Introduction—In presenting this panel preview-
review of the DMG, I find
myself in a somewhat 2-headed position, having
to wear the hat (or cap, as the case may be) of
assistant editor of TSR Periodicals, and introduce
this panel, while at the same time giving my views
of the DMG as I worked with it before I became
associated with TSR in an employee-employer relationship.

I guess it was about 9 months ago when I
received the first of a multitude of sections, additions,
revisions, deletions, and corrections to the
DMG. I also have the somewhat dubious distinction
of being the only person involved with the
project to have a section of the rough drafts disappear
to the insatiable appetite of the U.S. Postal
Service. If you ask me what to do to counter a
Sphere of Annihilation, I'll have to refer you to
them, at least until the first copies come off the
presses. I never saw it. But, considering the tremendous
amount of material involved with the
DMG, I’m actually surprised it didn’t happen more
often.

In companion with the PH and
the MM, the DMG finally finished(?)
AD&D®, and becomes
the most complete, concise, and accurate set of
rules for a RPG. State-of-the-art, to
use once again, that over-used expression. In this
case, though, it is justified. Organization, definitiveness,
and sheer bulk of material aside, AD&D now
becomes the 1st (though others have falsely
claimed otherwise) true 2nd-generation roleplaying
game. Anyone can rewrite a set of rules,
put it in a new format, or commission new cover art
for a set of rules. The DMG goes beyond these
physical gimmicks, and elevates AD&D to a new
plateau, in an evolutionary sense. The input from
thousands of campaigns, literally millions of roleplaying
hours is a force not to be denied. While
author credit goes to Gygax, it is every bit as much
the work of every gamer who has ever sat on either
side of the screen of any session of D&D in the past
5 years.

And the DMG reflects it.

The following comments are from various persons,
both employed by, and outside of, TSR who
worked on the DMG from artwork to editing to
paste-up. Their thoughts are not so much formal
reviews, as impressions of and feelings for a major
labor. If they are sometimes a little tongue-in-cheek,
perhaps it is simply relief. . . .

Jeff Leason--
The DMG was the 1st project I fermented in
the production department. I’ve learned a lot of
new information since working on the DMG. After
reading the abbozzo at least twice and then perusing
the cultivated copies of the text (another 3
or 4 times) I, and I’m sure many of my colleagues,
suffered from acute acedia. Some of the
units of discourse were hippotomonstrosesquipedalian,
but we soon got accustomed to Gary’s
liturgy of archaic ideophones and aphorisms.
Working on the DMG was enriching to say the
least I hope all of you will enjoy using it as I have
enjoyed correcting it!

Lastly, there can, of course, be no doubt as to
the hirsuteness of dwarves of the feminine gender!

Len Lakofka--
AD&D can
have no real boundaries, and rules can only help to <Gary plainly states the opposite in the Preface to the DMG>
outline what the game is about. The new DMG will help those who want their rules
better spelled out, who like no loose ends, who
want everything defined and quantified. Many
questions are answered, there are numerous tables
of data, there is new information on campaigns,
spells are better defined. But in like manner there is
much for the person who wants an ever changing
game, loads of new magic items, the ability to
generate new monsters, ways of expanding a player’s
universe into other RPGs. In short
the DMG has something for everyone. It is well
authored and finely proofread. Does it answer
everything? No. That is impossible—and that is
what makes AD&D the best game for a person to
invest his life in. Excuse me, but the Hulk is at the
door with the plans for level 6 of the Pyramid of the
Devil. Now about that artifact...

Lawrence Schick--
The DMG contains an enormous
amount of information, more than in PH and MM put together. Inexperienced
(and indeed, even experienced) DMs
may wonder, out of all this verbiage and all these
tables, just what is important? What is essential and
what is peripheral? This is especially germane to
those campaigns in the midst of converting to the
complete and vastly superior AD&D system. Here
are the sections of the DMG that I consider of prime
importance to the conduct and balance of the
game:

Acquisition and recovey of spells. (Acquisition: Cleric) (Acquisition: Magic-User) (Acquisition: Illusionist)
Combat and melee, including spell casting during melee. <there are 2 sets of rules for spell-casting in melee>
Awarding of XP and levels.
Rules and limitations on magical research, including fabrication of magic items.
Creating and controlling NPCs.
Placement of treasure. (Monetary Treasure) (Magical Treasure)
Alignment.

