Tom Moldvay recently passed away. I work for his sisters brother-in-law and he brought me his pc to see if there was anything in it that should be saved. There seems to be a ton of partially developed games on it. He said there were boxes and boxes of manuscripts in his apartment where he was found.I know he was a bit of a recluse and I assume all his best friends were through the internet but no one knows his AOL password. We may try to contact AOL and see if there is anything we can do. If anyone knew Tom or anything about his work please get in touch. Any info would be appreciated.I dont know much about the D&D world myself but is obvious he was a big part of many of the books and games. Its obvious this was this life's work I would hate to see it just formatted over or tossed aside.That's all I know at this time. For those of you new to the blog, I have maintained for years that Mr. Moldvay was one of the great unsung talents of our hobby. Like many gamers around my age, my first RPG was Moldvay's edit of the D&D basic set. Sometime in the 90's he dropped off the map, like so many of the old guard did during the Vampire era. For years I've hoped he would resurface, and there was occasionally talk at Dragonsfoot that someone like Frank Mentzer might be able to get him to be a little more active in public. But looks like that was not meant to be. My condolences to Mr. Moldvay's family in this time of mourning.
If so please contact me at [email addy removed because he's getting clobbered with email, I'm still in contact with him]
A Return to the Stars
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After a veeeeerrrryyyy long, and mostly unplanned, hiatus, Stuart and I got
together to play more Stargrave in recent days. It was good! It was also a
bit ...
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wow. it's sad to hear about the creative people from your formative years, the ones that contributed to the way you think, becoming recluses without much of a current impact. i hope someone makes contact and does something about publishing or making available some of his old work.
ReplyDeleteyeah i know, he's just an old writer for the D&D game. but seriously, tons of people really had the adolescence formed by playing the game and the writers of that era were essential to that. he might not be a Gary Gygax in references to pop culture but he was still important to the gamers from that age.
Too many losses lately :(
ReplyDeleteWe're starting to lose our founders.
ReplyDeleteThe Lost City (B4) was a great module you could build and build and build on.
We should take Customized Classes and The Lost City and start a new campaign...
That sounds like a great idea. I've seriously been thinking of changing my one shot for the next Run Club to Lords of Creation.
ReplyDeleteThere has been somethings written about what to do with Tom's writings. I recommend they be donated to the Kent State University Special Collections. He was a graduate and one of the founders of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Society formed in the mid 70s Our faculty adviser that Tom worked with was Carl Yoke. )He grew up in Cleveland with his best friend from home room Roger Zelazny)Carl made it a point to collect the manuscripts from science fiction writers but especially those from Kent State (e.g, Stephan Donaldson) I can think of a no more fitting place for his works.
ReplyDeleteOne of my all time favorite games is Revolt On Antares. It is a minigame published by TSR Hobbies in 1981. Tom Moldvay is credited on the back of the rule book as it's author. I teach game design today because of D&D, Shogun, Illuminati and Revolt on Antares. 21 dice salute.
ReplyDeleteWow, what a wonderful mind. My cousins and I played AD&D faithfully every weekend all-night. Castle Amber was our favorite of them all. Super-super creative dungeon; there will be no more writes of such reality in gaming. I still can feel how we felt when meeting different members of the Amber family.
ReplyDeleteRIP Mr. Moldvay