Final Timeline of Early D&D Scenarios X: 1979 November-December

These last two dozen scenarios take us through to the end of '79 and the end of the run. So that's every scenario published in the 1970s - all two hundred of them (or rather, those that I've been able to uncover). The aim was to have a comprehensive reference list in chronological order so that I could investigate how they influenced each other, and to see how they developed - which is what this blog's going to focus on next.

The list is perhaps more defined by what it doesn't contain - anything that is clearly not D&D (such as Runequest), anything that is just a description of a setting (i.e. without actual gameable content). Other than that, the rule has been - if in doubt, include it. This has meant I've uncovered lots of items of interest and connections between them that I'd never have discovered with a narrower focus.

The published clause has been extended to include anything that was shared sufficiently that it became potentially influential. Thus I included the very first personal dungeons, and some unpublished tournament adventures which have survived - as both of these illustrate the history and development of scenarios very well.

It includes sample adventures, dungeon crawl boardgames, solitaire adventures, map-only products, key-only products, random dungeon creation tools. It contains adverts, cartoons, and colouring books. It includes famous modules published by major name publishers that have been revised and republished many times in many editions over the years, all the way down to school fanzines with a tiny circulation. It includes obscure scenarios that are unsung greats, and others that are best forgotten. I'm fairly confident when I proclaim that No-one owns an original copy of every published scenario in the list - though I'm pretty sure a couple of people come extremely close.

By Erol Otus, my favourite RPG artist, from The Howling Tower

We start with two older adventures, Doomkeep which I accidentally missed out, and The Dungons of Anhahra which Zenopus just told me about.

Name: Doomkeep
Date: 1979.8 / 1980.2
Author: Compiled by Brian Blume
Publisher: The Dragon #34
Type: Tournament (GenCon XII), Puzzle
Notes on date: See contents page
Notes: Although the contents page says it's written by Brian Blume, it says "The dungeon was constructed from rooms to play or parts of rooms, submitted to Brian by those who were invited in the tournament". Consequently it's a rather random puzzle dungeon with little cohesion. I'm not sure I really understood the solution properly as it's not clear, and although text to read for the player is in red, for the first time in 200 scenarios it's near impossible to DM for the simple reason that you can't find the relevant key for each room! Despite the large print run this scenario has sunk into obscurity.

Name: The Castle of Illusion
Date: 1979.9
Author: John Freeman & Jeff Johnson
Publisher: Games Magazine #13
Type: Sample Adventure
Notes on Date: On the cover
Notes: This is a brief extract in a magazine article explaining D&D, in a similar vein to Dungeons of the Ground Goblins. There is a side-elevation of the Castle and surrounding lands, and a keyed map of part of the lowest level, titled The Dungeon of Anhara. As a lowest level it seems unconvincing, with monsters such as Stirges and Giant Rats, so it seems to have been written just for this purpose. It does manage to squeeze in a great innovation - the dots mark the area on the map patrolled by the Giant Rats! See Holmes Basic G+ Community for details of how the authors moved into computer games, starting with Temple of Apshai.

Name: Viskoth the Sad
Date: 1979.11
Author: Steve Agar
Publisher: Pigmy #32
Type: Dungeon
Notes on date: Deadline given in #31 for this issue was October
Notes: The editor, Steve Agar, promised this D&D scenario was a one-off for Pigmy - a Diplomacy Zine (available for download at DiplomacyZines). His excuse for this "indiscretion"? He thought his map looked pretty! The map is very unusual in that only the corridors have squares, so all room sizes have to be read off the key (not all are present, and they're not all correct). Also uniquely the location of all monsters is marked on the map. The key on the other hand is little more than monster + treasure with small amounts of flavour. Unusually this scenario appears to be little influenced by the style of the preceeding ones, as though Steve had never read any published scenarios - perhaps indicating how much variation there was in the interpretation of how to design a dungeon when all you had was the original D&D booklets.

Name: Rala’s Block
Date: 1979.11
Author: Mike Stoner and Guy Duke
Publisher: The Beholder #8
Type: Dungeon
Notes on date: According to #9 this one went out a week before the end of October, so perhaps I should make it 1979.10.
Notes: This is a gotcha Dungeon with plenty of instant death traps to kill players who aren't paranoid. Andy Ravenscroft writes - "An interesting set up for a scenario, Rala’s Block is a dungeon inside a featureless stone block created by an ex-dungeoneer whose goal in life is to kill off other dungeoneers by luring them to his purpose-built death trap. It’s a tough scenario, filled with traps and powerful monsters. Rala himself is a 14th level Magic User with a number of magical weapons. Also, the monsters know how dungeoneers operate and are not easily tricked. 

