Don Greenwood Written Interview

Q: How did you first get into gaming?

My earliest recollections of “gaming” wouldn’t remind anyone of what that subject entails today. I doubt anyone would consider “gaming” a thing back in the 60’s, but  I owe my initial interest to the old Milton Bradley American Heritage battle series … games such as Dogfight and Broadside. From there it was just a matter of time and fate until a schoolmate acquired a copy of Tactics II which he couldn’t understand and asked me to play. That led to discovering the Avalon Hill catalog and my fervent request for Santa to bring a game called Stalingrad.  It was love at first sight and I was hooked. For me, the Avalon Hill Game Co was “gaming”. They had a magazine about the games and a way to contact other players whom you could even play by mail. It wasn’t long before mama’s 12-year old was investing in 4-cent postage stamps and waiting by the mailbox each day to see how his latest campaign had fared. That was the start of “gaming” for me and it was a passion that lasted throughout my entire life - turning into a career which enabled me to never truly grow up.

 

Q: What was your favorite game before you designed your first?

That’s a loaded question with many correct answers depending on when you asked it. It’s sort of like asking what my favorite film is. Depends on my mood at the time. You’d really have to categorize it into genres: animated, historical, drama, action/adventure, sports, etc. At various times in the evolution of my games career I fell in and out of love with numerous games that years later I would scoff at as being abysmal … important only as stepping stones to something better. Even the issue of “design” is largely a matter of interpretation. My accomplishments such as they were in the game field were more a matter of “development” than “design”. As such, I took others’ ideas and improved upon them, tested them, broke them really, and then gave them final form. Many of the more noteworthy games I published with Avalon Hill credited the design to others, but were nearly unrecognizable as the original submissions. Certainly, from my perspective, most with some notable exceptions did not “work” as originally submitted. 

 

If you asked me where I stood on the ladder of great game designers I would reply near the bottom. However, I have enough hubris that I like to think of myself as one of the more successful game developers of my day. So, to answer your original question you have to realize what turned me on about gaming. First, of all, I unapologically admit to being an Avalon Hill snob. For me, Avalon Hill was gaming. While I didn’t ignore other publishers games, neither was I a fan. I enjoyed games of skill with a dash of fate and story/history for flavor. I fell in and out of love with chess at a young age as being too boring. But I admired skill. I soon realized my athletic shortcomings would never enable me to play shortstop for the Yankees, but there were many worlds to conquer vicariously through games. As such I loved games that rewarded repeated play - that no matter how many times I played them I could always learn something new to use to my advantage in my next contest. Unlike most who quickly tire of a game and move on to another, my enjoyment of a game grew with each additional experience. As such, I never considered a game a favorite until I’d logged at least a hundred plays. So, the short answer to your question would be Up Front on the high end and Football Strategy on the other end of the complexity scale. As the person responsible for ASL I like to think I know a little something about complex games. 

Q: Did Panzerfaust lead to your hire at Avalon Hill in 1972?

Yes. My publication of an amateur gaming magazine primarily about Avalon Hill wargames was what got me noticed by the powers that be, although in truth I owe the job largely to a recommendation by James Dunnigan - who, in turn, knew about me largely through the magazine. 

 

Q: What were your thoughts on the gaming conventions posted within The General?

Neither here nor there. In the early days we posted such notices largely as a service to our readers to increase their chances of finding like-minded players locally. It was a small thing working towards growing the gaming “pie" by having more people who looked at games as a hobby unto themselves. It was a natural next step building on the outreach of the play-by-mail ads. 

Q: How did the idea for Origins come about?

My first experience with “the hobby” after my initial introduction to the greater gaming community via play-by-mail was gaming conventions. As a college senior with a low draft number soon to face the harsh reality of life as an adult male in the era of the Vietnam War I decided to take my last summer off and travel the gaming convention circuit - such as it was in 1971 - to see some of the world before the world got a closer look at me. It was quite a tour for a sheltered Pennsylvania homeboy. It started with a trip to the Big Apple to attend a small college gaming convention at St John’s University with a side trip to SPI where I got the honor of meeting and playing Jim Dunnigan one of his Napoleonic games. Having never played it before, I lost. I don’t know who was more surprised, Dunnigan or any of his crew that Jim was actually playing a game. I guess the idea was to recruit me to covering SPI games in the magazine. Anyway, it was an eye opening experience. He even gave me a free ad in S&T for the magazine. JD was all for growing the hobby and he gave me my big break. 