This is not to say that the rest of the rules in the
DMG are dispensable. They’re the flesh on the
bones of AD&D, and thus somewhat mutable. In
fact, the lists of various types included to aid the DM
in setting up his or her campaign are more in the
line of playing aids than rules, and can be altered at
will. (It might be emphasized that this does not
apply to the beardedness of female dwarves, no
matter what Jean says.) However, give the AD&D
rules a chance as they stand before going at them
with a buzzsaw—I think you’ll be pleased at the
way it all works.

Jean Wells--
The DMG all in all is quite good. There are only
2 things in the entire book that I strongly dislike
and they both appear under the section of the
“Player Character Characteristics”. 1st elves are <Correction: PC RACIAL TENDENCIES>
described as being flighty or frivolous. It further
states that they spend their time dancing, singing,
frolicking and playing unless necessity dictates
otherwise. Mind you, I am not pro-elf, but I do feel
they do more than the aforementioned whether
necessity dictates or not. I feel that to say all elves or
even the major portion of them, behave in such a
manner is doing the people who enjoy playing
them a grave injustice. A race that is supposed to be
fascinated by magic, in my opinion, would not take
life so haphazard or so casual. To think that elves
spend the thousands of years of their life just amusing
themselves is absurd! The best magic comes
from elves and that takes work, a lot of it. Finally, let
it stand that I say, “Dwarven women DO NOT
have beards, Gary!

Allen Hammack
One might think that after reading the DMG as
often as I have while it was being edited, all of those
tables and facts and procedures would be burned
onto my memory like fiery words on stone tablets.
That’s not the case, folks, most of it has become
one big blur. Sure, I remember reading a section on
“Maximum Character Age”, but I couldn’t tell you
how old an elf might get before he croaks — like I <depends on the type of elf>
said, it’s a big blur. 1 or 2 points, however, are
worthy of comment.

Throughout the DMG the reader is urged not to
be a nice guy on the one hand, and yet not to be
too stingy with treasure, magic, experience, etc. on
the other; tables and charts and more tables still,
and in seeming contradiction, just as many exhortations
to “wing it”. The novice DM might feel that
every possible situation that might come up is covered
by the plethora of tables; yet, while AD&D is
more structured than its predecessor, it is by no
means completely rigid. Let creativity and fair play
be your guide — the object, after all, is for all concerned
to have fun (a goal far too many players and
referees lose sight of).

The section on lycanthropy has some statements
I disagree with. The example of the lycanthropic
paladin is unjust, in my opinion (which I
expressed at one of the editing conferences); my
view has always been that a paladin (played correctly)
is one of the most difficult characters to play,
and denying him the restoration of his paladinhood
even after ridding himself of the disease and accomplishing
a quest seems spiteful and unfair. In
addition, the idea of taking more than a point of
damage while bursting out of armor into wereform
seems a bit much. I agree with the idea behind
these, which is that monster-P-Cs
should be discouraged, but the application is too
severe.

Alas for the death of the apostrophe! When
properly used it is a bold and shining punctuation
mark, indicating possession when placed after a
noun and before an “s”; alas that it has been driven
into hiding! Last seen just before publication of
PH, the supporters of the linguistic
anarchy forced it out of the title of DMS and now try to banish it forever with the
DMG! Using an artistic excuse,
they bar its every attempt at propriety and propagate
the error. All is not lost, however, for there is a
small but determined underground seeking to restore
the lost mark to its proper place. Some
day . . . .

With the lopsided score of TSR 12, Jean 1, the
mini-controversy of whether dwarven women
have beards has been laid to rest. They do.

