Quote from: Omega;1101547There has been this weird on-off think with Kuntz over the decades with him friends with Gary, some sort of falling out, kinda friends, stabbing him in the back (after Gary is dead)... and you have to wonder what this is all about. I still do not understand it.

We know that another article is coming in the future from this snippet:

QuoteArneson set up his 3-ring binder as a screen between us and him, wrote Kuntz in an unpublished work called A Tale of Two Daves, Two Gygax's and Two Kuntz's, which he shared with Kotaku.

You share something unpublished with a journalist so they can dig into your allegations beforehand and have the "in-depth feature" ready to push-pull with your book when it finally drops, not to corroborate an uncontroversial quote about 3-ring binders.  I'd guess this is going to be the dirt-spilling book designed to highlight elements of the past considered unacceptably toxic, today.  

Kuntz has his own words online that would be toxic to many however.  I wonder if he's ready to be eaten not-last by the same hand he's feeding now.

Also: this forum has a terrible time accepting cut-and-pastes from other websites; the non-english character issue.  There should be quote marks around the binder clause.

To be honest, Kuntz sounds like a bit of a Kuntz.

Quote...wrote Kuntz in an unpublished work called A Tale of Two Daves, Two Gygax's and Two Kuntz's...

I'm more concerned about this blog post he did this year about "Lake Geneva Days".  (Unless he decided to change the name, which is possible)

http://lakegenevaoriginalrpg.blogspot.com/2019/02/lake-geneva-days-still-writing.html

He seems to be trying to compare the true history of the Gygaxes and TSR to allegations surrounding Zak S, or at least hinting at them being of similar enormity.  

Quote from: EOTB;1101583Kuntz has his own words online that would be toxic to many however.  I wonder if he's ready to be eaten not-last by the same hand he's feeding now.

Yeah. People who have done the deal with Gawker spinoffs have often learned at their own cost that these people are utterly happy to wreck careers and drag reputations through the mud to raise a buck, and probably for the power trip. This is their business model. Right now, the same author who wrote this piece is destroying the life of the most successful computer game composer of our time with rape allegations. (Which may be true or not - it is "tweets based on something that supposedly happened 11 years ago" material, not anything involving an ongoing police investigation.)

Sure, they will gladly air the dirty laundry anyone gives them. But they are snakes.

Quote from: JRT;1101587I'm more concerned about this blog post he did this year about "Lake Geneva Days".  (Unless he decided to change the name, which is possible)

http://lakegenevaoriginalrpg.blogspot.com/2019/02/lake-geneva-days-still-writing.html

He seems to be trying to compare the true history of the Gygaxes and TSR to allegations surrounding Zak S, or at least hinting at them being of similar enormity.  

If it happens, just remember that you guys were the ones to give her the air of balanced-and-fair credibility in all things Gygax by jointly using each other for your own ends, so that she could put out a sympathetic article about Gail - which wouldn't bother her at all to do.

Quote from: EOTB;1101596If it happens, just remember that you guys were the ones to give her the air of balanced-and-fair credibility in all things Gygax by jointly using each other for your own ends, so that she could put out a sympathetic article about Gail - which wouldn't bother her at all to do.

As far as "you guys" go, I wasn't interviewed in that article at all, and I only knew about it a few days before it was published.  Only contribution I made to it was the quote from Tenkar, and that I had grabbed two years ago and passed on to Gail.

Maybe I'm wrong about the reporter's motivations, or maybe you are, or maybe it's a lot more nuanced or complex than either of us can see.  Regardless though, even if Kotaku or other outlets give any future stuff from Rob a "signal boost", the latter is still the primary person actually making the accusations.  But we will have to see down the road.

Quote from: JRT;1101597Maybe I'm wrong about the reporter's motivations, or maybe you are, or maybe it's a lot more nuanced or complex than either of us can see.  

 And yet, perhaps Gygax has enjoyed enough time on D&D's altar of hero worship.

Quote from: JeremyR;1101012I hope Rob Kuntz gets his 30 pieces of silver

But it's funny, the article actually debunks itself
So EGG turned 18 pages of notes, mostly Chainmail monster stats, into the 3 books of OD&D.

