These understated affairs come from The Dragon #16, from July 1978. Why yes, I did just buy this on eBay! Thanks for asking!
In the previous ad for a TSR employee, TSR busted out an illustrator. But I suppose things were a lot leaner in 1978. Didn't Carter tell the country to put on a sweater or something that year? In any case, those Americans not wallowing in a malaise and for whom this recent offshoot of war gaming was of interest might have found this ad on page 21 (the zine had but 35 pages then) intriguing.
What were these "fringe benefits" alluded to in the ad? What sort of design and editorial experience were they looking for? And if one had a solid grounding in Monopoly, was that sufficient "general knowledge" of games? I suppose we'll never know the answers to these questions. But I'm sure some now legend of D&D answered the call.
Perhaps having been badly burned before, this ad requests a resume AND a photo. I believe that this practice is totally illegal now, at least when the request comes from outside of the entertainment business.
I swear, this makes me what to initiate a kickstarter project to re-create TSR.
The second ad puts all DMs on high alert as TSR takes on the quest of finding all Dungeon Masters. That's right, if you've ever read through a module and told a group of your friends "your elf has been killed by the kobold Under-Lord," you could appear in The Dragon.
I guess this was a kind of "dating" site to match players and DMs? Seems weird, but times were desperate before (and after) the Internet. You kids don't know how lucky you are.
I have the later issue where the completed list of DMs appears. It's sort of like a blog roll, but with 3 parts crazy and one part sad.
And look, no pictures are requested for the DMs. Coincidence?