The DM’s notes say “a 1st level character with a lot of skill and heaps of luck may well live to dungeoneer another day, while a poorly run 10th leveler may die very quickly.”"

Name: The Four Temples of the Elements
Date: 1979.11
Author: Dave Davies
Publisher: Demonsblood #5
Type: Temples
Notes on date: Issue #4 claims #5 will be out 14th Nov at the latest.
Notes: Four rooms of a dungeon, temples, are described - the rest of the dungeon is left up to the DM as "any DM with the slightest fragment of an imagination can knock up a few corridors and rooms".  I do wonder if anyone ever did this, or whether it consigned the scenario to the never played pile. It's a bit of a mystery why Davies did this, but it is different! Andy writes - "Described by the author as “not a complete dungeon”, this scenario details the elemental gods who inhabit the temples, and provides some simple drawings of the temple plans (one for each of the four gods). The temples themselves each contain an amulet - earth, water, wind and fire - that will summon the respective god if touched or used. The gods are powerful and this is aimed at a higher level party."

Name: Tests of the Vokassas
Date: 1979.11
Author: Andreas Sarker
Publisher: The Storm Lord #1
Type: Puzzle Dungeon
Notes on date: On the cover
Notes: This is a mapless linear puzzle dungeon. Andy writes - "This first scenario for the first issue of The Stormlord, is built around problem solving and following clues rather than encounters and combat. The Vokassas of the title are an immortal race from another planet who hid an elixir of eternal life in what is essentially a series of rooms designed to test the players ingenuity. It features some futuristic elements that manifest like D&D experiences - telepathic messages, teleportation - but it’s largely about figuring out the puzzles to reach the final room. There are no maps, although there are some sketches of side elevations of some of the rooms. 

There’s a decent amount of swag in the final room - the alien equivalent of a Rod of Disintegration, for instance - but the final puzzle is a doozy involving time travel and could easily end badly for the party. It’s clear a lot of thought went into creating the puzzles, and it’s a shame that the print quality for this premier issue of The Stormlord is so poor and that there are no illustrations. It would be easy to pass over this scenario given the generally high quality of material appearing elsewhere at the time."

Name: The Maltese Clue
Date: 1979.12
Author: Paul Karczag
Publisher: Judges Guild (JG114)
Type: Tournament (Wintercon VIII – see JGJ 18), Tower + Dungeon
Notes on date: Available in JGJ 18
Notes: The first part (the tower) is a map of a real keep and that is greatly to its benefit. This section is wandering around a well described realistic keep, trying to solve a riddle (one aspect of it in particular is extremely neat and I've reused it in one of my dungeons) - which leads you to the second part in an unusual fashion. The second half in contrast is a more traditional dungeon. This is a superior tournament adventure, which works equally well as a tournament and as part of a campaign. I particularly like the fact that the whole of the keep is detailed, not just the bits important to solving the riddle, so as a player you can't metagame your way through it. I've always loved this adventure, but I've not got round to DMing it yet.

Name: Temple of Ra Accursed by Set
Date: 1979.12
Author: Edward McCloud, Thomas McCloud
Publisher: Judges Guild (JG117)
Type: Temple
Notes on date: Available in JGJ 18
Notes: This scenario starts with describing how the authors built the Temple using Brix Blox. As we didn't have those in the UK and this was pre-internet I never realised that this was just a lego knock-off. This is a great suggestion and is the sort of unexpected thing you get with Judges Guild modules. The map is very simple, but the key is unusual in its level of detail and organisation into separate labelled sections  such as Comments/Traps/Treasure/Miscellaneous. This is a different approach to the same problem Doom Keep (1979.8) attempts to resolve - helping the DM cope with the wall of text that long detailed keys were inflicting on them - but in this case it is very succesful, and you can see in this the start of the style which you can nowadays see for example in OSE modules. Jennell Jaquay's Runequest adventure Hellpits of Nightfang (published the same month by Judges Guild) has a similar approach.

