The Setting of Gamma World (Part III)

I've written before about Legion of Gold and my love for it, so I will do my best to avoid gushing about it in this post. Instead, I want to focus on what the module – the first full-length one to be published for Gamma World and by Gary Gygax no less – says about the game's setting and how this information jibes with what is stated or implied elsewhere.

When I talk about Legion of Gold, I sometimes compare it to another Gygax-penned adventure module, The Keep on the Borderlands, even though the comparison is not exact. In both, the player characters have a "home base" – the titular Keep in B2 and the City of Horn in Legion of Gold – from which they can launch their exploration of the surrounding areas. Where they differ is that, while the D&D module is set in a "true" wilderness far from the borders of civilization, its Gamma World equivalent takes place in a region whose relative stability is being disrupted by the incursions of a terrible new enemy.

The very existence of the City of Horn and of more than a dozen other settlements within the larger Barony of Horn shows – quite reasonably in my opinion – that, 150 years after the End, civilization has been re-established, albeit on a quasi-medieval model, both socially and technologically. This is in contrast to the common assumption among many players that the post-apocalyptic Earth of Gamma World is a wasteland peopled entirely by primitive tribes. I can somewhat understand the origins of this assumption. Many GW adventures, like Famine in Far-Go, which I'll discuss in the next post in this series, start off with the characters being members of such a tribe about to embark on their first foray outside their traditional tribal lands. That's a perfect kick-off to a campaign, but it's not the only possible one. One of the many reasons I like Legion of Gold is that it presents another possibility.

Though the Barony of Horn is modeled on a walled medieval city, it's not entirely devoid of Ancient technology. Indeed, Baron Jemmas has a stockpile of high-tech weapons and vehicles in his possession, some of which he gives to his elite soldiers to employ in defense of Horn. This situation makes eminent sense to me, since there are probably a lot of Ancient devices lying around and possession of them would give one a significant advantage over one's enemies. In any case, Legion of Gold makes it very clear that human civilization is already in the process of rebuilding. The characters should thus not be surprised to encounter law and order of a rough sort in many regions, though obviously nothing as sophisticated as what was found prior to the End.

Throughout the module, there are occasionally references to historical events from the past. These events all take place in our own future, but they're consistent with what's implied elsewhere about the game's setting. Thus, we see mention of "a period of cold war between 2150 and 2193," during which time "the rapid advancement of beam and robotic weaponry was constantly shifting the balance of power," as well as an underwater research facility established in 2284 by order of the "Secretary of Technological Advancement" of the United States of America. Furthermore, free willed androids act as antagonists during one portion of the adventure and the Legion of Gold itself is the work of a rogue "control computer" with the ominous name of REAPER. There is thus no mistaking the fact that, as presented by Legion of Gold, Gamma World takes place in a world several centuries hence.

Nevertheless, some of the problems I commented upon on Part I of this series remain in evidence. Included among the new weapons are things like rifled muskets and shotguns that arguably shouldn't have existed into the 24th century. The module's text seems to recognize this issue and attempts to justify them as having "persisted for purposes of target shooting, hunting, and self-protection." Of more concern (to me anyway) are the additional items offered up as random treasure, like plastic cutlery, can openers, telephone books, and even polyhedral dice. As before, they seem to be simply examples of meta-humor by Gygax and his co-authors rather than anything intended to undermine Gamma World's setting, but I dislike them nonetheless. 

Like "The Albuquerque Starport," Legion of Gold largely comports with the idea that the game is set after the fall of a high-tech society several centuries in advance of our own. More important, I think, is that it's the first time we're offered a glimpse of any kind about the setting's "Big Picture." What are the surviving descendants of that high-tech future doing a century and a half later? How have they organized themselves? What do they know about the past and to what extent do they make use of the devices of the Ancients? These are questions that Gamma World had never answered before. Even if you take issue with the answers Gygax and company offered – though I personally like them – I find it difficult not to be pleased that they made an effort at all. Therefore, what Legion of Gold really provides is a sense of what the setting of Gamma World is like (or may be like) in its present, not just its past. That's not nothing and, I would argue, gives prospective players and referees a helpful model to inspire their own campaigns.

