#12A - California Gaming Part I - Steve Perrin's Conventions - #RPGaDAY

Tracing the California Gaming Scene, part I: Steve Perrin in NorCal

I still read a number of old RPG supplements in my study of the early history of gaming. While many game historians study the origins of the hobby that spread from the wargame groups of the Great Lakes region (specifically, Lake Geneva and the Twin Cities of St. Paul/Minneapolis), I focus on the gaming scene that developed in my home state of California. West coast gamers created their own "flavors" of playing. I'll cover these in several posts and see how they wrap back into the official D&D game.

1976 Berkeley: Dundracon I, An Unconventional Convention for Perrin's Conventions

 

DunDraCon (Dungeons & Dragons Convention) was first held in Berkeley's Claremont Hotel in March, 1976. There, the public first encountered The Perrin Conventions, a set of D&D house rules handed out by organizer Steve Perrin (who was also a founding member of the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA)).

Location of the first Dundracon

The Perrin Conventions included details for D&D combat, like: breaking up a round into phases, adding a "dexterity roll" to do other actions, knocking down opponents and two-weapon fighting. These were likely inspired by Perrin and his friends' experiences in mock battles with the SCA. This initial set of rules modified the magic system and included Dave Hargrave's critical hit rules(1).

 Perrin's own Dundracon bio admits that he didn't design all the rules, he was just the guy who typed them up for distribution. The rules received some notice from the convention attendants, but this was a limited group of mostly gamers from the Bay Area and surrounding regions. Still, it served as an early mutation on the original D&D rules from 1974 and showed that some players were interested in a less abstract combat system.

Steve Perrin and his wife Luise in SCA regalia at the 1968 Worldcon (source)

Steve Perrin wanted to become more involved in the nascent RPG industry and teamed up with fellow gamer Jeff Pimper to edit together a book of monsters, complete with stats for D&D and two newer games: Tunnels & Trolls (T&T, first published 1975) and Arduin (first published as The Arduin Grimoire in 1977).

In addition to their own creations, Perrin and Pimper compiled creature designs mostly from APA zines (The Wild Hunt and Alarums & Excursions (A&E)) or from local gamers. The designers included Dave Hargrave (local gamer and creator of The Arduin Grimoire), Clint Bigglestone (Dundracon organizer), Sean Cleary (A&E and Wild Hunt), Hilda Hannifen ("The Ignoble Mockturtle" A&E zine), Roger Harvey (later, an illustrator for Judges Guild), Steve Henderson (another SCA and Dundracon founder), Dan Pierson and Glenn Blacow (both from Wild Hunt), and others.

Jennell Jaquays (using the name Paul) contributed a few designs from her RPG fanzine, The Dungeoneer (about one year later, this became a Judges Guild magazine). Jaquays went on to a prolific career designing and illustrating RPGs, authored classic modules like Dark Tower, became one of the first tabletop designers in video game design (at Coleco). (12-11-14 edited for clarity)

They had more than one book's worth of material, so the editors decided to only print monsters that were never published before. Thus some of Jaquays and Hargrave's designs were left on the cutting room floor with some others from A&E. The monsters were given only D&D stats, though each entry included ranges for "IQ" (Intelligence) and Dexterity. They just needed a publisher.

1977 Albany: Chaosium publishes a Monster Manual or two before TSR

Greg Stafford founded his company The Chaosium in 1975 to publish White Bear & Red Moon (later reprinted as Dragon Pass), the first board game set in his fantasy world of Glorantha. Stafford was an D&D player and maybe purchased the first D&D set ever sold. Perrin, Pimper and Stafford met through mutual friends and when Stafford heard about their project, he was eager to have Chaosium publish it and get into the RPG supplement business.

Stafford was trying and failing to get a Gloranthan RPG off the ground. First, Dave Hargrave tried to make a Gloranthan version of his Arduin system and Chaosium had planned to publish The Arduin Grimoire; Chaosium house magazine Wyrm's Footnotes issue 2 notes: "THE ARDUIN GRIMOIRE will be the first of our new products." A few months later, the very next issue states: "When we finally received the manuscript to ARDUIN GRIMOIRE, it was not quite what we had hoped for... we have decided not to publish the rules." Hargrave had to self-publish The Arduin Grimoire (more on this later).  It is said that Chaosium felt Arduin was too derivative of D&D; issue 3 doesn't say this directly, but it does refer to Arduin as, "a supplement, if you will," and highly recommend it for, "experienced dungeoneers," (i.e. anyone who already owns the D&D rules?).

