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Post by cadriel on Aug 20, 2008 7:32:11 GMT -6
One of the things that's been on my mind lately has been the secondary streams of information for OD&D that were around at the time -- the fanzines and APAs, and most especially Alarums & Excursions. I have no old copies of any of them, though, and I'm very curious to get more information. What was going on in the magazine end of things, particularly in the years before AD&D and the really mass explosion of gaming? Is there any way to track down old copies of A&E and similar magazines, whether print or online? I know of the A&E website, but it only lists back issues into the 80s. Any other info would be greatly appreciated.
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Post by badger2305 on Aug 20, 2008 7:45:57 GMT -6
Well, A&E is still going, last time I checked. Lee Gold was and is a member of LASFS, and decided to start a gaming-oriented APA after there was some discussion that too much gaming material was showing up in their weekly APA (LASFAPA? Can't remember).
A&E #1 was collated in 1975 or '76 - I'm not next to my (reprint) copy, and then was in monthly collations thereafter. The Wild Hunt started about a year and a half after that in Boston, centered around members of the SGS at MIT, and NESFA. (Frank Filz may know more about this).
There was a LOT of interesting material in A&E back then (and a lot now, too). Many current game designers cut their teeth writing stuff up for A&E and The Wild Hunt.
There was a VERY active 'zine scene in Great Britain for a considerable period of time. This was encouraged by 'zine reviews in White Dwarf and Imagine. Some of the fanzines - such as Imazine - were considered better in graphic production and content than the prozines of the day.
There were also fanzines produced in the US; some of them are mentioned in early Strategic Reviews, and David Nalle did a review article on a bunch of them in Dragon #50, IIRC.
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Post by grodog on Aug 20, 2008 8:43:37 GMT -6
There's an entire section on fanzines and periodicals on the Tome of Treasures @ www.tomeoftreasures.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=969I've heard excellent things about some of the British zines, but never ended up getting into any of those or the USA ones BITD. It is fun to go back and dig through them, though, when the opportunity presents itself  |
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Post by calithena on Aug 20, 2008 9:06:30 GMT -6
I know at least one fanzine dedicated to the old ways that's still running, in addition to A&E...  |
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Post by cadriel on Aug 20, 2008 9:18:59 GMT -6
I know at least one fanzine dedicated to the old ways that's still running, in addition to A&E... I'll buy any issue of FO! you guys put out, it's great work. But since you're not doing it on a schedule I'd like, such as weekly, I'm interested in other fanzines, especially ones that were going on BITD and show trends and ideas that I can use for inspiration. Or steal and put in my game notebook. |
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Post by bigjackbrass on Aug 20, 2008 9:49:40 GMT -6
There were also fanzines produced in the US; some of them are mentioned in early Strategic Reviews, and David Nalle did a review article on a bunch of them in Dragon #50, IIRC. Issue #50 it was. Mind you, since the first 'zine he covered was Abyss, edited by, um, David Nalle, I was unsure for a while as to how objective the reviews really were! A&E was something of an enigma to me when I first got into gaming, not knowing what an "APAzine" was. It sounded like a very odd way to put together a publication, but so many people talked about how wonderful it was. I never did get hold of a copy back then. British 'zines, on the other hand, were considerably easier to obtain and could usually be found, dusty and unsold, stacked in a corner at the local games shop. Looking back, I was definitely in something of a gaming backwater... |
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Post by ffilz on Aug 21, 2008 14:57:21 GMT -6
I only ever got one or two issues of A&E. I was a subscriber to Wild Hunt for several years though, and contributed to a few issues, however, it was all post AD&D. I did pick up some back issues of Wild Hunt (Glen Blacow who was co-editor was a good friend of mine), I'm not sure how far back I went.
Unfortunately, sometime in the late 80s while trying to shrink my gaming collection, I unbound all my copies of TWH (except for #100) and collected together various contributors, and ditched at least half the material (that I was not interested in). I do have (most) all of Glen Blacow's contributions (somehow, I seem to be missing at least one, I have searched several times for the writeup of the session he played in my game in White Plume Mountain where he was one of a few survivors of a PC shape-changing into an ancient huge red dragon in a 10' corridor).
Sometime I should go back and look through what I have remaining and look for OD&D gems.