Name: The Howling Tower (Arduin Dungeon 2)
Date: 1979.12
Author: David A Hargreaves
Publisher: Grimoire Games
Type: Dungeon
Notes on date: Mention in Quick Plugs, Different Worlds #6
Notes: This dungeon is almost identical in style to the first Arduin Dungeon (Caliban, 1979.6). Normally when you publish a second scenario you attempt to improve it, or make it different. In almost every respect this is exactly the same dungeon. The keys are all just super-powered monster guards souped-up magic and piles of treasure, in a room that is gold/green/blue with flecks of red/an orange glow/yellow streaks and a smell of incense/smell of roses/smell of familiarity. It has one difference - it's not all dungeon levels but has also a titular tower. The secret door disease has got worse  - see all those empty 1x1 secret rooms along the bottom of the map? It has one great selling point though - art by Erol Otus.

Name: The Citadel of Thunder (Arduin Dungeon 3)
Date: 1979.12
Author: David A Hargreaves
Publisher: Grimoire Games
Type: Dungeon
Notes on date: Mention in Quick Plugs, Different Worlds #6
Notes: If you bought this after seeing #1 and #2 you've only got yourself to blame!

Name: The Fell Pass
Date: 1979.12
Author: Karl Merris
Publisher: Dragon #32
Type: Dungeon
Notes on date:
Notes: The winning entry for TSR’s first Dungeon Competition (a year behind JG), as launched in Dragon #24. The maps and illustrations are also by Karl, and the maps are great. This is the first published dungeon map with cross-hatching for the background, in what is now known as the Dyson style. The dungeon is also remarkably good - as good as the published TSR modules of the time. It is well detailed, and interesting. For example, one of the funghi explodes spilling spores over the party. These are harmless, but will spoil all food the party is carrying. It adds "These mushrooms are themselves, incidentally, quite edible." 

Name: Dreaded Devil Den
Date: 1979.12
Author: Jeff Martin
Publisher: Judges Guild Journal 18
Type: Dungeon (2nd JG competition - unplaced)
Notes on date: On the TOC
Notes: After some pretty good dungeons, Judges Guild published this which is pretty inexplicable. This is two separate dungeons from the competition - Dreaded Devil Den and The Tomb of Lesch - neither of which won a prize. Here they are stuck together, for no discernable reason. Room after room is just monster stats + treasure, and any bits that aren't are just random filler "Statue points random direction when approached". Why would they print this? It's an interesting historical artefact as it shows you that people were still rolling up dungeons according to the guidance in OD&D.

Name: The Quest Dungeon
Date: 1979.12
Author: Keith Andrews
Publisher: The Beholder #9
Type: Dungeon
Notes on date: The editorial states that all issues go out at the start of the month, except that issue #8 went out a week early at the end of the month before. This is the last issue before Christmas
Notes: Confusingly the pages in the scenario are in the wrong order! This is an odd beast, in the first place it's a linear non-tournament adventure. The things in it make zero in-world sense, so there's healing after the first encounter and then a rest room after the next two purely because it's a game.

Name: The Pagoda
Date: 1979.12
Author: Mike Stoner and Guy Duke
Publisher: The Beholder #9
Type: Dungeon
Notes on date: Tower and Dungeon
Notes: In complete contrast to The Quest Dungeon in the same issue, this isn't bad and the maps are great. Andy writes - "Another high class scenario from Stoner and Duke, The Pagoda features a set of ancient undertombs on top of which a more recent civilization has built a pagoda. It’s aimed at 3rd - 4th level characters and features secret rooms and traps as well as a hostile sect that worships in the building. The Pagoda has six levels as well as the Undertombs beneath."

Name: Ghost Tower of Inverness
Date: 1979.12 (revised 1980)
Author: Allen Hammack
Publisher: TSR
Type: Tournament (Wintercon VIII), Puzzle Dungeon 
Notes on date: See first post for tournament dates
Notes: Republished as C2 Ghost Tower of Inverness with only minor changes. I've included the map of the inside of the tower to illustrate my main gripe with the module - that is not a realistic map of the inside of a tower (90% of it is stone!) The contents is a standard series of puzzle rooms. This is based on an adventure from Allen's home campaign, and the notes which he auctioned off are dated September 1976. The contrast between Puzzle Dungeons such as this, and Naturalistic ones such as The Maltese Clue are quite stark and show two completely separate strands of development.