Mike Carr --
Our work on the DMG has been an undertaking of considerable
magnitude, since it is the largest project ever published
by TSR. Fortunately, our prior experience
with other projects and the 2 preceding hardbound
volumes (MM and
PH) stood us in good stead.
Our energies over quite a number of months have
been dedicated to bringing you, the AD&D enthusiasts
of the world, a book you have been waiting
for — and in time for GenCon XII.

No book of this nature can be truly definitive
— it’s simply the nature of the game to be open
-ended, and of course, that means that there are
some areas that might not be covered as well as
some players and DMs might like. But rest assured
that there is plenty within the book — over 200
pages of material will testify to that! Lots of useful
and interesting goodies are within the DMG, and
maybe a few surprises too. It all adds up to a book
that we are proud of, and that we think you’ll like.

As the chief editor and production department
head at TSR, I have had the opportunity to work
closely with the manuscripts (as have plenty of
others!) on all 3 AD&D volumes. This has been
an interesting process for me, and I have been
gratified to be a part of the birth of the AD&D series. This is especially
so because of the fact that I was fortunate
enough to be in the right place at the right time
once before--in Saint Paul in the early 1970’s as a
participant in the fantasy campaign run by Dave
Ameson. That gives me a unique perspective, and
points up the fact that AD&D is really a much
different game than any of the FRPGs that have preceded it. There is so much to
the new system that any efforts of the past are
indeed crude in comparison! The overwhelming
response to AD&D by fantasy players echoes that
assessment, I think, completely.

Many, many persons — both at TSR and outside
of the company--have labored long and hard
on the DMG. Not the least is the author, Gary
Gygax, of course. In any event, the fruits of our
labor will soon be apparent. Yes, the book will sell
many copies, but another tangible payoff that is
every bit as rich is the enthusiastic reception all of
our products receive from you, the players. Your
excitement over AD&D is more than just encouraging
— it shows us that our work is appreciated, and
that means much, to be sure! With the proliferation
of fantasy game enthusiasts and the amateur press
that has sprung up, TSR has sometimes been a
popular target for criticism. We’ve reacted in some
instances, too, and that has not always endeared us
to our critics. But all that aside (and regardless of
the merits of any particular point of view), we have
found that our efforts enjoy great support from
you, the consumers. Since we are a commercial
enterprise, that support allows us to continue our
endeavors (as well as puts food on our tables and a
roof over our heads as employees). We thank you
for that support, and we look forward to bringing
you the best games and game items we can in the
future!

James M. Ward
When fst presented with the material that was
to become the Referee’s Guide, I hurriedly rushed
to the section on magic items to see how my favorite
pieces of magic had been brutely changed (as
my favorite spells had been mangled in the PH).
I soon became very pleased with what
I found. The many new things that were presented in
those pages made me wonder if the whole work
could sustain the quality of excellence that I had
found in that section (it did). Not only were the old
concepts of D&D explained in more detail so that
even an old timer (if that term can be applied to
anyone playing this relatively new game) like myself
learned some things, but also there were new
fields covered that hadn’t been even touched before.

A prime example of material that has been
more carefully studied are the monsters and what
they can do. Before this, I was never satisfied with
the Greyhawk method of assigning XP for creatures.
Imagine the pleasure of the
DM whose players argue that the Lich they just
killed is worth a lot more than the judge is willing to
hand out when he can point to the 10,500 figure in <All Appendix E data is integrated into the .html MM>
the book with a smile. Along the same lines were
the very useful charts in Greyhawk that detailed the
attacks and damage of many of the D&D monsters.
With the Monster Manual many new ones were out
that weren’t covered. This is all taken care of now.

Another aspect of the game that had always left
me dissatisfied was the creation of my castle and
the followers that came to fill it Now, not only can I
build any type of castle structure I want with all the
special things I can think of, I can know to the
copper piece what it will cost. After it is built, percentile
dice will tell me how many of every type of
troop I will get from horse archers to lancers and
from crossbowmen to longbowmen.

