'Chicago' by Graham Nash (circa 1971)
Thanks to the generosity of someone who was lucky enough to pick up a copy at GenCon 2011 and was now willing to pass it along (thanks H).
It's a dip-able book rather than a concentrated read-through, and I've been enjoying reading it a few pages a day. Much of its appeal comes from Gygax's relaxed tone. Unlike some of his infamous editorials in DRAGON years before, these are low-key and approachable: more a sharing of what he remembers off the cuff.
Plus there's some TSR/Tolkien material in here worthy of its own post, which I'll see about pulling together and posting tonight.
--John R.
--current reading: CHEERS GARY (2011), THE WORLD OF TOLKIEN (2020), A VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS (1920)--current music: 'Chicago' by Graham Nash (circa 1971)
August 6, 2020
The Diana Jones Award
So, every year the roleplaying games industry gives out an award for Excellence in Gaming.
This year, the award went to Black Excellence in Gaming.
Sometimes I'm proud of my industry. This is one of those times.
--John R.
For more on the judges' decision, cf. https://www.dianajonesaward.org/the-2020-award/
This year, the award went to Black Excellence in Gaming.
Sometimes I'm proud of my industry. This is one of those times.
--John R.
For more on the judges' decision, cf. https://www.dianajonesaward.org/the-2020-award/
July 27, 2020
Gen Con 1994
So, thanks to Tech Support (thanks Janice), here are the two scans I'd had trouble with earlier. The second has the write-ups of the two panels, while the first lists all the TSR rpg sponsored seminars. I find this one a good indicator of just how many different things we were working on at any given time.
Enjoy.
--John R.
Enjoy.
--John R.
"Women, Minorities, & the Game"
So, something else that emerged from my recent sorting through a box of papers relating to the 1994 GenCo is a list (see below) of all the panels TSR staff took part in that year at GenCon in Milwaukee at MECCA and the official description of the two I organized and chaired.
Some other time I'll try to tell the story of our attempt within the department to make TSR's rpgs more appealing to women and minorities. For now I'll just say that for me it culminated in a panel at GenCon with myself as moderater and Mike Pondsmith, Lisa Pondsmith, Lawrence Sims, and a fifth person whose name escapes me* as the panelists. Unfortunately I'm having some trouble with the scanner so here's its official description:
"Women, Minorities, & Games"
What's the role of women and minorities in a hobby dominated by "pale males"? Come and join the lively debate over how to make role-playing games more appealing to these groups.
I don't remember after this many years what points came up in the discussion that followed, other than that I probably opened by sharing my belief that the obvious place to start to make our game more appealing to women and minorities was to remove elements they wd find off-putting.
As for the other panel, it's clearly a precursor of my later CLASSICS OF FANTASY column (2002-2004). At about this same time I did a recommended reading list for the MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH spin-off of the RAVENLOFT setting; this appeared in POLYHEDRON in I think October 1994.
--John R.
--current reading: THE WORLDS OF J. R. R. TOLKIEN by John Garth
*it would have been Lisa Steele from White Rose publishing except that she didn't come to GenCon that year.
Some other time I'll try to tell the story of our attempt within the department to make TSR's rpgs more appealing to women and minorities. For now I'll just say that for me it culminated in a panel at GenCon with myself as moderater and Mike Pondsmith, Lisa Pondsmith, Lawrence Sims, and a fifth person whose name escapes me* as the panelists. Unfortunately I'm having some trouble with the scanner so here's its official description:
"Women, Minorities, & Games"
What's the role of women and minorities in a hobby dominated by "pale males"? Come and join the lively debate over how to make role-playing games more appealing to these groups.
I don't remember after this many years what points came up in the discussion that followed, other than that I probably opened by sharing my belief that the obvious place to start to make our game more appealing to women and minorities was to remove elements they wd find off-putting.
As for the other panel, it's clearly a precursor of my later CLASSICS OF FANTASY column (2002-2004). At about this same time I did a recommended reading list for the MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH spin-off of the RAVENLOFT setting; this appeared in POLYHEDRON in I think October 1994.
--John R.
--current reading: THE WORLDS OF J. R. R. TOLKIEN by John Garth
*it would have been Lisa Steele from White Rose publishing except that she didn't come to GenCon that year.
TSR GenCon 1994: The Crack-Up List (update)
So, a week or two ago I posted a fun little piece I'd come across during some sorting. But I'd meant to do a follow-up piece, giving the second listing that carried on the joke. So here is the original crack-up list with the follow-up, for those who like such things:
--John R.
current reading: BUNNIES & BURROWS (first edition, 1976)
--John R.
current reading: BUNNIES & BURROWS (first edition, 1976)
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