Tim Kask's Adventure Gaming Magazine Available in PDF

 Adventure Gaming magazine is available on DriveThruRPG!

Adventure Gaming, vol. 1, no. 5, November 1981

I've written in the past about Adventure Gaming magazine, especially about issue no. 5 and some rarely-seen art by Dave Trampier that appears in that issue (along with articles about Titan by creators Trampier and Jason B. McAllister).

Adventure Gaming magazine vol. 1 no. 5 cover art

Adventure Gaming magazine vol. 1 no. 5 cover art, addendum

Adventure Gaming magazine vol. 1 no. 5 "hidden" interior art

Tim Kask was editor of the first 33 issues of Dragon magazine (a.k.a. The Dragon. He also edited Little Wars and the last issue of The Strategic Review). He left TSR in 1980 and soon founded Manzakk Publishing to publish his own independent gaming magazine, Adventure Gaming. It was a quality periodical with informative content, but the magazine business is a tough business, and the magazine folded after 13 issues.

But now, at long last, the first five issues are back "in print" thanks to Mudpuppy Games. They are available on Mudpuppy's site or at DriveThruRPG. They are currently being sold for only $1.99 each - that's less than the original cover price 40 years ago!

Mudpuppy Games Adventure Gaming ad (source)

Some Issue Highlights

Adventure Gaming, no. 1

• Royal Pains in Traveller!
• Civilization
• Knights of Camelot
• Divine Right variant by Glenn Rahman

Adventure Gaming, no. 2

• Ace of Aces
• Titan, both a review/analysis by Tim Kask and article by Jason B. McAllister

Adventure Gaming, no. 3

• Thoughts on Diplomacy variations by Lewis Pulsipher
• Magical kisses for D&D?
• Gambling in Traveller

I got to meet Adventure Gaming interviewee Al Leonardi at Too Many Games in 2015

Adventure Gaming, no. 4

• Part 1 of an interview with Al Leonardi, designer of Ace of Aces, Lost Worlds, etc.
• SFB scenarios covering the First Romulan War
• Feudal Diplomacy by Lewis Pulsipher

Adventure Gaming, no. 5

• TITAN
• TITAN
• AND MORE TITAN
• Part 2 of the Al Leonardi interview
• TFT character backgound variant rules
• Mini-campaign for SFB
• Strategies for playing Space Invaders on an Atari VCS console!
• Rules for Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica ships for use in Traveller!

Rare Dave Trampier Art - Addendum to Part 1

Adventure Gaming magazine vol. 1 no. 5 cover art, addendum

Back in early 2014, I wrote a series of blog posts about little-seen art by Dave Trampier, the enigmatic artist from TSR's early days, creator of the comic strip Wormy, and co-designer of the board game Titan. As I was in the middle of my series, Dave Trampier emerged from hiding after decades of nobody knowing where he was, agreeing to sell artwork and come to a convention in Carbondale, IL. Unfortunately, he passed away soon before the convention. I had to post the solemn news on this blog.

In my first blog post in this series, I discussed one of Tramp's impressive color works for Titan, a painting was used on the cover of Adventure Gaming magazine #5 for a special issue with several Titan articles.

Adventure Gaming vol. 1, no. 5

I speculated that the image was probably intended as cover art for the new edition of Titan, which was published by Avalon Hill with cover art by Kenn Nishiuye instead of Trampier. I created a mock-up image of what the Avalon Hill game might've looked like with Tramp's art (see Rare Dave Trampier Art - Part 1). Earlier this month (December 2020), I had a Zoom meeting with Tim Kask, publisher/editor of Adventure Gaming and close friend of Trampier's. I asked if he remembered what the image was originally intended for, but he did not. Tramp had given Kask the original artwork long enough to make color separations for printing the cover, then required that the original be returned.

Since that time, Jason McAllister, Titan's other co-creator, also passed away. I assisted the McAllister family in identifying and helping find an auction agent for a number of Jason's personal effects, including several art pieces created by Dave Trampier. One item was a sketch of a store display for Titan games.

