Dungeons & Deceptions: The First D&D Players Push Back On The Legend Of Gary Gygax (https://www.kotaku.com.au/2019/08/dungeons-deceptions-the-first-dd-players-push-back-on-the-legend-of-gary-gygax/)
The old "Come Back" Inn, now thats Old School.
I hope Rob Kuntz gets his 30 pieces of silver
But it's funny, the article actually debunks itself
QuoteArneson didn't have a concrete ruleset; he was making things up as he went along. But, Kuntz said, he did manage to cobble
together 18 pages of handwritten notes, a lot of which were simply stats for Chainmail monsters.
So EGG turned 18 pages of notes, mostly Chainmail monster stats, into the 3 books of OD&D.
To be sure, there would be no Dungeons & Dragons without Gary Gygax...
...But what gets lost is that neither would there be D&D without Dave Arneson.
Seems reasonable - this is how things tend to work in IRL. Personally I've been in the Arneson role of having the ideas and using them in my home game, and seeing a friend do the Gygax thing - take my ideas and turn them into published work (published by Mongoose). Both the originator & the developer are necessary to get stuff that actually reaches the public in usable form. Likewise in academia I've been in the developer role, turning what was initially mostly a collaborator's work into something publishable, and getting it published - I put myself as secondary author (a lot of senior academics do this and think they should be listed as first author) :D but it was definitely a joint effort needing both of us.
Tim Kask made it clear in several interviews that the problem was Arneson didn't want to be bothered to write anything up. He dumped his notes on Gygax's desk and left Gygax to write it all up into anything resembling a coherent game.
[video=youtube_share;RwKztsXquoM]https://youtu.be/RwKztsXquoM?t=3296[/youtube]
Quote from: S'mon;1101018To be sure, there would be no Dungeons & Dragons without Gary Gygax...
...But what gets lost is that neither would there be D&D without Dave Arneson.
Seems reasonable - this is how things tend to work in IRL. Personally I've been in the Arneson role of having the ideas and using them in my home game, and seeing a friend do the Gygax thing - take my ideas and turn them into published work (published by Mongoose). Both the originator & the developer are necessary to get stuff that actually reaches the public in usable form. Likewise in academia I've been in the developer role, turning what was initially mostly a collaborator's work into something publishable, and getting it published - I put myself as secondary author (a lot of senior academics do this and think they should be listed as first author) :D but it was definitely a joint effort needing both of us.
Couldn't agree more, particularly regarding the role of the developer. A good idea has
some value, of course, but solid implementation is way more valuable - and requires significantly more work.
Old bitter men fighting over credit (not) given to men who died 10+ years ago. No money, no actual fame just much much drama.
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1101020A good idea has some value, of course, but solid implementation is way more valuable - and requires significantly more work.
Yeah, I think the problem is that some people assign all value to the "creative spark" of the originator, and some people assign all value to the "labour skill & effort" of the developer. I teach Copyright, and Civil-law systems like France tend to put more value on the Arnesonian 'genius', while Anglo-American tend to favour the Gygaxian 'labour/skill/effort' that actually makes the product. At any rate I don't think either should be discounted.
After reading the various books, anecdotes, the few pieces of primary documentation I was able to see, my conclusion is that Dave Arneson invented tabletop roleplaying, Gary Gygax invented Dungeons & Dragon with input from Dave. Without the effort of the two, along the sequence of the events, we would not have the hobby we now enjoy.
Quote from: S'mon;1101023At any rate I don't think either should be discounted.
Once more, agreement from me. A great idea can make the difference between run-of-the-mill and bestseller, while solid development makes the difference between hobbyist and professional product. To make that bestseller, you better have both.
You guys should see the thread over on the OSR subreddit, it's like many of them were waiting for an excuse to drag out the pitchforks and torches regarding Gary Gygax.
Quote from: JeremyR;1101012So EGG turned 18 pages of notes, mostly Chainmail monster stats, into the 3 books of OD&D.
I talked to Jim Ward about this at a convention once...he said the Arneson notes were mostly illegible drivel. I don't care how creative you are, if you cannot communicate your ideas to anyone else, it's irrelevant what you're doing. To discount Gygax because he didn't actually come up with the initial idea is dumb.
So, this is just old news...Arneson came up with a cool new idea, Gygax put it into a presentable form. I mean, they're both listed as co-creators of D&D, so who the fuck cares? Kuntz is just old and probably has a bone to pick with Gygax's widow who is the one tarnishing his legacy.
Quote from: S'mon;1101023Yeah, I think the problem is that some people assign all value to the "creative spark" of the originator, and some people assign all value to the "labour skill & effort" of the developer. I teach Copyright, and Civil-law systems like France tend to put more value on the Arnesonian 'genius', while Anglo-American tend to favour the Gygaxian 'labour/skill/effort' that actually makes the product. At any rate I don't think either should be discounted.
I'm fine thinking that everybody back then had a hand in shaping what we know as D&D, and I'll let those old farts slap-fight each other over the details.
Quote from: Brad;1101045I talked to Jim Ward about this at a convention once...he said the Arneson notes were mostly illegible drivel. I don't care how creative you are, if you cannot communicate your ideas to anyone else, it's irrelevant what you're doing. To discount Gygax because he didn't actually come up with the initial idea is dumb.
So, this is just old news...Arneson came up with a cool new idea, Gygax put it into a presentable form. I mean, they're both listed as co-creators of D&D, so who the fuck cares? Kuntz is just old and probably has a bone to pick with Gygax's widow who is the one tarnishing his legacy.
I agree. Ideas are cheap. Meaningful to those smart enough to execute - but cheap.
The execution part is where the magic happens.
Quote from: Brad;1101045I talked to Jim Ward about this at a convention once...he said the Arneson notes were mostly illegible drivel. I don't care how creative you are, if you cannot communicate your ideas to anyone else, it's irrelevant what you're doing. To discount Gygax because he didn't actually come up with the initial idea is dumb.
So, this is just old news...Arneson came up with a cool new idea, Gygax put it into a presentable form. I mean, they're both listed as co-creators of D&D, so who the fuck cares? Kuntz is just old and probably has a bone to pick with Gygax's widow who is the one tarnishing his legacy.
I don't think Kuntz has any real bones to pick with Gail--why would he trash Gary himself it that was the case? He did have a falling out with Gary in the last stages of the latter's life. I do sense some bitterness in Kuntz since he implies he's not interviewed much, and he's also apparently planning to write a tell-all book called Lake Geneva Days, etc.
The other thing odd was Kuntz stating the myth of Gary...but there's been a ton of coverage of the others involved with the creation. It's not the 1980s anymore, most people know it, both creators get credits in the OGL and in the books, even if it's small.
