News — Bill Willingham

Please remember to go to Black Gate and take a look at my 'Top 10 RPG Artists' article if you get the chance.  You can find it here!   Now to the other good stuff!  Produced in 1981, the TSR classic A series module A3 Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords highlights some of the greatest artwork collected from the famous TSR ‘First Four’ [Jeff Dee, Erol Otus, Bill Willingham, and Jim Roslof]. This rather light 28 page module is the 3rd on a four part series and for AD&D 1E characters level 4-7. It was written by...

I’m sure several thousand words have been written concerning the D&D Expert Set module X1: The Isle of Dread.  Certainly it’s one of the two most popular adventures ever published simply because of its inclusion in the D&D Expert Boxed Set [much like Keep on the Borderlands for Basic], so I’m sure I don’t have to go into great detail concerning it. Simply put, it was written by David Cook and Tom Moldvay back in 1981 and takes a group of adventures over the waves of the Sea of Dread to a lost island setting adventure.  It’s a classic, but...

I’m going to be honest here, I’ve never played any of the A series of modules, and for that I feel horrible.  I've owned these modules for twenty-two years, and begged my DM Mark to run them on several occasion, but since he doesn't own them, it just never happened.Truly, I feel sick over that, especially when digging through A1: Slave Pits of the Undercity this week for AotG.  I mean, just start out with the title, ‘Slave Pits of the Undercity’!  It is yet another example of a Robert E. Howard theft, or perhaps Fritz Leiber.  I’m seriously freaking...

In 1980, TSR once again released a new version of their Basic D&D Boxed Set.  This one featured new cover art by Erol Otus, and an eye-catching magenta box.  Its creation certainly didn’t revolutionize gaming, but it did show a steady evolution from small press niche publisher to mid-range gaming company. Written by Tom Moldvay with revisions done from the original text by J. Eric Holmes, this particular rules book used the core group of the first TSR ‘pit’ for the final time. Covered by Erol Otus, who got the call for both the Basic and Expert boxed sets from...

Back in 1981, just before the TSR art department turned on itself when it began to ‘grow up’ and terminated the contracts of Jeff Dee and Bill Willingham, moved Jim Roslof to art director, and relegated Erol Otus to the role of random freelancer, the company created a number of very fun pocket games. One of these, Revolt on Antares, came to my attention when my friend Mark laid hands on a box from his older brother’s gaming collection.  Inside, the pocket game awaited, and on four occasions during my late high school days we had a chance to play...