The Setting of Gamma World (Part II)

The first edition of Gamma World was published in 1978, but did not receive any official support from TSR until 1981, when the company released both the Referee's Screen and Legion of Gold. What makes the former worthy of discussion is its inclusion of an 8-page "mini-module," written by Paul Reiche III and developed by Lawrence Schick. Entitled "The Albuquerque Starport," it offers not really an adventure but the description of three different locales, each of which could serve as the basis for one or more scenarios on their own, or in tandem. 

As its title suggests, "The Albuquerque Starport" takes the futuristic setting of Gamma World as a fact. Indeed, the mini-module places it front and center, since the three locales it describes are the starport itself, a passenger space shuttle, and a space station in orbit above the Earth. All of these locales include details and elements that hit home that GW's apocalypse occurred several hundred years in our future. Indeed, I'll go so far as to say that "The Albuquerque Starport" is the most clearly futuristic of all the products released for the first edition of the game.

That said, the starport section is probably the weakest in this regard, since it is clearly modeled on what commercial airports were like at the time it was written. There is, for example, a restaurant (with cash register), a gift shop, and baggage claim area. However, in many cases, Reiche made an effort to "futurize" what he describes. Thus, the restaurant is "totally automated" and served by robots, as is the kitchen that serves it ("filled with all manner of cooking apparatus, including a quark-powered cooker, a selenium stone, and a maxi-boron boiler."). You'll still find references to "paperback novels" in the gift shop, as well as paper, pencils, and keys – why not staged I.D. devices? – that reflect a 20th century reality, alongside the robots, broadcast power receiving stations, and nervium-12 anti-theft gas.

The description of the shuttle is short, but, by necessity, it demonstrates the high-tech nature of the pre-apocalyptic world. Aboard the vessel, there are "tri-vid amusement games," a null-grav jump shaft instead of an elevator, "acceleration couches," and similar wonders of the Ancients. Like so many things in the mini-module, the shuttle is fully automated, which is convenient, since it means the player characters aren't required to figure out its workings in order to be able to make use of it. That's both a dramatic contrivance and precondition for their reaching the third section of the mini-module, the space station.

The space station is where "The Albuquerque Starport" tells us the most about the setting of Gamma World. The docking pods of the station, whose floors are covered by "bright shag rug[s]," – a concession to the 1970s? – have posters that advertise "the splendors of the cloud cities of Jupiter, the intra-ring pleasure ports of Saturn, and many other famous vacation spots around the solar system." With that, Reiche paints a picture of a solar system-spanning human civilization that I've always found very intriguing. 

Shortly thereafter, he describes "matter transmitter pads" that "once transported shuttle passengers to the large outbound starships located farther out in orbit," Star Trek-style. The reference to starships is suggestive, implying that mankind had in fact traveled beyond the aforementioned pleasure ports of Saturn to other star systems. This implication is proven to be correct, when the dreaded Canpous plague is described as "an alien disease brought back to Earth by long-range scoutships in the early 2300's." The star Canopus is more than 300 light years away from our solar system. Even if these long-range scoutships were unmanned, it suggests, at the very least, that, prior to the End, humans were well on their way toward exploring the galaxy. 

Finally, the space station section includes "The Moon Survival Store," where "specialized survival gear for travelers going to the moon" can be found – once again implying regular travel beyond the Earth. There are a variety of high-tech pharmaceuticals to be found, in addition to clothing made from "rayon, nylon, dacron, ultron, and other man-made fabrics." None of these things play a significant role aboard the station and are unlikely to be important to the player characters. Nevertheless, they help to paint a picture of a futuristic world – or at least what someone from the late '70s or early '80s might have imagined such a world to look like.

As a kid, I simply adored "The Albuquerque Starport," though I doubt I could have articulated why beyond, "I like spaceships" or something equally banal. Now, as I look at it more critically, I realize that its appeal lies in the way it brings the futuristic elements of Gamma World's setting to the foreground. In addition, it expands that setting beyond Earth and starts my mind wondering, "What happened to Earth's interplanetary settlements and installations? Did they survive the End intact or did they suffer their own catastrophes?" That it does both these things in the span of only six pages of text makes it all the more remarkable.