The thing people need to remember is this--Gary will always be better known. He didn't just co-create D&D, he developed all sorts of things. The Advanced ruleset. Tomb of Horrors, GDQ series, the World of Greyhawk, Homlett. Dozens of columns in Dragon magazine. He organized GenCon. He built a company, and he sacrificed his day job to do it. He was also naturally charismatic with people and spent a lot of his later years just chatting with folks online and answering their questions.
People know Gary better because he did more to influence the game in its early days and there are enough people who were inspired by all of that.
Quote from: JRT;1101053The thing people need to remember is this--Gary will always be better known. He didn't just co-create D&D, he developed all sorts of things. The Advanced ruleset. Tomb of Horrors, GDQ series, the World of Greyhawk, Homlett. Dozens of columns in Dragon magazine. He organized GenCon. He built a company, and he sacrificed his day job to do it. He was also naturally charismatic with people and spent a lot of his later years just chatting with folks online and answering their questions.
People know Gary better because he did more to influence the game in its early days and there are enough people who were inspired by all of that.
And the flip side is that that level of exposure and activities, combined with being a man of vocal opinions, can make you a lot of enemies, which may account for some of the reaction against him.
Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1101054And the flip side is that that level of exposure and activities, combined with being a man of vocal opinions, can make you a lot of enemies, which may account for some of the reaction against him.
I hope that Dave and Gary were each buried with a set of polyhedral dice. That would have been cool.
Quote from: tenbones;1101051I agree. Ideas are cheap. Meaningful to those smart enough to execute - but cheap.
The execution part is where the magic happens.
The issue is when you say stuff like that, you're "diminishing Arneson's contribution!" No, that's not true whatsoever. Arneson was the muse to Gygax's symphony, but as time passed Gygax gave less and less credit to Arneson for good reason: 18 pages of crappy notes <<<<<<<<< literally thousands of pages of finely detailed rules. At some point (AD&D I suppose) Arneson's initial idea had outlived its contributory significance.
Quote from: JRT;1101053I don't think Kuntz has any real bones to pick with Gail--why would he trash Gary himself it that was the case? He did have a falling out with Gary in the last stages of the latter's life. I do sense some bitterness in Kuntz since he implies he's not interviewed much, and he's also apparently planning to write a tell-all book called Lake Geneva Days, etc.
Okay, another Jim Ward story that might not be true because I could never find any legal evidence...apparently Kuntz and Gygax doubled up on a girl under the influence and she got pregnant, there was some paternity suit in WI about it. Hopefully that'll be in the book.
Also, Kuntz is SUPER crotchety, anyway. I think it is fairly accurate his contribution to D&D has been severely downplayed; it's indisputable that he helped Gygax iron out most of what we consider the main parts of an RPG campaign. But again, old and crotchety...
Quote from: Brad;1101045I talked to Jim Ward about this at a convention once...he said the Arneson notes were mostly illegible drivel. I don't care how creative you are, if you cannot communicate your ideas to anyone else, it's irrelevant what you're doing. To discount Gygax because he didn't actually come up with the initial idea is dumb.
So, this is just old news...Arneson came up with a cool new idea, Gygax put it into a presentable form. I mean, they're both listed as co-creators of D&D, so who the fuck cares?
That tracks with what I've read. Then again, it might have been an article written by Jim Ward. I think it was about someone trying to create a Blackmoor module based on Arneson's notes, but they gave up since they were too hard to read and not of much use. The author was definitely conveying a sense of disappointment in Arneson's work.
The thing I found interesting from the "Deceptions" article is that Arneson seemed like a storygamer, whereas Gygax was simulationist.
Quote from: Aglondir;1101063That tracks with what I've read. Then again, it might have been an article written by Jim Ward. I think it was about someone trying to create a Blackmoor module based on Arneson's notes, but they gave up since they were too hard to read and not of much use. The author was definitely conveying a sense of disappointment in Arneson's work.
The thing I found interesting from the "Deceptions" article is that Arneson seemed like a storygamer, whereas Gygax was simulationist.
There may be some truth to that last statement....
Quote from: tenbones;1101051I agree. Ideas are cheap. Meaningful to those smart enough to execute - but cheap.
The execution part is where the magic happens.
There's a famous Hollywood story told by screenwriters. I have no idea if its real or not, but its an old favorite. Allegedly, the director Frank Capra (the Spielberg of the 30s/40s) gave an interview where he declared his movies were successful because of his "Capra touch". The story goes that the screenwriter who wrote most of Capra's major films heard this and sent Capra a pile of blank pages and a cover page that said "Put the Capra touch on this!"
I've always been unimpressed with the Kask vs. Kuntz and Gary vs. Dave narratives. The OD&D box cover says everything I need to know.
D&D = Gary & Dave.
May they rest in peace. Or conquer the Nine Hells and rule as Demon Lords.
Gygax was an unabashed gamist who denounced both realistic approaches as well as genre emulation in his columns. D&D was first and foremost a game meant to entertain via certain well-tested stimuli.
Quote from: tenbones;1101051I agree. Ideas are cheap. Meaningful to those smart enough to execute - but cheap.
The execution part is where the magic happens.
Except in this case the idea was unique
As for execution Dave was from the all the accounts an excellent referee for the Blackmoor campaign. Honing his skill through years of play and dozens of players. In the various anecdotes and accounts Blackmoor started out as a sophisticated wargame campaign. But due to his willingness to go along with the schemes and interests of his players as their characters. It morphed into the first traditional tabletop campaign as the focus shifted from the larger conflict to the adventures of the characters.
This took no small amount effort and sweat on Dave's part.
However where Gygax was crucial was taking what Dave was doing and turn into a rulebook that people could learn run these campaign for themselves. There isn't an alternative path to the hobby we have except for the one that through both of them.
So in Dave case I don't view his role as one where ideas are cheap. However fans of Dave Arneson need to acknowledge that despite his genius creating rulebooks for mass distribution was not one of them. He strength was more as a teacher and showing by example.
Can't check it out at work.
This is like Stan Lee/Jack Kirby, isn't it .
Quote from: estar;1101098Except in this case the idea was unique
As for execution Dave was from the all the accounts an excellent referee for the Blackmoor campaign. Honing his skill through years of play and dozens of players. In the various anecdotes and accounts Blackmoor started out as a sophisticated wargame campaign. But due to his willingness to go along with the schemes and interests of his players as their characters. It morphed into the first traditional tabletop campaign as the focus shifted from the larger conflict to the adventures of the characters.
This took no small amount effort and sweat on Dave's part.
However where Gygax was crucial was taking what Dave was doing and turn into a rulebook that people could learn run these campaign for themselves. There isn't an alternative path to the hobby we have except for the one that through both of them.
