I’m Sorry I Didn’t Heed Your Advice and Rest in Peace (Jenell Jaquays)

You are probably aware that one of the great, RPG luminaries, Jenell Jaquays, has sadly passed away.

As I wrote in my last post, I didn’t get to experience some of the classic, old school materials until later in my RPG journey.  Therefore, I was not familiar with a large portion of Jaquays’ most well-known RPG work back then…except, I actually was.

This is the Campaign Sourcebook and Catacomb Guide for AD&D 2nd Edition.  It just so happens that I was rereading this work a few months ago.  I’ve owned this product since my youth, and was pleasantly surprised to find that Jaquays was one of the authors (along with William W. Connors.)  The book is half about GMing advice and half about dungeons and more.  The DMGR series of books (of which this was the first) was largely made up of material that probably should have been in the Dungeon Master’s Guide, but that is a topic for a future post perhaps.

For a while now, I mistakenly blamed this product for the bad GMing habits that I had developed over the years.  Rereading the product however, shows me that I should have paid better attention to it!  It is full of great advice on hosting a games and logistics, dealing with different types of players, running different types of campaigns, and avoiding GM pitfalls such as not being impartial, actively blocking player agency, and railroading.  The other portion covers everything from top-down world creation, to adventures and dungeons.  Certainly, the book does stray a little into what I believe to be “new school” thinking, but not in any way that goes egregiously against sound GMing.  Therefore, the book has returned to a place of honor on my shelf, where it should have been all along.  Even if the market is saturated with GM advice books, this stills stands as a good product to check out, regardless of which ruleset or edition is your favorite.

I’m not sure which author is responsible for which parts of the book, but it seems I may owe Jaquays an apology, so I’m sorry I didn’t heed your advice, Jenell, and rest in peace.

P.S. If you get a chance to go to conventions to meet your favorite authors and artists, do it!  We don't know when our number is up, and that gets truer the older one gets.  I was fortunate enough to have gone to Gen Con two years in a row and got to meet both Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax shortly before their respective passings.  Don't wait!