The new magic items and the change that occurred
with some of the old ones will really please
beginners and long time gamers as well. Things like
Nolzur’s Marvelous Pigments; that are paints that
magically create the things they depict, or the Robe
of the Archmagi; that gives the wearer an AC of 5,
5% magic resistance, +l to all saving
throws, and pluses on casting certain spells, and
now all beings can laugh at those pesky magic
missiles while wearing the Brooch of Shielding that
absorbs them (up to a point).

Changes in the existing items were for them
most part to the good. Ego in a sword is now a
function of the powers that it has from the pluses on
the weapon to the languages it understands. Now,
we also have something that will stop a Sphere of
Annihilation (just wait till you see what it is). The
Ring of Spell Turning has been changed to give us
poor magic users a chance at such wearers so that
spells that are delivered by touch or magic contained
in devices like rods, staves, wands, and the
like now work. The ring of Spell Storing unfortunately
now has the chance of having Druid, cleric,
or Illusionist spells as well as the magic-user type
and this could really be bad news in tying to figure
it out from the magic users standpoint. The old
Human Control Ring has been changed to the Ring
of Human Influence so that the charm works up on
beings up to the 21st level and the wearer can also
make a suggestion spell once a day. Presented to
us are the Rings of Elemental Command that present
powers that will make the D&D Tolkien fans
drool at their thought. These rings will give the
wearer powers like flying, creating walls of force,
passwalls, the ability to feather fall, burning hands,
the power of flame strike, the creation of a wall of
ice, and the ability to part water (just to name a
few). With the creation of so many devils and demons
in the MM the players were presented
with a very real threat that could be close to
unkillable. I am happy to say that these have been
partially negated by the creation of a wider range of
Protection Scrolls. Not only do we have all the old
ones, we now have Protection from Petrification,
Protection from Shape-Changers <Protection from Lycanthropes>, Protection from
Devils, and Protection from Demons.

All in all, this work gives the reader more of
everything. While there is the thought that this last
book will be the end to the matter of clarification of
the rules from all different points; one can’t help but
wonder if there isn’t some  D&Der out there (existing
or yet to exist in dungeon land) that isn’t going
to say to the TSR group someday, “Hey! Did you
guys ever consider . . .”

Darlene Pekul
As I turn the leaves of my battered sketchbook
And find traces of half-completed forms
Limping across the pages, I wonder —
Has it been a battlefield, this DMG?
Innocent of fantasy art forms, I surged forward,
With sharpened pencil drawn
And wielded stroke upon stroke to the finish . . .
But then . . . But then . . . :
“What do you mean — wizards don’t carry swords?
They certainly do! Well, this one is different!
He’s not stupid — he’s a maverick
Haven’t you ever heard of artistic license?.”
The battle raged (and so did I)!
Yet, in the end all was accomplished
The experience has taught me much.
I sheathe my sword and lay aside my sketches.
I believe I know the meaning of magic.
The artistic path is long & cumbersome —
I take up my pencil as staff
And begin my journey.

And a few words from the author

Gary Gygax Interviewed by TD
Q. With the completion of, printing of, and now,
the final release of, the DMG, is
AD&D finished? Is the
work complete; has the game reached the final
stage of evolution and polish that you envision for
it?

A. Yes, and no. Yes, insofar as everything we can
see currently is well covered and any other material
additions to the game system will be done in modular
form, where it is expanding the system as far as
what players can do to have adventures. No, in
respect to what the cleverness of the DMs and
players will uncover in the rules. Certainly they are
going to find areas that are not as fully covered as
we’d like, and quite likely they’re going to find
areas which need either further rule refinement or
whole new rules written, because AD&D is an ongoing
and growing entity upon which I hope we
can improve still further over the years.

Q. Suppose it is game night at your house; you
have a bunch of “normal” D&D players, you’ve
invited them all over for their first AD&D adventure,
in the new, modified AD&D campaign. What
kind of pep talk or briefing would you give them
before they sat down and actually adventured?
What do you feel that you would point out, what
would you warn them about, etc.?