Stafford's design team of Hendrik Jan Pfeiffer, Art Turney and Ray Turney worked on the Gloranthan RPG as a D&D supplement but Stafford's world was unique and needed its own unique game system. Impressed with The Perrin Conventions, Stafford asked Perrin to "look in and see if he could help the situation" on July 4, 1976(2).

Perrin came up with revolutionary changes to the new system, like doing away with experience points, having no character classes and flat hit point values that don't increase linearly with experience. Slowly, Perrin was put in charge of the project. Only Ray Turney stayed on from the original design team and Perrin added fellow SCA members Steve Henderson and Warren James. Stafford was very pleased with the team's work on his fantasy world.

Chaosium published Perrin and Pimper's All the World's Monsters sometime in 1977, getting to market before TSR's official monster collection, the AD&D Monster Manual (released in December, 1977).

All the All the Worlds' Monsters, volumes 1-3

All the World's Monsters vol. 2 followed that same year and maybe hit the shelves before Monster Manual as well. In addition to adding in cut designs by Hargrave, Jaquays and others, the second volume included T&T conversion notes (by Ken St. Andre) and a refined, revised set of The Perrin Conventions (dated November, 1977) that focused mostly on D&D combat, less Hargrave's critical hit rules. Now, the house rules were available to a much wider audience.

RuneQuest, 1st printing cover. Illustration by Luise Perrin

In 1978, the new Perrin-led Gloranthan game RuneQuest was born and, with it, Chaosium's in-house Basic Role-Playing (BRP) system. This BRP system was also modified into Worlds of Wonder, Call of Cthulhu, Elfquest, Stormbringer/Elric!, Hawkmoon, Pendragon, Superworld, Ringworld and many other games. This was also one of the earliest "universal" RPG systems (though many of the different games were only barely compatible).

The combat system was quite detailed, with parries, fumbles, critical hits, hit locations and more. RuneQuest the first totally skill-based RPG without classes (Traveller (1977) had character skills but no way to improve them) where the player could develop their character as they desire. For some years, RuneQuest provided competition to TSR's sales and Chaosium is one of the few game companies from that era still in business today.

12-11-14 Update: 
I'll let Dr. J. Eric Holmes, editor of the first D&D Basic Set and a SoCal gamer, describe RuneQuest's combat system as he compared it to D&D in 1981.

The combat system requires a little more bookkeeping than D&D and is, therefore, more "realistic."(3)

Could you elaborate, Dr. Holmes?

Combat rules are extremely complex. There are die rolls for each hit and its parry, for the location of the hit as well as for the extent of the damage. There are special scores which indicate a "critical hit" or a "fumble," and then another roll to see what the nature of the critical injury or fumble might be. Special training will increase the character's ability to hit with a particular weapon. Each weapon must, realistically, be trained for individually, at a cost of silver lunars (the coin of the realm) or maybe by doing some more die rolls to see if your character has learned from experience after a successful fight.

 All of this takes a lot of bookkeeping, die rolling and calculation with every blow struck. This is not necessarily a criticism. A great deal of any game is spent in the calculations and die rolling involved in combat... A pocket calculator might come in handy. Many game players revel in these complicated calculations. The more complex the computations of each weapon blow, the better they like it.(4) (emphasis mine)

So, Holmes found players in Southern California that, like many Northern California counterparts, preferred a complex, "realistic" combat system. Holmes did not share that opinion, himself:

What are the advantages of this game over its (inevitable comparison) competitor, Dungeons & Dragons? In terms of basic game mechanics, character generation, experience, combat, magic, I would say none. Some fans of the game would cry that it has greater "realism," but I think these are minor differences.(5)

Holmes appears to like the RuneQuest game and speaks highly of its clarity in writing, numerous examples and the novelty of a game manual with an index (something he wished for his own Basic D&D(6)). Besides the combat complexities, his main complaint was he didn't feel the RPG captured the "feel" of Glorantha (as seen in White Bear & Red Moon). It missed out on the "eerie feeling of reality to his imaginary world(7)" that Greg Stafford brings when he writes games, himself.

