I don't care if it's traditional,
I won't wear it!

In the early days of Dungeon's and Dragons, a very intense bunch of role players gathered in Walker Memorial Building of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Through the MIT Strategic Games Society and an amateur role playing magazine called The Wild Hunt, we explored the new game, found it's limits, and perhaps stretched them a bit.

Glenn Blacow claimed to have invented role playing. He at least invented the Twit Elf. (See illustration above.) At first the other players thought Glenn was the twit. His tendency to want to talk to the various elves, dwarves, dragons, orcs, damsels in distress and other beings was slowing down the game. I mean, could you shut up, Glenn, so we can slay these people? The object of the game is to slay things, to gain eeps and treasure, is it not?

They found out Glenn's personality was not necessarily the personality of his characters when he started running Jack the Slasher. At least that was hoped... Other characters eliminated their opponents hit points. Jack the Slasher killed. In a game where death was blasé and meaningless, Jack shocked people.

Glenn was one of the most popular games masters. The complexity of Edwyr and his Defender's campaigns made them much more complex and real than novelized fictional worlds. He also contributed to the understanding of the game. His articles in The Wild Hunt included one of the first "four aspects of role playing" articles, which distinguished between the action, war gaming, role playing and story telling aspects.

But these pages remember Glenn as an artist. He always had a pencil in hand. As one of the founding editors of The Wild Hunt, he contributed a large number of covers. Many of these were dedicated to poking fun at the absurdities of the game. His comment on the Bikini of armor class five plus two, "I don't care if it's traditional, I won't wear it!" sets the pace.

Here then are some of Glenn's better Wild Hunt Covers.

• A Piece of Cake! 55
• You Can't Lose! 56
• Not Food! 58
• Apology 59
• No Way! 60
• The Liddle People 62
• Klutz-Factored Magic 66
• Peace, Man! Good Vibes! OM! 70
• Snakeyes?!? 75
• The Tin Woodsman 77
• Can't be Orcs! 89
• The Dwarf and the Weather Mage 90
• Damn Lawfuls! 95
• Critical Hit 127
• Fur Blanket 130
• Elvus Twittieus 130 Rear
• Deja Vu 135
• The Game Warden 146
• Humorist Gamesmaster 152
• I Can't Find It! 157
• Elves or Gnomes? 159
• Requiescat In Pace 185

Warp Nine Flying False Colors!

While I have posted none of Glenn's other work, Dragon Friend will give a feeling for the complex personalities and politics common in his game. Also, Simming in Styles is based on one of Glenn's perspactives, that gaming has action, wargaming, role playing and story telling elements. While Simming in Styles is reworked extensively to focus on the problems of on line Trek diceless games, similar conflicts exist in off line games as well.

I can be contacted at rwbutler@polyticks.com

Note, the HTML is very bare bones in these pages. The early Wild Hunts were done with typewriters. Most of my own efforts were done on Apple II family computers, starting with an Apple II+. I'm sorry, The Wild Hunt to me will forever be a black and white magazine, with line art. I am keeping my HTML basic to match the feel of the times...