 

Next came trips to Fall River, MA for a convention aboard the battleship Massachusetts and Lake Geneva, WI for one of the earliest Gen Cons. At the former I met George Phillies - who was THE biggest gunslinger in town when It came to reputation as a great player and practitioner of everything there was to know about the Stalingrad game. Back then, there were relatively few sophisticated (complicated to the great unwashed) games in circulation so most gamers had at least a passing understanding of the game and George’s inventory of strategy, tactics and tricks of the trade dwarfed everyone. It didn’t hurt that George was also an exceedingly gracious person who graciously assisted me with my Panzerfaust publishing. That was when my ideals of the “hobby” were cemented - that you could rise to the status of someone who mastered a game and gained recognition as such. It was an attraction that never left me. I am not without a certain amount of recognition as a “designer”,  but although I don’t consider myself a great player I am far more proud of the collection of plaques on my walls which proclaim my victory in various game tournaments. 

 

Meeting Gary Gygax at Gen Con and getting my first glimpse of the “hobby” beyond Avalon Hill - particularly miniatures gaming - was also noteworthy. 

 

So I was already a convert to game conventions when I started my career with Avalon Hill. Once there, we started a gaming club of our own called Interest Group Baltimore for Saturday meetings - largely for playtesting purposes of new products. Some of the players were interested in hosting a gaming convention and, to be fair, I soon co-opted the idea from them since I could use my pull, such as it was, with Avalon Hill to promote it. As such, it was largely about Avalon Hill games and that made selling the idea to management possible, if not easy. My biggest contribution was the name - ORIGINS - since I theorized that Baltimore - the home of Avalon Hill - was the origin of the hobby. 

Q: When did talks about hosting Origins jointly with SPI come about and how did you convince them to do it with Avalon Hill?

As I recall, I’d say SPI had as much to do with it as I did. 

 

SPI and Avalon Hill were symbiotic competitors. AH had gone under before I arrived and was reorganized under its creditors with Monarch Printing ultimately emerging as the sole winner. As such, virtually all of its creative team were dismissed. The newly reconstituted AH needed new product and for that they turned to Jim Dunnigan and his new SPI enterprise which churned out new product at an amazing rate. Monarch enjoyed the advantages of more retail/wholesale connections and the ability to manufacture sturdier components while S&T drove their product line through their highly successful magazine and direct mail marketing which was fed by the high output of its creative staff under Dunnigan. AH got their pick of the SPI output to manufacture with better components under their own label. It was an agreement which served both well at first. AH got new products without paying R&D costs up front while SPI got much of its initial funding from AH royalties. However, it was not an arrangement destined for longevity.

 

At the time and unbeknownst to me, my hire was the start of plans to end this arrangement. I went to Baltimore to edit a magazine. It wasn’t long before my duties evolved into everything from janitor, warehouseman, and artist to head of R&D. SPI under Dunnigan was always very gung ho about promoting the hobby and pushing the envelope. I have no doubt that JD felt he would eventually overtake AH so co-operation at this stage of the hobby made sense to him. At any rate when I proposed the first Origins they were happy to co-promote it and attend with the understanding that they would get the chance to do the next one. 

Q: What was the first Origins in 1975 like for you?

 

With apologies to Dickens, it was the best of times and the worst of times. I was admittedly in way over my head. About that time I was doing literally three separate fulltime jobs with AH and added to that all of the tasks involved in running a game convention as a first time endeavor. Last minute alterations to our contract with Johns Hopkins added to the problems. It was the first of many lessons I had dealing with universities that ultimately made me a big fan of dealing with hotels instead who seemed to honor contracts better. I literally lived in my office that year. Long story short, I was solely responsible for what was in all probability the worst registration fiasco in the history of conventions, gaming or otherwise. 

