Ed Greenwood Sold the Forgotten Realms for $5,000

Hear Ed Greenwood, father of the Forgotten Realms, speak about his 1987 agreement with TSR wherein he sold the rights to the Realms for $5,000. https://t.co/0mkKFhMN6S

— Plot Points Podcast (@PlotPointsPod) January 10, 2020

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small children and gifted woodland

animals welcome once again the puck

points is I then rigs coming to you live

as the Internet can be from a rather

dark and cold Milwaukee Wisconsin today

and I have with me on the line via the

magic of the interwebs

mr. Edie Greenwood who is the creator of

The Forgotten Realms the house setting

of a D&D 5th edition could you just say

hi mr. Greenwood hi do you prefer do you

prefer Edie mr. Greenwood elminster oh

just called me and mr. Greenwood is my

dad ok

and so again you’re the it’s fair to say

you’re the creator of The Forgotten

Realms right like even though there’s

other people’s names in the first

edition Forgotten Realms box that you’re

the guy who came up with it right Oh

certainly uh I created the realms a good

decade before there was something called

Dungeons and Dragons now the published

realms that you know is a game setting

it’s Ed Greenwood filled search through

Jeff grub and then a host of thousands

afterwards yeah Jeff grub said that you

were the creator and he was the engineer

which he says fair way to put I would

say so yes and our free first editor was

Karen boom garden now Karen Conlon then

Karen Martin oh that you know it’s funny

when I was looking through that box set

the 1987 box set I was like Karen Martin

haven’t seen that name before and you

know I’d seen Karen boom garden

everywhere I didn’t realize that she had

a different name at the time so that’s

really interesting um well that explains

that great so I think I mentioned to you

Ian I have like 12 year olds who listen

to this who have been playing D&D for

for just a few months and I want them to

know that we’re going to talk about the

Forgotten Realms we’re gonna talk about

the first four

in realms product well the first

Forgotten Realms game product the 1987

Forgotten Realms box set and I really

want to talk to you about how tos are

came to publish the Forgotten Realms so

that’s kind of what we’re gonna cover

today if you were gonna say to one of

those 12 year olds this is what the

Forgotten Realms is how would you

explain it to them mmm the Forgotten

Realms

is a vaguely earth-like vaguely

sherwoodforest

sheriff nottingham Robin Hood King

Arthur quasi many will come Renaissance

setting world of a thousand thousand

stories it doesn’t seem to have one big

epic narrative thread like say new earth

with the Lord of the Rings it has

thousands of stories going on at any one

time which i think is what attracted

certain people at TSR to it oh I can’t

wait to ask about that

so I know that you’ve been writing a

series of articles on Ian’s world about

the origin of the realms but could you

in brief tell us where the realms came

from sure um when I was five I was I was

in the habit of reading all the books in

my father’s dead and running upstairs to

him sometimes to his intense

embarrassment when he had a house full

of guests and saying dad dad this was

great

what’s the next one and fairly often his

response to me would be well son if you

like that one and you want a sequel

you’re gonna have to write it yourself

because that author died in 1936 that

author died so I go okay and I run back

downstairs and start writing a sequel a

horrible pastiche um but it was really

great for me because I was learning to

write by copying the

Styles that cadence the vocabulary of

tons of other authors good and bad we’re

talking the worst pulp axe up to great

literature Lord Dunsany Roger Kipling

Tolkien everybody um but the realms was

my place to tell fantasy stories because

fantasy really hooked me swords and

Dragons and wizards casting spells on

guys and gals in gleaming armor

galloping along past crumbling castles

that sort of stuff that is what float

floated my boat so I was writing tons

and tons of fantasy short stories and it

wasn’t another a decade in pass before

Dungeons & Dragons first came along and

my first exposure to dungeon dragons the

original three booklets was this is a

really cool idea execution not so good

it’s just gonna devolve into an argument

around the table as to what happens but

as the supplements came out I gray Hawk

elf eldritch wizardry and so on I was

more and more intrigued but when 1978

now a D&D came out first of all the

Monster Manual taking all of the

monsters of mythology and legend that I

was familiar with and new ones and

telling you exactly what they could do

and how powerful they were and how

everything worked followed bam by The

Player’s Handbook which took Jack

Vance’s fire-and-forget magic system and

detail all the spells and I said oh this

is perfect um this will become the

secret skeleton of everything I write in

the realms and forth because it has

given me a framework to keep myself

honest you know unlike the thriller

writer who was writing a gunfight and

everybody fires their guns 386 times

without reloading

when they are revolvers you know I in

the same way this was giving me a

structure to keep my sort of fantasy

honest and to make sure that the The

Wizard wasn’t a God in the machine you

know they could come up with anything

you needed um to resolve the story and

just due to his thing I I thought this

whole thing was really cool and then I

started playing D&D so that’s 1978 and I

started recasting everything in the

realms to be detailed in a D&D terms and

then I started reading dragon and 1979 I

wrote my first article for Dragon and I

was playing D&D sessions with my friends

and everybody in those days red dragon

the dragon as it was then known and but

even the gaming tables so what they read

a months ago or two months ago and could

vaguely remember in the heat of the

moment around during play it simulated

what their character might have heard

and tavern talk or whatever and I

somehow felt better when throwing new

monsters magic items and spells at my

players if I’d written it up as a as an

article in Dragon and an editor who

presumably knew more of a game balance

