You could visit the site http://playingattheworld.blogspot.com/

I was a little skeptical, and I'm not sure I'd agree with all the interpretations/analysis of the data, but I'm convinced it's a good-faith effort, researched and documented along genuine academic lines.

Quote from: RPGPundit;691170I haven't read it yet, but based on some of the people I've seen praising it I have serious doubts about it.

RPGPundit

I haven't read it, but I've done some research for Jon and talked to him quite a bit in person and electronically.

The only reason I haven't read it is that I didn't want his writing to influence my memories.  I expect that it is probably the most authoritative work on the subject, just based on the research that I know he did.

I mean, Hitler liked Wagner.  That, despite what some say, does not make Wagner's work bad.  There are other reasons one may dislike Wagner with far more legitimacy.  (I like his individual pieces, but I think his works tend towards excessive length, for instance.)

Quote from: RPGPundit;691170I haven't read it yet, but based on some of the people I've seen praising it I have serious doubts about it.

The bottom line is that he backs up what he asserts with primary sources. He has access to original newsletters and manuscripts. Each every section has a footnote and more often than not the footnote is worth reading. I am glad to get the ebook version first as I was flipping back and forth all throughout the book.

My view is this Jon's work hasn't precluded similar works in the future. However he has now set the standard. If somebody tries to contradict what he asserted they are going to have to do what he did, go back to the primary sources, layout them in their book, and go from there.

In short it is the gold standard of RPG History for me.

I don't know if his conclusions are the only possible interpretations. They seem to follow from the material he used. And nothing seems to be excluded from the material he used, something I know about from following the collectors at Acaeum and other forums.

Seriously just buy the damn book and read it.

Quote from: Arminius;691242You could visit the site http://playingattheworld.blogspot.com/

I was a little skeptical, and I'm not sure I'd agree with all the interpretations/analysis of the data, but I'm convinced it's a good-faith effort, researched and documented along genuine academic lines.

I'll vouch for it as well. It's certainly worth reading, particularly the early bits.

More than I can say for the OP; hopefully that's just a first draft.

Some constructive criticism for OG:

Don't want to hear about your grandchildren; don't want to hear about your character. To wit, other personalities need to show through your writing, not just your own. Who'd you play with? What were their characters like?

The balrog story is not a good place to start. This is just a bad player's AP report. Fortunately your book doesn't have to be that way.

Quote from: FASERIP;691418I'll vouch for it as well. It's certainly worth reading, particularly the early bits.

More than I can say for the OP; hopefully that's just a first draft.

Some constructive criticism for OG:

Don't want to hear about your grandchildren; don't want to hear about your character. To wit, other personalities need to show through your writing, not just your own. Who'd you play with? What were their characters like?

The balrog story is not a good place to start. This is just a bad player's AP report. Fortunately your book doesn't have to be that way.

Agree with this. I'd like to have more of a sense of the other guys in the room and what it was like to be there.

Quote from: FASERIP;691418More than I can say for the OP; hopefully that's just a first draft.

Some constructive criticism for OG:

Don't want to hear about your grandchildren; don't want to hear about your character. To wit, other personalities need to show through your writing, not just your own. Who'd you play with? What were their characters like?

The balrog story is not a good place to start. This is just a bad player's AP report. Fortunately your book doesn't have to be that way.

Hey FASERIP, fuck off!

If this is how Old Geezer wants to tell his tales and you don't like his style, then don't read them!

I liked the balrog stuff, though I wondered about the play circumstances as well: when that took place, where (in the real world), who was the DM, who were the other players, if Gulash had an impact on play after being played, and so on. The context, in other words.

Question: is the book written and organized in a kind of "stream of consciousness" manner, with subjects lined up as they popped up in your head, Mike, regardless of order, or is it arranged chronologically, or whether that took place in the Twin Cities or Lake Geneva or... ? Quid?

Quote from: jeff37923;691422Hey FASERIP, fuck off!

If this is how Old Geezer wants to tell his tales and you don't like his style, then don't read them!

Since this is pretty obviously a pre-Kickstarter interest gathering thread, I think some feedback would not go amiss.

Yo.

Also, I agree with FASERIP here.

Don't like it, don't buy it.  It's a book of anecdotes and ponderings.

"What it was like to be there?"  We were a bunch of guys in a room.  Just like I've had people want me to talk about "the physical setup of playing with Gary Gygax."

Umm... we were a bunch of guys in a room.  It was a spare bedroom in a big old house.

Also, this happened almost forty fucking years ago.  This little incident is all I remember of this adventure.  For that matter, it's the only thing I remember about playing Ghulash.