Note: Holmes probably played 2nd edition RuneQuest as opposed to 1st edition. As far as I understand, the differences between the two are minimal.
End 12-11-14 Update 

Conclusions:

 

First of all, RuneQuest did not evolve directly from The Perrin Conventions. It may seem obvious, but the internet is full of quotes like, "Runequest's rules were made from The Perrin Conventions," or, "RuneQuest is a codification and development of the Perrin Conventions." (quotes slightly obfuscated) These statements imply that RuneQuest is nothing more than a D&D variant, but that simply isn't the case. There are similarities between the two, but no more so than with countless other systems. If Chaosium just wanted a D&D variant, they would've used Pfeiffer, Turney and Turney's design and gone to market with it back in 1977.

Second, SCA members and wargamers play differently. D&D evolved from wargame rules by members of the Castle & Crusade Society, founded by Gary Gygax and Rob Kuntz as a chapter of the International Federation of Wargaming, itself founded by Gygax, Scott Duncan and Bill Speer in 1966. These gamers got together around a sand table (usually in Gary's basement) ordering miniature armies into mock battles. Abstract combat was simple and made sense.

Conversely, the SCA was founded in Berkeley in 1966 with armored members going outside to fight mock battles with padded weapons. Their point of view was not that of a military commander with a bird's eye view of battle, but as a common soldier who has felt the heft of their shield and the sting of a (padded) sword. Combat seems abstract if you aren't the one fighting. The reenactors saw something missing in abstract combat and created their own rules and games to fill those gaps.

Maybe it all comes down to the weather. In sunny California, you can go outside and play practically all year round. When it gets cold up North, it is best to hunker down next near the heater and go to war with some good friends around the sand table.

#10 Favorite Game Fiction - The Maze of Peril #RPGaDAY

Let's face it, most game fiction isn't very good.

Many examples of game fiction tend to break the rules of the game's universe or adhere too closely to the game's format and just end up with mediocre stories. Not every good game designer is a good fiction writer (but many think they are). They often get tangled up in serious, epic, wanna-be Lord of the Rings, everything-depends-on-us quests to save the world and miss out on the fun of adventure gaming. To belabor the famous Joker quote, "Why so serious?"

I've read some of the earliest game fiction novels ever printed. Veteran author Andre Norton's Quag Keep (1978) is notable as a historical, early peek into Gary Gygax's World of Greyhawk/The Great Kingdom setting. The sequel, Return to Quag Keep, loses the Greyhawk setting and the small amount of charm the original held.

The oldest game novel I've found is War-Gamers' World (1978) by Hugh Walker (pen name for Hubert Straßl). It was first published in German as Reiter der Finsternis (Rider of Darkness) in 1975 and is the first book of the Magira series. It is based on the German fantasy wargame/proto-RPG hybrid Armageddon developed by the gaming group FOLLOW in 1966. Since that time, the setting spawned several RPGs. This first novel opens with a player getting sucked into the game's fantasy world. There are several references to seeing the world as interconnected hexagons. Not recommended except as another historical oddity.

I give a hearty recommendation for my favorite piece of game fiction: The Maze of Peril, a short novel written by the original Basic D&D rules editor, Dr. John Eric Holmes.

SPOILER ALERT: They don't save the world

Contrary to the publisher's blurb. Our heroes don't try to save the world. Boinger the halfling and Zereth the elf are just out to make a buck without having to get a real job. They undertake adventures to make quick cash and live the life of Riley at the Green Dragon Tavern for a few months. When the gold runs thin and the landlord comes a knockin', they undertake another delve into the Underworld to relieve some nasty monsters of their glittering treasures.

Boinger, another party member and Zereth relieving some nasty monster of its glittering treasure (art by Jim Roslof from "The Sorcerer's Jewel")

It is so refreshing to read an adventure story without the gloom and doom of the ultimate destruction of everything good folk hold sacred due to the megalomaniacal plans of some evil Sauron look-alike dark lord. These are two good friends just struggling to get by and maybe, someday, hit it rich. Their camaraderie and their humor really comes through in Holmes' writing. In a good way, it reminds me of the early Star Wars comic books by Marvel. The galaxy was safe from the ultimate apocalypse weapon, the Death Star, and the raised stakes of The Empire Strikes Back hadn't come into play yet. Han, Luke, Leia and their friends were free to adventure and freewheel their way across the galaxy.