than I did because they were part of the

publisher of the game had vetted the

thing and made some changes if necessary

they almost never did but you know um so

I felt better it was sort of like more

honest at throwing it at my my players

and of course the schools became a game

designer sorry to interrupt but you

became a game designer that that means

in the just to improve yourself as a

home GM that’s how you entered into the

field what to prove improve myself a

home storyteller yes yes dungeon master

but on the style of play we all settled

around my gaming table with storytelling

you know a weird muddy Python accent and

everybody spoke everything that their

character said um we roll dice very

rarely we fought monsters fairly rarely

our chief foes were other humans

characters in the in the in the world so

yeah it was it was too um it was to make

the game more immersive and my players

they wanted their characters to have day

jobs to have investments to know

everybody in a community so they were

constantly asking questions so I was

constantly writing up details about the

realms the realms was becoming more and

more detailed um even though he didn’t

like feature directly in play I was

designing the realms I worked on the

realms every day of my life and guess

what 55 years later I still work on the

realms every single day of my life more

often now it’s because people who have

just started at D&D or started in the

realms they want to know what sort of

rock is under the city so when they’re

describing the dungeon or the caverns or

or they want to know on who’s the father

of so-and-so so if I want to marry

so-and-so what sort of guys am I gonna

have to deal with you know sort of thing

um so they they asked all these

thousands of questions and I’m kept as

he answering them it used to be just my

players who are now you know all over

the world and you know growing up and

busy and we get together very seldom now

but but yeah in those days we were like

most beginning D&D groups when you’re in

junior high school in high school you

play at least once a week and usually

way more often it’s very intensive and

as life takes it over it gets in the way

and the need to earn a living and all

these all the boring stuff like paying

taxes so it gets in your way you run out

of time to just indulge yourself I mean

we we cheerfully took Conan novels we

would sneak them into our our choir

music thingies when we vary Church we

would we would take them into classes

and put them inside our geography text

we would write fantasies short stories

in the middle of our our history and an

English lessons I mean it was we were

being babysat and were bored greatly by

our schooling so we decided to waste our

time and ruin our education but anyway

now your your articles in Dragon

magazine they really stand out not just

because you’re an exceptional writer but

because the articles are framed you

imagine that elminster comes to actually

visit you and has to deal with your cat

where did you get the inspiration for

that well it was basically because I’m

Canadian and shy I thought and for

dungeon master wiggle room utility see

here’s the thing I thought it would be

incredibly arrogant to say hi I met

Greenwood and I thought of a new wave

rolling dice that none of you idiot so

thought of so here it is you know to me

that’s not the the narrative voice I

want to adopt the other thing is if I

say something definitive as an

omniscient narrator there are eight

goblins in the third room of the dungeon

and their hit points are Papa you know

then if the players read dragon as well

as the dungeon master they know exactly

what’s coming what if I have an

unreliable narrator elminster says that

there are orcs in the castle but I don’t

credit it myself or more often using

ailment elminster as the oh yes some

adventurers totally there are six

dragons but really six dragons in one

hole I don’t know so I can therefore I

can plant the idea

yeah but leave the dungeon master wiggle

room so when they all say okay get ready

everybody open the door and let fly with

your best spells and they let fly with

their best spells when they blow up a

toilet seat and there’s nothing else in

the room and they go but but they’re

supposed to be six dragons and the

dungeon master looks at them and says oh

dear your Intel was wrong or in other

words that we’re breaking the metagame

wall I’m bringing it back to

role-playing wow that is a impressive

level of thought and really tremendous

way to make both reading dragon magazine

and game more fun at the same time which

I like when I read them I was just very

taken again by your prose and and how

beautiful and transporting it was cool

but okay my wife’s Canadian son used to

know okay you know but I’m the Midwest

earner so I’m very effusive and you know

it’ll be all gravy for me I’m sure but

yeah I just thought it was it was very

very cool and to hear that you actually

conceived of it as a way to really

deepen and deep and play and make it

more complex

without adding any rules at the table by

adding narrative uncertainty is just

very very cool

so did Jeff Grubb approached you about

getting the Forgotten Realms for TSR yes

as it happened unbeknownst to me Jeff

had had written a position paper called

a unified game world for the second

edition of the D&D game which was a

proposal um I wasn’t privy to this

because he was a staff member at TSR I

have never been a staff member at TSR or

Wizards I was just a D&D fan who

happened to work at a public library up

in Canada and there I was answering the

phone at the public library and one

afternoon this phone rang and I said

good afternoon banks Public Library how

can I help you and this voice on the

other end said hi and

I said yes hi you don’t know me but my

name is at Jeff Grove and I didn’t and

he had been reading dragon and he posed

one question to me do you have a

complete detailed world at home or do

you make it up as you go along and I

said yes and yes and and he said good

send it we’d like to publish it and I

said oh great and he said wait a minute

wait a minute I get ahead of myself

um do you have a pencil paper handy and

I said yes and he said write down this

phone number wait until after 5:00 p.m.

