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.

Mark Your Mark in the Gaming Field

This advertisement appeared in issue #6 of Different Worlds (December 1979/January 1980). I wonder who, if anyone, was acquired by TSR during this round of hiring. I believe Evan Robinson said, in my interview with him, that he started work in May 1980, so he's one possibility, though there are others. Which artists started working at the company in the first half of 1980? 

Interview: Evan Robinson

Evan Robinson worked at TSR as an editor and developer form 1980-81. He was part of the second large wave of employees hired by the company in the wake of D&D's success in the late 70s. During his time there, he worked on a wide variety of products but is probably bets known for the development of the A-series "Slavelords" modules. I recently asked Mr Robinson a few brief questions; his responses follow.

1. How did you become involved in the hobby of roleplaying?

I was introduced to board wargaming by my best friend Jeff Mazo when I was in about 4th or 5th grade. I was visiting the local hobby store on a regular basis when I found the original three-volume D&D in, I think, 7th or 8th grade, but it might have been as late as 9th. It was one of the original 1000 or so printed because it had Ents in it, and I think something else that the Tolkien legal people objected to. We had a little group that met pretty regularly to play wargames and some of them transitioned to the D&D games. We played incessantly through high school and college with a variety of games and game masters.

2. How did you become employed by TSR?

I came home for spring break my second year in college pretty well beat down and exhausted after a hard break up/make up/break up with my first serious girlfriend. I was driving my mother home from Coos Bay (we lived about an hour away) and she was looking at my latest Dragon magazine, found a 1/4 or 1/6 page ad for jobs at TSR and suggested that I apply. I did. I worked for weeks during the rest of the school year on an application and sent it off. They hired me, and I flew out Memorial Day weekend 1980 to start. Mt. St. Helens blew up and ruined my flight schedule, but Dave "Zeb" Cook came to Chicago or Milwaukee to pick me up.

I went to work with Zeb on Tuesday after Memorial Day weekend and moved into an office with Kevin Hendryx. We play tested his new version of The Awful Green Things from Outer Space for hours or maybe even days. It was an auspicious beginning.

3. Most of your credits while at TSR are as a "developer" or "editor." What were your responsibilities while employed there?

As a "developer" (we referred to ourselves as "Devo Units") I was responsible for taking game systems and documents from designers and testing them, finding holes in them, and making sure the language, spelling, and grammar were correct. I was also responsible for reviewing "bluebirds," or unsolicited manuscripts/games from outside the company. On occasion, everyone in the building was put to work reviewing galleys or comps as well.

4. Were you one of the victims of the employee "purges" Kevin Hendryx mentioned as occurring at TSR and, if so, what was your sense of why they were occurring?

I was.

Paul Reiche III and I had been blatant and obvious in our support for Dave Arneson during a TSR shareholders or board meeting (I can't remember which, and I can't remember exactly what we did, but I know that we thought Dave was getting a raw deal on something). We had been equally blatant and obvious, I think, in expressing our opinions as to the relative value (to the company and the world in general) of the Blumes, Gygaxes, and some other people. We were young and not subtle. I know from later experience that the Blumes and Gygaxes took no more (or not much more) advantage of the people working for them than do many corporate entities.

The "purge" may have been that -- I don't know the motivation behind TSRs express plan to move to "Candy Land-style games". But it may have been a run-of-the-mill corporate strategy change that just happened to hit all of our buttons about what we wanted to work on. I want to be clear -- we were not fired -- we were told that if we didn't want to work on this new company direction we'd be happier if we left. I went first, then Paul Reiche III.

I don't recall that anyone in management at TSR had any real business experience before they began to grow like mad. Certainly nothing like operating a start-up in a fast-moving rapidly growing new market like the initial paper games bubble of the early 80s. It seemed to us that nepotism was winning out over competence and that the rewards of company success weren't being passed down to the people who were doing the work (us) that mattered. Whether or not that attitude had anything to do with our reassignment to children's board games or not, it contributed mightily to our willingness to quit instead of sticking it out and doing some unpleasant work for a little while.

5. After TSR, did you continue to work in the RPG industry?

I never again worked in the paper RPG industry except to write a Top Secret module called Operation Seventh Seal, which TSR published later in 1981, which was the year I left. I did work on an unpublished computer version of Champions and on a published character creation program for the Hero System called HeroMaker.

6. Do you still roleplay and, if so, what games do you play?

Before I returned to graduate school in 2005 I was playing Champions weekly with a group in the Lower Mainland, but I ended up with classes scheduled on game nights for the next two years. I haven't returned to that group or any other since finishing school. I do have an iPhone app in review that does basic combat dice rolling for the Hero System.