BEGIN SPOILER WARNING

Bardan the dwarf's fate (as portrayed by Barely A. Dwarf in "Were-shark," an early version of The Maze of Peril's chapter 2 published as a stand-alone short story, art by Chris Holmes)

Nothing world-shattering is at stake; Boinger &co's quests are of a personal nature. During an early foray into the Underworld, one of the party fighters, Bardan the dwarf, perishes in combat. They bury his body in the cemetary but disturbingly find his grave exhumed and coffin empty a few days later. Boinger implores the party to return to the dungeon to thwart the revenge plans the evil-doers have for his friend's corpse.

The Maze of Peril adventures run the gamut from dungeon delve, urban adventures, bureaucratic red tape cutting, carousing, burglary, back to dungeon delve, Lovecraftian horror and even naval combat. Also, the book features one of the funniest uses of a petrification gaze that I would totally allow to happen if it comes up in a game.

END SPOILER WARNING

Holmes had several short stories about Boinger, Zereth (a.k.a. Xoreth) and their fellow adventurers published in Dragon magazine and Alarums & Excursions APA-zine. It is no secret that these tales were based on Holmes' home D&D campaign; Boinger was the player character of Chris Holmes, Dr. Holmes' son and occasional illustrator. These stories give us a window into Dr. Holmes' campaign and even how he interpreted certain D&D rules.

One famously unclear rule regards magic-users and their restriction from using armor and swords. In the days of OD&D, even famous, accomplished gamers were unclear on the ruling* and many cried foul against the sword restriction (after all, Gandalf used a sword). What logical reason (besides gameplay balance) could there be for this restriction?

Holmes succinctly gives his reasoning in two sentences. On page 34 of The Maze of Peril, Zereth removes all metal from his body, washes up and puts on a wizard robe before casting a spell. He explains to a confused Boinger that he:

"Can't have iron touching the body anywhere; no iron, even nails in the boot heels. It drains the flow of force from the other world."

No further explanation is required. Boinger asks, "It does? How?" Zereth tells him to, "Keep quiet," and no more is said on the matter.

This prevents magic-users from even wearing leather armor (with iron buckles). Presumably, a wizard's dagger must be made of bronze, silver or another non-ferrous metal. This stems from old folklore about iron's protective properties against magical creatures and has become a modern trope. It fits with Tim Powers' piratey fantasy novel On Stranger Tides (HIGHLY recommended reading) where magic disappears from the world as iron spreads with the advances of western civilization. The faerie-folks' aversion to iron seen in Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions (also recommended) resonates as well.

Boinger vs. a one-armed troll (art by Chris Holmes from "Trollshead")

This leads to another rule: elves are combination fighters and magic-users and the OD&D rules state they "freely switch class whenever they choose, from adventure to adventure" (Men & Magic, p. 8). How does that apply to spellcasting and armor/weapon use? Holmes gives another example with Zereth in the short story "Trollshead" in The Dragon magazine #31, p. 41:

"Zereth took off his sword belt and helmet and laid them on the ground... He lay flat on his belly and reached into an inner pocket of his linen tunic to produce a pinch of fine sand. This he tossed into the air, mumbling rapidly as he did so."

To switch from fighter to magic-user, Zereth removes his sword belt and helmet (the only iron on his body) before casting a sleep spell on some unexpecting half-orcs. This goes against his own "elves must decide" ruling in his Basic D&D manuscript that states that elves cannot change in the middle of an adventure. In later stories, such as "The Sorcerer's Jewel"** (Dragon #46), Zereth wears armor while casting spells. It is assumed that Holmes was playing AD&D by this time, which does allow for spellcasting, armored, multiclassed magic-users.

Another question arises: just what are the "dungeons" in the world of Dungeons & Dragons? Why is there a near-endless number of underground labyrinths filled with nasty creatures and fabulous treasures? Zereth ponders the titular maze in The Maze of Peril, p. 3:

"Somewhere beneath the surface of this ancient land the tunnels and corridors of some prehistoric race coiled and raveled, delved, and probed unimaginable depths into the core of the world... What race or races had built the original maze no one knew. It seemed in the opinions of the sages and magicians of the time, that there must have been many layers of dungeons and underworlds laid down, one atop the other, as the world crust was formed, so that now no one knew, or even guessed, how many levels it extended below the surface."