So in Dave case I don't view his role as one where ideas are cheap. However fans of Dave Arneson need to acknowledge that despite his genius creating rulebooks for mass distribution was not one of them. He strength was more as a teacher and showing by example.
That sounds totally fair to me. I'm happy that today's technology and understanding that folks are interested in how things come to be has allowed some version of what really happened to be captured. As we go forward in history, we will see more and more idea originators recognized for their work even when someone else does the grunt work of bringing the idea to the masses.
I'm not surprised by what more of the history between Dave and Gary is coming out. While I absolutely honor Garry for bringing the game to the masses, he has certainly had his moments of being challenging. I read his letter to the APA publishers back in the day and thought him quite a jerk. I read his story about some teenage kid coming to one of his games all excited about his awesome character and Garry not only trouncing the character (fine) but ripping the character sheet to shreds in front of the player (rather immature). On the other hand, I have never heard anything but kind words about Dave (and he was very pleasant when I met him and more than happy to sign my First Fantasy Campaign book).
And for those pointing out Dave's relative contribution vs Garry's to the number of words on D&D, how does Garry compare to later editions?
I'm glad both men decided to share the game with us.
Frank
Quote from: Manic Modron;1101109Can't check it out at work.
This is like Stan Lee/Jack Kirby, isn't it .
I don't know, who is Jack Kirby?
Quote from: JRT;1101053The other thing odd was Kuntz stating the myth of Gary...but there's been a ton of coverage of the others involved with the creation. It's not the 1980s anymore, most people know it, both creators get credits in the OGL and in the books, even if it's small.
Yeah this part really bugged me too as they are playing it up as if it is some big secret conspiracy coverup to hide Arneson's involvement.
Quote from: estar;1101098Except in this case the idea was unique.
Except the idea was not exactly unique.
Various folk from that era and a bit before have noted that there were forays into this idea. The difference being they never developed the idea further. Or took the idea in different directions.
Wayyyyyy back Gary recounted what was essentially a proto-LARP his brothers and friends played when they were kids. I think that when Arneson came along with this idea it sparked a memory in Gary of that old game and helped win him over to trying to make a game out of little more than a concept. Which in the gaming biz is not too far from what used to occasionally happen. Though rare now-a-days.
Arneson provided the spark for the fire. The snowflake for the avalanche. Without that spark Gary might never have hit on the idea of merging these seemingly disparate things into what it became.
Quote from: Omega;1101114Except the idea was not exactly unique.
Various folk from that era and a bit before have noted that there were forays into this idea. The difference being they never developed the idea further. Or took the idea in different directions.
Wayyyyyy back Gary recounted what was essentially a proto-LARP his brothers and friends played when they were kids. I think that when Arneson came along with this idea it sparked a memory in Gary of that old game and helped win him over to trying to make a game out of little more than a concept. Which in the gaming biz is not too far from what used to occasionally happen. Though rare now-a-days.
Arneson provided the spark for the fire. The snowflake for the avalanche. Without that spark Gary might never have hit on the idea of merging these seemingly disparate things into what it became.
I disagree, not even Dave started off with the idea of tabletop roleplaying when he launched Blackmoor. From what I read (documentation and anecdotes) he viewed Blackmoor as a sophisticated wargame campaign and his role was as a neutral arbiter between the two main factions of players. What lead Dave into developing Blackmoor into what in hindsight was the first tabletop roleplaying campaign was his willingness to say yes to whatever schemes his players cooked up as long as they made sense in terms of what he established about Blackmoor. Even there it he was more than a bit flexible has he had many science fiction element in his campaign.
People over on various discussion forums will be bring up Wesely, Korns, Featherstone, Totten, and other. And while it is true that each of the elements Dave used was first found elsewhere, it was Dave who was first to be bring them all together into something that we would recognized as a tabletop RPG campaign. Not any of the forementioned or any other of Dave' contemporaries prior to Blackmoor.
For example Korns focused on a man to man skirmish level World War II wargame. There is a section that literally reads like a tabletop roleplaying session. But the context is that of gaming a World War II scenario. There was no sense that the characters would abandon their unit and hook up with the French criminal underworld and start running a smuggling ring. It was all presented in terms of gaming out various World War II scenario in a very sophisticated form.
My view is that the primary reason Dave's Blackmoor became the first tabletop roleplaying was his willingness to say yes. And the moment it shifted from wargame to tabletop roleplaying campaign was after the introduction of the Blackmoor Dungeon. The Blackmoor Dungeon proved widely popular to explore among Dave's players. So popular that the player ignored the larger war with the Egg of Coot faction and they wound up taking over Castle Blackmoor. The good guy players were exiled to Lake Gloomy where they promptly stated poking around for more dungeons to explore. Dave was irked but went along with it. Some of this is found in the anecdotes and some in notes that are part of the First Fantasy Campaign by Judges Guild.
Because Blackmoor was primarily a miniature wargame campaign with sand tables, and huge ass props, when Dave went down to Lake Geneva he took the things that he could easily transport namely the Blackmoor dungeon. Which was mostly pen, paper, and maps. As a consequence Gygax take was focused on dungeon exploration.
You don't have to believe me just read Playing at the World, First Fantasy Campign, Hawk & Moor, True Genius by Rob Kuntz, the various antecdotes, and the Secret of Blackmoor film. Keep in mind everybody has their bias.
I'd like to add this thought:
If we dismiss Dave Arneson as "inventor" of the role playing game because others had almost role playing games (Dave even played in one - Dave Wesley's Braunstein), then do we dismiss any inventor or author because someone else would have come up with the idea? What I really appreciate is that knowledge about the influences for Dave's game have become publicized, I had never heard about Braunstein until it was mentioned somewhere on an OSR board.
Quote from: estar;1101098Except in this case the idea was unique
As for execution Dave was from the all the accounts an excellent referee for the Blackmoor campaign. Honing his skill through years of play and dozens of players. In the various anecdotes and accounts Blackmoor started out as a sophisticated wargame campaign. But due to his willingness to go along with the schemes and interests of his players as their characters. It morphed into the first traditional tabletop campaign as the focus shifted from the larger conflict to the adventures of the characters.
This took no small amount effort and sweat on Dave's part.
However where Gygax was crucial was taking what Dave was doing and turn into a rulebook that people could learn run these campaign for themselves. There isn't an alternative path to the hobby we have except for the one that through both of them.
So in Dave case I don't view his role as one where ideas are cheap. However fans of Dave Arneson need to acknowledge that despite his genius creating rulebooks for mass distribution was not one of them. He strength was more as a teacher and showing by example.
Point taken.
Those rare moments where entire movements are born are pretty rare. But the point stands.
Quote from: Arkansan;1101032You guys should see the thread over on the OSR subreddit, it's like many of them were waiting for an excuse to drag out the pitchforks and torches regarding Gary Gygax.
