Haven’t had a Adventures in Fantasy box set in the shop in years, so I thought this would be a great time to profile the set.
The set is “Signed!” – which is super exciting until you realize that Richard Snider & Dave Arneson signed almost all of the AiF sets I’ve seen.
Adventures in Fantasy [BOX SET]
1979 … Dave Arneson & Richard Snider … Adventures Unlimited / Excalibre Games / Adventure Games
The System
Many years back DUNGEONS & DRAGONS by Gygax and Arneson first appeared on the gaming scene and a veritable revolution then took place. Soon dozens of supplements and imitations were also on the scene, vying for the ever growing attention of gameplayers throughout the world. Yet throughout this I have felt that the basic original spirit of the Role Playing Fantasy game has not been well looked after and that there have been few real improvements to that less than perfect original system. To this was added dozens of additional rules in a chaotic jumble that buried the original structure under a garbage heap of contradictions and confusion. Any person without the aid of an experienced player was hard pressed to even begin to gain an understanding of the rules and even with aid it sometimes still proved to be impossible.
It is the hope of the authors of this work (Adventures in Fantasy) will be as understandable to the novice as it is to the experienced player. In a logical and clean cut manner the players will progress from one stage of play to the next adding rules to an existing system where it was planned that rules be added.
-Forward to the Book of Adventure (Arneson & Snider)
Intriguingly, the Forward also listed “Coming Titles” that never happened:
- DRAGON LORE & LEGEND
- THE RACES OF THE FAERRY
- RITUAL MAGIC
- WORLD OF FANTASY
The boxes show copyright 1979, Adventures Unlimited, and released by Excalibre Games. Some sets have been re-stickered as released by Adventure Games.
Grognardia has a page on Adventures in Fantasy
Reviews from R’lyeh has a thorough examination of the rules and systems
Signed and Unsigned
The Rulebooks
EDIT Jan 10 2021
Got in a set with David L. “Dave” Arneson’s “Adventures Unlimited” business card… Signed on the back by Dave to Scott and Cheryl Bizar. Scott Bizar is the long-time owner of old school game company Fantasy Games Unlimited (FGU).
See Also: Dave Arneson’s Personal Woodgrain D&D set: A Fascinating Story from Brazil
Original D&D: Where It All Started (The 1975 White Box in photos)
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