Everything you’ve wanted to know about the origins of roleplaying games…
Designers & Dragons: The ’70s is a comprehensive picture of the beginnings of the RPG industry. This 2nd edition expands the original single book into a series of four–beginning with the ’70s and ending with the ’00s–and we’ve added over 50,000 new words to this volume alone. Learn about the colorful history of TSR and the wave of D&D inspired games (and gaming companies) to follow, and dip your toes into wargaming trivia. Regardless of your gaming background, Shannon Appelcline’s meticulously researched history won’t disappoint.
In this volume, you’ll find:
- A foreword by Greg Stafford, creator of Glorantha and author of King Arthur Pendragon
- Profiles for thirteen 1970s gaming companies including TSR, GDW, and Chaosium
- The inside scoop behind games like D&D, Traveller, and The Fantasy Trip
- Ten things you might not know about roleplaying in the ‘70s
- An extensive bibliography and index
Meet the characters behind the characters and the gamers behind the games in Designers & Dragons: The ’70s!
So…when will this be available for purchase?
Hi JD,
Hah, hadn’t even put up the page for 10 minutes and you’re already on us for dates. I don’t have a release schedule yet, but stay tuned to our twitter and facebook pages, or check back here. We’ll be posting updates when we’ve got them.
Yeah, roughly speaking, by or before the middle of 2014, I think. We have… plans. 🙂
Blame your automated email notification.
And yeah, I’ve been monitoring this. Aiming to be First Sale. 🙂
How meticulous can it be? Shannon didn’t talk to me. He didn’t talk to Rick Loomis. Did he talk to Marc Miller or Greg Stafford, or Ken Hite or anybody?
Yes on multiples of those. Greg Stafford wrote the intro to one of the books, for goodness’ sake.
How meticulous can it be? Here’s the list of people I talked to just for the ’70s book. It does in fact include Rick Loomis (who I talked with multiple times) as well as Greg Stafford (who’s an old friend that I used for work for).
Stephen Abrams (Midkemia Press), Howard Barasch (Heritage Models), Scott Bizar (FGU), Bob Bledsaw ( Judges Guild), Timothy Brown (GDW), Brian Collins (Grimoire Games), Liz Danforth (Flying Buffalo), Jeff Dee (FGU), Willard Dennis (Heritage Models), George Dew (Metagaming),Mary Ezzell (Grimoire Games), Matthew Goodman (GDW), Allan Grohe (TSR), Jeff Grubb (TSR), Scott Haring (TSR), Leonard Heid (Grimoire Games), David Helber (Heritage Models), Laura Hickman (DayStar West), Tracy Hickman (DayStar West), the UK Steve Jackson (Games Workshop), the US Steve Jackson (Metagaming), Jennell Jaquays (Flying Buffalo, Judges Guild, Metagaming), Charlie Krank (Chaosium), Paul Lidberg (FGU), Rick Loomis (FGU, Flying Buffalo), Jim Lowder (TSR), Kim Mohan (TSR), James Oden (Heritage Models), Dori Olmesdahl (TSR), Steve Perrin (Grimoire Games, Heritage Models), Jon Peterson (TSR), Randall Porter (Heritage Models), Ed Pugh (Heritage Models), Donald Reents (Chaosium, Grimoire Games), Marcus L. Rowland (Games Workshop, GDW), Steven Schend (TSR), Mark Schynert (Grimoire Games), Lester Smith (GDW), Michael Stackpole (Flying Buffalo), Greg Stafford (Chaosium, Grimoire Games), Stephen D. Sullivan (TSR), James M. Ward (TSR), Steve Winter (TSR), Loren Wiseman (GDW), David Witts (Games Workshop, TSR), and Lou Zocchi (Gamescience).
There are similar lists for the ’80s, ’90s, and ’00s There always could be more, of course, and hopefully will be for future books.
Oh, and I should note that talking with people wasn’t actually the foundation of the book. Decades-old memories are too unreliable to be a great primary source. Instead, the book is based as much as possible on source material from the time periods: personal interviews, design notes, company profiles, news items, and other articles. For more modern stuff, press releases and podcast interviews. I then talked to people to fill in the gaps, and did my best to make sure than one or two people associated with each company saw each first draft article, to check it for accuracy.
For example with Flying Buffalo, Ken wrote some great articles (or interviews) at the time which thoroughly explained how and why Tunnels & Trolls came to be. Rick then answered some questions for me about the Blade brand, the Catalyst line, and a bunch of their individual products. He then gave me additional comments on a variety of topics after he saw the first-draft article.