"From D&D to AD&D; There and back again
As I stated earlier, all seven of the little booklets must be considered what is now called OD&D. By this time it had grown fairly complex and was beyond the ken of some of the younger players we hoped to attract.
Gary and I, and probably Gary and others, had often discussed how to broaden our market. I had told Gary all of the Deathless Bob stories, and how he had other young teen friends that would have liked to come play with us "college guys". The problem with the younger set seemed to be that while there was no lack of willing potential new players, there was an absolute dearth of young DM wannabes. And that was certainly understandable; today good players still vastly outnumber good DMs.
At some point, Gary and Brian began talking to Holmes. How they hooked up with him I have no idea. All I knew was that I certainly didn’t think very highly of him for several reasons once I met him."
That last comment really makes me curious just what it was about Holmes that rubbed Tim Kask wrong..
http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=23223&sid=1a8cfd5dbad7defd204b4be7dd828a60&start=1020
I was just re-reading some of Tim's threads last week; I was thinking about asking him if he remembers who, other than Gary himself, worked on editing the Basic Set. I have seen that post you quoted before. A few years later he also wrote,
ReplyDelete"Dr. Holmes did a remarkable job with the first Basic in making it more kid-friendly (or novice-friendly, if you prefer). It was only after I got a Masters in Education that I came to see just what a good job he did with it."
http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=23223&p=970793#p970793