La Grande Aventure
2020-11-22

La Grande Aventure

La Grand Aventure du Jeu de Rôle is a book by Julien Pirou about, well, the great adventure of the role playing game.

The spine of the telling is the North American history of role playing games spilling from Avalon Hill Tactics to Critical Role. Weaved around it are the history of the role playing games in France and interviews of authors and actors of the field.

The "1975-1980 Les Pionniers" chapter is quite interesting, among the presented pionners are the Empire of the Petal Throne, Tunnels and Trolls, Traveller, and Bunnies & Burrows and its "Bun Fu" combats.

The interviews feature Sandy Petersen, Mike Pondsmith, Croc, and John Grumph among others. (I love John's Tumblr btw).

Croc is the author of In Nomine Satanis | Magna Veritas which was translated in English under the name In Nomine. It is said that this translation is tame compared to its source. Croc informs us in his interview that someone in the Vatican Swiss Guard was buying all the supplements of "In Nomine Satanis" as they went to market via mail order. (It must be something to play a RPG in places and organizations heavily tied in History). Quick one, Wikipedia tells us that the Polish version was quickly removed from the shops, the Spanish version suffered no such fate.

There is much more in the book, I recommend La Grand Aventure du Jeu de Rôle for the Francophones out there.