A. The first thing I’d do. . . would be warn them
that the party is over. Things are tougher, more
controlled. They really needn’t worry if they are
experienced players; role-playing is one thing and
fantasy games are another thing, and with D&D or
any similar game, for that matter, whether it be
something as basically non-complicated as perhaps
Tunnels and Trolls, or something as detailed
and complex as Chivalry and Sorcery. They have
the basic ideas of the game down. They would
have to roll whole new characters—they’d have to
begin afresh. Their background experience, of
course, would be useful to them. And what would
they find? A game where the DM is far more able to
handle situations as they arise; AD&D provides the
DM with a far stronger framework that answers his
questions and needs far more explicitly and more
extensively than the other systems do.

Q. Along the same lines, then, if someone were to
ask you, “Why did you do AD&D?”, is that what
you would answer them? Why did you feel that it
was necessary to “re-do” D&D?

A. I didn’t really “rewrite” D&D per se. I looked at
D&D and said, “This is a game form designed for a
much different audience than is actually playing
D&D.” So what we want to do is to provide a
quarter-million, or a half-million, or whatever the
number of players and referees is, with a game
form that is really usable to them. D&D is only a
loose structure and doesn’t answer many of the
needs of the DM. AD&D is a much tighter structure
which follows, in part, the same format D&D does,
but it is a much stronger, more rigid, more extensive
framework around which the DM can build his
or her campaign. The whole of D&D was built to
make the game, the adventure campaign, more
viable for the DM who had to put all these hours
and hours of work into structuring the whole thing.
With D&D, the DM can find that unless he or she
had been extremely careful, one winds up with a
campaign that lasts six weeks, or maybe even six
months, but then everybody is beyond the parameters
of the rules. With AD&D, growth is slower,
it’s more structured, and it’s designed so that you
won’t run out of game in 6 weeks, or 6 months.
Perhaps in 6 years you will, but that’s a whole
different story.

Q. lf you could predict the future, see into your
crystal ball where the letters and responses are at,
what do you expect the response to AD&D to be?
From the old D&Ders? From the new, unexposed-to-
fantasy-game players? What do you think it’s
going to do for fantasy gaming? For TSR?

A. Well, we’ve had some response already from
D&D players with regard to AD&D. The letters
have basically been: “Gee, this is all different from
D&D! Why didn’t you warn us?’ And John Mansfield,
in his magazine Signal said, “Don’t think you
can plug D&D into an AD&D format, because you
can’t.” I agree. In fact, in one of the recent columns
in your magazine, I pointed that out. They are
different. You can’t do it. Basically, players and
referees are going to say, “Thanks a lot,” when it’s
all done, because all the work they put into setting
up a game won’t go down the tubes in such a short
time, as it would with D&D— not in all cases, but in
most cases. D&D tends to allow too rapid growth of
PCs and the game gets beyond the
control of the DM far too quickly. In AD&D, all of
these problems have been taken care of. The character
classes have more balance, and the growth
rate of PCs is kept in check far more
closely. For the amount of work that a DM has to
put in—probably 2 hours for every hour of
play—you’re going to get some real returns, instead
of a short-lived campaign.

Q. Back to your earlier comments, that inevitably
players will find areas that don’t suit them, areas
that may be “wrong”, areas that are treated in a
way that the consensus feels to be wrong, whether
or not it is, and if the game is expanded upon, or
when it is expanded upon, it will be expanded
upon in modules. Are the majority of D&D players
going to have to pick up every one of these modules,
like you used to have to do with all the supplements?
You really had to keep up with the
supplements to keep up with the ongoing, ongrowing
D&D when it first came out. Is this going to
happen again, or are you going to be able to take
the DMG, lock yourself on a desert island, and
have a good time with it?

A. This question will take about 10 years to
answer; it’s highly extensive. First of all, D&D came
out in the form it did because it was still a baby when
it was done. It was done in a hurry to answer the
demands of many hard-core gamers, and it was
written for a whole different audience. But even
though the audience was different, their basic abilities
were not all that different from the anticipated
audience. And most of these good people have
great minds and imaginations, and nearly everyone
of them is going to be able to say, “Boy, that
would be a perfect game if only this rule or those
rules were changed, and I know how to make it a
perfect game.” This is rather typical of gamers, and
so they’re going to want to immediately change
things and amend things to make it “the perfect
game.”