Here, in one (wordy) sentence is the justification for a world of dungeons. It explains just enough to give the game world some logic yet leaves plenty of mystery for players to discover in their journeys into the Underworld. Of course, the truth may be very different from what the sages and magicians assume as fact.

Gary Gygax first hinted at such an Underworld with the D series of modules starting in 1978 (about the time The Maze of Peril was written). Later D&D authors would call this subterranean realm the Underdark and give their own reasons for its existence.

Zereth and Boinger (art by Donna Barr from "In the Bag")

In Conclusion:

The Maze of Peril is my favorite piece of game fiction because it feels most like the D&D games I've played. Rarely did we adventure to save the kingdom/world/multiverse. We were a bunch of friends looking for some excitement and quick cash together. We'd hatch elaborate schemes, find ourselves in deep trouble, then put our heads together to make sure they didn't roll off our shoulders come the dawn. We were comrades, bonded in the face of danger, celebrating each success until wanderlust crept back into our hearts and we were off on another wild quest.

Those are good times, and so is this book.

Notes:

Watch for Fight On! magazine issue #15 dedicated to J. E. Holmes coming soon! Read my heavily researched character write-ups for Boinger, Zereth and their "pal" Murray the Mage, along with guidelines for iron-restricted spellcasting, in my article, "Holmes Town Heroes."

The 1000 copy print run of The Maze of Peril is getting harder to find, but still available. Check out Holmes' short stories from Dragon magazine:

"Trollshead" The Dragon #31
"The Sorcerer's Jewel" Dragon #46
"In the Bag" Dragon #58

Complete Holmes Bibliography

* UK game designer Ian Livingstone (Games Workshop co-founder, Fighting Fantasy game books co-creator, etc.) erroneously wrote in his 1982 book Dicing with Dragons: An Introduction to Role-Playing Games when explaining D&D classes: "Each class has restrictions as well. For instance, The Magic User may only wear leather armour or no armour at all..."

** Although The Maze of Peril (1986) was published 5 years after "The Sorcerer's Jewel" (1981), we know Maze was completed earlier as Holmes states that it was ready to publish in an L.A. Times interview from 1979.

#8 Favorite Character - Wonko the Sane #RPGaDAY

My favorite character is my silver-haired, half-elf jester, Wonko the Sane (yes, named after the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy character).

Wonko's main stats

I first rolled Wonko up in November, 1990 - a 1st edition AD&D character using the Jester NPC rules from the pages of Dragon magazine (revised and reprinted in Best of Dragon Vol. IV). When 2nd edition AD&D and the Complete Splat Books were all released, I used the Jester kit rules from The Complete Bard's Handbook. Those rules were notably less silly (no more punfighting).

Wonko playing his electric mandolin, still smiling at only 2 HP

Wonko is a lot of fun to draw, especially with his striped leisure suit jacket, polka-dotted cape and checkered trousers. In the top image, you see Wonko wielding his Short Sword +1/+4 Vs. Reptiles and another strange weapon.  It is a stick with an Odie stuffed animal on one end and a Rug of Smothering with the command word "Don't Make Me Laugh!" on the other. Wonko must need his Buck and a Quarter Quarterstaff weapon proficiency to wield it.

Other unusual supplies on his character sheet include his electric mandolin (see second image), a hanging fern, one can of WD-40, a dust rag and "five belts of priestly origin" that I am assuming came from some Gygaxian adventure.

Lars Leafblower is fed up with Wonko's tomfoolery

Wonko survived to 10th level, annoying a number of nasty bad guys along the way, including Strahd von Zarovich in I6 Ravenloft and whoever was in "A Rose for Talakara" (which I have in my notes as "A Rose for Somebody"). Like most jesters, he had a tendency to annoy his fellow party members as well. In the third image, we see what happens when you push a druid too far.*

Want to a jester in an old-school campaign? This website compiles all the early Jester rules for D&D, including errata and Gary Gygax's musings on the class.

* My friend Duane came up with some of the goofiest character names. In addition to Lars Leafblower he ran another memorable druid: Waz Weedwhacker.

#5 Most old school RPG owned - Older than Braunstein #RPGaDAY

My oldest RPG might be a controversial choice - "Proto RPG" is a better term. This predates 1974's release of Dungeons & Dragons and 1971's Chainmail. It is older than the first Braunstein game played in 1967, direct inspiration for Dave Arneson's Blackmoor.