Retrospective: The Necromican

Last week, I took a look at Booty and the Beasts, an unofficial bestiary for use with Dungeons & Dragons and other fantasy roleplaying games published in 1979. The book is worthy of examination not just for its idiosyncratic content but also for its creators, the most notable of whom are Paul Reiche III and Erol Otus, both of whom would go on to work at TSR during the final years of D&D's Golden Age. 

Booty and the Beasts is thus a significant historical artifact of the early days of the hobby. However, it was not the only product of the partnership of Reiche and Otus (and Mathias Genser, who does not appear to have any RPG credits beyond these two collaborations). The same year, they also published The Necromican, "a book of spells compatible with most fantasy role-playing games." As with their other effort, "most fantasy role-playing games" very likely meant Dungeons & Dragons, though, in fairness, the spell descriptions are sufficiently loose that they could be used for any FRPG that makes use of spell levels, such as Tunnels & Trolls or Arduin (itself in a rather complex position with regards to its relationship to D&D). The fact that the spells presented in The Necromican range up to level 12 suggests that the authors may well have had an expansive notion of the book's potential audience.

This is what the book's forward [sic] states about its purpose:

This book of spells is not intended to stand by itself, or replace other fantasy role playing game spell lists. Rather, it is intended to supplement the many spell lists in existence, and provide a greater variety and selection for the players. It does not offer an alternate spell system; rather, the spells should be adapted into whatever spell system you prefer. The levels given for the spells are based on our own playing experience, however, it is the privilege of the individual games masters to change the level of any spell so that it will better fit into their own universes.

This is very much in the spirit of reckless invention and experimentation that permeated the early days of the hobby. Unless you're Gary Gygax on one of his bad days, I find it impossible to understand how one could object to a single word written above. In many ways, it's the part of The Necromican I find most inspiring.

The book contains over 130 spells, divided, as I noted, into twelve levels. They range widely in utility – and seriousness. Thus, you find spells like primal premonition, which causes the hairs on the neck of the caster to rise one melee round in advance of danger, or immolation, which causes the caster to burst into flames that are harmless to him but that do damage to anyone who touches him for the duration of the spell. At the same time, there are spells like spell of good groomng, which "will act as a shower, haircut, and laundry for those affected," or color alteration, which "allows the caster to change his skim color." These are in addition to several spells obviously derived from the works of Jack Vance, such as the spell of forlorn encystment and the excellent prismatic spray. 

Like Booty and the Beasts, The Necromican also skirts the edges between fantasy and science fiction with some of its spells. For example, there is the 12th-level spell the sorcerer's spacecraft, which, as its name suggests, conjures a flying saucer that "travels at 10,000,000 miles per hour," enabling transit to Mars as part of a "pleasant afternoon flight." How one takes this, I suppose, depends on the extent to which you enjoy chocolate in your peanut butter, but there is no question that, at the time, it was not at all unusual. If anything, the popular conception of "fantasy" has ossified a great deal since 1979. The Necromican reflects this more "porous" understanding of the genre and is, therefore, a useful corrective to those of us with more straitened horizons.

That said, I'm honestly not certain I'd make use of almost any of the new spells presented here. A great many of them are useful only in very specific circumstances, while others are "game-y" in conception (e.g. competent cartography, which prevents the caster from making a mistake in his mapmaking). Others are simply so idiosyncratic that they likely reflect the circumstances of the writers' own campaigns, such as the benign boots, which transports the caster's corpse back to a safe locale via the Astral Plane. Now, I genuinely appreciate such idiosyncrasy. Indeed, I am a strong advocate for referees and players making their campaigns downright odd and impenetrable to outsiders, but, of course, doing so gets in the way of selling to lots of copies of your latest book, which may explain why we don't see efforts like The Necromican much anymore – a pity!

Behold! The benign boots in action.

Retrospective: Booty and the Beasts

1979 is an important year in the history of roleplaying. Not only did it mark the completion of Gary Gygax's AD&D system (with the publication of the long-awaited Dungeon Masters Guide), but it also saw the disappearance of James Dallas Egbert III. Of the three, Egbert's disappearance is probably the most important, in the sense that it demonstrated the truth of the old adage that "there's no such thing as bad publicity." D&D soon became a household name across the USA and TSR's sales benefited immensely from this sensational news story. As I've recounted here many times before, my own involvement in the hobby is directly related to my father's taking an interest in stories of a "weird game" supposedly played in steam tunnels beneath Michigan State University.

