We were joking around on Mastodon about posting slightly wrong
information to get people to interact, when I remembered this particular
gem from Peterson's site: Rules for the Game of DUNGEON (1974) is likely
the second roleplaying game ever published, and the author did so
without knowing of the existence of Dungeons and Dragons.
It was likely not someone coming up with the idea independently though,
a local gamer had played with Dave Arneson's group before and brought
the concept to Minneapolis. The author of DUNGEON Craig VanGrasstek
collected the variants into a ruleset and published them to share with
the wider world. But of course the existence of DnD brought all that to
an end.
I wonder if other variants were around at the time as well.

http://playingattheworld.blogspot.com/2012/08/rules-to-game-of-dungeon-1974.html

and here is a copy of the rules as pdf

http://playingattheworld.blogspot.com/2014/08/1974-dungeon-variant-now-for-download.html

Does anyone have some more information about that old Minneapolis scene?

On 1/19/2024 5:58 PM, kyonshi wrote:

>
> and here is a copy of the rules as pdf
>
> http://playingattheworld.blogspot.com/2014/08/1974-dungeon-variant-now-for-download.html

Of course only after posting it I realized that the link to the pdf in
the article doesn't work. Thank the Gods that Wayback Machine exists:
https://web.archive.org/web/20191222015731/http://www.unreason.com/files/RulesToTheGameOfDungeon.pdf

gmkeros@gmail.com wrote:

>We were joking around on Mastodon about posting slightly wrong
>information to get people to interact, when I remembered this particular
>gem from Peterson's site: Rules for the Game of DUNGEON (1974) is likely
>the second roleplaying game ever published, and the author did so
>without knowing of the existence of Dungeons and Dragons.

Was FANTASY ROLE PLAYING before or after D&D?

--
Let's go Brandon!

On 1/19/2024 8:58 AM, kyonshi wrote:
> We were joking around on Mastodon about posting slightly wrong
> information to get people to interact, when I remembered this particular
> gem from Peterson's site: Rules for the Game of DUNGEON (1974) is likely
> the second roleplaying game ever published, and the author did so
> without knowing of the existence of Dungeons and Dragons.
> It was likely not someone coming up with the idea independently though,
> a local gamer had played with Dave Arneson's group before and brought
> the concept to Minneapolis. The author of DUNGEON Craig VanGrasstek
> collected the variants into a ruleset and published them to share with
> the wider world. But of course the existence of DnD brought all that to
> an end.
> I wonder if other variants were around at the time as well.
>
> http://playingattheworld.blogspot.com/2012/08/rules-to-game-of-dungeon-1974.html
>
> and here is a copy of the rules as pdf
>
> http://playingattheworld.blogspot.com/2014/08/1974-dungeon-variant-now-for-download.html
>
> Does anyone have some more information about that old Minneapolis scene?

Empire of the Petal Throne was published originally (only 50 copies,
self published) in 1974 as well. Closest I've been able to find for a
time in the year is "spring" so probably predates DUNGEON.

That first print is available in PDF

https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/99646/empire-of-the-petal-throne-original-manuscript

The author is from England though, not Minneapolis as far as I can tell.

--
-Justisaur

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