The attached PDF file contains the pages from a draft version of World Generation submitted by Steve Jackson of Steve Jackson Games prior to the demise of SPI. I received this through a contact at Victory Games in the fall of 1983. It arrived as a large pile of photocopied, typewritten pages that were at least 3rd generation copies. Just barely readable in some cases. As this was in the days before personal computers and scanners, it mostly just hung around on my gaming shelves waiting for me to do something with it.
As I understand it, Steve's originals were lost years ago in a flood at
Fast forward to 2005 when powerful PCs and cheap scanners are available. I've now scanned all the pages into my computer and done OCR on most. I approached Steve at that time about releasing the scanned version out for others to enjoy but he wasn't comfortable with the idea so I abided by his wish to not release it.
Here we are in 2019 and I now have permission to release what I have to all those DragonQuest (and Steve Jackson) fans who long wondered what happened to it. Much of the general world building advice within this pages has been written of in other publications but the DragonQuest specific aspects, especially Group Magic, may be of more interest to the devotees of DragonQuest.
I should also mention that the version I received was not complete. It is missing section III, parts E thru I, section IV in its entirety as well as the appendixes. Read the cover letter pages at the end for some details about that. Also note that the Group Magic section is in the PDF twice. Once as the barely legible scanned pages and again, at the end, in a more usable text form.
I hope that anyone who reads this enjoys the look into this bit of DragonQuest history.
World Generation Supplement for DragonQuest
.Phil
This is wonderful! Not only is there another DQ supplement, the author is none other than Steve Jackson. Some may have known about this for 35 years, but as someone who didn't, it's a very welcome surprise.
ReplyDeleteThis is truly a wonderful thing. I was a fan, briefly, of DragonQuest back in the day (though I soon went back to TFT for various reasons), and really enjoyed the various supplements and adventures they published. I knew that there was something in the works when TSR destroyed SPI, but I just assumed it was lost in the wreck of the company, or purposely destroyed by TSR so it would never see the light of day. Finding this suddenly available is like discovering a new vein of gold in a previously played-out mine. What an amazing surprise for 2019! Thanks to both you and Steve for making this available to us again. And thanks to Eric Goldberg for following up on this!
ReplyDeleteHow fortuitous that you have managed to keep your copy of this safe and secure! (I know I have lost far too many things due to drive failures, computer crashes, and just plain shoddy housekeeping. This manusript was only recently under discussion at SJ Games forums, perhaps it was your inquiry that sparked that discussioin, I don't know, but thank you, and thanks to Steve himself.
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