In Praise of Len Lakofka

So, I was sorry to hear of the passing of Len Lakofka. I never met him, but his was one of the big names in the early days of my interest in D&D, the author of not one but two of my all-time favorite adventures: L1. THE SECRET OF BONE HILL (1981) and L2. THE ASSASSIN'S KNOT (1983).

I laid out just why I rate these two adventures so highly in a piece I did years ago back when I was still at WotC. I'm glad to find the piece is still up on the WotC website and can be seen here:

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x=dnd/dx20001229b

L2 also got chosen as one of the 30 best D&D adventures of all time --see DUNGEON magazine issue 116 (November 2004).* 

On a more personal note,  THE SECRET OF BONE HILL became my own campaign's home base. Our PCs wound up cleaning out the old castle on Bone Hill, fixed it up, and made it their own home --having discovered that while it was prohibitively expensive to build a castle or keep from scratch, it was far quicker and more within their means to restore a damaged but essentially intact ruin.

Clearly not everybody's cup of tea, then or now. But I still rank it among the greats and think it holds up well, even all these years later. 

So thanks, Mr. Lakofka. Job well done.

--John R.

*fair disclosure: I was one of the judges who proposed titles for the list and voted on the results; I'm even quoted in some of the entries, like the one for L2.