From the vantage point of 2022, it's easy to forget just how new the hobby still was in 1979. Original Dungeons & Dragons had only been released five years previously. Depending on how you count them, there were only about thirty RPGs published by this time, only a handful of which would be remembered even five years later. This was a period of wild, reckless invention when any imaginative fantasy or science fiction fan with access to a typewriter and a photocopier could potentially create something that might potentially take the hobby by storm the way that OD&D did within not-to-distant memory.

Into this environment stepped three high school friends from California: Erol Otus, Mathias Genser, and Paul Reiche III. To anyone familiar with the early history of RPGs, the names of Otus and Reiche should be very familiar, if only for their all-too-brief stints at TSR Hobbies at the tail end of the Golden Age of D&D. Prior to their employment by TSR, Otus and Reiche both contributed to the creation of a couple of generic RPG supplements, the most substantial of which is entitled Booty and the Beasts – subtitled "Monsters and Treasures for Fantasy Role-Playing Games."

Of course, even in 1979, D&D was more or less synonymous with "fantasy roleplaying game" and, while Booty and the Beasts is not specifically written for it, a quick look at its monster descriptions makes it pretty clear the game for which it was written. They include "Hit Dice," "Armor Class," and movement ratings delineated in inches. There's also an entry for "Dexterity," expressed as a range, which might suggest the influence of the Holmes edition of D&D, which used Dexterity for handling initiative, though it could just as easily demonstrate the influence of either Warlock or Arduin, two D&D variants popular in California that used Dexterity in this fashion. (It's also worth noting that Otus had contributed illustrations to the Arduin Grimoire series.)

In any case, Booty and the Beasts definitely expresses the wild and reckless invention of this period of gaming history. Its monsters are completely unlike the rather staid and conventional ones found in the AD&D Monster Manual, for example. Rather than drawing on myth or folklore, the majority of them are whimsically original, such as Living Hills, who "feed upon unwary travelers who camp upon their seemingly benign summits;" the Malevolent Mana Muncher, whose "only desire is to steal the characters' magical items, as it eats them;" and Tortillas, which "look like large yellow gorillas with tortoise-like shells." This is in addition to monsters unashamedly drawn from the works of Jack Vance, such as the Deodand, Leucomorph, and Erb. 

Looking over the nearly 90 new monsters included in its pages, what strikes me most about Booty and the Beasts is how many of its entries have a science fictional bent to them. There is, for instance, an entire section of the book devoted solely to robots and many of its creatures are noted as hailing from another planet, solar system, or even galaxy. The Xenomorph from Alien even makes an appearance under the "clever" name of the Neila – get it? Also among the monsters is the Fling Fern, a plant monster that would later make an appearance in the mini-adventure included with the Gamma World Referee's Screen, written not coincidentally by Reiche while he worked at TSR.

This science fictional and indeed post-apocalyptic bent carries over into the magic items section of Booty and the Beasts. There is an entire section devoted to technological items, like the United States Army Pulse Laser Rifle and the Universal Translator. As you might expect, a great many of these are inspired by SF literature, television, and movies, as was the style in gaming products at the time. There are, of course, more "traditional" magic items as well, like the Unpilferable Pouch and the Helm of the Heinous, but I can't help but feel these are overshadowed somewhat by the sci-fi items, perhaps because they're so obviously different from what you'd typically have found in a D&D product at the time (Expedition to the Barrier Peaks having not yet been published.)

I'm not completely sure what more to say about Booty and the Beasts, because it's such a quirky product with a very distinct vision that it defies easy categorization. I suppose that's ultimately why the book, long out of print and sadly unavailable today (except through used booksellers and auction sites), still fascinates me: it possesses a rough, even raw, quality that is clearly the work of individuals with their own notions of what "fantasy" can and should be. Because these notions don't completely comport with my own, I find them in equal parts repellent and alluring. Booty and the Beasts is, like so many products of the early hobby, a labor of mad love that gives us a glimpse of what the hobby was like before brandification and "lifestyle gaming" carried the day – what a time! 

What did I tell you?

