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RPGnet: The Inside Scoop on Gaming Page 6 of 8 that of most of the others too. So the Dungeons & Dragonstitle was born. {As the creator of the IFWs Castle & Crusade Society, | was pleased. “As for competition for D&D, there was never any serious competitor. For a fact, there still isn't a real competitor for the new D&D, including my own new fantasy RPG..." RPGNet: Can you tell us anything about developments in roleplaying after 1973-74 that branched out from the magical fantasy roots you and your contemporaries put down? When did your own associates start to experiment with, say, science fiction or western settings? And when did such efforts start to reach commercial publication at TSR and other companies? Gary: Whew! Another multi-part question. Think I'd better break it up into manageable chunks: The D&D game was released in January of 1974. By then Don Kaye and | were “noodling” about a Western RPG, for he was a big fan of that genre. Sadly, Don died in January of 1976. Brian | Blume took over for Don, and so the Boot Hillgame was authored thus, Blume and Gygax. So, to i the root of the question, that began development early in 1974. | Around 1975 M.A.R, Barker sent us the manuscript for his Empire of the Petal ThroneRPG, the tules inspired by those for D&D, of course. {t was a most compelling environment, and we soon published it. Around this same time Brian Blume and | began working on Warriors of Mars,a sort of "Barsoomian" fantasy-science RPG. It too was published by TSR, but then because of pressure from the Burroughs’ Estate the product was not reprinted. | believe that it was 1975 when the Game Designer's Workshop RP game, En Garde,was published. That, to my knowledge, was the first of competing RPGs. Most of us at TSR purchased and played it, 00. Then, as time passed, Star Frontiers, Metamorphosis Alpha(one of my very favorite RPGs, later revised and released as Gamma World), Gangbusters,and Top Secret(in that order | think} were released by TSR. | assisted in development and/or play-testing with all of those titles. As for competition for D&D, there was never any serious competitor. For a fact, there still isn't a real competitor for the new D&D, including my own new fantasy RPG... but maybe in time that will change. When GDW released Traveller, we were all pretty enthused, for we saw it as broadening the interest for the RPG by covering science fiction. On the release dates of other companies’ RPG, | am not a reliable source- I'm barely that for most of the TSR line other than D&D. What copies of the old products | have, and that's astonishingly few, are sealed away for posterity, so | can't check the copyright dates. Sorry. Next: The memory of Donald Kaye, fantasy archetypes, and game design philosophy. ‘What do you think? Go to forum! Forum List | Goto Top | New Topic | View Threads | Search FBI(19-cv-1495)-2282 q