When this game was released, The Milton Berle Show was still on the air and the Apollo Program was yet to launch its first, fateful mission.

Modern War in Miniature by Michael F. Korns

This is Michael F. Korns' 1966 game Modern War in Miniature (MWIM), probably self-published by Korns and a partner in Kansas under "M & J Research Co." I believe the rules are still available in reprint as part of the book More Wargaming Pioneers from The History of Wargaming Project.

MWIM is an unusual WWII, skirmish-level wargame. As normal, two players act as commanders (one Allied, one Axis), directing their combat units in battle. Miniatures are moved across the terrain on a sand table. What is unusual is that a Judge mediates all actions and is the only one with full access to the sand table. The judge is the only one who needs to know the rules and randomly determines the outcomes of all actions. He talks to the Allied and Axis players individually, out of earshot of each other, describing what they can see and hear in 2-second segments of time. It sort of takes the adversarial roles and judge's mediations of a Braunstein game into short time-span, tactical turns. Everything is on a personal scale making it different from a typical wargame.

Partial example of gameplay

The above example of gameplay shows that the player is expected to embrace their role and step into the boots of the commanding officer. This reads much like samples of gameplay in many RPGs, with the players stating what "I" do in the situation to the GM. Only the adversarial rather than cooperative roles of the players are different.

Note that any TEXT IN ALL-CAPS is said loud enough for both players to hear. "Schmeisser" is used here as a colloquial term for a German MP38 or MP40 sub-machine gun (which always annoyed me since they were designed by Heinrich Vollmer, not Hugo Schmeisser).

How to generate random percentile numbers with d6s

How do you generate random percentile or fractional results without percentile dice? This chart, a subject of discussion on Jon Peterson's Playing at the World blog, shows how to use a 2d6 result for rough percentages. As Peterson mentions, Mike Carr adapted this chart for use in the 1972 edition his game Fight in the Skies (it is titled "Percentage Index" in my 6th edition TSR rules). This shows that the gamers in the Twin Cities of Minnesota were aware of MWIM.

Small Unit Tactical Combat Referee's Rule Book

Modern War in Miniature eventually developed into Small Unit Tactical Combat (SUTC) in 1971. Above, you see my 2nd edition Referee's Rule Book from 1972. Several other SUTC products were released  published by "The Limpex Company" of Mountain View, CA. From what I could gather, Korns lived and gamed there during that time. Coincidentally, I moved to that area in 2005.

A Monster Manual of WWII combat forces

SUTC is very similar to its MWIM predecessor. Gone is the chart of simulating random percentile results with 2d6; now there is a chart of random two-digit numbers for the referee to pick from. It appears that this alternate evolutionary line of gaming died out after SUTC. I can't find any games that Korns published after that.

Was MWIM an influence on Gary Gygax? Probably not for Dungeons & Dragons, but according to Peterson, it did insppire Leon Tucker, Gygax's and Mike Reese's co-designer in the development of Tractics.

#1 First RPG Played - Also, first game designed #RPGaDAY

I didn't have a clue what a role-playing game was until I was nine years old. Most of my gaming experiences were with my family playing Sorry!, Uno, Mille Bornes, Dogfight (my first "wargame") and Star Wars: Escape from the Death Star. I was obsessed with video games, but had no home game system or easy access to arcades to satisfy me.

Back in 1981 or 1982 when I was in 4th or 5th grade, I went to my elementary school library during lunch. There I saw a few older boys I didn't know seated around a table, poring over a collection of books, papers and odd dice. The library was empty, so they were free to speak openly about some strange adventure. I invited myself to sit at the table, transfixed.

G3 Treasure Coffer illustration by Dave A. Trampier

One image from their adventure remains emblazoned in my mind: a treasure chest filled with gold rings. They must have been playing through Gary Gygax's G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King, the only adventure in which I could find such an image (in Gygaxian semantics, it is a treasure coffer and not a treasure chest). Of course, the first image I have from D&D would be an illustration by Dave Trampier, the same artist I've written  about many, many, many times and had the unfortunate duty to report his death to many readers.

After that lunch, I was left to puzzle over the experience I'd just witnessed. This was both a game and an adventure story in one, like a much better version of a Choose Your Own Adventure book. It was all about exploring old castles and labyrinths, fighting monsters and claiming great treasures. It had a lot of books, but its core was about graph paper and dice.