To some extent, this can be done with AD&D,
because there is still enough flexibility within the
rules to allow it, without really changing the scope
of the game. As the game matures, and we want to
add on, without coming to what would be called
perhaps “the third generation of fantasy role-playing,”
we will add to it through modules, or perhaps
through articles. These additions or clarifications or
whatever won’t really be necessary to be obtained
for any player, because, hopefully, they won’t be
earthshaking revisions of the rules. If that comes
up, what we’ll have to do, really, is publish an
article saying, “this is a horrible revision, please
take note, and free copies are available for all you
good people who bought it.” But I really don’t
envision that. Yet, the people who are active in
this—perhaps not all the vocal ones or the ones
you read about, but who generate the volume of
mail—have enough questions or enough comments
on certain areas, we might then look at a
second edition, let’s say, of AD&D to cover these
points. Again, if it becomes necessary, it will be well
publicized prior to that. We don’t envision AD&D
as being an ever-changing thing except as follows:
Gods, Demi-Gods, and Heroes is really a necessary
part of AD&D, because the deities are necessary
to the game. So, eventually, those with viable
campaigns move on to add deities to their games.
And this will be possible within the next six-months,
or a year, or whatever—whenever a much revised
and expanded GDH is available. We also contemplate <DDG>
adding monsters to the game because monsters
get burned up. It’s always nice to be able to
throw a new monster at the players, so. . . . The
people in the U.K. are going to have their chance to <FF>
add some monsters to the game, and who knows?
There might be 2 volumes to the MM, <MM2> <MM3>
or 3, over the years, but that’s about the size
of it: a slowly growing work, as the players want it,
not as the players must buy it.

Q. One of the raps against D&D was that it was too
flexible, and one of the great difficulties, particularly
in going to conventions or tournaments and
such, was: anyone could say, “I’m having a D&D
game, and a person from one side of the country
would go, he’d sit down at the table, and within 10
minutes, he knew he was in trouble, because he
didn’t recognize it as any kind of D&D he had ever
played. How flexible, or how inflexible, is AD&D in
this regard, compared to D&D? Can a player from
California go and find a group in New York and at
least have some reasonable assurance that he or
she is at least going to understand the guidelines
and the framework? Or are you going to encourage
the massive variants and do-it-yourself additions
that D&D was noted for?

A. D&D was noted for massive additions and variants
that we encouraged, to some extent, without
fully realizing the inventiveness of those people
who were going to get it, and because it was done
over a short period of time, and we didn’t realize
how unfamiliar many of the players who would
begin D&D were with miniatures and boardgames.
And so . . . we encouraged a monster . . .and we
are like Frankenstein and D&D is our monster. It’s
grown and we want to throw it into the lime pit now
and let it. . . . No, in reality, it’s a monster that
brings so many people so much fun and enjoyment,
even though, as you say, and is also true,
that each group plays much differently than the
other. We want to still keep D&D going as long as
anybody is interested in it, because it is fun, and
although you get wild variants, if you’re enjoying
the game. . . .after all, that’s what it’s there for.
AD&D is designed specifically to answer this lack in
D&D in that the players will not be so able to bend
the rules nor will the DM be able to bend the rules.
There are strong admonitions against tinkering
with the integral systems, and what we are trying to
do is establish a game that will be recognized from
coast to coast, from the Arctic Circle to the Mexican
border, or beyond if they read English and play
AD&D. This will give fellowship to all the AD&D
players, and also enable us to do something that
I’ve wanted to do for a long time, that it to establish
an international tournament for AD&D, which will
allow players from all over the country and maybe
even the U.K. and Australia and everyplace else it’s
played to get together and compete in a recognizable
game where they’re on relatively equal footing
for—someday—substantial prizes, perhaps.

