#interview with the vampire#iwtv#the vampire armand#assad zaman
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Timothy J Kask passed away December 30, 2025. He was editor of TSR's Strategic Review and the first editor of The Dragon magazine from 1976-1980. He edited many early TSR publications, including most of the original D&D supplements beginning with Blackmoor. Above: Elise Gygax and Tim Kask at GenCon XI in 1978; editor's signature in The Dragon #2, August 1976.
Tim Kask played the character Kwalish, now part of D&D lore, and has been identified as the namesake of Vecna’s lieutenant Kas.
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A genuine piece of RPG history. This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we take a look at The Dragon #1 (1976), the first issue of one of the most important RPG-focused magazines (also known as Dragon and Dragon Magazine, on and off through its run). We talk a little bit about the magazine’s run, but focus mainly on the issue itself, how simultaneously amateurish and professional it is, and how sad it is that there is nothing really like it in the world anymore. Stu also takes a minute to explain just what a house organ really is.
Like a dungeon crawl. In spaaaaaaaace!
https://geekandsundry.com/the-history-of-rpgs-the-story-of-the-first-sci-fi-rpg-metamorphosis-alpha/
Metamorphosis Alpha is the first-ever science fiction role-playing game. Published in 1976, the game comes from the dawn of role-playing. (As a matter of fact, it is the first product ever marketed as a “role-playing game”!) For all that, it’s aged like a fine wine, and has a...
Hrothgar stands guard (David Sutherland from "Damage Permanency or How Hrothgar One-Ear Got His Name" by James M Ward, Dragon 23, TSR, March 1979) The article included 2 pages of tables and explanations for permanently lowering a character's attributes or abilities after being reduced to 1 or 2 hit points. It also included a long editor's note, presumably by Dragon editor Tim Kask, stating that this might be applicable to some games line Metamorphosis Alpha or Gamma World but not to D&D or AD&D where hit points represent a combination of many factors, not simply flesh being injured. For similar reasons Gary Gygax was on record as opposing permanent damage, critical hits, or critical fumbles in D&D/AD&D.
“Dragon Rumbles” -- Headers for editor Tim Kask’s column in Dragon magazine (David Sutherland for issue #1, June 1976, and #2, August 1976; Steve Oliff for #8, July 1977)
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Tim Kask, in his foreward, calls Gods, Demi-Gods & Heroes (1976) the last D&D supplement. That’s pretty wild. **gestures at all the stuff on this feed** I love things that are complete, but there is a weirdness to the idea of D&D ever being finished and finalized. In 2021, certainly, but especially in 1976.
Anyway, this is the first book of gods for an RPG, a clear predecessor of the iconic Deities & Demi-Gods (1980) for 1E. Like that book, this one includes ancient Egyptian, Greek, Norse, Aztec, Celtic, Finnish and “Eastern” pantheons, as well as characters from Michael Moorcock’s Elric stories. Unlike that book, there is no Cthulhu Mythos, but characters from Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories appear. And not just gods! There are plenty of monsters, priests and artifacts as well.
Another interesting thing: in addition to being guidance for introducing the mythic to D&D, Kask’s foreward says that they hope this will finally be the end of Monty Hall style players. The idea being that if your characters are statted out like gods, you’d be shamed into playing less bombastically, I guess? And isn’t it interesting that TSR cared? That they saw D&D as having a correct and incorrect way to play their make-believe game?
I like the (uncredited) cover art. I don’t like the fact that there is no other art to speak of inside. Booooo.
So, Tim Kask’s foreward claiming Gods, Demi-Gods & Heroes was the final D&D supplement was dated July 4, 1976. His foreward for this one, Swords & Spells, is dated July 22, 1976. That’s some fast turnabout.
This is a bit of an odd book, by Gary Gygax. It basically extrapolates the established D&D rules into a system for...large scale miniature combat. This is odd because D&D was born out of the Fantasy Supplement of Gygax’s Chainmail...which were rules for large scale miniature combat. The snake, it is eating its own tail. I guess this is meant as a definitive refinement of the Chainmail rules for fantasy wars, but it seems to be missing the point about what makes RPGs special and unique from wargames?
D&D wanted, for decades, to return in some way to wargaming. Battlesystem is probably the best example, but there are other, mostly half-hearted attempts along the way. Swords & Spells is evidence that this strange impulse is nearly as old as D&D itself. I don’t honestly understand the compulsion.
In 1976 Tim Kask worried that D&D had grown stale after two years, not because they hadn’t released enough new rules but because adding more official rules had made the D&D world more well-defined with less room for creativity. (From the foreword to D&D Supplement III: Eldritch Wizardry by Gygax and Blume, TSR, 1976)
The “new trend” primarily refers to the introduction of artifacts and relics, legendary items that all players might learn about and want to find, but with powers determined by the DMs so their true nature would be unique in each campaign. These included the Wand of Orcus, the Eye and Hand of Vecna, and the Sword of Kas:
