David Gordon wrote:
> We're not worthy. :-) The fabled 'Brown Box'. I thought they were
> just myth.

Well, like many legends, the reality is rather less than the reputation.
It's crystal clear why Gygax & Arneson couldn't get any established game
publisher to touch their rules; they were very poorly written, vague and
astoundingly incomplete. This forced "early adopters", players like my
local group, to create their own supplemental rules, and a gaming
community grew up within the literary science fiction fandom community
rather quickly as a result.

The writing on the later 1st edition "Advanced D&D" was amateurish,
pretentious in a juvenile way, excessively wordy, and the publications
were amateurishly executed, but at least the game *was* playable as
published.

The first set of D&D rules that I saw which were clearly written, and
both complete yet fairly concise, was the second edition "Dungeons &
Dragons" issued in 8 1/2" x 11" format. From what was said about this
version elsewhere, apparently it was intended as a slightly simplified
version for slightly younger players. I found that truly bizarre,
because it was the first edition which appeared to be written and edited
by adults!

Contrariwise, the /Ringworld RPG/ is one of the best-written games I've
ever seen. It's too bad the published scenarios were so trivial and
uninteresting. There is a set of great adventure seeds in the
"Ringworld Mysteries" section of the /Gamemaster Book/. Too bad one of
those couldn't have been developed as a scenario.

~~~~~~~~~~~~
Clear ether!
Lensman