Mmmmm. Not quite. Dave Arneson told me himself that he had submitted additional notes for D&D that were to be included with the publication of LBB 0D&D and that they didn't make it into the books because Gary had pushed up the publication date, and further that he had not informed Dave in a timely manner that he was required to submit his additional notes on shorter notice. Dave was very unhappy about this, and considered the lack of notification one of the first wedges that came between them as it was his perception that Gary was no longer acting to their mutual benefit as collaborators, but more as rivals. So LBB D&D did not include material that Dave has specifically submitted to be included to be a part of the rules, and this is aside from the 18 pages original put together that you mention.

During my impromtu interview with him back in 2004, this naturally piqued my curiosity, so I asked him what became of those notes (this is because I reaaaally wanted to know what else would have been included in original D&D) that were as he learned later submitted too late to be included with the original publication. He said he didn't know, but that when he worked at TSR, Gary had kept these specific notes in a file cabinet in his office.

I asked him about Blackmoor, and he said that he had did up a second batch of notes that were turned into the Blackmoor and parts of the Greyhawk book, and that he had included a remake of some of the material from his original notes including variable weapons damage and a random hit-by-location damage chart, and that some of his material was not included (...he wanted to use percentile dice more). He also said it was his idea to use Polyhedral dice in the first place, and that the Lake Geneva gang at first had wanted to use d6's exclusively because that is what they had used for Chainmail, it was a part of wargaming, and they didn't want to change. His notes that you mention, where part of the 18 pages were Chainmail monster stats, were actually converted Chainmail monster stats that used the polyhedral dice instead of d6 (Chainmail) stats. I believe one can also find these actual original D&D monster stats that were also included with the Judges Guild Ready Ref Sheets, ...by the way.

I then asked what had become of the original notes that had been stored in Gary's file cabinet, and he said that he didn't know for sure what had happened to them, although told me he thought they were located now in the Lake Geneva landfill, and that this would have occurred shortly after after he had started legal proceedings to claim his royalties from AD&D. He said he guessed Gary's attorney would have advised him to "lose" any material he might have, and that even if Gary had not, he surmised, after Gary was unceremoniously removed from TSR in 1985, that the remaining execs would have surely removed any material that would allow him (a forgotten outsider, by 1985) a claim to the IP.

He said they were on the phone quite often while they were collaborating on developing the rules for D&D as well, so a lot of what Gary wrote, came after shared conversations with Dave.

Eh, that article has been setting the gamer-sphere on fire. People are upset about the tone, and most people are too simple to read past the tone and look at the content.

Perhaps Rob Kuntz has a magic crystal ball, because he predicts the collective gamer butt-hurt in the article's cited comments. hee hee hee Pretty funny really.

Rob didn't write that article, Cecilia did. She is basing her views on what her sources tell her. Welcome to journalism, this is what journalists do.

I was interviewed months ago for a different article. Since my research for Secrets of Blackmoor focuses on what happens up to 1974 and I really don't give a snot what happens afterward, my comments were recycled into this new article; once D&D is published the cake is baked.

I have even been accused of marketing our movie using spurious tactics because of this article. Well, I have nothing to do with that article except for my comments which if taken within context are truthful and based on 6 years of research. The article isn't an ad for my film. I paid no one and I had no control over the content. So the cheap smear job being done by EOTB on my film is just that. He hasn't even seen it, so he can't talk about it. Typical Internet Gamer in Grandma's Basement, trolling people who actually do things in real life. Contact me EOTB, I can send you a free screener and then you can spam it all you want.

But if all you find is the tone of the music when Gary Gygax's name is on the screen, you will be reading too much into it. I timed it so the music is incredibly beautiful when Gary's photo appears.

I will say that despite the tone, the article is factually correct. Gary Gygax did not invent Role Playing. I'm sorry if you want to believe lies, but other people did it. And if you are about to bring up the tired old argument of: Well Gary created D&D so he's the guy who did it. eh, that is a really simplistic approach to reality. Ask yourself: who invented the lightbulb - nope not the guy you think.

There were many instances where someone wanted to bestow the title of: father of RPG's on Gary and he refused. Gary knew he did not invent RPG's. He preferred Father of Dungeons & Dragons.

So the real question posed by the article is simple: Who invented role playing?

