Retrospective: Dungeon Masters Adventure Log

When I was younger, I had a strange fondness for office supplies – pens, paper, notebooks, binders, staples, etc. Whenever I was about to begin a new project for school, I'd pop down to the local office supply store and buy whatever supplies I thought were necessary for the completion of the task. For reasons that are obscure, I developed a strong association between office supplies and being "organized" and "prepared." 

Consequently, I was a ready mark for gaming accessories like TSR's Dungeon Masters Adventure Log. Appearing in 1980, it boasts of being "the second playing aid designed specifically for the DM of ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS™!" (the first presumably being the AD&D Dungeon Masters Screen). Further, the Adventure Log claims to free the referee from having to "rely on memory and sketchy notes to keep track of one's players in the midst of play." Nowadays, I wouldn't see much point in such a product, but, at the time, it appealed precisely to that part of me that thought the Trapper Keeper was the height of technological progress.

The Log is quite a simple product. After a few pages of reproducing various AD&D rules charts, ranging from the genuinely useful (like AC modifiers and XP tables) to the downright esoteric (magical aging causes), the meat of the product consists of a series of two-page spreads that look like this:

On the left hand side, there's space for detailing up to ten player characters. There are columns for most of the expected information, such as player and character names, class, level, race, sex, alignment, hit points, and so on. On the right hand side, there are spaces for marching order, monsters encountered, treasure acquired, light sources, and "unusual events." None of this is especially innovative, but I loved it all the same and made regular use of it at my table. I feel a bit silly about it now, but such is the folly of youth.

Despite the relative weakness of its design (and limitations of its layout), there are nevertheless three things that stand out a noteworthy about the Dungeon Masters Adventure Log. The first is the terrific cover illustration illustration by Erol Otus. The second is a four-page centerfold that provides illustrations of many common pieces of AD&D armor and weaponry. Here's a page to give you an idea of what it all looked like:

This, along with the weapon illustrations, was genuinely useful to me, if only because it made it clear that a Lucerne hammer was not, in fact, a blunt weapon). The third and final thing the Log provided were filled-out sample pages of its interior. Besides showing how the product was supposed to be used, it was fun, as you can see:

Click on the image above and take a look at some of the players and the character names. Notice that not only does Black Dougal die (again!), but so too does Sister Rebecca. I have no idea if the information on these pages in any way represents an actual adventure session played by the people involved, but, even if it doesn't, I find it fascinating for the way it depicts the supposed content of such a session. This is why is still retain a certain fondness for the Dungeon Masters Adventure Log after all these years.