Scribblings - Why Muds?

I hardly ever used written modules by other people, indeed I was the sort of DM who liked to think the adventure up while walking to the house we were to play in. I loved nothing better than running a game with about 3 lines of text written on the back of a stamp.

My style was loose but epic, I have a great memory recall for odd details and I like spinning stories. (BTW I am always the DM, sadly I never really got to grips with the art of being a player.)

I was playing in the dark days of the early eighties, when TSR was trying to find a new course. Things like the slaver series and Against the giants were being dumped in favour of Dragonlance and 'story' adventures.

My family also moved around the country a lot so I got used to uprooting and making new friends in strange towns :)

After a lot of DM'ing I decided that I was more that capable or writing modules (and fame, money and glory would soon shower down on me). So I wrote the starter module for Euro Gen Con, a nice 35 page starter dungeon, full of nice maps and cool encounters. It was the second module I had produced (the first being in a fanzine and called a light in the dark)  <Light in the dark> I wanted to go to a Gen Con (like the big USA one) Euro Gen con though smaller was obviously the start of my goal to be the next Gygax (ahh how foolish I was back then).

Sadly I was not present when the module arrived for editing and the first I saw of my work was at Euro Gen Con its self, there I sat down to run my work and found that it had been hacked, altered, re written and generally altered beyond anything I could remember. I was upset, after all here I was ready to pour my talents into a work of art and these heathens were changing it.. My mind flew back to articles I had read about script writers in the movies who often complained how their work was altered.

I looked at the new version of my work, the encounter with the groovy ghouls had been removed (I had this idea about ghouls that would speak to the party rather than attack them, one of the Ghouls had decided to try being a vegetarian and so on.) Instead I found the room contained 2 orcs (standard stats no treasure) If this was improving my work then I wanted no more from it.

I resigned from the RPGA (I had joined only so I could write the module) and refused to release the two additional modules that I had been working on (ohh the power, I was having a tantrum and by god anyone near me would hear about it ).

I found the module recently, grabbed a cup of coffee and had a re-read. Some of its a little clunky but overall it hangs together quite well, its a starter dungeon and it shows. Thankfully the dungeon would re surface again when I wrote Terris, most of the rooms found there way into dungeon locations in Dirimloth and Bellegost and all without re editing, I guess I got my way in the end :)

I always wanted to go to Gen Con in the USA, I managed it, but it wasn't for my module writing of RPGA products, it was because of my little MUD :)