SQ 312 - David “Zeb” Cook (TSR, D&D, AD&D, Conan Role-Playing Game)

Our guest this week is David “Zeb” Cook as we continue our Gary Con 2024 series of 50 years of Dungeons and Dragons interviews. We talk about his involvement in 49 of the 50 years of D&D’s existence and how satisfying it’s been for him to see his work impacting generations of people.

We discuss his late 1970s start at TSR by editing Queen of the Demonweb Pits (Q1), writing Slave Pits of the Undercity (A1) as the first project that he wrote at TSR, running tournaments at the very earliest Gen Cons and Origins, how Dwellers of the Forbidden City came from his writing sample to get the job at TSR. We talk about his love of Conan, writing the first Conan module Conan Unchained! (CB1) and writing the Conan Role-Playing Game.

TSR in the 1980s: growth from a staff of gamers and hobbyists to running a successful company. Dealing with the Satanic Panic. Being lead designer on the 2nd edition AD&D. Worked on D&D through 1994 with Planescape and some smaller projects before moving on to video games.

Follow Zeb at: Wikipedia - FB - Amazon 

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ANNOUNCEMENTS

• Gamehole Con: October 17th through 20th in Madison, Wisconsin. We’ll have a booth right up front in the Podcasters and Press section. Come say hi to Dragon Warrior and pick up some Dungeon Cats and Mad Dungeon season three Rise of the Vat Spawn swag!
• PAX Unplugged: December 6th through 8th in Philadelphia. Come say hi to Tiger Wizard at the Exalted Funeral booth, and play some games with Dragon Warrior every morning at the Alexandria RPG Library room.
• Dungeon Cats: Tiger Wizard’s rules-lite TTRPG where you play feline adventures is now available at Exalted Funeral. Delve into lush carpeted dungeons to vanquish giant rats, demonic dog spawn and the half full food bowl. You only have 9 lives. Live them adventurously!
• THE MEGA DUNGEON MEN EP: Our new TTRPG fantasy meets hip hop album, The Mega Dungeon Men EP, with features from nerdcore legends Mega Ran and MC Frontalot, is now available on all streaming platforms.

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Thanks for listening to Season Three of the Epic Levels Mad Dungeon podcast, where D&D hip hop group Epic Levels alternate between “Rise of the Vat Spawn,” an actual play using Mystic Punks RPG, and Side Quests where we interview other game creators.

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Mad Dungeon is hosted by Andrew Bellury, Steve Albertson, Robin Bellury and produced by Zach Cowan.

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