I had graph paper and some six-siders, but where would I get the other dice?

A few days later, I had my answer. My class was all marching single-file back to our classroom after lunch or recess or something. As we walked past the library building, I spied a shining ruby in the muddy grass by the sidewalk. I snatched the gem from the ground: my first d20!

Still rolling true after all these years

It remains my favorite die to this day. The numbers were hard to read (a year later I learned to mark the numbers in with crayon) but now I had the key to role-playing. I just needed a game to play, so I designed one of my own.

This was a design of need. I didn't know the older boys I saw in the library. I didn't know anyone else who played. I didn't know where to get the rule books and, as a kid, I couldn't afford them. It was far easier and cheaper to make something myself.

I drew out a labyrinth on graph paper, draw in nasty creatures guarding treasure chests (I remember populating it with giant spiders and bats) and trace my way through the maze as a solo adventurer. I had a rudimentary combat system using the d20 and a d6 (probably stolen from some board game) and drew up a small chart of monsters and their stats. I created a custom folder to hold my game, complete with a "pocket" made of construction paper and tape to hold the dice, so I could safely transport my game to and from school. I never played it with anyone else; this was a solitary, meditative pursuit.

My d20 is the only material from that game to survive the ages. I can't remember any further details about the game system or how many labyrinths and creatures I designed. I abandoned the game when, a few months later, a friend taught me how to play from Moldvay's purple box Basic D&D set. I created a fighter, learning new words like "Dexterity" and "Chaos" and that "Constitution" doesn't always mean the paper upon which our founding fathers created the American government. My ignoble fighter battled a few guards and got killed, but I was hooked.

I also had no idea how many games I would design in the years to follow.

Rare Dave Trampier Art Part 3

Uncredited art from B2 The Keep on the Borderlands

The Keep on the Borderlands seems like the last place to find a rare piece of TSR artwork. Gary Gygax himself wrote the module and included it as an introductory adventure in two different editions of the Basic Dungeons & Dragons boxed set (both the blue Holmes set and the magenta Moldvay set). TSR printed an estimated 1.5 million copies and it ranked the 7th greatest D&D adventure of all time in Dungeon magazine issue #116. Countless players and DMs cut their RPG teeth on this module (myself included). It can hardly be considered "rare."

In 1980, one odd illustration appeared only in the second printing of the module where intertwined, horned dragon-serpents devour each other at the bottom of page 5.

The mysterious serpents

Some of the 6th and 7th printings of the Holmes basic sets included this printing of B2 and a few more copies sold individually. Later in 1980, the illustration disappeared from the third and subsequent printings, just as D&D's popularity started its greatest ascent. This makes it safe to call the illustration "rare."

The striking image is reminiscent of Celtic knotwork designs and M. C. Escher but who illustrated it? The artists credited in the module are David S. LaForce (a.k.a. "Diesel"), Erol Otus and Jim Roslof. However, this looks nothing like any of their art styles.

Now compare the illustration to the works of fellow TSR artist Dave Trampier:

Boat masthead (D3 Vault of the Drow), Gorgon (Monster Manual) and Kobold-Hating Dragon (Dungeon Masters Guide) all by David A. Trampier

We see the same toothy snout and careful balance between light and dark in the boat masthead. The gorgon's cross-hatching style and line weight are almost identical; even the shading on the horns is the same. The dragon exhibits the same serpentine neck with similar scales and soft underbelly. I feel safe in saying all four images were created by the same hand.

There were small changes between the first and second printings of the module, including the addition of the intertwined serpents image and a dragon illustration by David S. LaForce (previously seen in The Strategic Review). An editor probably added them to fill some white space between paragraphs. It is highly likely Tramp's contribution was overlooked and TSR staff neglected to include him in the art credits. In fact, third and later printings are heavily revised and include illustrations by Jeff Dee and Bill Willingham, both equally uncredited.

As far as I know, the intertwined serpents image was never published again. I believe this is the first time Trampier is acknowledged as the creator of this image.

For more information about module B2 and the early days of Basic D&D I recommend Zenopus Archives. "Zenopus" maintains a terrific repository of information on the original, blue-book, basic rules set and its author, the late Dr. John Eric Holmes. Stay up to date with his blog where he is currently comparing an original manuscript for Holmes' Basic Set against the printed versions, noting where editor Gary Gygax was making subtle adjustments to the original D&D rules.