Name: The Mines of Keridav
Date: 1979
Author: Kerry Lloyd
Publisher: Phoenix Games
Type: Wilderness, Town & Dungeon
Notes on date: It says copyright 1979 on the original cover
Notes: Like Phoenix Games' other entry, The Lost Abbey of Calthonwey (1978.8), this is billed as being generic, but is clearly D&D. This is not just a dungeon but a mini-setting with an emphasis on believability. Occasionally this gets in the way - for example three rooms list how many kittens there are there - but it looks a solid adventure. Interestingly the titular mines are drawn on hex paper - the first time we've seen this since The Dwarven Glory in '77. Kerry Lloyd went on to found Gamelords, who republished this, and he also co-authored many others of their titles such as Thieves' Guild and Haven.

Name: Tower of Elbrith
Date: 1979
Author: Unknown
Publisher: Attack International Wargaming
Type: Solitaire
Notes on date: It says copyright '79 on the back
Notes: The seventh and final D&D solitaire of the 70s, and by far the strangest. I'm going to play through all the solitaires soon so I can review them properly, so I've not been reading them (as that would spoil them) - but I cannot move on without mentioning the oddities of this scenario. Firstly, this is published by the infamous David Casciano. Secondly, it has no author listed at all. Thirdly, it has any number of hilarious typos, such as "role" and "roll" being switched. Fourthly, it may have reasonable art on the cover, but inside the art is all badly drawn topless women. Fifth, it is hilariously pompous - "One final innovation is that we have used modern psychology theory (yes I have a degree) to catch the players emotions." I'm looking forward to playing this! The back claims it is for the "basic D&D game system" but I'm not sure if that means Holmes, or if it's meant as an insult to D&D. The attached image is a map to accompany one of the entries.

Name: Notnaidag Robber Headquarters
Date: 1979
Author: John Scott Clegg
Publisher: Self published
Type: Dungeon
Notes on date: The map says copyright 1978, but the text 1979 (there are later reprints with later copyright dates)
Notes: I've only seen the intro and the key to one room, so it's difficult to get a proper sense of this scenario. It shouldn't be rare as about 100 pristine copies were found and sold only a few years back, but you'll be hard pressed to find a copy for sale for anything like a reasonable price. I will comment on the unusual features I've noted - firstly the map is colour coded (a useful technique rarely used), and the number of inhabitants of rooms are unusually (but realistically) given a range (e.g. there are 7-10 slaves). There is a great random events table, such as Guard Inspection Imminent (so they're watchful) or Apprentice Thieves Training (so 1-2 apprentice thieves for every normal guard). All of these are great new ideas and it's a real shame this scenario is unavailable. Interestingly "Notnaidag" is "Gadianton" spelled backwards, and the Gadianton Robbers are a fictional criminal organisation from The Book of Mormon (by Joseph Smith, 1830.3).

Name: Geomorphic Mini Dungeon Modules
Date: 1979
Author:  Erol Otus
Publisher: Fantasy Art Enterprises
Type: Geomorphs
Notes on date: It says copyright 1979
Notes: You might have expected that Geomorphs had died out by this date, but this late entry takes the concept and raises the bar so much that after you've seen these you wouldn't accept anything less. No author is given, but they appear to be entirely the concept and work of Erol Otus  - e.g. see the interview at rpg net. Although the format of these (11x11 one entry easch side) is not quite the same as the modern Geomorphs, these were the inspiration. They are full of detail, and in particular have lots of stairs and cross-over passages.

Name: The Finding of Morillion
Date: 1979?
Author: Don H Green, Gary Preston
Publisher: Self published

Type: Tournament, Dungeon (Monty Haul)
Notes on date: It mentions some monsters as being from Monster Manual as though it is fairly new
Notes: This is a tournament adventure, printed and sold in a zip lock bag. The single known example was found by Adam Thornton in a collection along with other late 70s tournament scenarios. It is an enthusiastic low-fi fan effort. If you slog through to the end and defeat Dracula you'll be rewarded with a vorpal blade, dwarven war hammer, mace of disruption, and staff of power. You won't have difficulty in defeating him, so long as you picked up some of the many, many, many magical items you've passed on the way (you'll have to choose wisely which to bring with you as you couldn't possibly carry them all). Any information about the provenance of this oddity would be most welcome!

Name: Zodiac / The Abduction of Good King Despot
Date: 1977.12 / 1987  
Author: Will and Schar Niebling, Russ Stambaugh
Publisher: New Infinities Productions
Type: Tournament (Wintercon VI), Puzzle dungeon
Notes on date: According to Paul Stormberg (on EBay) this dungeon was originally called Zodiac and was run at Wintercon VI.
Notes: According to Frank Mentzer at The Acaeum this module "was ramrodded, forced thru NIPI with an override on all editorial & development changes by us. It went out the way the authors wanted, not to my satisfaction. So it goes." The irony is that if it had been edited and revised as Frank wanted it would be of little interest to anyone. As it stands however, it is presumably a fairly accurate representation of the original tournament module, famous for being a favourite of Gary Gygax's, who DM'ed it regularly over the years. It appears to be marmite - some love it and some loath it! At first glance you won't notice that the map is basically linear (with a few dead ends). I've put this at the end due to the lack of a citable source for the name and date. Can anyone provide me with a source for the info?

