TSR has done more for the fantasy art industry than any other company. If you have a particular fantasy work or artist that you admire, chances are that it was the result of a TSR commission. This AD&D Images subpage will highlight some images I particularly enjoy.

Is there an AD&Der out there who doesn't collect new spells? Even more than a fighter's weapon of choice, the mage's spell selection determines who he is and what he is capable of. Unlike magical items, spells are simple to design, in both the real world and in-campaign. The lowliest of 1st level mages has the potential to possess nothing but unique spells, while its difficult enough for even the high-level mages to make a single magical item. You can litter your campaign world with thousands of New Spells, and it fits right in!

I've yet to meet a fellow RPG fan who plays the games exactly by the books. No matter how skillful the authors, it simply isn't possible to please all the folks all the time. What appears to be a masterful rule to me, might appear to be forced, contrived, bald game mechanic to you. To solve the problem, we make what is known to us insiders as House Rules. These are nothing more than changes to the core rules that the gaming group has agreed to as a whole to increase the enjoyment factor of the game. Herein lies various house rules of my own creation, along with articles of personal interest taken from Dragon magazine, snippets of useful info taken from fellow gamers off the 'net, etc... Enjoy!

While I'm an avid fan of the AD&D psionics system, the nature of the system itself makes it prohibitive to add new psionic powers. Unlike the AD&D magic system, with its very specific-aligned spells, psionic powers are open-ended and flexible. Hence, there isn't much room for new powers, as existing powers cover almost all the bases. Still, I've managed to create a few unique Psionic Powers, without stepping on too many precedental toes. Some of these powers might seem familiar to members of the comic-book scene, as my imagination was heavily influenced by comics during my formative years

The creation and documentation of new magical items has never been of much personal interest. Unlike new spells and psionic powers, which I collect by the metric ton, magical items seem appropriately limited in number. Why, you might ask? Well, from an in-campaign viewpoint, new spells are much easier to design than the creation of a magical item. Even the lowliest 1st level mage can crank out new spells, but it takes an archmage to make a magical ring, staff, sword, etc. From a meta-campaign stance, magic items are so easy to design as to be pointless to write down. "Let's see, I'll design a +2 sword that can cast Color Spray and Dancing Lights thrice per day, and grants the user Infravision while held". Look, a magical sword design in five seconds! However, thru my years of DMing, I have managed to create a few unique Magical Items that I found worthy enuf to jot down. Listed here more out of reverence than of worthiness, you night find the below items to be just as uninspired as the above Lightsword.

As with magical items, I've little inclination to create new Monsters either, and for many of the same reasons. First off, from an in-campaign stance, there is little need and no reason for thousands of highly unusual beasties to be running about. Most new monsters are large predators, and a given ecology is only going to be able to support a handfull of such creatures. AD&D already has plenty of monsters to populate a world with, and with only a moderate amount of effort, just about any type of new monser can be created from a modified form of an existing creature. Perhaps most importantly, the payoff-to-effort ratio for monsters is surprisingly low - after putting hours of work into a new monster, it ends up slaughtered in but a few rounds of combat :)

TSR (and parent company WotC) has released their new Internet Policy Guide, providing the long-anticipated relief to AD&Ders like myself who wish to honor their work, but have been forced to do so in constant worry that some misplaced phrase or other would result in a swarm of TSR lawyers converging for the kill. The new Internet Policy is much more friendly, a comforting sign of the benign WotC takeover not being as painful as expected.