and call it it’s my boss’s home number

he wants to talk to you and of course

what I was doing was calling Mike Dobson

so he could ask me if I would be mask me

formally but outside of work hours so if

it all blew up you know it was no no

harm no foul in the company um if I was

interested in in selling the world and

and as I recall he said now how much

money would you want for this and I said

that doesn’t matter and because I was a

fan and if you want to know why I really

wanted my world published it was because

when I drew my own maps

I couldn’t color them I didn’t have the

skills to color them without using

pencil crayons so you could see these

blue lines and all the C’s and so on I

said I’ll get Maps that’ll just be you

know so I said yes so you’ve seen the

contract and and the contract was

actually I think a grand to be a

consultant for a year in a bit and in

the end that turned out to be being a

consultant until Bruce Hurd said hey ed

you can stop being consultant now please

which didn’t actually happen and and the

rest of it was the race to the world and

and then I spent most of 1986 on T

Azar’s FedEx account dying

picking up big long packages

photocopying them at the library to make

sure if the case they got lost in the

mail and yes one of them is still on its

way from 1980 one package did get lost

and in transit on and then firing them

off to Jeff Grove and he would say he

would we’d have phone calls throughout

the throughout the week and he basically

say do you have anything on pirates do

you have anything on the dungeons what

do you have on the dwarf language is the

the elven languages because he already

knew what I published in Dragon but he

was trying to assemble stuff for that

original box set we now call the old

gray box and Karen was doing the editing

and figuring out what would fit and I

had a few druthers like I hated um what

I called game maps hex maps so that it

was weird but all the rivers went along

the edge of Hex’s mountain ranges neatly

went along I know I wanted maps that

look like real Maps you could put on

your wall and he said yeah but we need

we need we use the hex system for

movement I said so include an acetate

overlay and he would because of course

engineers used it two of his fellow

designers were school teachers said cook

and Doug Niles and of course they were

used to overhead projectors and drawing

on acetate and everything so and but

somehow this had never struck them

between the eyes is something to do in a

game product and and you know because if

you’re if you’re publishing a box and

putting hold of maps into it throw in an

acetate sheath and with the X’s on it

and that takes care of your scale and

everything so and that that was my only

ask for me and literally in the early

days I just kept sending them stuff it’s

hard and fast as I could

it didn’t matter if I over wrote because

they would just cut it throw it in a

bucket and use it in a future product

like for instance fr5 on the savage

frontier is

almost all the stuff is is almost all

for me it’s the stuff I sent um that

wouldn’t fit you know and and fr1 water

deep in North I warned them you know it

water deep is a real city you know it’s

not like three buildings okay and you

want me to squeeze the north into you

know and and so I I just kept charging

stuff at them and it was only much later

by then Julia Martin was the traffic cop

of the realms where she said you know it

we love you dearly but when you

overwrite egregiously and we have like

one week to deadline and we’re asking

you to do something because we know you

can write at top speed on it’s a

headache if I email you because by then

there was an internet there wasn’t at

the beginning for in and in the early

days it was send diskettes

so they would FedEx me and diskette and

I would FedEx them just gets back um or

vice versa and she she sent me a

template a formatted template and said

just type in this okay and make it fit

no going over because it just it takes

us so much time to prune it down but

until then I was just writing gobs of

stuff you wanted stuff on the history of

Cormier I just go off for 80 pages and

then cut it down to three and and the

wonderful computer since they could hang

on to this stuff and I’m just but please

continue I know I just suddenly realized

I’d like to say something

unsuitable first okay then I’m glad I

cut you off to it to save and edit so I

guess I’ll mention this Jeff Grubbs said

that everything you sent him at that

time at that time in the you know 8687

period that you tended to take it and

wrap it in a lot of cellophane and a lot

of tape yeah and that at the TSR offices

they always knew when another package

from you came because they could hear

jack rub cursing and cutting a hacking

away

yep well okay let’s accurate let me tell

you two stories first of all and then

early and an earlier GenCon I had

attended and Steve winter who was an

editor of TSR at the time had held up an

8-inch floppy back when they really were

floppies and said don’t do this somebody

had sent him a dungeon adventure to be

used it at GenCon and they printed it

out they put it on a floppy and then

they’d stapled the floppy threw the

floppy yeah okay

and he said don’t do this he said assume

that the post awful will fold spindle

and mutilate between us two if you’re

ever gonna send us anything it would be

really nice if we got it more or less

than one piece and outside of gaming in

my day job I work in a public library

one of the things we had to do in the

public library was to pick up the mail

and mail mail using a Pitney Bowes

postage meters and undoing the canvas

mail bags and that gave me experience in

lifting a canvas mail bag out of a

two-foot deep puddle of water and trying

to dry out the stuck together ink run

mail because some of it was magazines

that the library was paying to subscribe

to which they were gonna put on their

shelves and I thought okay I have to

make sure that anything I send at ESR is

watertight so if it sits at the bottom

of a two-foot deep puddle the package

will arrive the other so here’s what I

would do I will I would write up a huge

if I’m writing a huge monster or an

adventure I print it out and then in the

middle of the big stack of eight and a

half by eleven paper I will put a sheet

of cardboard and on that sheet of

cardboard

would be a second sheet of cardboard in

a sandwich and taped to the inside of

the sandwich would be a floppy it was in

a baggie and then sealed taped shut case

got wet then wrapped in tinfoil so it

wouldn’t get x-rayed out of existence in

the post office or whatever and then bag

heat again and then tape shut and then

the whole thing all the pages would go

in it because and there’s a flipside to

this this no longer holds true in these

post 9/11 days but in those days if you

were a postal inspector or a customs

inspector after the first five minutes

of struggling with the package you just

say oh and move to an easier package to

disavow so maybe and sure enough they

all got through but yes there were many

there were many stories that TSR of the

the and and apparently when people

started it TS are much later when one of

my packages came in for a giggle they’d

hand the package to the new guy or the

new gal it was usually a guy in those

days but you know and and say could you

just unpack this for us we’re really

busy could you just bring it to my cube

and then that the person halfway through

fighting and with the the package would

discover that it was an interested

audience of about 40 people because the

the cubical sides were just these prefab

things you bought for your office you

know panels of cloths with frames and

people would just drag their chairs and

stand up on them and look over the top

of the cube down into the cube and and

watch the fun as the persons war and

cursed and rebounded off the walls

struggling because I would take them

that glass filament tape which oh my god

[Music]