Different Worlds: Issue #12

Issue #12 of Different Worlds (July 1981) is the first monthly issue of the magazine, all previous ones being bimonthly. It also features cover art by William Church, whom I will always associate with RuneQuest and the wonderfully evocative map of Prax that appeared in the game's rulebook. 

"Meaningful Names for Characters" by Jane Woodward is the issue's first article and it's a big one – eight pages – consisting largely of lists of names and name elements from a variety of languages, both real (Old English and Welsh) and imaginary (Quenya and the Black Speech). The idea behind that article is to encourage players to come up with better names for their characters than "bad puns or meaningless constructs." I'm deeply sympathetic to this perspective; I think character names are important. At the same time, I prefer names to be rooted in a game's setting rather than by recourse to whatever language catches one's fancy, regardless of how appropriate it is (and it's never appropriate, in my opinion, to use Tolkien's languages, unless one is actually playing in Middle-earth).

"The Full Circle" by Robert Lynn Asprin is a preview of the upcoming Thieves' World RPG supplement, based on the anthology series of the same name. Asprin talks not just about the supplement itself but the ways that his experiences as a referee and player affected his decisions in putting together the anthologies. The article's title is thus a reference to the way that roleplaying games were influenced by literature, only for literature, in turn, to be influenced by RPGs. Though brief, Asprin provides some fascinating insight into these matters and I was glad to have read what he had to say. "Bersekers" by Laurence J.P. Gillespie is an overview of Norse berserkers from the perspectives of history and myth, with a few suggestions on how to use them in roleplaying games. 

John T. Sapienza reviews several new sets of Zargonian paper miniatures from Bearhug Enterprises. As in his review of earlier releases in this series, Sapienza thinks highly of these miniatures. The issue also includes many other, generally shorter reviews, most notably those of The Isle of Dread (for D&D), Plunder and Rune Masters (for RQ), Thieves' Guild, and the D&D Basic and Expert sets. All these reviews are positive, though, perhaps unsurprisingly, the review of the Basic and Expert sets include a number of cavils about Dungeons & Dragons and its approach to both rules and presentation, even though D&D clearly appeals "to a lot of happy adventure gamers." 

Larry DiTillio's "The Sword of Hollywood" column continues, focusing this time on the still-untitled second Star Trek movie, Clash of the Titans, Dragonslayer, and Conan the Barbarian. There's also mention of multiple fantasy films supposedly in the works, almost all of which DiTillio believes will never see the light of day. His instincts were indeed correct, as the only one that seems to have seen the light of day was The Beastmaster, unless "The Dragons of Krull" was a working title of 1983's Krull. 

Gigi D'Arn makes another appearance, providing some interesting gossip, chief among them being that TSR was rumored to have laid off "a dozen or so employees for 'bad attitude.'" This is no rumor but fact: starting in April 1981, TSR fired Paul Reiche, Evan Robinson, Bill Willingham, Jeff Dee, Kevin Hendryx, and others. There's mention, too, that Dave Arneson "settled (happily)" with TSR and that Greg Costikyan "hasn't been heard from in a while," followed by an appeal to "people who know his whereabouts" to contact the Game Designers' Guild. I have no idea what this might have been about. Gigi also references a "Troll Ball" game from Greg Stafford, which will have miniatures sculpted by Steve Lortz. I assume this never came to pass and that the rules were later incorporated into Trollpak.

Issue #12 is unusual in that, although it's the same length as previous issues (48 pages), it feels shorter. I suspect that has to do with the fewer articles in this issue and the presence of huge numbers of advertisements. Now, I actually like seeing these ads, since they're a terrific way to remind oneself of the state of the hobby in 1981, but, in terms of actual gaming content, this issue seems a slight downgrade to past ones. Here's hoping future issues will see a return to previous form.

Interview: Paul Reiche III

In the late 70s and early 80s, the success of D&D enabled TSR to expand rapidly, in the process acquiring a large number of new employees, many of whom left their marks on the company. One such person was Paul Reiche III, who worked as a developer, designer, and editor at the company on several products published in 1980 and 1981.

He left TSR for a successful career in the then-new computer games industry, eventually founding his own company, Toys for Bob, in 1989, where he works with his highschool classmate Erol Otus. Mr Reiche was kind enough to answer several questions I put to him, promising that "less than half of them are pure lies."

