Forwarded from my blog:

In 1977, Judges Guild published the First Fantasy Campaign. In a recent Save or Die Podcast, Judges Guild Co-Founder Bill Owen talks about Judges Guild history, including his contact with Dave Arneson. Mr Owen and the legendary Bob Bledsaw had formed the Judges Guild in 1967. When they went to meet with TSR on July 18th 1976, it was Dave Arneson who gave them the verbal approval to publish D&D related material. More on this story can be learned from mr Owen's book, Judges Guild's Bob & Bill, a Cautionary Tale, which was reviewed at Grognardia.

Dave Arneson left TSR later that same year and in 1977, he submitted his manuscript for the First Fantasy Campaign to Judges Guild for publishing. Echoing former TSR employees, Bill Owen describes the material Arneson sent them in the mail as "somewhat disorganised". Where mr. Owen differs from those who worked on Supplement II, is in his attitude towards the author. "I respected Arneson greatly", Owen says. He goes on to say that he was intimidated and frustrated that this work had been delegated to him, but the reason for that was that he was worried that the changes he felt neccessary to make in order to make the product "look like the kind of thing we would make" would not be worthy of an Arneson authored product. On the other hand, he stresses that Arneson was not the kind of person who might be upset about any such changes. "He was very easy going about the whole thing", Owen says, mirroring how many others have described Arneson's generous nature.

Perhaps it was this attitude of respect for the author and his professionality that made mr Owen that allowed the First Fantasy Campaign to become the gem among gaming products that it is. While others might have been tempted to apply heavy handed edititing in order to make the product onto a preconcieved idea of what a D&D product was supposed to look like in those days, Owen allowed the First Fantasy Campaign to appear as the unique product that it is, with the author's voice being heard clearly. We are eternally thankful for this!

See version


-Havard

Hopefully this review came out as balanced and respectful... :)

-Havard

Ditto. Arneson certainly knew how to be organized. That Napoleonic campaign he ran required a massive amount of bookkeeping and could not have been done haphazzardly.

I think, judging from his interview comments, Dave fully expected Owen and Judges guild to rearrange and reorganize the text he gave them, instead of the random layout they published. The thing to remember too is that a great deal of the FFC actually is notes and short segments prepared as notes for Blackmoor or for innclusion in D&D, and only some biridging materials where written for the FFC itself.

Red on most backgrounds is hard for me to read, but that's because of my colour-blindness. I'm surprised to hear that others, without CB, had trouble with the cover.

Nah, it is pretty hard to make out for anyone. It is supposed to be a fire elemental creature of some sort, but you have to study it quite closely to make out the details.

-Havard