The Arduin Adventure

[2] Starting in 1977, David A. Hargrave published several volumes of the Arduin Grimoires, a fantasy RPG setting based on the rules for Dungeons & Dragons.

It was originally scheduled to be released for Christmas of 1980, but a setback was caused when the typesetters refused to do all the lay out the many tables in the game, so it was not until early 1981 that the game was published as a boxed set with cover art by Greg Espinoza containing a 64-page book, three cardstock artifact sheets, three character sheets, and dice; the 64-page book was also sold separately.

Swan didn't recommend the game for beginning players due to "Ambiguous rules, an unnecessarily complicated combat system, and insufficient instructions for staging adventures."

He felt that "The general organization of The Arduin Adventure — with one and two-page chapters each covering a basic concept — was quite innovative and definitely ahead of its time."

By 1980 or 1981, a bare-bones not-quite-retroclone of OD&D wasn't that exciting — except to Arduin players, of course, who had long needed this skeleton to hang their games upon.