For the sake of completeness, here are the remaining entries in the dungeon competitions which were not published along with the other entries but delayed into the early 80s.

Name: The Dungeon Vlademor
Date: 1980.2
Author: Bill Peschel
Publisher: Judges Guild Journal #19
Type: Dungeon (2nd JG competition - unplaced)
Notes on date: On the cover
Notes: A quite substantial (23-page) five-level dungeon. This is a resonable amateur attempt at a dungeon in the style of The Thieves of Fortress Badabaskor. Nothing groundbreaking, but quite usable. I have no idea why this was published after The Dreaded Devil Den when this is a hundred times better.

Name: The Pit of the Oracle
Date: 1980.5
Author: Stephen Sullivan
Publisher: The Dragon #37

Type: Wilderness + Town + Dungeon, Dragon Competition (2nd place)
Notes on Date: On the contents page
Notes: This is nearly presented to the standard of TSR modules of the period, with nice illustrations from the staff artists. The maps appear to be the author's but with shading added. The adventure in the main however is unremarkable, but it does contains an innovation - every door has an attached set of abbreviations that determine its status (locked etc), type (wood etc), handle (knob etc), and which doors are shielded from X-Rays. The abbreviations are a neat idea, but it is very odd when such minutiae are elevated to such prominence. 

Name: The Halls of Beoll-Dur
Date: 1980.9
Author: Dave Luther, Jon Naatz, Dave Niessen, Mark Shultz
Publisher: The Dragon #41
Type: Dungeon, Dragon Competition (3rd Place)
Notes on Date: On the contents page
Notes: The dungeon is again nicely presented, the maps are presumably redrawn by TSR as they mimic the style of The Fell Pass, and TSR also provide a couple of illustrations. However it is clear why this only won third place, as many of the encounters are little more than monster + treasure with extra text to pad it out. For example, "16. Advisors Sleeping Quarters. Advisor 7 is sleeping on a cot in the northeast corner. His treasure is kept in a room behind a secret door on the east wall. In a chest are two gems and three pieces of jewelry worth 10,000 g.p. and 15,000 g.p., respectively"

So the final winner, for November-December 1979? I'm awarding a joint prize to Paul Karczag for The Maltese Clue, and Karl Merris for The Fell Pass. Both of these are good solid adventures which deserve far more recognition than they get. The prize definately goes to the authors, not the publishers, since they are both ten times better than some of the other Judges Guild and TSR material published in these two months, which have a massive variation in quality. Neither have ever been reprinted as far as I'm aware, which is a real shame, but both should be readily obtainable. From the bits I've seen, Notnaidag looks like it would have been a strong contender, but it is effectively unavailable.

Thanks once again to the many people who have helped me out in compiling this list - for these entries that is Andy Ravenscroft, Guy Fullerton, Adam Thornton, Axel Boucher, Zenopus, and staff at The Strong, National Museum of Play.

But where is...

B2 The Keep on The Borderland is copyright 1980, but it keeps on being dated as 1979. For example Shannon Applecline on WOTC's DriveThruRpg page gives it as 1979, but this is clearly wrong. Frank Metzner is in the credits and as he joined TSR in Jan 1980 it must be 1980. Wikipedia perpetuates the error (it gives both 1979 and 1980). The source of the error appears to be that it was packaged in the Holmes Basic box along with a copyright 1979 Holmes rulebook. This is a modern error, as it is given as 1980 in Heroic Worlds, and despite Wikipedia originally giving the 1979 date as being from Shadis #29 there is no such date in that magazine. Frank thinks it probably came out April '80, but I can find no published mention until the new section of White Dwarf in August '80 which describes it as new.

The Beholder #10 is Jan 1980 as #9 says issues come out at the beginning of the month except for #8 which was early, and #10 says it's probably going to be late.

Demonsblood #6 is also Jan 1980 as the editorial says that the date as he types is the 1st Jan.

Trollcrusher #20 is also Jan 1980 as "stabcon was held 13-14th January"