well you see my father had been in

military intelligence and NORAD and NATO

and you know I was used to stuff that

been packaged very well

how could I do anything is it alright if

I move on to discuss your contract with

TSR where you leave than the right

I’m gonna I’m gonna read directly from

the contract here well under a section

for a lot of people I know this is going

to be interesting because you know this

this is something that they didn’t get

to see before us I know they’ll be

interested in it this is from a section

called payment and grant of rights in

return for the lump sum payment of

$4,000 payable upon ten days after

signing here of and a payment of $1,000

for authors services as designed

consultant to be made 30 days after

acceptance by TSR of the final revised

manuscript or other version of the work

which payment is acknowledged to be good

insufficient consideration and receipt

of seds said lump sum payment is hereby

acknowledged author you hereby assigns

to TS are absolutely and forever all his

right title and interest throughout the

world and forever to the work including

but not by way of limitation and then it

goes off to list possible limitations

and i try to provide business wisdom for

the next generation of role-playing game

designers from greats like you so i’d

like to ask you some questions about

this and a part of it i think you had

answered already but was there any

negotiation on the on the money front no

okay well i mean initially mike dogs and

said um how much would you be looking

and i said i don’t care

and he said don’t tell me that so the

company came up with the and i said

that’s why um but i there is one thing i

don’t think it’s in the contract

that verbally we agreed to as a

gentlemen’s agreement don’t listening

quote quotation marks on that i would

get a free copy of all the rome stuff

that they published and that’s what I

was asking oh the money was like

your number-one concern was really

getting your stuff in in beautiful

versions it sounds like yeah I was a

gamer out I was a fan it was like such a

thrill um and besides I was used to

there being no money involved in gaming

you know i i’d written dragon articles

and yes it was it was good money and to

a little kid like for instance my first

few dragon articles that were actually

published as opposed to hung on to for a

theme issue or monsters and in those

days you got paid 25 bucks us her

monster which in those days was about 48

$50 Canadian and in it in a time when

that was real money I could go down to

my local science-fiction book store and

buy enough folks to feel suitcase I know

because once I couldn’t carry them all

so I went down the street to a luggage

store and bought a suitcase came back to

the store and which is a terrible thing

to say and if you were if you’re

actually looking for advice to people um

do not do this you know is the usual

thing do not sell your your rights for a

mess of pottage sort of thing for a song

but i didn’t care a nice build um Jeff

Grubb told me a story wherein he said he

said you said at some point that you

thought TSR already had the rights to

the Forgotten Realms because it was

published in Dragon Magazine do you

recall that or not yes yeah oh no I said

he said is it okay if we use elminster

is it okay in a forthcoming product

these unbeknownst to me Doug Niles was

going to write because he he had already

done the Albion campaign for TSR UK

which died stillborn so they had the

setting there and that was going to

become the moon Shay’s they were gonna

sort of sync my moon shades or whisk

them away and put his in its place

because he had already done all this

work and they were

they were fitting it into on the new

unified game world which was the realms

and he wanted to use flam skirt who was

a sage and elminster and so Jeff was

asking me you know is it okay if we use

ohm instrument and I said I thought you

already owned elminster because he’d

already been in all these dragon

articles and you know everything

published and dragon I was assailing it

says in the fine print you’re assigning

the copyright to the copyright holder

the publisher of the magazine and of

course they explained that to us you

know we can’t have stuff written that is

an adjunct to a game system we own that

we don’t own the rights to so yeah

everything you write for us has to be

become ours and I and I sorry said okay

I I thought I’d already burned that

bridge while standing on it no Jeff

Grubb said said that he then said

something like well I’m just gonna

pretend that you didn’t say that yeah

because he was he was basically saying

you know don’t give it to me don’t give

away the farm and I’m saying I thought I

already had

okay now I’m gonna ask you and ask you

that what might be the tough question

here although you kind of already

answered it but the Forgotten Realms IP

has to be worth you know millions of

dollars at this point and you know

reading that contract with all those

Forgotten Realms comic books and video

games in mind you know your payment for

the realms really can seem unfair but it

sounds like you wouldn’t do it I guess

let me ask you this would you do it

differently today um probably but I I

don’t resent um I I don’t fear feel that

it was a bad thing to quote give away

the realms unquote you know it doesn’t

stick in my craw um and a deal’s a deal

I don’t believe in going back saying you

didn’t give me far above them because

you you could counter argue that the

realms is worth all that money because

of the fact that the rest of the world

got to see it which is in

hardly due to the efforts of TSR and and

now wizards because there was no way I

could have reached a mass audience and I

think you could say that it succeeded

because it was at the right time in the

right place and it’s what gamers wanted

you know the you know this level of

detail and not you see unfortunately for

gamers Gary Gygax became a personal

bottleneck because he couldn’t run this

company that was expanding hugely and

rewrite and modernize and bring out new

supplements to a game edition and keep

up with publishing Grayhawk people who

were waiting for Castle greyhawk or this

or that waited and waited and waited and

and of course that’s one of the reasons

why when they did purchase the realms

they wanted everybody to get in on the

design they did not want me to become

the same sort of bottleneck or to have

them over a barrel for anything um now

there was a later sort of agreement that

um when the company was in really dire

straits ah we we came to an agreement in

return for my not sinking the company by

demanding my royalties that were owed to

me right then on that if they ever

stopped publishing the realms for a

calendar year nothing came out by me in

the realms the rights would revert okay

so I would get it I would get it back if

they did because what I didn’t want to

do is um somehow have to come up with

hundreds thousands of dollars to hire

lawyers in another country the United

States to try and litigate to get my own

baby back um and and that was agreed to

and but it’s not part of the original

agreement

um any they would do there was no other

money thing discussed at all it was just

like if you guys stopped publishing the

realms and a year passes and you haven’t

published anything by me in the realms

hello um it goes back to me which I

presume is why everybody write in the

realms now and

oh shit through DM skilled I presume

that’s why that was set up because

somebody read that can you say that last

part one more time sure anybody can

right in the realms game design stuff

and put it up a dungeon master skills oh

the the website the which means that you

could never get the rights back is that

is that what you’re saying I presume

that’s why they set it up that way it

doesn’t bother me I’m not you know I’m

not a it was literally there in case ok

if the company goes belly-up and it just

sort of fades away I want the ability to

write in the realms again just to make

sure that by then the sort of installed

base of so many gamers who are waiting

for new realm stuff won’t be left

hanging forever because it’s say it’s

being fought over legally or it’s in

limbo or whatever I just wanted the

rights to go back into the realms and

bring you the new realm stuff you know

but that will now happen no matter what

happened like if I die tomorrow or for

instance if Wizards of the coast goes

under tomorrow on there are so many

people who are fans of the realms have

written things in the realms there is no

a sort of critical mass and in the same

way that people their own mods for a

massive online role-playing games

somebody would publish it somehow

whether it was official or not and

whether it triggered some litigation on