Is anyone surprised that a bunch of guys who A) feel old and neglected, and B) have likely never demonstrated the discipline and toil necessary to turn ideas into commercial success, should identify with Arneson over Gygax? Arneson was the ur-grognard.
Quote from: Manic Modron;1101109Can't check it out at work.
This is like Stan Lee/Jack Kirby, isn't it .
Not really. Jack Kirby worked his ass off 10+ hours a day for decades delivering commercial-quality content.
Quote from: Brad;1101045So, this is just old news...Arneson came up with a cool new idea, Gygax put it into a presentable form.
Arneson had been running his Blackmoor campaign weekly for three years before Gary even heard of what he was doing. That's a bit more than just a "cool new idea". If you look at the Dungeon! boardgame, you can see the state that Blackmoor was in in 1972 as that boardgame was created before Gary was involved. All of the things we associate with D&D: hit points, levels, classes, armor class, and dungeons come from Dave's game.
Also, other people who had played with Dave were in the process of creating their own versions of Dungeons and Dragons which is why OD&D was so rushed. One of these even got published just months after D&D did. Sure, those rules would not have ended up exactly like D&D, but the fact remains that sooner or later, RPGs would have become a thing.
Arneson was the true father of roleplaying games. Gygax was an opportunist.
Quote from: Itachi;1101262Arneson was the true father of roleplaying games. Gygax was an opportunist.
But Arneson took some amount of influence from Chainmail, which was written by Gary. I feel sorry for Dave, but Gary was also pushing gaming toward what it became next. Without Chainmail, would Dave have ended up with the same Blackmoor?
Quote from: Razor 007;1101265Without Chainmail, would Dave have ended up with the same Blackmoor?
Probably. Chainmail was just a convenient set of rules to play medieval fantasy battles with. At the time Dave was very familiar with miniatures wargames and had already written (with his friends) his own miniatures rules for his Napoleonic campaign. Converting his Strategos-N rules to Strategos-F wouldn't have been that difficult.
There was also a strong skirmish wargaming scene in the UK that had, four years prior to D&D, started publishing skirmish wargames featuring many element that would later show up in RPGs such as individual characters, character advancement, and narrative story campaigns. Despite their early start, these were just getting going when D&D came out and cut them off at the pass, so to speak. These types of games would easily have provided the man-to-man rules from which to base an RPG on.
Quote from: hedgehobbit;1101260Arneson had been running his Blackmoor campaign weekly for three years before Gary even heard of what he was doing. That's a bit more than just a "cool new idea". If you look at the Dungeon! boardgame, you can see the state that Blackmoor was in in 1972 as that boardgame was created before Gary was involved. All of the things we associate with D&D: hit points, levels, classes, armor class, and dungeons come from Dave's game.
Also, other people who had played with Dave were in the process of creating their own versions of Dungeons and Dragons which is why OD&D was so rushed. One of these even got published just months after D&D did. Sure, those rules would not have ended up exactly like D&D, but the fact remains that sooner or later, RPGs would have become a thing.
It's not anything other than a "cool new idea" if you can't tell anyone else how to play it unless they're physically in the same room as you and you teach them the rules that really don't even exist. Also, did Arneson make Dungeon! or was that someone else? From everything I've read, he only published stuff after D&D was a thing, so you can't fault people assuming Gygax had more to do with that than he did if his company was the one publishing stuff.
What version of D&D was published months after..? I am not aware of such a game.
Quote from: hedgehobbit;1101260Arneson had been running his Blackmoor campaign weekly for three years before Gary even heard of what he was doing. That's a bit more than just a "cool new idea". If you look at the Dungeon! boardgame, you can see the state that Blackmoor was in in 1972 as that boardgame was created before Gary was involved. All of the things we associate with D&D: hit points, levels, classes, armor class, and dungeons come from Dave's game.
Gygax took what he experienced from Dave's session and wrote his own take on it. Then proceeded to playtest it for a good while. As much of a genius Dave was writing rulesbooks was not a strong point. And Gygax was no slouch in wargame design department either.
It not accurate to say that the first D&D manuscript was a copy of the rules Dave was using. As there was no "copy" to copy from. Dave's notebook was bunch of mnemonics and aides to help him to remain consistent.
Quote from: hedgehobbit;1101260Also, other people who had played with Dave were in the process of creating their own versions of Dungeons and Dragons which is why OD&D was so rushed. One of these even got published just months after D&D did. Sure, those rules would not have ended up exactly like D&D, but the fact remains that sooner or later, RPGs would have become a thing.
I have not read any alternative effort that would matched the scale of the original D&D release. Or read about anybody who was as dedicated to ensuring a tabletop roleplaying would be a commercial success as Gygax was. A 1,000 copies consisting of three booklets, some pages of chart and a box wasn't on anybody radar at the time.
There is no plausible path to the hobby and industry we have today except the one that runs through Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax. Gygax was every bit as vital to the process as Dave Arneson.
I am a fan of alternate history and even tried my hand at a few stories (https://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2009/11/travelling-alternate-vision-of-rpgs.html).
The plausible Point of Departures I see being
- Dave Arneson never travels to Lake Geneva to run the Blackmoor Dungeons for Gygax and friends.
- Brian Blume doesn't invest $2,000 into TSR
- Don Kaye doesn't die an early death
If Gygax wasn't involved my opinion that what we would have seen is a bunch of wargames focused on players playing individual characters in specific scenarios. Like some of what came out for Dragonquest, and The Fantasy Trip. Campaign play would be been relegated to articles and word of mouth and have a reputation as a time consuming effort done by people are really into the hobby. Certainly the dungeon adventure would not have the icon status that it enjoys today.
I realize my criticism is forceful but one has to keep in mind that the two men had different strengths and skills. Both were vital to making tabletop roleplaying into what it is today. Both had their skills to a degree that wasn't common. That outside of these skills they were just like any other hobbyist then and now. So were prone to the failings and strengths all people have.
Quote from: Brad;1101281It's not anything other than a "cool new idea" if you can't tell anyone else how to play it unless they're physically in the same room as you and you teach them the rules that really don't even exist.
Tabletop roleplaying is not a game, it is process. A process of running a campaign where players play individual characters, tell the referee what they are doing as their characters, and the referee describes what happens. While I was able to explain this tersely, it is the simplistic things that are the hardest to come up with. Behind my statement are the years Dave Arneson spent tinkering with this and that, and acquiring the experience to figure out how to make this fun in the time people have for a hobby.
It also a process that works best by actually teaching by example. A characteristics of tabletop roleplaying that persist to the present. In hindsight it is a process that is simply stated but it also didn't exist until Dave figured out how to make it work. Work in a way that was fun and doable in the time one has for a hobby.
