Over the last few months or so I've been trying to update the contents of the Yog Wiki so that all the scenarios published in professional gaming magazines have some form of coverage.
To date the earliest scenario to appear in a non-Chaosium gaming magazine by a non-Chaosium author is M.B. Wilners 1982 Lovecraft County scenario "The Horror on Old Hill" which appeared in the 1st issue of the 2nd volume of Adventure Gaming magazine. The Yog wiki entry is below:
Yog-Wiki:The Horror on Old Hill
Now my hunt for old magazines has revealed a growing issue, aside from those magazines that have been re-released in PDF (GDWs 'Challenge' and White Wolfs 'White Wolf Magazine' being the only ones I know of.) Much of the material is getting increasingly hard, possibly even impossible to find, the same applies for GMs notes, Wilner in his scenario wrote that he had used it as the start point of a global campaign against Nyarlathotep, one that predates Masks, but unless he, or his players (Who are listed in the Yog Wiki article) can be identified and unless any of the notes survived (a slim possibility after 33 years.), just what he did will remain a mystery.
Just how many Keepers have kept their old notes or even their old gaming magazines is thus an issue, it is a real pity that there is no central repository (and I don't mean the Yog-Wiki) for Keepers to preserve their notes for future generations. More to the point it is quite frustrating that there is no legal way to preserve magazine published scenarios.
What are anyones thoughts?
A Blast from the past, an issue for Keepers
"If you do good, you'll live forever, if you do bad, you'll die hearing a single note for I am the one true sound...", Fragment found in a cult hideout.
RPGGeek has been cataloguing gaming magazines for the last few years. If you haven't, use that as a resource.
Also, major metropolitan libraries may have some of the old, published, magazines on microfiche. (Library Use rolls!)
Although, in re-reading your message, I think you are asking more for how to track down the original authors?
Also, major metropolitan libraries may have some of the old, published, magazines on microfiche. (Library Use rolls!)
Although, in re-reading your message, I think you are asking more for how to track down the original authors?
Both really.
Though tracking down Wilner (If they are still alive.) would be of great interest, the opening pages of the scenario were clearly written by someone who was trying to spread his ideas on how to handle CoC to a wider audience, one thing that immediately caught my notice was that Wilner was trying to get away from the idea of 'Tomes as treasure' that many early scenarios had, in that it's suggested that for each tome in a scenario the Keeper decide beforehand just what clues the Investigators should get from it.
And as I suspect Wilners campaign may predate the publication of 'Shadows of Yog Sothoth' (The magazine it was published in only reviews the original CoC boxed set.), seeing just how it compares with that campaign and 'Masks' would be of great interest as well.
Though tracking down Wilner (If they are still alive.) would be of great interest, the opening pages of the scenario were clearly written by someone who was trying to spread his ideas on how to handle CoC to a wider audience, one thing that immediately caught my notice was that Wilner was trying to get away from the idea of 'Tomes as treasure' that many early scenarios had, in that it's suggested that for each tome in a scenario the Keeper decide beforehand just what clues the Investigators should get from it.
And as I suspect Wilners campaign may predate the publication of 'Shadows of Yog Sothoth' (The magazine it was published in only reviews the original CoC boxed set.), seeing just how it compares with that campaign and 'Masks' would be of great interest as well.
"If you do good, you'll live forever, if you do bad, you'll die hearing a single note for I am the one true sound...", Fragment found in a cult hideout.
So are you going to write the CoC version of Of Dice and Men? 
I would love to see a detailed history of CoC from this perspective. I've been reading Playing at the World which offers a detailed history of the development of D&D but haven't gotten up to the CoC era yet. Likewise have read the first part of Designers & Dragons but haven't read the chapter on Chaosium. I suspect more detail is out there...
I would love to see a detailed history of CoC from this perspective. I've been reading Playing at the World which offers a detailed history of the development of D&D but haven't gotten up to the CoC era yet. Likewise have read the first part of Designers & Dragons but haven't read the chapter on Chaosium. I suspect more detail is out there...