1. How did you become involved the roleplaying games hobby?

In 1976 I was in the 10th grade at Berkeley High School. During the first couple of weeks of school in AP Chemistry, I noticed this tall skinny dude who studied these strange pamphlets every day before class. Looking at the crudely illustrated covers, I though he was either a Hare Krishna (it was Berkeley, after all) or was up to some form of "no good," which has always had a great appeal for me. When I asked him, "What are those?" he invited me over to his place to play "in his dungeon" and it was there I met Erol Otus, famed D&D artist (he was great, even at 16) and Mat Genser. That game was very ruthless and Erol proceeded to kill all my characters, once with some kind of skeleton pistol that shot phalanges bones. Of course, I was hooked and we played almost every day until graduation.

2. One of the earliest RPG products to which I recall seeing your name attached was Booty and the Beasts, to which Erol Otus contributed both text and illustrations. Can you tell us a little about the origins of this product?

Our D&D group was heavy into creating new monsters, new magic spells and new character classes. Several of our players were also excellent artists, some were pretty good writers and we all wanted to earn our own money! Erol had illustrated David Hargrave's ground-breaking Arduin Grimoire and Erol, Mat and I were certain that we could publish our D&D ideas in some form. A friend of ours, Cliff Perotti, had been collecting all the magic spells he could find into an informal "Spellcaster's Bible." Erol, Mat and I decided that we would create our own spell book, stripping out any system-specific rules so that it could be used in Dungeons & Dragons, Tunnels & Trolls, The Fantasy Trip or any other RPG. The book was called The Necromican (whose name was indeed a simplified riff off of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred's evil book of magical secrets) and had some pretty dang cool stuff in there (there are still some copies on Ebay, I think.) Erol, Mat and I wrote the text, Erol penned all the illustrations and my mom Georgiann (the world's first Star Control II fan), typed the whole thing on her Selectric II. We had 500 copies made at the local Kinko's and sold out most of the run at the local D&D convention, Dundracon. We then negotiated (and I use the term loosely) a "jobbing deal" with Lou Zocchi (about whom an entire book could/should be written) and sold several thousand copies around the world.

Based on the success of The Necromican, we started on a similar work of monsters and treasure called Booty and the Beasts. This time we actually used a word processor at my mom's law office in downtown San Francisco! Booty and the Beasts was our last big project, because Erol moved off to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin to work for TSR Hobbies, though we did put out two little products, a nicely illustrated magical artifact generation system and a set of geomorphic mini-dungeon modules.

3. How did you come to be hired by TSR? Did your independent design work catch the eye of someone in Lake Geneva?

Erol had been hired as an artist a year earlier and I when I went out to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin for a visit, I looked at the work being done by TSR's designers and thought "I can do that!" I wrote a quick module, The Temple of Poseidon, and sent it back to TSR along with my CV and copies of Booty and the Beasts and The Necromican. I was initially hired as a "game developer," editing and fleshing out the work of other designers. About 4 months later, I became a game designer and was assigned defining rules for high-level D&D games whose characters were 15-30th level. My work was never published intact (in truth, it was a little crazy), but bits and pieces did come out in the Master and Companion rules sets.

4. Perhaps your most lasting contribution to D&D was the thri-kreen race, which first appeared in the AD&D Monster Cards. Is there any truth to the long-held suspicion that they were inspired by the phraints from Dave Hargrave's Arduin Grimoires?

At the time, I thought TSR needed a good insectoid enemy which was intelligent and weapon-using. I was aware of phraints and I certainly can't say I came up with the idea of bug-men entirely on my own -- I was mostly driven by images of mantis creatures and the warlike cultures of Edgar Rice Burroughs' "Barsoom" series. The spinning crystal disc weapon hearkened to Star Trek's kligat thrown blade ("as dangerous as a hand phaser at close range"). So I guess instead of being a simple "phraint thief," I am a super "steals-good-ideas-from-all-over-the-place" kind of thief.

5. A lot of your TSR work was for the Gamma World game. How did you become involved with it? Was the game a particular favorite of yours?