Gygax main creative contribution is the focus on the dungeon as the primary locale for adventuring. As imperfectly roleplaying was explained in the three OD&D booklet, the dungeon was a near perfect venue for helping people grasp the idea. While Dave ran the first dungeon, Gygax had his primary focus on the Greyhawk Dungeon. Thus OD&D was largely about how to run that type of adventure and some of the tool and aide he used to make those type of adventures.
It would be awesome, if kids of both co-creators would do a public event and bury the hatchet.
I'm sure you all knew D&D wasn't the only RPG where Arneson played a role (pun intended). His brainchild was called Adventures in Fantasy.
Quote from: hedgehobbit;1101260Also, other people who had played with Dave were in the process of creating their own versions of Dungeons and Dragons which is why OD&D was so rushed. One of these even got published just months after D&D did.
What game was this?
Do you mean Tekumel?
Quote from: GeekyBugle;1101360I'm sure you all knew D&D wasn't the only RPG where Arneson played a role (pun intended). His brainchild was called Adventures in Fantasy.
And if you've read it, you'll see that it dispels any myth that Arneson was a "rules light" guy. Probably the first and only RPG that has a separate to hit for when your character fights a lion. And figuring out experience for defeated opponents requires multiplying three fractions together.
Quote from: estar;1101328Tabletop roleplaying is not a game, it is process. A process of running a campaign where players play individual characters, tell the referee what they are doing as their characters, and the referee describes what happens. While I was able to explain this tersely, it is the simplistic things that are the hardest to come up with. Behind my statement are the years Dave Arneson spent tinkering with this and that, and acquiring the experience to figure out how to make this fun in the time people have for a hobby.
It also a process that works best by actually teaching by example. A characteristics of tabletop roleplaying that persist to the present. In hindsight it is a process that is simply stated but it also didn't exist until Dave figured out how to make it work. Work in a way that was fun and doable in the time one has for a hobby.
Gygax main creative contribution is the focus on the dungeon as the primary locale for adventuring. As imperfectly roleplaying was explained in the three OD&D booklet, the dungeon was a near perfect venue for helping people grasp the idea. While Dave ran the first dungeon, Gygax had his primary focus on the Greyhawk Dungeon. Thus OD&D was largely about how to run that type of adventure and some of the tool and aide he used to make those type of adventures.
By your definition, poker is a "process" as well. I honestly don't understand what you're even talking about; you make it sound like other sorts of games didn't have a similar design history.
I'm gonna go full tin-foil hat for a moment. I acknowledge this. But it seems there might be some threads and patterns at play here. I'm just tying together pieces of info left around the internet and could be completely wrong. But there's a whole lot of weird going on with this article and this timing from multiple sides.
To me this seems driven mainly by Rob Kuntz. He has some bile, whether created before Gary's death or after, and now he's going to do as much damage as possible. There's no fact checking in that article; for a filmmaker who continues to present himself as a simple unbiased historian who's definitely not doing a combined operation in conjunction with this kotoku author, it seems to get brough up wherever the movie is discussed. And any journalist worth their salt doesn't take one angry guy's word for it unless they really want to. Let's take a look at what just a few searches brings up on good old Rob's migrating attitudes over the years - something you'd think a journalist would at least mention, if not challenge him on.
Source searches
https://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/search.php?st=0&sk=t&sd=d&sr=posts&keywords=+arneson&author_id=804&start=30 Rob's posts at DF with the keyword: Arneson
https://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/search.php?st=0&sk=t&sd=d&sr=posts&keywords=+beginning&author_id=804&start=30 Rob's posts at DF with the keyword: beginning
https://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/search.php?st=0&sk=t&sd=d&sr=posts&author_id=804 Rob's post's at DF with the keyword: greyhawk
https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/piedpiperpublishing/ Rob's pied piper boards
I'm not bothering to tie everything together; I took a free evening to see if this article passes the smell test regarding what it's asserting. I'd also point out this isn't about whether EGG or DA deserves more credit because that's a stupid argument. But it does seem to me that there's a media element that wants to marginalize EGG as much as possible now, and for whatever reason Kuntz is more than happy to help them do it.
Arneson2004-2008 DF
Arneson doesn't seem to be the RPG originator to Kuntz while EGG is alive. He mentions him twice on DF in five years from 2004-2009, and if you look at the earliest posts in the Arneson keyword thread, two of those are to claim his own equal stature to those two in D&D history over everyone else and nothing more. The third is to make sure everyone knows that Arneson DM'd him and EGG through one of Dave's modules: City of the Gods. That's it. Nothing about all this angst he's bringing out in the article.
Around the same time Rob is putting himself up with those two, he does start a sub-forum for DA's work on his own forums. It's little trafficked by him, although somewhat trafficked. it gives a place for Blackmoor fans to come and hang out at his boards. The difference in enthusiasm for his posting re: EGG and DA is pretty evident. EGG has his own sub-forum which he posts at pretty frequently. Arneson gets reactions such as the following (from the thread opening the board (https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/piedpiperpublishing/new-forum-post-t2219.html))
Quote from: RJKThis is a new forum dedicated to the long-standing Blackmoor Campaign by Dave Arneson.
Quote from: DeogolfenchanterAny chance of getting Mr. Arneson on board for an adventure module?! That would be pretty neat!
Quote from: RJKHmmm
Hmmmm
Hmmmm
Quote from: GronanRob,
I see Dave a couple of times a year... I can find his contact info if you don't have it.
emphasis supplied
Quote from: RJKOK. Maybe we can discuss that along with the Fiction and Merlynd's??
Email me when you have a chance, Michael.
Now, off to the post office.
R
Quote from: RJKI count myself, along with Gronan, as a fellow Blackmoorian also.
I only adventured twice into his game, but both adventures were hum-dingers!
Now Gronan might have additonal tales to tell...
emphasis supplied
Just a slight difference in adulation between then and now, eh? Adventured twice, completely downplayed, but he's now the Arensonian expert on all things Arenesonian. He does welcome Havard posting there with news and updates about what Dave might be doing though since he apparently doesn't know how to contact him himself.
2009
Gary's gone, Dave is still with us. Now Kuntz starts talking about Arneson in a different tone on DF (https://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=106&t=16993&p=696913&hilit=arneson#p696913)
Quote from: RJKAnd I even played in Blackmoor twice, DMed by the great Dave Arneson... :)
emphasis supplied
NOW he's trying to contact him (https://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=709161#p709161)
Quote from: RJKMy stay down there was preempted by personal situations and I have returned to Wisconsin.
I was at GaryCon1 in early March. I tried to reconnect with Dave Arneson while in Florida but no sooner than had I arrived he retired and moved back to Minnesota! :) WE have since communicated by phone and in email.
I remember when he suddenly jumped down to Florida on what seemed a whim, perhaps this was the reason - moving his attachment to the other guy living who was a co-creator. Whether coincidentally or not, after finding out Dave was in Minnesota again, so too was Rob no longer in Florida but back in Wisconsin
Word gets out that Dave's health also isn't good. (https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/piedpiperpublishing/dave-is-in-ill-health-t2544.html) Rob's reaction?
Quote from: RJKI sincerely hope he gets better and I will drop him a line to that effect.
Just a slightly different tone (https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/piedpiperpublishing/not-so-good-news-t2241.html) than when EGG's health (https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/piedpiperpublishing/great-news-t2240.html) was up and down over the years (https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/piedpiperpublishing/egg-s-health-t2226.html)
Quote from: RJKGary sent me an email today stating that he is entering the hospital for an "emergency operation." VERY sad news indeed, and he asked me to say a prayer for him, which I have, and I ask all of you to do the same, please.
For those who have his physical mailing address, do send get- well cards.
He will be offline for a bit, so he said, so let us wish him the best of luck and a speedy & healthy return to life!
QuoteGary's doctors (in an email from him, or maybe it went to everyone he knows, dunno) deigned not to operate and are having hin come back for tests in the future. So, cancel Yellow alert! Welcome back Big EGG!
Rob
The above was 2006
QuoteI have a note before me from Ernie Gygax that Gary's health has turned towards the poor side.
Everyone should wish him well as I do. Hope you recover soon Gary!
Rob
Quote>Dad is contacting us and letting his children know that he is feeling
>>extremely poor of health. Gail is mirroring this message.
>>
>>I hope that they are incorrect but if there is anything you want to do or
>>say to Gary, time may be of the essense. I hope that he rebounds soon and
>>comes back to my weekly Game gatherings.
>>
>>Just a note to my friends and family.
>>
>>Ernie Gygax
You interpert it.
RJK
Quote from: RJKWell, I can say that as well, having dealt with him since I was 12 years of age. He is stubborn. But if he wishes to maintain going forward without undue thought about something that may (or may not) be bothering him now, I can quite understand and appreciate that. While I was suffering through my own recent sicknesses the last thing I wanted was to think about them, or be reminded of them, and I am sure that is true with everyone who faces such challenges.
The above was just before Gary died.
Again, I'm not saying Kuntz was wrong for posting any of the above. I'm saying
it's quite odd that he's changed so drastically.
2010 - 2016
Kuntz doesn't mention Arneson again on DF until 2010. Then he mentions him 44 times in the next few years, his tenor towards DA always improving, but almost always with Gygax in a respectful primacy until the last years (https://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1678799#p1678799). One bit that was interesting though as a direct comparison to the article was here:
Quote(Havard) Did you adventure in Blackmoor beyond what can be learned from Robilar's adventure in the City of Gods from OJ#5?
(RJK) Gary, my brother Terry, Ernie Gygax and myself adventured first in Blackmoor (Castle and Outdoor) when Dave Arneson and David Megarry (of DUNGEON board-game fame) came to LG in the Winter of 1972. The reaction to that adventure and the consequent development of the D&D game as re-envisioned by EGG, is described in a lengthy introductory essay written by me for the upcoming release of Castle El Raja Key, with news on that here:https://lordofthegreendragons.blogspot.com/2009/12/castle-el-raja-key-small-partial-of.html
This is interesting because it is another recounting of the same events as in the article, as near as I can tell. And the blog post he links to describes the phone call, game, etc. Look at how its different:
Quote"...As I was ostensibly part of the Gygax extended family since 1968, I was at their house and with Gary almost every day. After the initial Blackmoor adventure events proceeded at a furious pace. Phone calls to Dave. Letters exchanged between the two. During this time EGG noted that he had begun crafting a "dungeon" setting similar to Dave's Blackmoor. About two weeks after this adventure, Gary handed me a slim manuscript which had been mailed to him by David. I sat down and read for the first time the rules that David had used during it. They consisted of "16 pages of [typed] notes" (as EGG emphasized while I was perusing them). He and I both noted that they were based off of EGG's Fantasy Supplement to the rules Chainmail (Gygax & Perren, Guidon Games 1971) but with copious additions of formulas which I faintly (at least then) equated to those from the miniatures game Strategos N (David Wesley, 1967) that I had watched being played at GENCON 2. Gary informed me that these notes were in need of streamlining and that he would be doing this over the coming weeks as well as continuing to craft a dungeon to play-test the refined rules.
emphasis supplied
Just a touch different, eh? Here both of them are noting that "they were based off...chainmail", with formulas RJK thought cribbed from Strategos N.
Now compare to the same events in the Kotaku article:
QuoteRegardless, for years after D&D's mainstream explosion into popular culture, Gygax would refer to Blackmoor as Arneson's "amended Chainmail fantasy campaign,"
or more simply, "a Chainmail game."
"People think that Blackmoor arose from Chainmail, and thus Chainmail gave rise to Dungeons & Dragons. That is not correct," said Stormberg, the RPG historian.
While Chainmail, amongst other things, was an influence on Blackmoor, Arneson's game was "entirely new," he said. It's a game entirely unlike Chainmail. It's
like saying a Rodin uses red and a Picasso uses red so they're the same style of painting."
...
"Dave described this fantasy medieval campaign he was running," Stormberg said.
"To express it to Gary, he expressed it as a variant to Chainmail, when in fact it was a completely new concept in gaming with some elements of Chainmail laid overtop it.
The underlying concept of a role-playing game is what Dave Arneson created."
...Gary invited Arneson and one member of his gaming crew, David Megarry, who had designed the adventure board game Dungeon, to his Lake Geneva basement to demonstrate Blackmoor. To get there, they drove through a snowstorm in November of 1972. Megarry and Arneson arrived to find Mary Jo Gygax clearing away the dinner plates while Gary sat at the typewriter, Kuntz recalled. Rob Kuntz was there, too, and joined them as the sixth player in Gygax's first game of Blackmoor, alongside his brother Terry, Gary Gygax, his son Ernie, Arneson, and Megarry.
...
Arneson 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. "He noted that Dave Megarry, a regular in his game, would be our guide for the adventure. Megarry did most of the interfacing and explaining what it was we were about to do with imaginary characters. Arneson noted we could be either heroes or wizards. Gary chose to be a wizard and the rest of us heroes"
...
As Kuntz tells it, Gygax had taken out some paper and colored pencils. They sat together at his dining room table. "I really believe what we experienced the night before can be turned into a game for creating stories," Kuntz recalls Gygax saying. "Be the adjuticator. I'll be the player." Gygax and Kuntz ran through two one-hour sessions of Blackmoor, but as Kuntz recalled it, neither game proceeded to their satisfaction. Kuntz believes it is because Arneson had been running Blackmoor for months now and had been able to furnish players with an immersive experience from repetition and recollection. Regardless, Kuntz describes himself as the first "dungeon master."
Kuntz remembers Gygax writing down his own recollections from the Blackmoor game in a frenzy. He remembers when Gygax later asked Arneson to send over his notes for Blackmoor. Arneson didn't have a concrete ruleset; he was making things up as he went along. But, Kuntz said, he did manage to cobble together some 18 pages of handwritten notes, a lot of which were simply stats for Chainmail monsters.
Arneson, who referred to himself as a "hunt and peck typist," wasn't much for polished rulesets. "The game was in Dave's mind, in practice with his home players. It didn't exist as a full-blown set of rules," said Stormberg. "It was a eureka moment for Gary."
Gygax read through Arneson's notes. "Halfway through the reading," Kuntz said, "Gary...nonchalantly said, 'This needs to be rewritten.' Not one nice thing to say about Dave, the adventure the rules. This is when it all switches.'
"He was jealous. Just stone-cold jealous."
I suspect that ending is pure projection.
Doesn't it seem strange that Rob's memory is getting better over the years and the "beginning" is pushed back further also (https://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=106&t=16993&p=715569&hilit=+beginning#p715569)? Kuntz was, quite frankly, humping Gary's leg up until the moment he passed, and afterwards so long as (IMO) it seemed most commercially favorable to do so. But now that's all changed, and unless Gary's ghost is visiting Rob like he apparently is Gail, there's nothing reasonable that points to a change.
So here's where I speculate and draw a speculative conclusion that everyone involved is trying to use the gaming community's affection as either leverage for revenge and/or gain.
Rob now decries modules completely. Says they're very bad for roleplaying and creativity. But again, this has changed (https://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=312875#p312875). He really wanted to sell modules to you not very long ago. (https://lakegenevaoriginalrpg.blogspot.com/2014/12/life-love-and-creativity.html) But he's a man whose primary claim to fame is wrapped up under who's legal thumb? Gary's widow. There was a thread about Castle Greyhawk a couple of years ago in the general DF forums that he inserted himself into (https://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1781666#p1781666), which was odd as normally he only took Q&A on this own thread. He wanted everyone to know that CGH could have been published but for Gary and Gail directly (https://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1781996#p1781996). (Note: I was in this conversation though I was not addressing Kuntz directly, he took issue with my comments encouraging people to make up their own castle GH instead of pining for an official one, in addition to a few other people's posts to that effect). And ended it with a post stating that CGH belongs to both of them and "Even Gail Gygax knows that (https://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1782000#p1782000)"; conceding however that she controlled the situation (https://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1782094#p1782094)
These were his last posts on Dragonsfoot. Randomly inserted into a thread discussing whether CG was ever going to be published, just like dozens of other threads exactly the same before it.
So let's think about everything that's happened this year with Kotaku, Gygax, and Kuntz.
I don't think it's out of the ballpark to speculate that Kotaku wants to de-emphasize Gary's legacy. The author of the article has already stated "And yet, perhaps Gygax has enjoyed enough time on D&D's altar of hero worship (https://kotaku.com/graphic-novel-about-d-ds-creator-is-enchanting-but-fal-1795058665)." That's one of the reasons that it seemed weird at GaryCon when she wrote the article sympathetic to Gail Gygax but negative about GaryCon itself and also Tenkar. Remember (https://www.tenkarstavern.com/2019/02/interesting-exchange-i-had-with.html) that (https://www.tenkarstavern.com/2019/03/more-reporter-more-fun-can-you-actually.html#comment-form)? At the time people shrugged and said "it could have been worse".
So the 1st article seemed to use a in-fight between the family to throw shade at GaryCon and Tenkar, neither of whom are beloved by certain communities.
Now another article, coming several months after the 1st, which possibly uses another infight between Kuntz and Gail over IP (speculating that Kuntz's sudden swerve is because he's pissed he can't cash in on his part of Gary's legacy, so fuck you Gail I'll be kingmaker and elevate Arneson over Gary instead).
Do you think Gail would have cooperated in the first hit piece if she knew Gary's role would be trashed by the same author using another bitter ex-TSR guy to turnabout on the one thing she wants to monetize?
Divide and conquer. She seems to be making a lot of hay off of these running feuds.
Now, we also have this film coming out, and the guy running the RPG forum media refers to her by her first name, Cecilia (http://odd74.proboards.com/thread/13671/kotaku-article). Perhaps a coincidence. I don't refer to authors I'm not familiar with by first names, but perhaps he does. This is one of the reasons why I wonder if the article and movie were timed together by two people who both have a preference for one to ascend and the other to descend.
It's no secret there's a lot of old-school gamers who'll pay 5.99 to be told that Arneson is actually the guy, and he was kept from his rightful due, etc. And that's also something that people probably agreeing with old-schoolers on absolutely nothing else would also pay 5.99 to hear, for different reasons. Not pro-Arneson so much as just "not Gygax".
Again - I don't really care who wrote what at this point. Gygax is my personal fave because I've been reading his books for four decades, and my love of his work was set way before I hopped on the internet for the first time, but I wonder if the community is getting played here. Like I said, a bit tin foil of me, granted. But there's lots of interesting patterns here. And I absolutely have lost all respect for Kuntz in any event.
But here's the last interesting piece that may be a total coincidence, but that in real journalism should have been reported as a conflict of interest in the piece, if I am correct on details. And if I'm not, I welcome correction.
Paul Stormberg is described in the piece as "a role-playing game archivist", and "a former archaeologist now spends his days digging into the work of Arneson, Gygax, and other lesser-known deities of the RPG tradition". These descriptions lend additional weight to his opinions that it was really Arneson who was the kernel of it all, don't they? He has the background and the materials to be able to make these assertions; case closed.
Does the article ever mention that he makes a not-insignificant amount of money from selling RPG items at auction through the collector's trove? Even once?
How about that it was the collectors trove that bought up all of Arneson's RPG life's work when his heirs didn't gather up his effects from a storage locker he'd left them in after he died, "Like an episode of Storage Wars or Auction Hunters.."? Any mention of that? The announcement isn't on his website anymore (http://thecollectorstrove.com/site-news/2012/4/29/the-big-announcement.html) but it's still archived at ENWorld (https://www.enworld.org/threads/dave-arnesons-personal-rpg-collection-for-auction.322615/post-5900441)
QuoteSunday, April 29, 2012 at 9:01PM
Hello Everyone,
Exciting news at The Collector's Trove! We have recently contracted to auction the David L. Arneson collection. The new owner of the collection has authorized The Collector's Trove to begin auctioning items from the legendary game designer's collection spanning over 50 years of amateur and professional involvement in war games, strategy games, card games, board games, and role-playing games.
