Tony Rowe wrote:
I tracked down this intro to D&D article by Jon Freeman in the September/October 1979 issue of GAMES magazine. Freeman wrote The Playboy Winner's Guide to Board Games (expanded from the earlier A Player's Guide to Table Games). The dungeon at the end of the article is designed by Freeman and Jeff Johnson, Freeman's co-creator of the Temple of Apshai computer game published by Epyx (also founded by Freeman). Freeman later teamed up with his wife, Anne Westfall, to found Free Fall Associates (Freeman + Westfall = Free Fall). With Paul Reiche III (GW1: Legion of Gold, Booty and the Beasts, The Necromican) they created the fantastic action/strategy game ARCHON in 1983.
Zenopus note: I added a bunch of links to the people/items mentioned in Tony's excellent summary
"At the 1978 National Wargaming Convention, one psychologist claimed... that D&D allowed players to gain new insights into their (real) characters..." I believe the convention in question is Origins, held in Ann Arbor that year. Also, is there any chance that Dr. Holmes was that "psychologist?" I know he attended Gen Con that year and the year following.
ReplyDeleteGreat find, Tony! I'd never heard of that article before. Particularly cool since it has a Sample Dungeon. Definitely some Holmes influence there, with the map labeled "Sample Floor Plan" and a Thaumaturgist included. He got the level (5th) right for that title, too (In the draft of Basic, Holmes had the M-U as a theurgist & someone as TSR changed it)
ReplyDeleteThose popular culture articles about D&D from the late 70s/early 80s often have great artwork, and this one is no exception. That wizard is hanging from the ceiling!
ReplyDeleteThe Cross-Section, besides being very artistic, is a great example of a dungeon with multiple entrances/easy accessibility. Gabor Lux (aka Melan) just wrote about this topic recently:
ReplyDeletehttp://beyondfomalhaut.blogspot.com/2016/08/blog-accessible-dungeon.html
And I like the use of dots on the map to indicate the area patrolled by the rats. I'll need to make a page for this in my Chronology of Sample Dungeons:
ReplyDeletehttps://sites.google.com/site/zenopusarchives/home/modules-and-scenarios/other-sample-dungeons
Thank you! The article is what got me into the game all those years ago. I still remember the stirges and Madam Bam's.
ReplyDeletevery cool! I didn't see this back in the day, but I have fond memories of playing Archon and Temple of Apshai on my good old C=64.
ReplyDeleteMy best friend had a C=64, and he would borrow a "Gateway to Apshai" cartridge from his neighbors when I was over. Beware the hostile Fungus!
ReplyDeleteThe "BE A HERO!" TSR ad for the Basic Set also appeared in the Nov 79 issue of Boys Life, the long-running Boy Scout magazine:
ReplyDeletehttp://zenopusarchives.blogspot.com/2013/09/tsr-ads-in-boys-life-1977-1982.html
Zach H I tried to find more on the illustrator, Liam Roberts. It is a common name and all that I could verify from the same artist was a creepy illustration in Dynamite magazine.
ReplyDeleteI noticed the Thaumaturgist reference and thought the whole adventure could fit neatly in Portown. Too bad the dungeon level is of the "fill in all the space on the graph paper" variety without much sense of architectural design.
Roger Giner-Sorolla I didn't get introduced to D&D until a few years after '79 but I distinctly remember this issue with its vibrant "13" puzzle on the front cover. When researching this, it took me right back to being seven years old, sitting in the back seat of my parents' car and looking through this magazine with strange puzzles as we drove somewhere.
ReplyDeleteUh, wow, I have a copy of this issue of the magazine. I never thought much about it. I subscribed to Games for a couple of years afterwards, hoping for more like this, fruitlessly, as it happened. Still, the article definitely that X factor of being too cool to look away from.
ReplyDeleteThank you! This is the article that got me into D&D. Read the article, bought it for a friend on his birthday a month later and the rest is history!
ReplyDelete