the the roles would still survive and

that was really my goal I’m not I’m not

interested in Blake um picking fights

with anybody or saying hey that’s my

world give it back to me

that that’s not firm but it was it was

in case it went into limbo and fell

silent and everything went dark it was

there this was and it sounds like you

made that deal during the really dark

time oh yeah right

yeah because on if if I had demanded my

royalties due to me for a chimera novel

it would have sunk the company they were

loud

they were credit

at bay and um I said that’s fine but if

he does go dark I want the realms back

you know this is this is absolutely

fascinating do you recall if you

approached them with that deal or did

they come to you saying we can’t pay you

we’d like to give you something you

recall which way the communication

flowed it was from them to me and I’m

trying to remember the specifics but

it’s really difficult for me to remember

because it is no no no no because um

over the years I had become an

unofficial sort of father confessor for

all sorts of people at TSR because they

could pick up the phone call me and vent

and not get in trouble because they

weren’t venting to somebody at TSR and

lake geneva was a small place if you

went home and bitched you’re your spouse

or whatever and they repeated it to the

wrong person you know it might get hurt

but and and if you vent to somebody who

doesn’t know what you’re talking about

there is utterly no satisfaction and I

think from what happened over the years

is certain people at TSR had covertly

tested me by phoning me up and telling

me things and seeing if it got out and

it didn’t and still doesn’t i don’t

reveal what i said to me in confidence

or because somebody was jazz blowing a

fuse because they were furious that

something somebody done you know

design-wise or in the company or

whatever and then coating in quite often

I would put the phone down and I’d be at

the public library and they fold me and

I answer the phone and I’d say AHA oh

that’s terrible

oh yeah I could see how oh yeah you’d

really be upset I can understand that

well well yeah that’s okay no no no I

understand but but I should get back to

her and they yeah yeah and I put the

phone down on the cradle and it would

ring and I pick it up and say good

afternoon

banks library and it would be the other

side of the dispute they go do you know

what so-and-so did oh really

and I I just pretend I hadn’t heard the

the other side of it and and I think

because of that on various people had

gotten in the habit of phoning up and

inventing so I already knew from about

eight or nine sort you know this is

really bad

well see lorraine loves to give these

great christmas parties you know with

and and get about if said everything and

this year it’s hot dogs outside and i

hibachi you know sort of thing so it was

like you know i was hearing it from

various people that that things were

really grim and they were they hadn’t

you know they were hanging on wondering

will they willand that the company need

payroll this this week will become you

know so um and and i say i think i was

sounded out before any offer was made

and as i said the the the agreement was

simply if the company doesn’t publish me

for a calendar year so which gave them

an out you know if they could arrange a

third-party financing or get somebody

else to to publish and it full rome’s

thing then that would be okay they would

hang onto it it was if the whole thing

went darted and i could get it back and

okay and it never has and it looks like

it never will now yeah yeah and it would

have been probably brilliant thompson

extending that offer i would guess

probably yes yeah because it would have

been yeah yeah it would have been brian

thompson um with the formal offer yeah

okay he was and for my listeners he was

head of the TSR books department at that

time he regrettably passed away about

ten years ago so i have been unable to

interview him for this sue wine line

cook was his assistant so i’d assume I

could try in fact check with her so I’ll

try and do that yeah I am I have no idea

how how public that was company yes yeah

and and in the world the royalties I’m

speaking

would be for Cormier a novel um Jeff

that was probably in 1996-1997

yeah you know yeah yeah okay

did you know RA Salvatore was suing TSR

at the time for non-payment of royalties

no I did not

that wouldn’t surprise me on because uh

because I was being asked to sort of

like um wait for mine you know and and I

I understood that if I like screamed and

yelled it could mean the company went

under and I did not want that to happen

you see I wasn’t trying to get the rolls

back I was trying to make sure Dean he

went on getting and by the end everybody

at TSR that I dealt with was a friend

you know did this was the company may

have been a crazy place but it was like

a family

now families fight they’re dysfunctional

at times but to me it was like um it was

great to be associated with this this

great Dream Land place when I got to see

once a year when I went for Gen Con

seeing the Canadian custom regulations

were crazy

you could you could bring back into the

country twenty-five dollars worth of

stuff eighteen eighty yeah the customs

officers was on in Canada when you’re

going back in would say did you gas up

your car and you’d say yeah yeah so Mike

you see if you stayed for more than 48

hours out of the country not including

any part of the day you left Canada your

customs allotment went up to 50 bucks Oh

what if you stayed for more than a week

not including the day you left the

country it went to 200 bucks and being

is all gamers like me couldn’t get half

the stuff they wanted at their local

gaming store but they could buy it at

Gen Con once a year I would go to Gen

Con stay over a week and what I would do

is I just drop into the TS their offices

before and after

GenCon and hang out for a couple days

and take people to lunch and take people

to dinner and later on they would take

me to lunch and dinner but I mean it was

just I was being a fan I was getting to

know all the people at TSR it was great

fun nice so one of the things that you

mentioned about the success of the

Forgotten Realms was you felt like it

just hit at the right time now I got

into D&D around 1992 I was really into

Ravenloft and in second edition was my

jam you know I was aware of the

Forgotten Realms and like I loved spell

fire your novel but you know the

Forgotten Realms were just never my main

squeeze even in Advanced Dungeons and

Dragons so I had never looked at that

1987 he called it the gray box is that

what you called it the 1987 back set

yeah the old grade blocks or FRS or gray

box yeah yeah I I had never encountered

the old gray box until maybe two or

three months ago when I purchased it on

Drive Thru RPG research for my book and

I’m reading through it and man that

product has aged like wine like I’m

looking through it and I can tell this

is why they’re still making Forgotten

Realms products today because it is just

so well written and the imaginative

things that you put in there that are

actionable at the table is what really

blew me away that you’ll have you know

pages and pages and pages on books of

the realms and in the hands of other

game designers and writers that could be

boring as watching paint dry but but you

and Jeff grub just made it lively and

interesting and you can see how it would

inspire play at the table like directly

yeah and again because this is such an

old product and I have so many listeners

of so many different ages I’d like to

read just one entry from your NPCs if

that’s alright just to give them a taste

of what this product is so please please

indulge me for a few seconds here but

this is a character named mozzie err if

I’m saying that right who

sixth level elude illusionist and

chaotic neutral he’s the owner of the

green sash tavern infest Hall on North

look Street he’s a cautious private man

who travels little and is rarely seen in

public his son el rain runs the green

sash and the Trading Company is largely

a paper business consisting of stables

and several warehouses Mahseer buys old

wagons exhausted mounts and quote found

unquote damaged or leftover goods stores

and tents such and resells them at key

times and situations for much higher

prices Bossier is always short of money

and is always willing to Train

illusionists of web of lesser powers his

wife Tara is experienced handling the

company without him and like again

that’s someone that I had never heard of

him in realms lor it’s not elminster

where he’s super famous but I couldn’t

believe just that small character I

could think of three adventures that I

would want to use him in right away like