It's complicated. If you want to cite Totten, then RPG's begin in 1880, and or even earlier in europe. We try to be unbiased in Secrets of Blackmoor. And honestly Rob's accounts match up exactly to what other sources say in other places. Both Megarry and Arneson say the same thing about the famed demo night. That is 3 people who were there and they describe similar events.

I will go farther though. Rob and Gary tried to recreate what Arneson had done the next morning and they failed. Gary had to go play with the Blackmoor Bunch before he knew how to play RPG's. There are letters where he is talking to Arneson and planning his visit.

Those of you who are posting here and claiming to be experts can get back to me after you spend over 100k$ on travel and video taping and buying artifacts, and then assemble what you discover into a cohesive book, or film. My question to you is: what are your sources? I know what mine are. I've looked at easily over 20,000 documents and artifacts. I've got something like 200 hours of video interviews on this subject.

i also have zero compassion for someone who is going to attack Rob Kuntz. Rob is relaying events as he remembers them. We should be glad these anecdotes are being recorded for posterity.

Those of you with an open mind can watch Rob in Secrets of Blackmoor: movie.secretsofblackmoor.com

If you think he is full of crap after seeing the film, well, that is your opinion and you are welcome to it.

Griff

QuoteIt's complicated. If you want to cite Totten, then RPG's begin in 1880, and or even earlier in europe. We try to be unbiased in Secrets of Blackmoor. And honestly Rob's accounts match up exactly to what other sources say in other places. Both Megarry and Arneson say the same thing about the famed demo night. That is 3 people who were there and they describe similar events.

If you include the sort of proto-LARPs some parlour games had then the seeds go back indeed to at least the 1800s. But sometime in the late 60s to early 70s there was something that sparked new applications. As noted in older threads I saw this in school before D&D came out. Community Simulation or Social Simulation? And from research it seems to have been used in various schools but I could never pin down an origin point other than it possibly appearing some time in the 60s.

One of these days I'll start digging again as I really want to know the origin.

Remember when I said "Always follow the money."?

Now read the quote below.

Quote from: Secrets of Blackmoor;1101722Those of you who are posting here and claiming to be experts can get back to me after you spend over 100k$ on travel and video taping and buying artifacts, and then assemble what you discover into a cohesive book, or film.

$100,000 investment into a book and movie that needs to sell!

And lo and behold...the Kotaku article arrives like magic!

What an amazing coincidence!

Sorry Griff(ter), but you fail the smell test. However, I hope your "Secrets of Blackmoor" is fun to watch (which means please get a professional editor) and introduces the wonderful Dave Arneson and his vital contributions to a new generation of gamers.

I wonder who those artifacts were purchased from?

Quote from: Spinachcat;1101736Remember when I said "Always follow the money."?

Now read the quote below.

$100,000 investment into a book and movie that needs to sell!

And lo and behold...the Kotaku article arrives like magic!

What an amazing coincidence!

Sorry Griff(ter), but you fail the smell test. However, I hope your "Secrets of Blackmoor" is fun to watch (which means please get a professional editor) and introduces the wonderful Dave Arneson and his vital contributions to a new generation of gamers.

Mmmmmm. Actually not. The Kotaku article and the Griff are completely unrelated. They aren't even remotely connected, not even coincidentally. In fact, the Kotaku article that was published just last week, ...it was penned four years ago. Not even sure why it is being released now, ...of all times?

Griff made the movie about Blackmoor and Original D&D, which I haven't seen in its' entirety just yet, although I have already paid for (ahhh Griff... haven't received the email code to preview the final release yet), and hope to get a finalized hardcopy on DvD of when they finally publish it, hopefully next month some time. He didn't make this movie because he wants to make a profit, he made this movie because no less than two previous movie projects about Dave Arneson's Blackmoor group and the real history of D&D were stalled and scuttled by incompetent producers and inept gamers, one of whom was sued in a court case in New York. I have the records on file here somewhere of those previous failed attempts at making a movie about Blackmoor and OD&D and will locate them and make them available if you really want to delve into that.

