D&D General Original photo of David A. Trampier with his cab, found.

[darjr]

Legendary Dungeons and Dragons TSR artist David A. Trampier disappeared from the public eye after leaving TSR. Years later he reappeared in an article about him as a cab driver.

Tony DiTerlizzi found the photographer and colorized the photo. It’s cool and a testament to Trampier's impact.

The accompanying grainy, low-res photo was the only available portrait of Tramp I could find on the internet--including his Wiki page--so I tracked down the photographer, @hagphotos. Combing through his 20+ year-old archives Alex miraculously recovered the original B&W photo!

David A. Trampier - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[Scribe]

Wow, read his Wiki page. There's a story in there.

 

[Mannahnin]

Yeah, I always wondered what alienated him so thoroughly from TSR and gaming in general.

My instinctive guess was perhaps the desire to publish a Wormy collection or otherwise do something with his art that his contract with TSR forbade. Reports were that his royalty checks were returned unopened, and as Phil Foglio said at the time, "When an artist's checks are returned uncashed, he is presumed dead."

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Yeah, I always wondered what alienated him so thoroughly from TSR and gaming in general.

My instinctive guess was perhaps the desire to publish a Wormy collection or otherwise do something with his art that his contract with TSR forbade. Reports were that his royalty checks were returned unopened, and as Phil Foglio said at the time, "When an artist's checks are returned uncashed, he is presumed dead."

I hesitate to speculate, but given what little we know I don't think it was as simple as just a dispute with TSR. There are usually underlying ... issues ... that play into that type of behavior.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

By the way, for those who don't know, DAT was responsible for some of the most iconic images from early D&D.

One of them, in particular, is seared into the brains of every single person who played D&D because you likely spent hours staring at it ....

 

[Mannahnin]

One of them, in particular, is seared into the brains of every single person who played D&D because you likely spent hours staring at it ....

One thing that always struck me about this piece is the realism (though not photo-realism) of the human subjects. Very grounded and naturalistic; the weapons and armor being of reasonable proportions too.

 

[Alzrius]

Trampier's baffling disappearance from the industry always reminds me of Carl Sargent when I hear it, since he similarly abandoned the tabletop RPG field with no explanation. As Shannon Appelcline writes:

Night Below was Carl Sargent's last work for TSR. Around the same time he was hired by FASA to become the new line developer for their Shadowrun game. He left Nottingham, to catch a plane to Chicago to accept the job … and was never heard from again.

Various reports have speculated that he was in a car accident, that he suffered some other "medical problem", or that he purposefully disappeared. None of this has been confirmed. Some reports suggest that even his family doesn't know what happened to him. In any case, since 1995, Sargent has been gone from the industry (and from his professional career). Paizo editor Erik Mona made a new attempt to track down Sargent in the early '10s and had one of "Sargent's most frequent collaborators," tell him: "I've always thought that if people want to disappear, they should be allowed."

Sargent subsequently passed away in September of 2018.

 

[Rabulias]

My instinctive guess was perhaps the desire to publish a Wormy collection or otherwise do something with his art that his contract with TSR forbade.

Dave Trampier tried to get a Wormy collection published in the mid-1980s, in an early form of crowd-funding. It failed in that he did not get enough people to sign up for it, not that TSR forbade it.

By the way, for those who don't know, DAT was responsible for some of the most iconic images from early D&D.

One of them, in particular, is seared into the brains of every single person who played D&D because you likely spent hours staring at it ....

I wrote to Dave Trampier in the course of his Wormy collection project, and he was very kind to reply. In regard to the above image, he said that the original was a more square painting and was intended for a D&D pinball machine that never came to be, so they cropped the artwork and used it on the AD&D Dungeon Master's Screen. He said he had worked out spaces in the painting for lighting and the score indicators.

I think I still have those letters; I should probably see about scanning and/or transcribing them.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I wrote to Dave Trampier in the course of his Wormy collection project, and he was very kind to reply. In regard to the above image, he said that the original was a more square painting and was intended for a D&D pinball machine that never came to be, so they cropped the artwork and used it on the AD&D Dungeon Master's Screen. He said he had worked out spaces in the painting for lighting and the score indicators.

I think I still have those letters; I should probably see about scanning and/or transcribing them.

I had never heard that! I would love to see those letters. Every little bit of history preserved is a good thing.

 

[Scribe]

I had never heard that! I would love to see those letters. Every little bit of history preserved is a good thing.

notes the keen interest in finding and saving lore very bard like.