I love Gamma World because it didn't take itself too seriously, which has always been important to me. In fact, in many ways Gamma World was more like our D&D campaigns that the official rules, because we were always mixing robots, laser guns, and mutants into the traditional fantasy ingredients. Also, as the most junior designer at TSR, I jumped at the opportunity to edit and "fill out" a Gamma World module written by Gary Gygax and his son Luke. As a reader and day dreamer, I probably spend equal time in science-fiction, fantasy and post-holocaust, so Metamorphosis Alpha and Gamma World were right up my alley. Blackmoor too, I guess.

6. The willingness to mix fantasy and science fiction ideas seems to have been much greater in the early days of the hobby. Is that willingness something you've brought to your own work, both in tabletop RPGs and in computer games?

I love imagining fantastic adventures in all kinds of settings and time periods, but my brain is not divided into neat genres. Perhaps I integrated Arthur C. Clarke's comparison between magic and science at such a deep level that I have a hard time with such categorizations. Think about the magic in Jack Vance's D&D-inspiring The Dying Earth stories: were they powered by supernatural forces, ancient super-science, or aliens from other dimensions? And aren't his stories more interesting because he never entirely answers that question?

Many of the books I have enjoyed in the 60's and 70's would be called "cross-overs" today, including stories like Zelazney's Nine Princes in Amber, Saberhagen's Empire of the East trilogy, and even Heinlein's Glory Road. While genres are convenient for business purposes, I think they sever the corpus calosum of imaginative literature. I think I have always struggled to bridge these artificially created divisions, both in theme and in structure, as with the strategy/action hybrid video games, Archon and Star Control.

7. I very fondly remember the game Archon from the mid-80s. I'm a bit embarrassed to mention that, until recently, I had no idea that you'd worked on it. What inspired that game and do you have any particular memories of its development?

Wow, that is opening up a whole other can of memory worms! For today, let's just say that Archon was a perfect transition from the world of Dungeons & Dragons into the then-emerging field of computer games and that I was extremely fortunate to work on it with Jon Freeman, Anne Westfall, and Robert Leyland -- three of the best and most experienced computer game developers of that time.

8. You're probably one of the first pen and paper RPG designers I recall having "jumped ship" to the computer games industry. What sparked that decision and how would you characterize the differences between the two industries?

I met Jon Freeman in 1980 at D&D convention where he was showing off one of the very first fantasy computer games, The Datestones of Ryn. Having learned to program in BASIC at Berkeley's Lawrence Hall of Science, I could see how it was put together and I was pretty sure I could make it better. Jon's initial interest in me was learning how to publish his own FRP system in the paper world, but eventually we settled on working together on a computer game. I must admit, when TSR shortly thereafter offered me a job, I bailed on Jon and flew off to Wisconsin.

He continued on to create other seminal fantasy and science-fiction games at his company, Automated Simulations. TSR was an amazing, wonderful and fun-filled experience for me, but I was 18 and fairly new to the whole being an adult thing, so when I bought some company stock (5 $100 shares), I thought it gave me a right to speak up when I saw something funky happening at the company. I protested about the crazy expense of buying a Porsche as a company car for one of the executives and got myself unemployed pretty dang fast, along with Evan Robinson and Kevin Hendryx.

By that time, less than a year after buying the stock, it had risen to over $1000 per share, so Evan and I cashed in and headed back to California via Canada and a minor disagreement with their government about the definition of "assault weapon." Long story. When I got back to California I studied field geology at UC Berkeley and rekindled my friendship with Jon Freeman and his new partner, Anne Westfall. Together with Robert Leyland, we formed Free Fall Associates and created two of Electronic Arts' first seven games, Archon and Murder on the Zinderneuf.

The difference between the two industries back then? Well, there was about 10 times as much money in computer games and 1/10th the number of people, plus my hybrid of skills was pretty rare so it was a natural fit for me. In terms of people, there were lots of engineers and other super-smartypants (who make the best friends, because they are witty and interesting and make me look handsome and manly by comparison.)

9. Do you still play tabletop RPGs nowadays and, if so, which ones do you play?

Yes, recently Erol, Fred Ford, and a few of our friends have been trying out 4.0 in a fun island adventure of Erol's creation. Jeez! -- first level characters are like gods compared to the last time I played, which was 1st Edition. A magic missle every round -- forever? Give me a month and my Mujongie War Wizard will turn a castle to dust!