TSR's Dungeon Hobby Shop Dungeon in the summer of 1980 - the era of Holmes Basic & AD&D.
Originally shared by Benoist Poiré
This photo, unearthed some time ago by Chris Wham, shows the Dungeon Hobby Shop of TSR at the corner of Main Street in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, c. July 1980.
In 1978, the "Dungeon Hobby Shop Dungeon" started with a few discarded "un-keyed" maps his friend, Terry Kuntz, brother of Rob Kuntz of Supplement I fame, gave him to use for his own ends, with quite a few modifications of Ernie's own "Gygaxian" device of course, and a few more levels added besides.
As the campaign grew over the next while, many of the customers of the Dungeon Hobby Shop would come to explore the dangerous corridors of Ernie's maze, including quite a few sailors who had come to the store from the Great Lakes, customers, TSR colleagues, friends, relatives, and many gamers besides, one E. Gary Gygax amongst them.
Despite the closure of TSR's Dungeon Hobby Shop, Ernie would keep running games with the same game setting for the next decades at home, in conventions, and at other venues besides, including Margaret Weis's and Don Perrin's later store, the Game Guild.
This is this dungeon and setting around it, this fantasy gaming world with a history of actual play going all the way back to the very roots of the role playing games hobby we love, that Ernest Gary Gygax Jr. and Benoist Poiré are preparing to share with gamers far and wide.
The legend continues. You too can be part of it.
The Hobby Shop Dungeon. Coming in 2014 on a table top near you.
