Famed D&D story writer Harold Johnson on what it takes to be a tabletop RPG developer
ROCKFORD, Ill. (WTVO) — Harold Johnson is a former writer for TSR, the company that created Dungeons & Dragons, and has worked on many other storylines that have been implemented into tabletop RPGs and fantasy games around the world.
The Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game was created in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, in 1974 and is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.
Johnson is appearing at the Rock-Con Gaming Convention at the Tebala Event Center, at 7910 Newburg Road, this weekend.
The former Northwestern Biology graduate has been involved with the creation of the original Dungeon Masters Guide, to which he also contributed some rules; Dragonlance; Secrets of the Slavers Stockade; and The Golden Goddess for the Indiana Jones role-playing game, among many more tabletop RPGs.
Johnson traveled to Rock-Con at the Tebala Shrine Event Center for a full weekend of tabletop gaming. The former game developer explained that creating a tabletop RPG's story can be as simple as thinking of a quip.
"Sometimes it's just a story," explained Johnson. "So sometimes I just do it with a pun or a title."
The former D&D campaign writer feels it's important to listen to players and give the fans what they want.
"You have to check your ego at the door. You're trying to make a game that everybody will like, so it can't be just your creation," said Johnson. "Gaming is whatever the public wants it to be, whatever the fandom wants it to be."
The Illinois-born writer's interest in tabletop games started when he was just a high schooler. Being a part of a Star Trek fan club and being asked to step in as referee for a game of D&D is what initiated him into the realm of fantasy games.
"[The first game] I played is a game called Alien Space," said Johnson. "In 1975, I was introduced to Dungeons and Dragons. I was going to school at Northwestern. And I went home for the summer to Nebraska. That's where my dad was and [I] discovered this game. And, we played. And the third day I had to referee because our referee had left early."
Other popular tabletops such as Warhammer 40K and Magic the Gathering have since taken the world by storm. Johnson said "yes and no" when asked if he thought tabletop games would be as popular as if they were created today.
"I think that tabletop [gaming] has always been very popular since the 50s. Maybe a little later than that. Originally, we did a lot of war games, but we were not public," said Johnson. "Not a lot of people knew we were doing this. It was a thing you did in high school. It was something that you did in college."
"When people finally discovered Dungeons and Dragons in 1980, they were surprised that we were everywhere. We weren't just in town," said the fantasy writer. "We weren't just at the universities in North America, but we were worldwide because a lot of soldiers, and Navy and Air Force, would take the game with them and, to wherever they were posted: Korea, Japan, Australia, and Germany."
Johnson had his fair share of long nights writing, but nothing could beat when he wrote C1: The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan.
"I wrote C1: The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan in 48 hours, No sleep, on a typewriter. Yeah, not on not on a computer, a typewriter. If I screwed up a page, I had to retype the page," said Johnson. "We were trying to get it done by Wednesday morning when they were leaving to drive to Philadelphia for a convention, they wanted to take it, have it printed and sell it there."
Rock-Con's special guest can be found gaming with fellow convention-goers during the weekend. He will be taking part in games that he was a part of writing, such as The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan and Secret of the Slavers Stockade.
Rock-Con started Friday and will continue through Sunday. On Saturday, the Tebala Shrine Event Center will have its doors open to gamers from 8 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. and Sunday from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.
