BoLS PRIME: How Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Saved D&D
Back in the 80s, when TSR faced financial troubles, Choose-Your-Own-Adventure proved to be an unlikely savior. Let s talk about how CYOA saved D&D.
The rise and fall of TSR is a twisting tale of winding, branching paths, much like a good D&D campaign. And, much like a D&D campaign, it s the most random things that end up having a ton of impact. Today we re looking at how one woman s quest to follow a traveling circus led to Choose-Your-Own-Adventure type stories saving D&D.
The year is 1982 and Rose Estes, one of the women who helped shape D&D into the game we know and love today, was working at TSR among other places. It s the other places that are of particular interest to us, because as the story goes, Estes was writing up a magazine article which had her following around a traveling circus when she came across a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure novel.