Q. On to the DMG specifically; the much-awaited,
long-hoped-for, etc., etc., hoopla-build-up, trumpets,
fanfare, DMG, The piece-de-resistance in
AD&D. Regarding the book itself: what did you
find was the biggest problem, the most detailed
revision, the hardest obstacle to overcome, the
easiest part of it, the most difficult? What were the
highlights, and lowlights, in the writing of it that you
remember and look back upon?

A. The hardest part of the whole thing was sitting
down to write it. I had already been working on the
MM and the PH for
about 2 years, and I was getting a little big
“frayed around the edges,” let’s say. Yet the need
was there. When the fans are crying out and saying,
“Help us! Help us! Things aren’t going well!”, it did
give me considerable motivation. The easy parts
were writing up character classes, the spells, etc. All
of the tables and so forth went very easily, except
the things I really put off to the very last; the details
of massive combat, in the air, on land, or in the sea,
and encounters, and so on, because many of these
things don’t lend themselves to chance. In other
words, much like monster or treasure placement,
they just really shouldn’t be rolled up on a chart. I
was loathe to prepare the charts to do all these
things, but finally I did, and so, OK, if you don’t
take the time or the care, or don’t have concern for
map, whether it’s a dungeon map or an outdoor
map, and place these monsters for yourself, in
some sort of a sensible order, and just want some
sort of an off thing . . . OK “Disneyland” campaigns
can be fun — you never know what spook is going
to pop out from around a comer — here are the
tables to do it. It’s kind of like Disneyland, you
know, and the old fun houses. 



I can relate to Riverview
because that’s what was in Chicago when I
was a kid, and you stepped on a little board and
something went “bleeh” and would pop up and
you never knew what it was going to be. And it was
fun. It doesn’t make a lot of sense. It’s difficult for
me to get too up-tight about making a lot of sense,
because I don’t really see much sense in firebreathing
dragons and giants 20 feet tall, and
things like that, but the game sense within the
whole thing: we can talk about that. And we want
to look at some sort of a reasonable ecology and a
reason for something being there. So I approached
that all with great trepidation, and after much work,
I hope I got something that would fit within the
confines of the book with respect to its size and its
page content, that would answer the need. One of
the things that I was continually aware of was the
limitation. I just couldn’t write everything I wanted.
I couldn’t go on for more than 200 or so pages.
Perhaps, given another year and no limits, we
could have had a monster of a book; a DMG 400
pages long, instead of 224 or 232 or whatever it’s
going to be. Perhaps given 5 years or 10 years,
we could have had something that would rival
Shakespeare’s works or Tolkien or the like, because
if you work at something long enough, you
can do that. But the demand is immediate, and the
limits were there, and so we had to work within
that. I did have very able assistance from all numbers
of people who were kind enough to pass along
ideas and comments on what I’d written. Len
Lakofka was outstanding, we got much work from
Tom Holsinger — I just think of those two immediately,
but there are so many who did crate continual
inspiration within me, and contributed materially
to what the form of the thing was going to be.

Q. One last question. This may be a political hot
potato. And judging from the rest of our article, you
certainly seem to have aroused some strong feelings.
The issue I allude to is bearded female
dwarves. Would you care to elucidate on that?

A. It’s fairly common knowledge. I don’t believe I
know anyone who ever met a female dwarf who
didn’t have a beard, so I don’t know what more
there is to be said about the matter. I’m not quite
sure what the hoopla is — perhaps somebody who
is uninformed or who has never dealt with dwarves
en masse would assume that because homo sapiens
females generally don’t tend to have beards,
dwarven females are likewise. But they all, of
course, have beards. They’re not so bald as the
males, though . . . .

Q. They do go bald and have beards?

A. Well, usually when they go bald, it’s only in a
small spot on the crown of the head, unlike the
males, who’s entire upper cranium is going to be
smooth and egg-like.

Q. I guess, then, that we should all be glad that we
weren’t born dwarves.

A. I believe I must have a small dwarvish strain,
because I’m slowly getting a shining chromedome.

Q. Perhaps that would explain mine, also. Thank
you very much.