an illusionist who resells stuff like it

uses his illusions to make a look at it

again it’s just a brilliant idea but

more than that you can see immediately

how it be used at the table and you know

like I haven’t done it yet but I’m

planning on buying a printed hard copy

of it from drive-thru RPG because even

today like I’m gonna run fifth edition

for the first time for these coming

weeks and I’m like that is what I would

want at the gaming table because open it

up to any page and the brevity of an

entry like that is also of extreme value

you know it’s not something where I have

to read 20 pages to get these ideas you

know that was a paragraph it was a long

each paragraph and it inspires play and

I think that I think is why people

probably have the Forgotten Realms stuck

in their craw all these years later is

because it was a pleasurable reading

experience and I can see how it’s going

to improve my play like directly yeah I

will go ahead sorry I was gonna say it

comes out of treating role-playing as

storytelling

and what you’re basically doing is

telling a dungeon master as if the

dungeon master was an actor okay to

bring this person to light in the same

way as a Dungeon Master across the hall

at GenCon running another table here’s

what you need to know here’s the minimum

you need to know and then of course what

happens is over time as people want to

know more about this character of that

character then you get into the

nitty-gritty and that the character and

here’s the key the non player characters

are not a lifeless backdrop frozen with

the lights off on stage and dust

settling on their eyeballs until the

player characters walk on and the lights

come on and everything moves and walks

and talks and the moment the player

characters move off the stage the lights

go down and everybody freezes again

these people have their own lives and

you have to have just enough to and then

given the dungeon master okay so if they

wait until he’s in the bathroom

or off at his safety deposit box or

visiting his mistress you know to attack

where will he be he what will he be

doing what else does he do in his life

I’ve given the dungeon master just

enough so they can improvise on the fly

and think it’ll all still hold together

into the same tapestry they don’t have

the feeling like they’re like that

cartoon character that runs off the

cliff on the thin air and as long as

they don’t look down they won’t fall

because they are acutely aware that

they’ve got no ground to stand on

instead it gives them the feeling okay

I’m still part of the tapestry I’m just

making some new threads up on the

tapestry and if I stop it anywhere

don’t worry I’ll still be part of the

tapestry have you perchance looked at

forbidden lands by freely publishing in

Sweden yes I have and and then there ya

go ahead know I purchased what I could

get my hands on in recent recent ones

the thing I was gonna mention was that

they’re in their game master book the

style of adventures that they wrote it

really seemed a dovetail in my mind at

least really nicely with the Forgotten

but

Realms box set I love that product I

loved you know that original gray box so

I just thought I’d mentioned that in

case you hadn’t seen it but yeah yes yes

what my problem is being over the last

year of my life I’ve been um I’ve had

heart surgery and so on and I’m not

traveling as much so I’m not getting the

conventions or not buying stuff as much

because I can’t get my hands on it I’m

old school I’m not yet a master of

PayPal and buying East stuff I want to

physically hold it I want to sit down in

a chair turn the lamp on and read it I

want to ponder it I want to go and look

it up again which is why behind me

you’ll see all these shelves full of

stuff it’s so I can go and pull it off

the shelf and look at it again and get

the feel for what whoever wrote it

whether it’s me or somebody else what

was their intent when they chose those

words so so what No there certainly is a

magic in an actual book yeah yeah but

but I I want to be able to ponder it I

don’t and the other thing is as I get

older and now I’m old I’m old

um reading excells on a screen no matter

how much I can monkey with the font to

make it bigger

it really hurts your eyes I I edit yeah

I edit Lots books on screen now totally

on screen and oh boy do I hate it now

I would feel just as bad if I killed

trees by the score printing out of

reading the draft and printing out and

reading a next draft or print you know I

would feel bad about that too but there

are times when I just go oh just give me

an old-school book please is that too

much to ask you know and and so

therefore there are some things in some

of the releases I haven’t seen and

there’s some things I look up on

BoardGameGeek and say that looks really

cool I wonder where I could get my hands

on now did anyone ever give you actual

sales numbers for your Forgotten Realms

game products uh no with one exception

and this is not a this is not a

definitive thing this was a Jew there

was a gentleman who handled a French

gentleman Andre who handled oh yes okay

yeah um years and years ago he did tell

me over oh well deep in his cups and a

GenCon um at a late restaurant thing

that spell fire had sold over 8 million

copies now we’re talking international

we’re talking internationally we’re not

talking just in English and that but

that’s all yeah that is really important

to hear though because so I had a source

send me a large amount of TSR sales data

but I got all of the dark Sun novels as

far as the novels go but those are the

only novels I got so hearing spell fire

sold over 8 million international in

total that’s a really crucial data point

for me so thank you but what I was gonna

say to you was would you like to know

how that Forgotten Realms so I’d love to

tell me ok ok so I’ll talk you through

these and I can send them to you you

know I’ll just post what I’m gonna read

to you right now and so anyone who wants

to see it can also see it attached to

this audio or video but the 1987

Forgotten Realms campaign set in the

first year it sold 79 thousand seven

hundred and fifty nine copies before

1999 it sold two hundred and seven

thousand copies so first year just under

80 thousand before 1999 two hundred

thousand now you updated that in 1990

with The Forgotten Realms adventures

book in its first year it actually

outdid The Forgotten Realms campaign

said it sold 81 thousand copies and then

before 1999 it sold a total of one

hundred and sixteen thousand copies The

Forgotten Realms campaign set that was

revised in released in 1993

in its first year it sold 36,000 copies

and its total sales before 1999 were

that it sold a hundred and six thousand

copies now one of the things that was

revealed by actually looking at the

sales data was that almost every time TS

are released a new setting those initial

first year sales dropped and the total

sales before 1999 also dropped the only

exception was Ravenloft which did a

little bit better in its first year

sales but by 96 you know you were having

releases that were only selling like

sixteen seventeen thousand copies movies

and the thing that you know I’ve been

sitting around kind of wracking my brain

about is so every time TSM releases

something even if it’s a great product

like you know there were great products

like Kerameikos which was released I

think in 1995 it was a great product

that did really poorly in sales it seems

like every time they released a product

it always did last no matter how good it

was and I realize you’ve never heard

this before

oh but as someone who was there if you

were gonna take a guess at what could

have been causing that what what do you

think it might have been okay I I wasn’t

there I was never at um okay this is

something that I have heard before

because Brian Thompson um talked to me

about that without any specifics he says

as more stuff comes out each product

sells less and less and I I said to him

you’re hitting the same wallets that’s

because you bring out more cool new game

setting things that doesn’t mean the

little kid at home who has to ask

parents for a Christmas present or a

birthday present that doesn’t mean his

wallet gets fatter you are cannibalizing

your own sales by having your own

settings to compete with each other

there’s only one wallet it’s it’s like a

government going on a spending spree the

the public’s money isn’t endless it’s

all the same

lunch bucket workers wallet when he

comes out of the steel mill or goes home

from the used-car lot

yeah and he said yeah but the company I

said yeah because the American

capitalist business model and of course

this is when his eyes started to glaze

over

I said he’s based I said it’s based on a

false premise it’s like how much better

