"How Dungeons & Dragons Started" Video

The day after I made my previous post rounding up everything we know about The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons: 1970-1977, the forthcoming book describing the creation of the original D&D rules, the Dungeons & Dragons channel on YouTube posted an interview with Jason Tondro, a senior designer at WOTC, further detailing the contents. It's a long interview (38+ minutes) but well worth the time spent watching it, and Tondro's enthusiasm for the material covered in the book is evident. 

From this interview, it's clear that the book will include the entirety of 2nd Edition Chainmail, the map from Outdoor Survival, the "Guidon D&D" draft from 1973, the first printing of the LBBs (complete with the Tolkien references) from early 1974, and the first three supplements, among much correspondence and magazine articles.

The book can be pre-ordered here at Amazon, with a release date of June 18th:

The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons: 1970-1977

The Ruined Tower of Zenopus video review by captcorajus

Over on Youtube, captcorajus has a new video review of the Ruined Tower of Zenopus, part of the "RPG OSR Review" series on his channel. Followers of this blog may remember several of his earlier videos that I have featured here, including ones for Holmes Basic (2015), for the original version of the Tower of Zenopus (2019), and for the Maze of Peril (2020). There are also videos for a number of TSR modules and other RPG products. And as I mentioned in the post linking to the review of the Maze of Peril, I had the pleasure of meeting captcorajus at Scrum Con this past February, where he played Bardan the Dwarf in my Zenopus sequel game, In Search of the Brazen Head of Zenopus.

To watch the review, follow this link to YV or click on the video below:

And find RTOZ here:
The Ruined Tower of Zenopus on DMs Guild

And click here to read reviews of the RTOZ

The Maze of Peril video review by captcorajus

The Maze of Peril (1986), cover art by Dan Day

Space and Time Books continues to restock copies of the original 1986 printing of The Maze of Peril in their Amazon store, as I previously reported. 

Click here or on the cover image in the right side bar to get a copy 

(the link includes my Amazon affiliate number)

Over on Youtube, captcorajus has a new video review of the book, titled "OSR Musings: Maze of Peril". captcorajus is a Holmes fan; I've featured two of his RPG Retro Reviews before, one of the Holmes Basic Set as a whole and the other of the Tower of Zenopus Dungeon. And this past February (just before coronavirus shut everything down), I had the pleasure of meeting and having him play Bardan the Dwarf in my game at Scrum Con!

I will note as a warning that if you haven't read the book yet, this review does include a significant number of spoilers regarding the plot.

OSR Musings: Maze of Peril

Stepping away from game and module reviews this week, I take a look at the Dungeons & Dragons inspired adventure by the author of the D&D Basic Set, John Eri...

"RPG Retro Review: Tower of Zenopus"

Over on Youtube, Captcorajus has a great 18 minute video review of the Zenopus Dungeon, entitled "RPG Retro Review: Tower of Zenopus" (link). He walks through the dungeon and includes images of his stunning Hirst Arts version of the dungeon. And he kindly refers viewers to this blog! He also mentions that he will playing in my Zenopus game at Scrum Con 2020 (Feb 29th).

Also see his 2015 review of the entire Holmes Basic rulebook (link). 

RPG Retro Review: Tower of Zenopus

Let's go back to 1977 and take a look at the sample dungeon champion of the world, 'The Tower of Zenopus' from the Holmes Basic Set of Dungeons and Dragons. Zenopus Archives: http://zenopusarchives.blogspot.com/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Paratime Design: https://paratime.ca/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- My Patreon Page: https://www.patreon.com/captcorajus --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Facebook: Dungeons and Dragons RPG Reviews: https://www.facebook.com/groups/rpgre...