 

Despite lines that seemingly stretched to infinity, the gamers were marvelously patient and professed to love the experience once past the logjams. The tournaments were all incredibly well attended and enthusiastic - although or perhaps because - there were relatively few of them. The number escapes me now but I believe the total number of events was only about 20, give or take. Sales were nonetheless brisk for all the vendors and I left the convention having made some of the best friends of my life.

 

I was nonetheless embarassed about how badly I had bungled the whole affair and grateful not to have been strung up at the nearest lamppost. When I asked Howie Barasch at SPI if I could renege on our agreement and postpone passing the second ORIGINS to SPI for another year and a second chance to make good and put lessons learned to use, I was both surprised and grateful when they agreed. 

Q: Were there any difficulties with the convention in 1977 when it was moved to SPI’s backyard in New York for the year?

 

Not as far as I was concerned. I found it far more enjoyable than actually running it myself. 

Q: Did you or anyone at Avalon Hill in those first few years have concerns about TSR or fantasy gaming being represented at Origins?

 

Not at all. My only negative experience in that regard was the threatening letter we got from TSR’s lawyers in later years about running events with their products. That was a bit unsettling. But I guess cooler heads prevailed, because nothing more came of it. 

Q: Why was it decided to hand Origins over to GAMA for 1978?

In my opinion, neither SPI nor AH wanted the responsibility of running it. It was a lot of work and a distraction from the creation of new products. 

Q: Tell me about your participation with Atlanticon and running Origins in the 1980s?

There is not a lot to tell. I and some of my friends were willing to take it on as a second job since we had learned a lot about doing it in the past and thought we would have less trouble avoiding past pitfalls based on our experience. We had the tools we needed to do it and had acquired the credibility and skills to get it done. 

Q: What other conventions have you been involved with or founded over the years?  Why have you continued to work with conventions?

You are referring to Avaloncon and its sequel WBC (World Boardgaming Championships). As Avalon Hill fell on hard times, its role in the hobby became greatly reduced. For me, the attraction of Avalon Hill games has always been one of competition. Tournaments for the actual playing of the games at high skill levels where the games’ nuances were truly appreciated had become largely a thing of the past. Fnding a tournament that was well attended, efficiently run and supported by recognition of the winners was becoming increasingly scarce even as the number of game conventions increased. 

 

I resolved to offer a convention where the number and type of events were limited, where rules for tournaments were published and enforced, and the achievements of those who played those events were recorded for posterity. In effect, the convention was about the competitive play of games - and the sale of products was secondary. It is not a concept with mass market acceptance, but for those who appreciate the difference it is unique. I was happy to play a role in maintaining that old style of gaming and pleased to continue its existence to the present day. With the demise of Avalon Hill, I also needed to embark on a second career at the ripe old age when most are contemplating retirement. I was fortunate to find something that I both enjoyed and had the experience to manage. The fact that it has been greatly appreciated by so many friends of similar taste was just the cherry on top. 

Q: For the years you attended Origins, how has the convention changed for you?

Origins in its present form is largely about the presentation and sale of new games which has the actual play of those games as an adjunct. There is nothing wrong with that and it is indeed the more acceptable mass maketable concept. I do not object to it. It is just not the kind of convention experience that appeals to me. But then, I am not its typical customer. 

Q: What is your favorite Origins memory?

For what its worth ORIGINS reached the height of enjoyment from my perspective the year it was held in Ann Arbor, Michigan and hosted by Metro Detroit Gamers after both SPI and AH gave its care and feeding over to GAMA. That group did a splendid job and has my vote as the best game convention ever - before or since. 

But all such opinions are subjective. Mine was no doubt influenced by Avalon Hill being at the height of its popularity then. We sold out of my latest release (Cross of Iron) which was highly sought after and resold at the convention by those not willing to wait. I played in several well attended tournaments and did well. So well, that I did not find the time to eat for three days. It was truly the zenith of my career and the best of times.