can you do each year than you did the

previous year and I said have these

idiots not realized yet the planet is

not getting large it’s the same size and

of course then it turns into a let’s

beat the other guy for the scarce dollar

like you know let’s outperform my

competitor and sell more washing

machines or more TV sets or more dinner

knives than my competitor and what I

said doing it is what the company has to

do is cut back on the releases make them

more on do some publicity rather than

just you see because in the early days

they never had to because D and E sort

of sold itself and and they were really

good at publicity and I thought what you

have to do is cut back so you have less

warehousing costs less shipping costs

because everything that was physical in

those days there was no e anything no

digital everything had to be stored

printed unbound shipped and they were

already in the enviable position of

having a no returns policy unlike the

book publishing industry and when they

started getting into the book publishing

industry they were finding out the hard

way that hey guess what novels can be

returned on oops um but and I said what

you somehow have to do is last for 20

years and bright and looked at me and

said how do you figure that and I said

so that all the young teenagers of today

own movie studios and have the money to

buy everything you put out and he said

I’ll be dead by then of course he would

this he was correct he was but but

he said he said I don’t think Lorraine’s

gonna want to hear that line of

reasoning and I said so what you need to

do is get me together with Lorraine

because she can’t fire me because the

the there was it was legendary in the

company that you know because I would go

to her once a year and somebody would

say to me hey can you tell Lorraine this

we desperately I said sure but you work

here you’re here every day of the year

except weekends on I’m here once a year

why me because if I tell her that she’ll

fire me she doesn’t want to hear it but

she can’t fire you so occasionally I

would I would sort of the the TSR

offices had two floors it was a

two-story building it had an elevator

bank by by accounting by the loading

dock did you jump into the elevator car

but the active audience till it got to

the other floor eight seconds or

thereabouts and so I would jump on

leaving the site no but I mean I I said

to him you need to somehow blast until

the penniless teenagers of today have

the spending money to buy all this stuff

or you have to cut back your product

lines

the problem is what they were trying to

break into as in large department stores

to carry games and bookstore chains

within the United States and they wanted

to buy in effect gas shelf space both of

those push you to have large product

lines stuff comes out constantly and

like at least four novels a year in a

product line so that everybody’s waiting

for the next one is so there’s there’s a

it’s expected that stuff will always be

there and that’s what they were trying

for which meant they were super

saturating the market which is one of

the reasons by the way the the novels

were seen as there are ten times as many

readers as there are gamers so weakens

and you probably looking at your

research you can proceed TSR do their

own heart quest novels you know trying

to grab the trends of the day when

Stephen King did the Green Mile on we

did the Double Diamond triangle we TSR I

was ad to write for it but I mean they

were trying to to see if they could find

the things that worked that were going

on in the industry now please do not

take my advice as gospel I am a terrible

business person had I been put in charge

of any part of TSR I probably would have

crashed spectacularly and quickly

because um finances are not my thing

but as a writer I am a keen observer of

human nature in its foibles and the

little dodges people get up to and

stupid and funny things that happen like

when when people um the old thing about

you get your kid at Christmas gift they

open the box

toss the gift to side and play with the

the box and wrapping paper that sort of

thing so I notice things I’m watching

things I’m seeing what gets damaged in a

game store I’ve seen what gets torn

apart literally torn apart by a game

store owner and posted on the wall in

individual pages because that owner

knows that people will come in see those

page and say that is so cool what is

that

can I buy it you know yeah I I see I saw

stuff like that as a fan as a gamer as a

consumer and because I was a writer and

I always worked in public libraries and

I bought tons of stuff at bookstores I

was seeing the book industry I’ll be at

the Canadian book industry you know

which is a tiny subset of um the North

American one it’s it’s Texas if

everybody in Texas red book is Canada

anyway but I mean I could see what was

going on from that point of view

I would report back I would say you have

you tried this wouldn’t it be cool if

you did that and of course they go yeah

yeah thanks a crazy Canadian now I want

to be respectful of your time do you

have time for one more question or do

you need to go no I have time far away

okay so based on what you were just

saying would you say that the current

fifth edition team is kind of kind of

following the model that you would have

recommended for TSR where they’re doing

less releases that are making sure that

they have these like really splashy

rollouts they’re doing you know special

versions of of books too to try and kind

of get people excited about the market

they’re doing less product but more

marketing for them I guess and it sounds

kind of like what you were recommending

do you see a connection there or no yes

um

now from the point of view that of the

company they’ve got much lower overhead

in that design team because it’s as much

smaller um they’re doing much more

outside licensing which means you’re

transferring some of the production and

overhead costs to other people

um the only pitfall I would caution

Wizards to avoid if you’re doing special

things like a special cover of a book um

and I’ve noticed that with some of the

more expensive Beatle and grim stuff you

know um the pitfall in that sort of

marketing is if you can only get

something by attending a particular

convention or buying at a particular

store or there are only a limited number

of copies available I know it’s a

collector’s edition because that

excludes the people who can’t travel or

who don’t have the money or don’t happen

to be in the right country um and this

is not a something unique to games I can

recall in in my youth there was a

Rolling Stones album that you could only

get this version at hours or something

which was not a chain that was

my country so it’s like so what am i a

second-class citizen you know and and it

you have to avoid excluding people and

and there was another thing that they

did once in the past this is pre Wizards

again where if you got this many points

in the RPG a you got goodies and you got

those points by playing in tournaments

at conventions and it was like I get

that you want to reward the people who

go to all the conventions but you know

some of the rest of us have jobs over

kids and we can’t afford and so what

you’re basically saying is you people

don’t matter or you people are lesser in

some way and that’s always a pitfall and

this is not like Eddy discovered this

marketing people will tell you this I

mean this is common thing um so as long

as that is avoided um there are touches

of it on now for instance the the dragon

+ the reincarnation I can read it online

some things don’t work for me and they

say oh you’ve got the wrong operating

system or you got there and I think I

have a house full of 16 computers

running every flavor of Windows back to

3 and up through 10 with the latest

releases and I’ve got all these Mac’s

over here and some of these features

don’t work on any of my computers what

is going along why and and so and then I

think and then I think myself so that is

a flaw something lost because you are

you were disappointing your consumer

some consumer in some way and I would

hate for that to happen but aside from

that I think it it is they are doing

everything right and they have somehow

captured the magic of be again in the

right place at the right time and

everything culturally with the streaming

with stranger things everything seems to

be Oh Dee Dee is cool now and guess what

the thing I told Brian they’d have to

wait for it is so that the gamers are

now owning and running movie studios and

ping directors and being show runners

and being casting

checkers and being actors is has

happened the time you know and and so

now as a D&D fan I’m just saying please

don’t blow it

