Erol Otus cover illustration for Playing at the World 2E

Yesterday on FB, artist Erol Otus shared his original, unadorned illustration for the cover of the first volume of the revised of second edition of Playing at the World by Jon Peterson, due out this July. Per Erol's post, the illustration is meant to call "to mind monochromatic publications from the earlier days like “The Strategic Review” and Fanzines". 

Given the blue color, might I add the Holmes Basic rulebook to that list?

See my previous post for more info about the revised edition, which can be pre-ordered from Amazon here:

Playing at the World, 2nd Edition, Volume 1: The Invention of D&D

Playing at the World revised edition out in JulyWith a cover by Erol Otus!

Cover by Erol Otus...!

Playing at the World, Jon Peterson's 2012 groundbreaking history of the origin of RPGs, has been out of print for a number of years, with secondhand copies going for increasingly higher prices, but as I reported previously a revised second edition is coming later this year from MIT Press. 

The expanded book will now be split into two volumes, with the first one, Volume 1: The Invention of Dungeons & Dragons, coming out on July 30th of this year. Per the publisher info, this volume "distills the story of how the wargaming clubs and fanzines circulating around the upper Midwest in the 1970s culminated in Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson’s seminal role-playing game, D&D". 

The MIT Press and Amazon pre-order pages have now been updated with the cover art: a fantastic illustration by the legendary old school TSR artist Erol Otus (shown above)*. The first volume is now available for pre-order from Amazon for $29.95, and with a price guarantee:

Playing at the World, 2nd Edition, Volume 1: The Invention of D&D

I've pre-ordered it myself.

It will be followed later by Volume 2: The Three Pillars of Role-Playing Games, "a deeper dive into the history of the setting, system, and character of D&D". This appears to correspond to chapters 2-4 of the original edition, which were: 2: Setting - The Medieval Fantasy Genre; 3: System - The Rules of the Game; and 4: Character - Roles and Immersion. 

*Thanks for captainjapan on the OD&D74 forums for this news.

Scrum Con Preview Video by Little Wars TV

Just over three weeks until Scrum Con 2024!

Tony Marano of Little Wars TV has made a great preview video for us, with lots of footage from last year; it's a great way to get a feel for what the con is like.

See my earlier post for more info about the con (dates, location, etc). Badges can be purchased here on Tabletop Events.

Tickets sales have been healthy, but there are still plenty of seats left in great games, both RPGs & miniatures wargames. See the event schedule here (protip: set the "items per page" to 100 to scroll through the whole game list without paging back and forth).

If you liked my post last fall about playing in a Fury Road game, you can play in that game on Friday morning at 10 - there are still seats left.

See you there!

GM's Day Sale at DMs Guild

DMs Guild and DrivethruRPG are running a GM's Day sale, with products up to 40% off.

This means that The Ruined Tower of Zenopus is on sale for $1.19 through March 10th.

Get it here:

The Ruined Tower of Zenopus at DMs Guild

Most of the classic TSR titles are included in the sale. For example, the Rules Cyclopedia print print and pdf is $26 instead of $35. Find it here:

Basic/OD&D in PDF

Basic/OD&D in Print

AD&D 1E in PDF

AD&D 1E in Print

Gamma World 1E in Print

OSR Products