1. Frank Mentzer was an employee of TSR, Inc from 1980 to 1986, spending part of that time as creative advisor to the chairman of the board, Gary Gygax.
22 Facts About Frank Mentzer
1. 2.
Frank Mentzer founded the Role-Playing Games Association during his time with TSR.
3.
When this venture failed, Frank Mentzer left the gaming industry, eventually becoming the manager of a bakery.
4.
Frank Mentzer was born in the Philadelphia suburb of Springfield, Pennsylvania, the older of two children; his sibling is Susanne Mentzer.
5.
Frank Mentzer played his first paid folk music concert at the opening of the Visitors' Center for the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall in downtown Philadelphia at age sixteen.
6.
Immediately after Frank Mentzer graduated from high school in 1968, his father, who worked for the National Park Service, moved the family to Maryland in order to work at Catoctin Mountain Park.
7.
Frank Mentzer enrolled at West Virginia Wesleyan College, but he was interested in furthering his folk music career.
8.
At one point during the concert Pat Nixon, followed by national news crews, came to listen, and a clip of Frank Mentzer singing "If I Had a Hammer" subsequently appeared on national newscasts that evening.
9.
Frank Mentzer finally relented and after a phone interview with TSR, he was hired for the editorial position, Tom Moldvay was hired as the new designer, and in January 1980, Frank Mentzer moved to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.
10.
At Gen Con 1980, it was announced that Frank Mentzer was the winner, and he was awarded a silver cup and a gold dragon chain of office.
11.
Shortly after Frank Mentzer won the DM Invitational, Carr approached him about taking on that task.
12.
Frank Mentzer felt that the system as it stood rewarded those players that stayed quiet at the table, in effect punishing good role-players.
13.
Frank Mentzer came up with a scoring system where the dungeon master and the players all voted on who had been the best role-player at the table.
14.
Frank Mentzer wrote four RPGA tournament adventures set in his home campaign setting of "Aquaria", which he had been running since 1976; these were published by TSR as the first four of the R-series modules: R1 To the Aid of Falx, R2 The Investigation of Hydell, R3 The Egg of the Phoenix, and R4 Doc's Island.
15.
Frank Mentzer envisioned them as becoming a part of Gary Gygax's World of Greyhawk setting, the first part of a new "Aqua-Oeridian" campaign set somewhere on Oerth outside of the Flanaess.
16.
Frank Mentzer became involved with the auction of hobby gaming materials at Gen Con in 1983, and was involved with what is called the world's largest game auction every year until retiring after Gen Con 50 in 2017.
17.
Frank Mentzer worked closely with Gygax on that module, as well as the accessory The Book of Marvelous Magic.
18.
Gygax quickly formed New Infinities Productions, Inc to create new products for the role-playing game market, and Frank Mentzer joined as Design Executive.
19.
For some years afterwards, Frank Mentzer did a bit of writing, including Kam's Cooking Without Fire with Paul Kamikawa, and "Trust at the Gaming Table", part of the Origins Award-winning Game Master Secrets Vol.
20.
Frank Mentzer became a collector of hobby games, and an expert on their worth at auction.
21.
Frank Mentzer's wife became the baker while Mentzer acted as manager.
22.
Frank Mentzer has retained the intellectual property rights to and is launching a Kickstarter for his Empyrea on October 2,2017.