"Welcome to Dave Arneson's Basement! It is 1971 and you've been invited to play this cool new game... Dragons at Dawn is a retro tribute to the very first fantasy gaming system pioneered by Dave Arneson, the man who later went on to co-author the worlds of the most popular roleplaying game. The result of years of careful historical research, Dragons at Dawn is entirely consistent with Arneson's original, largely forgotten methods of play developed in 1970-1973."

This is Dragons at Dawn, a "retro tribute" RPG authored by D.H. Boggs, according to the blurb at the back of the book.

So, I just received a copy of this. It is a softcover of 61 pages selling for $15.75 on Lulu.

First impressions: the font looks large, 12 points maybe, and the bulk of the work uses a bold-looking typeface I'm not familiar with. Some of the art pieces look cool, while others look amateurish. It is sparsely spread throughout the volume.

The first thing I notice is that this game does not carry a copy of the Open Game License, but defines its "Product Identity" as the terms "Dragons at Dawn," "Dragons at Dawn: The First Fantasy Game System," and "Dragons at Twilight" (future supplement?) which also are indicated as Trademarks registered by Daniel Hugh Boggs, the author of the work.

There is a Licensing clause on the first page that basically allows you, if agreed to by Southerwood Publishing, to be an "Approved work" and stick a phrase to the extent of "Officially approved for use with Dragons at Dawn" on your supplement or material. The interesting part is that you basically agree to pay 10% of any net profit per year to Southerwood Publishing in the process.

You can of course publish fan materials that you would distribute for free, but you must include the mention that this is "an Unofficial unlicensed product designed for use with Dragons at Dawn and provided at no charge to any user."

At the very end of the book, there is also a "Coming Soon" paragraph showing "Dragons at Dawn: Supplement I" which will provide new character classes, species, spells etc for use with the game.

Haven't started reading through it yet.

Does it have descending AC?

Benoist, I am very interested in your opinion of the game.

Quote from: Benoist;440284"Welcome to Dave Arneson's Basement! It is 1971 and you've been invited to play this cool new game... Dragons at Dawn is a retro tribute to the very first fantasy gaming system pioneered by Dave Arneson, the man who later went on to co-author the worlds of the most popular roleplaying game. The result of years of careful historical research, Dragons at Dawn is entirely consistent with Arneson's original, largely forgotten methods of play developed in 1970-1973."

This is Dragons at Dawn, a "retro tribute" RPG authored by D.H. Boggs, according to the blurb at the back of the book.

So, I just received a copy of this. It is a softcover of 61 pages selling for $15.75 on Lulu.

First impressions: the font looks large, 12 points maybe, and the bulk of the work uses a bold-looking typeface I'm not familiar with. Some of the art pieces look cool, while others look amateurish. It is sparsely spread throughout the volume.

The first thing I notice is that this game does not carry a copy of the Open Game License, but defines its "Product Identity" as the terms "Dragons at Dawn," "Dragons at Dawn: The First Fantasy Game System," and "Dragons at Twilight" (future supplement?) which also are indicated as Trademarks registered by Daniel Hugh Boggs, the author of the work.

There is a Licensing clause on the first page that basically allows you, if agreed to by Southerwood Publishing, to be an "Approved work" and stick a phrase to the extent of "Officially approved for use with Dragons at Dawn" on your supplement or material. The interesting part is that you basically agree to pay 10% of any net profit per year to Southerwood Publishing in the process.

You can of course publish fan materials that you would distribute for free, but you must include the mention that this is "an Unofficial unlicensed product designed for use with Dragons at Dawn and provided at no charge to any user."

At the very end of the book, there is also a "Coming Soon" paragraph showing "Dragons at Dawn: Supplement I" which will provide new character classes, species, spells etc for use with the game.

Haven't started reading through it yet.

Just stumbled on this thread, (I'm the author).  It is not an ogl work - the reference to product identity was merely a way of expressing that I claim the rights to the title.  The font is 11 point Berlin sans.  I refuse to go smaller -  10 point font gives me a headache!  