Titan display sketch, detail
 by David A. Trampier

The display is sketched in perspective, as if it is sitting on a store counter. The Gorgonstar logo at the base tells us this is not meant as a concept for Avalon Hill's Titan, but for a new self-published edition under McAllister and Trampier's Gorgonstar name. This looks like a new "bookcase" style game box, made popular by Avalon Hill and 3M, and very different from the flat and wide 1st edition Titan game box. The black, white, and red coloring of the display case closely matches the 1st edition game box, so they may have intended to screen print these cases using the same method, with broad swathes of flat colors. The game boxes sketched here would require color separation and CMYK printing, more difficult but not impossible for the Gorgonstar "basement" print shop.

Also, that is clearly the dragon-on-a-volcano art on the cover, the same art seen on Adventure Gaming #5! This looks like definitive evidence that a new edition of the game was intended, without Avalon Hill, and with this stunning artwork to serve as the cover image.

My speculative interpretation of a Trampier Titan box lid, take two

In light of this information, I've updated my interpretation of what this unpublished Titan might've looked like with a black border and TITAN in bold, white lettering.

Rare Dave Trampier Art Part 2

Adventure Gaming magazine vol. 1 no. 5 "hidden" interior art

UPDATED - see bottom of page

This piece took some work to "unearth" as it was left hidden behind a wall of text.

Tim Kask recalls hiring his friend, Dave Trampier, to work on issue 5 of Adventure Gaming magazine:

"After I started ADVENTURE GAMING Magazine, he did a couple pieces of art for me, and I did a cover story article on TITAN that he added and published some advanced rules in."

We discussed the first of the "couple pieces of art" in my last post, a vibrant, full-color painting of a scene from the world of Titan. As Titan co-creator, Trampier also wrote a two-page article titled, "Evolving Forces in TITAN." It provides an excellent analysis on how to compare creatures of slightly differing power levels and how to know when creatures become a liability instead of an asset.

The magazine also features two articles by Titan's other co-creator, Jason B. McAllister. "The History of TITAN" gives a thorough look at the development of the game, much more interesting than his "The Giver of the Law: TITAN Design Notes" article later published in Avalon Hill's The General magazine Vol. 20, No. 2. "The History" contains lots of details on game board design and simplification of unit stats that we game designers enjoy. "Waging TITAN: Tactics" serves as a good primer on both the tactics and strategies needed for this unusual game.

Note that none of the three articles contain any "advanced rules" that Kask mentions, above.

It is in McAllister's first article, "The History of TITAN," where we find Trampier's other piece of art, printed in light gray and hidden behind the text:

I could see what appeared to be a scene from the game with a titan, a minotaur and what appeared to be an angel hugging a dragon all on a volcanic landscape. Trampier's signature was clearly legible in the lower left, but not much else was. It might be a rough sketch for the cover image painting for this issue.

With a little bit of Photoshop wizardry, I removed all the text and worked to restore the image as best I could. I painted in some of the missing lines with my Wacom tablet. What I discovered surprised me:

There are a lot of creatures in this scene! On the left, two rangers and a warbear surround a lone minotaur, who knocks one of ranger off his pegasus (in Titan, every ranger gets a pegasus. It's one of the perks of the job). A titan stands behind the volcano, avoiding combat (as often happens in the game. Two trolls with their iconic hammers are near the center of the image. On the right, an archangel is clearly not hugging that dragon so much as he is jabbing his greatsword through its head. I thought their relationship might be a lot friendlier. Ah well...

The scene is richly detailed and sometimes hard to read (those trolls tend to blend into the rock face). Above is a guide to the creatures in the image. There may be another creature as I think I see something between the two rangers. If you spot any more details, please let me know!

As far as I know, this drawing was never published anywhere else. Can anybody with the Gorgonstar publications of Titan and Battlelands of Titan confirm that it was not published in those games?

UPDATE - Reader Teacher, Trooper, Gamer, Dad (that is a long name!) helped me out by recognizing one more creature in this melee: a lion helping the minotaur strike down that poor ranger on the left.

Updated recovery of Tramp's image.

That now puts the total at TEN Titan creatures, until now only probably only seen by a few people involved in the production of Titan and Adventure Gaming magazine.

Rare Dave Trampier Art Part 1

Adventure Gaming magazine vol. 1 no. 5 cover art

Mar. 2025 UPDATED UPDATE to the UPDATE: The photo gallery hosted by Castle Perilous can be seen at this new link: https://castleperilousgames.com/photos/galleries/album/d-a-dave-trampier-artwork

Dec. 2020 UPDATE to the UPDATE: See my new blog post with more revelations about this artwork.  Note that the Castle Perilous photo gallery link in the next paragraph is now dead.

