I thought that Tim's comments about editing Blackmoor were very interesting.  I wanted even more details.

I have edited things for people before that involved me essentially writing the work for them.  That sounds very much like what Tim did.

I thought Tim's ire over Dave Arneson's sarcastic editing comments ("donuts") was funny.  It sounds like Arneson had the social skills typical of a number of gamers from back in the day.

A part of the wonderful flavor of the early D&D publications was their delightfully amateur content.  There was a fresh and interesting feeling about those early supplements.  Even the Holmes basic set, edited with few spelling and grammatical errors, still had that feel to it that this was a secret shared between good friends.  The amateur artwork and the stylings of guys like Erol Otus only added to the fun.

I don't think it's just nostalgia on my part.  There was a kind of magic about the early publications that cannot be reproduced by slick standards and professional art.

Part of it was the new language found in the early D&D books.  Even today, it is difficult to get a spell checker to check words like "eldritch," "dweomer," or "sorcerous."  Fun stuff.

I think it must have been very interesting for Tim to come back to the role playing world a year or so ago and realize that he was still a minor celebrity and that people wanted to hear about his memories.

Mark