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The Origins of ‘Rule Zero’
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<blockquote data-quote="Thomas Shey" data-source="post: 8177442" data-attributes="member: 7026617"><p>I'm not going to speak of the early part, but all I can tell you is they were absolutely were all over the place by early '75 (specifically by the time of the publication of Greyhawk). It was sufficiently spread out by the middle of that year that SF cons were starting to have issues with the amount of space D&D players were taking up, and that it had spawned two (and probably more, these were just the two I was aware of that were out that early) expanding APAs in the form of <em>The Wild Hunt</em> and <em>Alarums and Excursions</em>. So I suppose you could argue that it didn't really take off until a year after its publication, but its still the case that once it penetrated SF fandom it grew pretty explosively. By the time I got into it myself in late '75 it had even spawned its own dedicated convention (though that quickly expanded into supporting other RPGs).</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Same here; I have an incredibly battered beige box with disintergrating books, and a later white box I inherited from a late friend. A quick check shows the former is indeed, the same third printing you reference above (which isn't surprising since I entered the hobby in late '75).</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Well, the extent and quality of the rules involved was absolutely going to impact the latter. How consistent people were going to be from use of, say, Avalon Hill's Kriegspiel was going to vary considerably in contrast with some of the more, uhm, detailed SPI games.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>There was already various third party products by the time I got in in late '75. How widely distributed they were I can't say, but I was finding them at game stores and conventions in that period. Judges Guild may well have been the biggest, but they were neither first nor only. Most of the other material was clearly stuff that was done on, charitably, a budget. And as you say, there were the APAs, though how widely spread they were was a really good question. I suspect it was one of those things that if you were involved through SF fandom you were more likely to see than if you came in through other routes, since APAs were a big thing in organized fandom at the time.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Well, since much of the third party product was "Somebody got this set of ideas and then decided to sell it..." that's probably no big surprise. And awful lot of it was more colorful than really thought through (which was more of an issue with new spells and classes than it was with monsters or magic items...)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Thomas Shey, post: 8177442, member: 7026617"] I'm not going to speak of the early part, but all I can tell you is they were absolutely were all over the place by early '75 (specifically by the time of the publication of Greyhawk). It was sufficiently spread out by the middle of that year that SF cons were starting to have issues with the amount of space D&D players were taking up, and that it had spawned two (and probably more, these were just the two I was aware of that were out that early) expanding APAs in the form of [I]The Wild Hunt[/I] and [I]Alarums and Excursions[/I]. So I suppose you could argue that it didn't really take off until a year after its publication, but its still the case that once it penetrated SF fandom it grew pretty explosively. By the time I got into it myself in late '75 it had even spawned its own dedicated convention (though that quickly expanded into supporting other RPGs). Same here; I have an incredibly battered beige box with disintergrating books, and a later white box I inherited from a late friend. A quick check shows the former is indeed, the same third printing you reference above (which isn't surprising since I entered the hobby in late '75). Well, the extent and quality of the rules involved was absolutely going to impact the latter. How consistent people were going to be from use of, say, Avalon Hill's Kriegspiel was going to vary considerably in contrast with some of the more, uhm, detailed SPI games. There was already various third party products by the time I got in in late '75. How widely distributed they were I can't say, but I was finding them at game stores and conventions in that period. Judges Guild may well have been the biggest, but they were neither first nor only. Most of the other material was clearly stuff that was done on, charitably, a budget. And as you say, there were the APAs, though how widely spread they were was a really good question. I suspect it was one of those things that if you were involved through SF fandom you were more likely to see than if you came in through other routes, since APAs were a big thing in organized fandom at the time. Well, since much of the third party product was "Somebody got this set of ideas and then decided to sell it..." that's probably no big surprise. And awful lot of it was more colorful than really thought through (which was more of an issue with new spells and classes than it was with monsters or magic items...) [/QUOTE]
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