RPG Archeology: Help me finding out more about "Old Adage" adventures packet

Uta-napishti

Adventurer
Recently I was going through my pile of old RPG papers and I found an interesting amateur RPG product. Back in the early 90s in Gainesville Florida I somehow acquired a black and white stapled volume of adventures. The originals were printed from a dot matrix printer, then photocopies were made and stapled into a flat volume. After digging in and remembering the charm of some of the adventures, I wanted to know more about this (early 90s?) group that must have been distributing their RPG material somewhat informally. I admit a certain admiration for folks putting their work out there via Xerox machines before the popularization of the Internet.

Here is what I know:

The hand illustrated cover has a fortress design at the top, that says "Old Adage presents Volume V: Adventures". Below are some ruins marked with runes, and the text "Old Adage presents twenty fantasy ready-to-play mini-adventures to challenge players and classes of all levels. Each can stand on it's own or be used as a side adventure to keep the party interested." There is no address information or any other "About Us" in the packet. I also don't know what volumes 1-4 were or if they were distributed together with volume 5, or as a serial / zine. In any case google is unhelpful in this regard and I wonder if anyone knows anything about who created this group of simple old school adventures that found their way into the hands of a teenage DM back in the day.

The contained adventures are:
Generic Tomb
The Volcano
Floating Casket
Sunken Ship
Zigorig the Wizard
The Old Family Crypt
Pyramid
King Thrykene
Shore Leave ( an interesting NPC and event based adventure taking place completely in a tavern)
Barn Lair
Copper Dragon Lair
Crazy Calamity on the Bounding Mane
Vacation ( 4 micro adventures inside a frame story )
Fire Giant Tomb
Ogre Lair
Sea Monster
Burial Mound
The Cave of Chance
Gnome King Tomb
Werewolves
(Almost all contain self produced simple maps)

Last clue... On a lark I decoded the Futhark(ish) runes on the map on the cover. Stringing them together reveals "Old Adage"---------"Bob Garber" ------- "Tom Sussan" Which may the be answer to the mystery, but only starts up another series of unfruitful web searches for me.

Anyone know more? Anyone know what the other Volumes were about?
 
Last edited:

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gamemancave

First Post
Recently I was going through my pile of old RPG papers and I found an interesting amateur RPG product. Back in the early 90s in Gainesville Florida I somehow acquired a black and white stapled volume of adventures. The originals were printed from a dot matrix printer, then photocopies were made and stapled into a flat volume. After digging in and remembering the charm of some of the adventures, I wanted to know more about this (early 90s?) group that must have been distributing their RPG material somewhat informally. I admit a certain admiration for folks putting their work out there via Xerox machines before the popularization of the Internet.

Here is what I know:

The hand illustrated cover has a fortress design at the top, that says "Old Adage presents Volume V: Adventures". Below are some ruins marked with runes, and the text "Old Adage presents twenty fantasy ready-to-play mini-adventures to challenge players and classes of all levels. Each can stand on it's own or be used as a side adventure to keep the party interested." There is no address information or any other "About Us" in the packet. I also don't know what volumes 1-4 were or if they were distributed together with volume 5, or as a serial / zine. In any case google is unhelpful in this regard and I wonder if anyone knows anything about who created this group of simple old school adventures that found their way into the hands of a teenage DM back in the day.

The contained adventures are:
Generic Tomb
The Volcano
Floating Casket
Sunken Ship
Zigorig the Wizard
The Old Family Crypt
Pyramid
King Thrykene
Shore Leave ( an interesting NPC and event based adventure taking place completely in a tavern)
Barn Lair
Copper Dragon Lair
Crazy Calamity on the Bounding Mane
Vacation ( 4 micro adventures inside a frame story )
Fire Giant Tomb
Ogre Lair
Sea Monster
Burial Mound
The Cave of Chance
Gnome King Tomb
Werewolves
(Almost all contain self produced simple maps)

Last clue... On a lark I decoded the Futhark(ish) runes on the map on the cover. Stringing them together reveals "Old Adage"---------"Bob Garber" ------- "Tom Sussan" Which may the be answer to the mystery, but only starts up another series of unfruitful web searches for me.

Anyone know more? Anyone know what the other Volumes were about?
Did you ever find the set of Old Adage books. I believe I have the five volume set
 




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