Just like the incident of the "Greyhawk Balrog" and 'The Balrog Times.'  I remember nothing else about playing that character, nothing about who else I was playing with that night, and I don't even remember WHY we had to distract a wizard; just that we did.

If you think it's an amusing little anecdote, good on yer.  If you don't, don't buy my book, you won't like it.

Quote from: Benoist;691455I liked the balrog stuff, though I wondered about the play circumstances as well: when that took place,

Almost forty years ago

Quote from: Benoist;691455where (in the real world),

Really?  Seems totally uninteresting to me.  University of Minnesota.

Quote from: Benoist;691455who was the DM,

Somebody you've never heard of; Mike Wollan

Quote from: Benoist;691455who were the other players,

don't remember.  It was almost forty years ago.

Quote from: Benoist;691455if Gulash had an impact on play after being played, and so on.

Whut?

Quote from: Benoist;691455The context, in other words.

The context is "it was forty fucking years ago."

Quote from: Benoist;691455The context, in other words.

I do address this in another chapter.  To reprise (not copy):

We played games.  A lot.  In Lake Geneva there were somewhere around five or six "Greyhawk" games going.  (This was before the name "Dungeons & Dragons" had been thought up.)  We were also playing Boot Hill, Terry Kuntz was playtesting his Robin Hood game, Jim Ward was working on elements of what would later become Metamorphosis Alpha.  We were also miniatures gaming several times a month, playing CHAINMAIL, TRACTICS, Don't give Up the Ship, Napoleonics, Civil War, and other stuff.

When I got to the U of MN, within six months I was reffing D&D at least once a week and playing two to four times a week.  I had at least six friends running campaigns at the U.  This doesn't COUNT Blackmoor, or other campaigns Dave and his group were running.  I played wargames, mostly miniatures, at least once a week as well, ranging from skirmish WW2 to WWI navy to Dave Arneson's Napoleonics campaign to STARGUARD SF miniatures.

We were not "a gang of four who met once a week."  I knew dozens of gamers and we ALL played ALL KINDS OF STUFF ALL THE TIME.

And we didn't keep records.  We had no idea that any of this shit would be something we wanted to talk about forty years later.

What you read is what I remember.  Just like people ask "What was the first D&D adventure you played in like?"  I have no fucking idea; that was the year Richard Nixon was elected to his second term as President, 41 years ago.

Quote from: Old Geezer;691474What you read is what I remember.  Just like people ask "What was the first D&D adventure you played in like?"  I have no fucking idea; that was the year Richard Nixon was elected to his second term as President, 41 years ago.

I understand. I can remember my first D&D adventure vividly (1978 during Jimmy Carter's term). I remember that my friend ran me through the Holmes dungeon, and then I ran him through. I don't remember what happened to his character only what happened to mine.

I don't remember how we got the Holmes set or when D&D/AD&D became the dominant game over playing AH/SPI wargames. I remember getting the Players Handbook, and Dungeon Master Guide.  Reading other kids rulebook at Boy Scout Winter camps in the winter of 78-79.


Thinking that the Monster Manual was a bit of a rip off because there was library book that had virtually the same line up and very similar illos except it was a children book. The Catoblepas for some reason stood out in my mind. The description and illos were close in both books.

I remember more after the summer of 1980 because I can use my collection of Dragon Magazine as a memory aid.

Quote from: Old Geezer;691463Somebody you've never heard of; Mike Wollan

Let's hear more about him.

Quote from: FASERIP;691831Let's hear more about him.

He was a guy I went to college with.  We played D&D together.

I think you want something that doesn't exist, or somebody else's story.  No harm no foul.

I am good with the anecdotes and ponderings, but I also want to know "what it was like to be there" and I do want to know more about the "bunch of guys in a room" because I was not there.

Quote from: Old Geezer;691462Also, this happened almost forty fucking years ago.

Have you picked up any books on writing memoirs? There are memory techniques ghost writers use to help the biography subject remember more details and I am sure autobiographical writers use them as well.

Quote from: Old Geezer;691474We were not "a gang of four who met once a week."  I knew dozens of gamers and we ALL played ALL KINDS OF STUFF ALL THE TIME.

I am interested in hearing about how the crossover of various gameplay affected the development of D&D, or at least, your impression of why D&D took over as the dominant game in your crew's schedule.

Quote from: Old Geezer;691474And we didn't keep records.  We had no idea that any of this shit would be something we wanted to talk about forty years later.

There wasn't a pack rat in your crew? Any chance that any of them (or their kids) still live in the area or belong to a UM alumni group? What about hunting them down via Facebook?

On the OSR forums, every few months, some dude cleans out his mom's attic and finds his disco era D&D scribbles. I wonder if some stuff from your early days may still exist in somebody's basement?