For greater discussions of content in the game I'd suggest having a look at this forum http://odd74.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=dragonsatdawn

ggroy - AC

D@D uses Arnesons original AC system, which ran AC 1-8 - ascending.  In other words, AC 1 is unarmored, AC 8 is plate.  Armor primarily functions as a 2d6 saving throw with a sucessful save equaling no damage.

Supplement I, is now available on Lulu.

Thanks for the comments and questions guys. I have the book somewhere in a box right now, as we're going through our move during this month. When I get my shit organized in our new place I'll come back to this thread and answer the questions I had not seen before.

I think it's a great product and a nice look at the history of the game, if you are into that kind of thing. Keep in mind that many of the things that may seem old now were quite innovative at the time, since Arneson didn't have a bunch of other RPGs to model his system after. Defiinitely worth it.

Still waiting for some clear statement that it really is a look at the history of D&D. We've gone over this before. (Also, in more detail.)

I recently picked up the D@D Supplement 1 at Lulu but haven't had a chance to look through it.

I feel like aldarron has done as thorough a job of looking at the proto-history of D&D as is possible, Elliot. Not as much of the context for his findings made it into the text as I would have liked, but maybe that's just because it was more exciting to be reading about the ongoing archaeology and speculations at the OD&D boards than it is to read the conclusions.

An actual play report of D@D from the 2nd NYC Arneson Memorial Gameday is here.

So you really can read the text and tell which things are from Arneson's game, and which are imaginative reconstructions?

For example I seem to recall that Dragons at Dawn's combat uses a roll of 2d6, trying to score under the defender's AC. Does the text claim that this is definitely what Arneson used? Does it portray it as a best guess? What's the evidence, either in the text or online?

Buy the game and find out for yourself, Elliot.

Or search the OD&D boards and find it for yourself - given that I was just saying that part of the fun was watching the work unfold, it's still possible to recreate that search for yourself.

Maybe it's being a static text that unavoidably gives this impression, but I don't think Daniel is saying "this is the game Arneson played" - it's more like "this is a playable and coherent game made from things we can learn about what Arneson did as a referee". A large part of what gave me the appreciation for how different these two statements are is the unraveling and talking to eyewitnesses Daniel (aldarron) & others did in the forums.

E.g., my memory is that the stuff about 2d6 vs AC is inferred from:
- players who saw Dave using just six-sided dice
- the way AC worked in the Civil War ironclads game that Dave said he based his system on
- speculations about how the persistent use of percentiles in the OD&D text, and their later prominence in Dave's other RPGs, might relate to the strange range of ACs (2-8? what sense does that make?) and whether Dave was somehow generating scores of 1-10 on 2d6

I get the sense that Arneson continually evolved the underlying rules, and it seems to me that he felt the referee should keep the rules more or less hidden from players so that they interact with the imagined world rather than the mechanics. So the strongest claim one could make is "there is good evidence to believe this is what Dave did at one time" and I think D@D meets this standard without promising more than it can deliver.

Quote from: Tavis;469529Or search the OD&D boards and find it for yourself - given that I was just saying that part of the fun was watching the work unfold, it's still possible to recreate that search for yourself.

So as a game, it might be good or bad, but the only thing differentiating it is the hype linking it to Arneson, the result of noodling and speculation on an internet forum, packaged as "The First Fantasy Game System".

@elliot: dragons at dawn bills itself as being faithful to arneson but it sometimes contradicts itself on this claim. for example, there is a quote from arneson in dragons at dawn that says they did not have classes back then - but dragons at dawn has classes.

Unlike the cagey replies I get whenever I raise this question, a poster over at nerdnyc did say "the author is really keen on making sure you know which parts of the game are from Arneson and which are conjecture." (Not that there's much of a disclaimer in the promotional texts I've seen.)

Hmm. I have to say this game sniffs of me of being the kind of OSR nostalgia I don't care for.


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