Frank
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Post by cadriel on Sept 17, 2008 9:01:35 GMT -6
Actually something of my own update on this front. I communicated with Lee Gold and was able to get photocopies made at a reasonable per-page cost of the first 20 issues of Alarums & Excursions. I received the copies last night, and have been looking through them; there's a lot of campaign summaries, which I'm interested in giving a thorough read through to see what I can glean about old school play styles and innovations. It's very exciting, particularly because the magazine was very clearly a work of love, typed onto mimeograph sheets by enthusiasts to share in the world of gaming. This is the true, positive sense of "amateur."
One of the things that has stood out to me is that Gary Gygax had a letter in issue #2 where he was vocally against any kind of standardization in the game. He agreed heartily with a quote in A&E #1 - "D&D is too important to be left to Gary Gygax." It's very interesting to see reaction in non-official channels in the very early dawn of gaming, and as the "old school renaissance" marches on I think this is a spirit we need to keep alive.
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Post by grodog on Sept 24, 2008 20:01:49 GMT -6
cadriel---how much did your copies cost you, by chance??
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Post by cadriel on Sept 24, 2008 20:53:58 GMT -6
cadriel---how much did your copies cost you, by chance?? For the first 20 (keep in mind that the first seven or eight issues are somewhat slimmer until it evens out by the teens in the 160 page range) it was around a hundred dollars, which averages out at $5 an issue - a price I consider entirely reasonable for the resources involved. I know it involved Lee photocopying her own issues and I'm not sure she would be enthusiastic about repeating the process for a large number of folks, but it's a tremendous resource for getting a feel of how gaming really was BITD. I've been thinking of writing up brief synopses of what I've learned - maybe I'll start an old school gaming blog, as I've been doing a good deal of research from the perspective of what gaming was like in the period roughly running from 1974 to 1980. Perhaps the down side in my mind is the sense that I'm still missing a significant piece of the conversation - A&E and The Wild Hunt really were assuming that you read both mags at the time. I haven't really gotten down & dirty with the numerous actual play reports that initially dominated A&E and I am actually very interested in them. Even in 1975, "3LB BtB" (as the saying goes today) was very far from the dominant play style attested by the actual discussion. |
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Post by greyharp on Sept 24, 2008 23:56:07 GMT -6
Shame she doesn't make them into pdf's and sell them that way. At least the painful process is only done once.
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Post by badger2305 on Sept 25, 2008 8:10:52 GMT -6
Shame she doesn't make them into pdf's and sell them that way. At least the painful process is only done once. It may be a rights issue; remember, APAs are collations of many people's zines into a single distribution. I know that Lee used to sell extra copies to non-contributors, but I'm not sure about how it would work today. |
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Post by greyharp on Sept 25, 2008 15:51:38 GMT -6
Ahh ok, thanks Badger, yep, that makes things difficult. Oh well, another pipedream.
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Post by Stormcrow on Oct 5, 2008 10:40:18 GMT -6
I know that Lee used to sell extra copies to non-contributors, but I'm not sure about how it would work today. I bought a couple of modern issues a few years ago. I believe you can still do that. I found the ’zine to be confusing. It’s very much a cross between a Web discussion forum and a blog, put down on paper. (Of course, it predates both of those technologies by decades!) |
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Post by badger2305 on Oct 5, 2008 11:41:46 GMT -6
I know that Lee used to sell extra copies to non-contributors, but I'm not sure about how it would work today. I bought a couple of modern issues a few years ago. I believe you can still do that. I found the ’zine to be confusing. It’s very much a cross between a Web discussion forum and a blog, put down on paper. (Of course, it predates both of those technologies by decades!) I suspect the reason you might have found it confusing is that APAs benefit from reading several issues in sequence. "Threads" would be marked as "RYCT" or "regarding your comment to" and similar sorts of markers. In a very real way, blogs and web discussion forums benefited from these in-print on-going conversations - but they aren't the same. One of the benefits of APAs is the process itself of reading them. You can "ego-scan" (look for comments to or about you), or you can read just the "natter" (the closest equivalent to a blog post), or read "comments" (the closest equivalents to threads) - but the process of reading and sometimes re-reading has a cognitive benefit that isn't equaled by anything online. Put another way, the in-print character of APAs can be a more reflective experience than online material. (This is not to suggest that flamewars don't occur - they simply take longer to spread. ) |
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