Mostly Griff wanted to actively Interview everyone who was actually there from both the Lake Geneva and Minneapolis gaming groups that were the core groups that coalesced around the modified Chainmail rules that became D&D while they were still alive. Remember, Chainmail was designed specifically as a war game with Fantasy elements. What Dave's group did, that eventually became Dungeons and Dragons, was a modified Braunstein game that included Fantasy, as well as one other new element, and that was where the players of Dave's  campaign worked with him to change the nature of the war game, adding specific mechanics and rules for role-playing, like, for example, levels and hitpoints, so that a Fighter would not necessarily get killed when hit once, by a Troll, and so they could use other techniques instead of fighting (like negotiating and/or bribing the Troll, for example) into what had been previously a strictly war game.

When you say follow the money, you are partly right, there is, and always has been organizations that want to block the true story of the creation and evolution of D&D, and AD&D, and the history of TSR. I happen to know part of the story because I was actually already there at the dawn of the roleplaying, and had purchased one of the original three printings of the LBB, only to trade it in for a white bookset, a Bluebook set, dice and extras at my FLGS, Mile High Comics back in 1977 as the store owner that sold me the first edition 0D&D brown bookset desperately wanted it back expecting it to be worth significantly more in the future. He was right, he had no clue how long he would have to wait before it became valuable though.

There was an early style of play in 1977-78 that I learned, That was abruptly dropped in 1979 in favort of a narrowly focused heavily codified ruleset (AD&D). The fact that I continued to play and run games as a GM with that original style using 0D&D that I had learned in 1977 even after the year 2000 made me instant friends with Dave Arneson, even though I had actually deeply insulted him by greeting him as Gary when we first met.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1101746Mmmmmm. Actually not. The Kotaku article and the Griff are completely unrelated. They aren't even remotely connected, not even coincidentally. In fact, the Kotaku article that was published just last week, ...it was penned four years ago. Not even sure why it is being released now, ...of all times?

Quote"There's a myth that's been propagated in the industry," Kuntz told Kotaku during an interview in February of this year.

EDIT - does this line up with the discussions with Gail?  Curious.  I know Kuntz is no longer in Wisconsin, just curious if Kotaku was already talking to the guy who possibly wanted to change Gygax's reputation at the same time they were talking to Gygax's widow.

QuoteA new documentary out last week, Secrets of Blackmoor, attempts to get to the bottom of who really incepted the world of fantasy role-playing. It's a question that Kotaku has been investigating as well, as part of our ongoing research into the massively popular game,

https://www.kotaku.com.au/2019/08/dungeons-deceptions-the-first-dd-players-push-back-on-the-legend-of-gary-gygax/

Quote from: GameDaddy;1101746The Kotaku article and the Griff are completely unrelated. They aren't even remotely connected, not even coincidentally.

And that's why the Kotaku article LINKS to the Vimeo page for Griff(ter)'s movie in the article!!

Nothing says unrelated and not even coincidentally remotely connected link a LINK to the retail website for the movie!!!

Dude, unless Vimeo accepts snuggles and hugs as currency, that LINK is all we need to know.

And does Kotaku even allow authors to post links unless Kotaku gets a tasty referral fee? I don't know their rules, but I do know Kotaku isn't a charity organization.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1101746Not even sure why it is being released now, ...of all times?

It rhymes with Bunny, Sunny, Funny and Honey.

But it starts with the letter M.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1101746He didn't make this movie because he wants to make a profit,

I was unaware Griff(ter) was D&D's very own Mother Theresa!

Finally, a saint who invests $100k and doesn't want to make a profit!

Quote from: GameDaddy;1101746There was an early style of play in 1977-78 that I learned, That was abruptly dropped in 1979 in favort of a narrowly focused heavily codified ruleset (AD&D).

I gamed back then too. There were RAW junkies (aka, rules lawyer asshats), but most people ran AD&D in actual play more akin to OD&D or B/X. It's no surprise the many popular OSR games are far more B/X than AD&D.

Quote from: GameDaddy;1101746made me instant friends with Dave Arneson, even though I had actually deeply insulted him by greeting him as Gary when we first met.

THAT is a funny story.

I am extremely fortunate I got to play D&D with Dave once at a Bay Area convention years ago. He was a remarkable GM and I greatly enjoyed grilling him about his GMing style vs. what's in the books.