UPDATE: The original painting is now at Castle Perilous Games and Books in Carbondale, IL. See it and more in this photo gallery.

The painting in situ at Castle Perilous

Tim Kask, head of TSR Periodicals and founding editor of Dragon magazine, met Dave Trampier sometime in 1977 (possibly at Gen Con X in August, though probably before*). Tim and Dave soon became fast friends and gamer buddies, as Kask recalls:**

"He spent many an hour with me in my basement playing games. playing miniatures on my sand-table (mostly WWII micro-armor, which we both LOVED, fooling with TITAN, partying together and racing slotless HO racecars for hours on end. My wife really liked Dave and thought he was one of the more "normal" seeming of all my gaming and industry friends."

Kask hired Trampier as staff artist for TSR Periodicals' Dragon (then titled The Dragon) and their wargaming magazine, Little Wars. Kask also published Trampier's comic strip parody of fantasy wargamers, the Pogo-influenced Wormy. Kask continues:

"I loved Wormy from the very first time I saw it; giving Dave a place to publish Wormy I rank as one of the finest things I did with the magazine."

Kask resigned from his position at TSR in 1980. He then founded Adventure Gaming, a high-quality, independent magazine for role-players, miniature gamers and boardgamers alike. He kept in touch with his good friend and hired him for work on issue #5 (November, 1981):

"After I started ADVENTURE GAMING Magazine, he did a couple pieces of art*** for me, and I did a cover story article on TITAN that he added and published some advanced rules in."

The first piece is a striking painting of Titan creatures on a bleak landscape. A dragon perches atop the volcanic mountain, effectively under-lit by the molten lava. At the base of the mountain, a lion is ready to pounce. The minotaur stands at the ready, wielding a shield and ball-and-chain weapon like the minotaur counters in the game. A titular titan, with cape, sword and shield, watches from behind the protection of his strange legion.

Adventure Gaming vol. I no. 5 cover art

The image stands out as more elaborate than most covers of Adventure Gaming from that era. At the same time, it has an unfinished quality: I can see pencil marks on the lion's face. Could this be a first pass at a planned box cover for the 2nd printing of Titan?

To recap the Titan history from my last post, Trampier co-created the game with Jason B. McAllister and self-published it in 1980. This first printing featured a simple, two-color box cover. They expanded the game with Battlelands of Titan in 1981, the same year this painting was created and the magazine issue was published. Avalon Hill finally combined Titan with Battlelands and published the 2nd edition of the game sometime around autumn of 1982.

Kenneth Nishiuye's Titan box lid

Avalon Hill chose to use staff artist Kenneth Nishiuye's functional but stiff "angry titan" painting on the front of the game box. The image has an iconic look and stands out on the store shelf but the prancing unicorn and the rampant dragon don't do much to fire up the imagination. It is in striking contrast to Trampier's skilled, yet fun and cartoony art style.

Notably, Trampier's art does not appear in any Titan articles published by AH's house magazine, The General. I don't know if this points a disagreement between AH and Trampier or if it was simply AH's policy to purchase the rights to a game and use their own in-house people to support it.

My speculative interpretation of a Trampier Titan box lid

Imagine if AH used this Trampier painting for the cover. Admittedly, there isn't any action (the creatures appear to be waiting for enemies to "spawn in" on the other side of the battle board) and the image is hard to read from a distance but at least it informs the viewer about the product. This looks like a scene from the game, unlike the Nishiuye cover, above.

If I had to quickly art direct for AH, I'd add one creature to battle the lion in the foreground, add another advancing on the right to clash with the minotaur, then lighten the color of the sky and darken the background figures to make them "pop" more. The dragon in the volcano would remain the central focus.

Stay tuned for more!

* Trampier started as staff artist for The Dragon's September, 1977 issue. That isn't much lead time to produce a magazine if he only met Kask the month before.

** Kask's thinking he met Trampier at "at GenCon at Parkside" must be incorrect.  GenCon did not move to University of Wisconsin-Parkside until August, 1978.

*** I will take a look at the other "hidden" piece of Trampier art in the next blog post.