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Every basic/intro set for D&D released post-1983 has been terrible, and none of them have sold as well as the sets from 1977-78, 1981, or 1983. There's a lesson there. An intro set that tries to reduce D&D to a glorified board-game and doesn't replicate the play-experience of the actual game is...

Illysio Morningstar, at least, was a real character. Steve Marsh sold the original character sheet in an ebay auction a couple years ago. There was a thread at dragonsfoot where the person who won the auction posted Illysio's stats -- IIRC she had a 3 Wisdom! :D

I believe (though I'm certainly open to being corrected by Gary if I'm wrong) that that's simply the second half of what was eventually published in novel-form as The Moon Pool -- originally "The Moon Pool" was a stand-alone short story, then he wrote a much longer sequel-story a year or two...

:confused: The 1981 Basic and Expert Sets both prominently list Gary as co-author ("By Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, Edited by [x]"), just like the 1977-78 and 1983 sets.

This isn't something I've ever specifically codified, but in general I'd say the cap is somewhere around level 10-12. By that point the PCs would be equivalent in power to both the most powerful NPCs (rulers of nations, etc.) and the most powerful monsters (giants, vampires, red dragons, etc.)...

1) ~30-35 2) no idea, but presumably younger than #1 3) via best friend in 3rd grade (age 9); he was introduced via his 5-years-older brother -- no idea how/when he was introduced...

Going a step further back, the core system of WEG's Star Wars rpg was adapted from the Ghostbusters rpg, which was designed by Sandy Petersen, Lynn Willis, and Greg Stafford.

I think the anomaly of lower public visibility combined with still-healthy sales can mostly be attributed to a larger core of hardcore fans (buying a product a month, or even a product a week) vs. a smaller periphery of casual fans (buying one or two products a year, if that). Total book sales...

The Maze of Zayene modules shouldn't count since they were originally published for 1E (well, "generic," but obviously 1E-compatible) back in the 80s, and copies of the originals are still fairly easily obtained. The same perhaps goes for Necropolis as well, since it was originally published for...

Fun geek trivia: the "githyanki attack" picture by Jeff Easley that was eventually used as the cover of module OP1 was originally commisioned by TSR for a planned orange-spine release of Fiend Folio that, for whatever reason, never happened.

From the figures Erik Mona just posted it looks like the reported numbers at that time were around 90-100K (and that number is likely significantly inflated over what the actual distribution was).

OA was released in late '85 and thus falls within my mid-AD&D category, though both style and content-wise it has much more in common with the late-AD&D material. Something I forgot to include in my list above is the novels, which follow more or less the same pattern of quality as the rulebooks...

I tend to divide 1E AD&D into 3 eras: Early AD&D is roughly 1977-80 and consists generally of the Monster Manual, Players Handbook, Dungeon Masters Guide, Deities & Demigods, World of Greyhawk folio, early modules (A1, C1-2, D1-3, G1-3, Q1, S1-3, T1) and accessories (The Rogues Gallery, etc.)...

I've got bits and pieces of the OD&D version, but I've never played in or run it.

Dragon and Dungeon used to once a year (most years) post their circulation figures for the previous year in the magazine. A year or so back someone posted the circulation figures for Dragon going all the way back to the 70s. IIRC the magazine hit its peak in circulation c. 1982-85, dropped...

Idris Seabright, which is a pseudonym of Margaret St. Clair. One of many authors I discovered via your famous "Inspirational Reading" list in the AD&D DMG :)

Geek trivia: the "Lord Sunsany" typo in the gnoll monster description was introduced in the 5th printing of D&D (when the books were reset in a different font). If you look in a 4th (and, presumably, though I've never actually seen one, earlier) printing copy, the reference is correctly made to...

The D&D lich comes from the character Afgorkon in Gardner Fox's "Kothar" stories -- see this old post in which I quote that character's first appearance.

Sahuagin Black Pudding (6th paragraph) 2

Beholder -- invented by Terry Kuntz Black Pudding -- invented by Dave Arneson (inspired by The Blob) Sahuagin -- invented by Steve Marsh