(Continued from another thread)
..Back in the days when I read and used Dungeon magazine, I regarded Willie Walsh as the most recognizable contributor name, second only to that of Chris Perkins. I'll never forget Huddle Farm, and my friend and I had great fun with Fraggart's Contraption...
...and much later, when my players and I switched from 2E to 3.0, I was hesitant to do so. There were so many 2E adventures I wanted to run, and I wasn't confident that I could convert AD&D material to 3E to my satisfaction. In point of fact, I could, and I did so many, many times thereafter. But at that point, I wasn't sure if it would be worth the effort, even if I could do so. So for my first conversion I had to choose an adventure that was worth it. One that was special. One that I really, really wanted to run.
I chose Clarshh's Sepulchre.
And boy, did it work! I first started fleshing out the geography of my campaign world with the map from that adventure, and that world gradually grew over the next 3 years. That adventure had...
That adventure...
And the...
Any other Willie Walsh fans out there?
Any other Willie Walsh fans out there?
Big fan here.
I remember when "PC Pearls" came out and I realized that I now shared a credit with one of the big names from the best years of Dungeon (no offense to the 3rd edition and beyond :) ).
With the Great City Urban Bestiary it's now two. Gotta scheme and get at least a few more.
A disproportionately huge whack of the great Dungeon mags have his name in them somewhere. Willie Walsh is a giant.
(Seriously, many rangers have his creature type as their favored enemy.)
Contributor
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(Continued from another thread)
Any other Willie Walsh fans out there?
Quite!
Quite enough that I do believe I'm going to run off and try to get him to write an adventure!!!!
I readily acknowledge that Willie was one of the best Dungeon writers back in the day. I'd put him on a top ten list of adventure writers for 1st ed. AD&D.
Easily.But his adventures were never my favorites.
Personally, I could NEVER rank the adventure writers. There are simply too many factors. This adventure has more memorable NPCs, that adventure has better crunch, the other adventure puts the PCs in situations that are more fun for the players to work out, etc.
And I have found many adventures more memorable and fun only because of luck. A roll of a die or the party's random choice of which passage to take can take an adventure in a surprising direction. Sometimes, a player or the DM can get a sudden inspiration that energizes the adventure. That such a thing happened in adventure A but not in adventure B - and consequently made playing A more fun than playing B - doesn't mean that A is better than B. Had the random factors aligned differently, B might have turned out more fun than A.
But I will say this: Of the many writers whose work appeared in Dungeon magazine, I remembered the names of very few. And Willie Walsh was one of those few.
I absolutely agree. He combined solid adventure writing with a whimsical humour that set him apart.
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Nice post Aaron, well done.
I like "ranking" things, not that it means much. I think it's fun to talk about "the best" adventures ever and such. I like talking about "the best" adventure writers, too.
And you're right, Willie Walsh is far and away the most easily recognizable name from the first 50 or so issues of the mag -- like Perkins is from about #40 to around #100.
Everyone knows Willie Walsh.
The picture of the cow being painted was what got me to buy my first Dungeon magazine back in the day - I never regretted that decisions.
Director of Game Development
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Any other Willie Walsh fans out there?
Big fan here.
I remember when "PC Pearls" came out and I realized that I now shared a credit with one of the big names from the best years of Dungeon (no offense to the 3rd edition and beyond :) ).
With the Great City Urban Bestiary it's now two. Gotta scheme and get at least a few more.
My thoughts exactly, Hal. Except I got three shared credits with him. You shoulda thrown in for the Player's Guide. ;)
Willie Walsh is a star...even if he reminds me that I'm getting older.
Ah, the master returns to the boards...
Another fan come to praise the master of madness.
My personal favorite: Old man Catan (and his incredible edible mushroom men)
Thanks for the great adventures mr Walsh!
My personal favorite: Old man Catan (and his incredible edible mushroom men)
Ah, much as I liked that adventure myself, Old Man Katan and the Incredible, Edible, Dancing Mushroom Band was by Ted James Thomas Zuvich, not Wille Walsh. For a list of Walsh's published works, compiled by the author himself, see here.
My personal favorite: Old man Catan (and his incredible edible mushroom men)Ah, much as I liked that adventure myself, Old Man Katan and the Incredible, Edible, Dancing Mushroom Band was by Ted James Thomas Zuvich, not Wille Walsh. For a list of Walsh's published works, compiled by the author himself, see here.
really? Damned! memory must be slipping. Sorry Willie, my bad, and thanks for the info Aaron