A few more Gary Gygax tributes from around the tubes. This article from The Believer, written when Gygax was still alive, is especially well done.
Until I read some of these tributes I’d forgotten just how many of these games, beyond Dungeons and Dragons, that I played as a kid. In retrospect, some of them were pretty poorly designed. Somehow I missed this one though, which looks fascinating.
UPDATE:
Just for s. and g. I compiled an actual list of said games: Dungeons and Dragons, Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, Top Secret, Boot Hill, Gamma World, Star Frontiers, Twilight 2000, Traveller, Middle Earth Role-Playing, James Bond 007, Gangbusters…
Dang, that’s a lot of geekiness., to say nothing of hours spent playing Car Wars or Squad Leader.
My cousin and I used to play Top Secret all the time. I absolutely loved that game. I tried the standard D&D game a couple of times but it wasn’t really for me. My brother had a pro-football role playing game called Paydirt. Oh, memories.
After 25 years, most of my RPG books have dissolved into their base elements and scattered to the wind. But I still cling feverishly to my Car Wars and Squad Leader gear. The Deathmobile and Sgt. Kelso, nice!