please don’t blow it please please

please don’t blow it and now I don’t

know how they wouldn’t you know I don’t

know how they will blow it or not blow

it I mean I’m not an expert I’ve just as

a fan I want this to succeed I want this

new golden age to go on forever because

I want more and more cool stuff and by

the way um I think if you were if you

were privy to the sales of magic that

the the sales figures for later releases

individual things are gonna be less

because the market saturated that that

you know I remember seeing some magic

sales numbers but because the Wizards of

the coast is not the focus of my work

right not done a full-on study of them

but I want to say like a magic release

today like when they do a new release it

brings in something like five hundred

million dollars to hell bro they’re just

an obscene amount of money and again TSR

is best year apparently into the Indies

best year ever until last year

apparently was 1996 when it grossed 40

million dollars mm-hmm that was

supposedly their best year ever

according to Jim Ward and it’s just

crazy to me to think that Wizards of the

coast they just put up one release and

it’s ten times

DD’s best year ever attend just oceans

of money beholding through Seattle but

again that is that is one of those you

can’t compare apples to oranges that’s

like true comparing the number of

touchdowns a football player in the NFL

has today with an NFL football player

from 60 years ago when the seasons were

a third the length you know and it’s you

can’t compare um yeah I was I was I

interestingly that one of the things

that well I was told by again an outside

person it was an outside person at a

distributor at a book Expo America that

I was at as a guest of as a TSR author

he said that the realms had

as a product line was 29 million that

year and I believe it was also 1999 and

and I remember thinking oh that’s cool

but I wasn’t sitting I wasn’t sitting

there going so where’s mine I was going

that’s great how wonderful you know this

thing I made up myself is Wow

you know because it doesn’t matter I

mean I I’d love it if we all have free

money piled on us and we could all buy

all the new houses and cars and

everything that would be that utopia to

me um but I don’t I’m not I’m not after

more money from wizards or has fur or

you know that’s not look floats my boat

can I ask you one quick fan chat

question sure what was the what was the

name of your library again um okay I

started work at the Don Mills public

library or the Don Mills regional branch

of the North York Public Library which

is a suburb of Toronto and I worked

there and as a bookmobile page and they

had a rule you couldn’t work where

you’re your spouse worked so the moment

I got together with a co-worker they

transferred me and they transferred me

to flat funded in part branch for three

months and then to Brook banks and I was

at Brook banks branch for almost 20

years until somebody figured out they

had asbestos in the library and they

closed it for three months to take the

asbestos away and shifted me to Fairview

Mall library and then back to Brooke

banks and then when my wife retired on

back in those days the law in Canada was

you had to retire at age 65 and your

employer could ask you to stay a few

months longer past your birthday if it

suited them and in this case they did

but at the end of the year she had to

retire and I realized by then we were

commuting a hundred miles to the library

a hundred miles home every day we were

worrying out a car every two years so if

she quit and I kept working in Toronto I

would be working to pay for the car that

I was endangering

myself driving to every day that’s all

of you do so I retired too and i reaiiy

now work in the Port Hope Public Library

out in Port Hope Ontario part time part

Hope is amazing Port Hope is one of my

favorite places in Ontario because my

wife is from Ottawa and we will commute

from Milwaukee to Ottawa once or twice a

year really and the on route at Port

Hope is the best staffed with the nicest

people in the entire Canadian highway

system in my humble experience cool so I

can highly recommend Port Hope but it’s

fantastic that you’re in Port Hope I

know exactly where that is a lovely

place so it would be most accurate to

say that you worked for the Port Huron

public library system is that right no I

work for the porco public library system

now but hope I worry I worked for the

North York Public Library which has

since been amalgamated into Toronto that

was a political umm the Canadian

equivalent of a state governor shotgun

wedding them together on some time ago

but all the time the realms was being

picked up by TSR and published I was

working at the brook banks public

library the brook banks community banks

yeah and which is why I which is why if

you look in the five shires you will

find a halfling community called banks

so i should say that you were the

librarian at the brook banks community

public library is that right I was not a

librarian I was on okay I was a library

clerk but there were no librarian okay

that branch cuz yeah it was the first

community branch and no community

branches had full-on librarians we had

clerks

although librarians were at our original

branch Don Mills was our regional branch

and I know okay say you were a clerk yes

this is what I do that I want to get it

right you know yeah no Nam and anybody

who doesn’t work for a library system

assumes that everybody who works in a

library who isn’t like a janitor um or

times they know that the kids the

teenagers who shall books are called

pages but everybody they assume

everybody else is a librarian because

they work in the library and of course

if you’re a librarian and you went to

library school and got a library degree

you would beg to differ so you were a

clerk I was a clerk yeah I still am

although I’m cut it’s called something

else now I’m in the information

assistant now okay a reference to you

take yeah whatever again I just don’t I

just don’t want to publish a book and

make a mistake about you yeah it’s

important you know yeah an important guy

I got to get it right oh my goodness and

again like the well the most irritating

question I asked anyone in this whole

process was I asked Margaret Weis what

she served Peter Adkison for dinner in

1997 and Margaret Way says I don’t

remember that like I’m sorry these are

just the things I ask you know I try and

kind of write in a novelistic way so I

like details like that mmm you know so I

apologize if I’m being persnickety but

your name and location I just remember

Jeff Grubb mom fed Peter Atkinson

lobster oh that’s impressive that’s very

impressive so is there anything of yours

that my listeners should go and buy oh

my goodness everything no I don’t know

what the problem is I love writing

everything my babies is or whatever I’m

working on right now I think if you want

to role play in the realms if you can

find copies Forgotten Realms adventures

the hardcover or any of the Volos guides

tend to be really fun and useful um and

yeah I would say that yeah and and I

love everything I’ve worked on some

things were completely gonzo like when

Jeff Grubb started spell jammer and

asked me to write lost ships and and the

the far-out physics he came up with it

was just so much fun the manual the

planes which I said like eight

iterations now I think and all the years

is because we get together in

restaurants and we discuss things and

then we go to dinner at his house

afterwards

and we talked about it and for me that’s

the fun part of it the brainstorming and

coming up with crazy things Wow

well I also take you and Jeff grab out

for dinner sometime and record it that

would be quick oh well that would be

cool

yes this was fun my pleasure great and

thank you so much you have a great night

sir you can too bye bye bye hi and I

want to say thanks to Ed Greenwood so

much for his time and answering all my

questions if you would like what you’ve

heard you can hear more of us at plot

points pod comm we have over a hundred

and fifty podcast episodes there for

your enjoyment and perusal if you want

to support us go to patreon if you back

is that the $2 per episode level you

will get access to the chapter of my

book about TSR west which was the

attempt by TSR to break into the comic

book game in the early 1990s if you want

to read more of my work go to drive

through RPG there you can pick up

encounter Theory my book on role-playing

game Adventure design theory it tells

you how to use less prep time to have

more fun at the table go there now a lot

of people seem to like it it’s very well

reviewed on the site with that thank you

all so much have a great night and bye

bye

you

[Music]

— Ed Greenwood (@TheEdVerse) April 13, 2020