The Collector's Trove contacted Dave Arneson for the first time in 2005. At that time the possibility of auctioning off his collection was discussed. The conversation continued off and on over over the next several years, the last time about 3 weeks before Arneson's death in 2009. He informed The Collector's Trove that the management of the collection would now be in the hands of his heirs and that he would pass along our services to them. Unfortunately, there was no word from Dave's heirs in over two years.
Then, in an unforeseen turn of events, the management of the collection apparently became too much for Dave's heirs to handle and they abandoned it in a storage locker. While the owner of the storage facility made numerous attempts to contact the heirs, they did not respond and left the fate of the collection in the hands of others. Like an episode of Storage Wars or Auction Hunters, the owner of the storage facility followed the business' standard protocol of auctioning the lockers contents. A local auction company won the bidding for the locker and took possession of the collection. Again, however the enormity and eclectic nature of the collection proved to be too much to manage, certainly beyond the scope of the company's operations. They ultimately contacted Michael Cox, long time owner and operator of the The Dragon's Trove an online gaming store with a long history of selling collectable RPGs.
Michael then contacted The Collector's Trove, the premier online auction house that specializes in handling the collections of RPG games designers and artists, and the two agreed to team up to rescue the collection. After, three hours in an unheated garage, on a cold Minnesota afternoon, the collection was evaluated by The Collector's Trove and a buy-out offer was tendered and accepted. A few days later The Collector's Trove returned with an empty cargo van. All 114 boxes and various loose items were loaded into the van with nary space for the driver and passenger to move. As darkness fell the pick-up team climbed into the van for a long drive.
The team drove through the night arriving at home base the next morning. Later that day the unloading and processing began.
The collection comprises some 10,000 items ranging from Dave's 1959 game of Risk to game designs he was working on up until his death in 2009. Dave was a creative genius and designer, devising game after game, poring over military history books, maps, and documents, refining and tinkering his designs way beyond the ken of even the most meticulous game designer.
Now, The Collector's Trove, in cooperation with Michael Cox of the The Dragon's Trove, will seek to preserve the intellectual property of the collection while trying to carry out Dave's wishes to have a portion of its value go to his heirs. Through a combined effort of scanning, documentation, and auctions it is hoped that we may achieve both goals. In the process Dave's fans and collectors alike will have the opportunity to support this effort and have a chance to own a piece of gaming history. Likewise, the gaming community may yet get a chance to see Dave's unpublished game designs come to fruition.
If you wish to keep apprised of this and the many other exciting, once in a lifetime auctions at The Collector's Trove use the 'eMail Notifications' link in the right column under 'My Services' or click here for Email Notification. Those who do so will receive a special preview list of each upcoming auction and exclusive preview pictures of items in each collection.
Otherwise, standard updates of web site news may be received by clicking on the 'RSS Subscription' link in the right column under 'My Services' or by simply checking back in on the website as often as you like.
The first Ebay auction will be launched next Sunday evening, May 6th and will include nearly 200 items including several rare wargames, Call of Cthulhu, Empire of the Petal Throne, Blackmoor, Dungeons & Dragons, and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Highlights of the auction will include inscribed and autographed copies, editorial and review copies, author's and comp copies, Dave Arneson library copies, and personal play copies! Among many special items are a series of Empire of the Petal Throne books and journals autographed by the late M.A.R. Barker.
Futures Bright,
Paul Stormberg
The Collector's Trove
I've met Paul a couple of times. He seems like a nice guy, and I'm not 100% sure this isn't just the horrible fact-checking that's already been routinely shown by the author of this article. But unless he's sold off all of those boxes of material (I know he's sold some % over the years - maybe it's all of it but I didn't think so) it would remain that he has an absolute vested financial interest in Arneson being known as the true father of D&D instead of Gygax.
And that is completely missing from any of the articles commentary, which almost entirely relies upon him and Kuntz. I haven't seen the movie, and I don't plan to. But I wonder if Stormberg is prominently featured in it, and if so if any disclosure occurred.
So again, speculatively, let's think about everything this article could possibly be accomplishing:
After placing allegations against GaryCon on to the internet forever to be linked back for various reasons, at Gail's behest; which could have possibly lowered demand for a Con she couldn't control
The same author has now placed a take-down of Gary's reputation on to the internet forever, at Kuntz's behest; possibly lowering the value of the IP he can't leverage
Which raises the demand for a movie that will take some pocket money from both old-schoolers AND other gaming groups not having a high opinion of them, for different reasons
Which speculatively raises the value of Arneson's ephemera, which would only likely be sold to gamers who want their very own piece of notebook paper that Dave wrote on
And involved in all of it is an author who stated
And yet, perhaps Gygax has enjoyed enough time on D&D's altar of hero worship.Very interesting indeed.
Quote from: Brad;1101060Okay, another Jim Ward story that might not be true because I could never find any legal evidence...[Scandalous statment will] Hopefully that'll be in the book.
Also, Kuntz is SUPER crotchety, anyway. I think it is fairly accurate his contribution to D&D has been severely downplayed; it's indisputable that he helped Gygax iron out most of what we consider the main parts of an RPG campaign. But again, old and crotchety...
Not sure why people would want to read that kind of stuff. And it wouldn't make Rob good for him to bring that kind of thing.
While Kuntz has made contributions, I also think he might be trying to claim too much nowadays.
Quote from: Razor 007;1101357It would be awesome, if kids of both co-creators would do a public event and bury the hatchet.
That's assuming there are bad feelings with the kids, which I don't believe is true. But even public events aren't going to do anything like that. WoTC when they announced 3e actually had both Gary and Dave together as guests. The problem is, this view is more of the public. Heck, one of Jack Kirby's kids was complementary of Stan Lee during the dual induction of them as Disney Legends, and people still chime in on who did what. That kind of stuff is never going away.
Quote from: EOTB;1101388I'm gonna go full tin-foil hat for a moment. I acknowledge this. But it seems there might be some threads and patterns at play here. I'm just tying together pieces of info left around the internet and could be completely wrong. But there's a whole lot of weird going on with this article and this timing from multiple sides.
To me this seems driven mainly by Rob Kuntz. He has some bile, whether created before Gary's death or after, and now he's going to do as much damage as possible. There's no fact checking in that article; for a filmmaker who continues to present himself as a simple unbiased historian who's definitely not doing a combined operation in conjunction with this kotoku author, it seems to get brough up wherever the movie is discussed. And any journalist worth their salt doesn't take one angry guy's word for it unless they really want to. Let's take a look at what just a few searches brings up on good old Rob's migrating attitudes over the years - something you'd think a journalist would at least mention, if not challenge him on.
Personally, I think it's mostly Kuntz. One thing to note in the article that Cecelia D'Anastasio tends to let the speakers tell the story and while sometimes making a few judgements, she usually lets what they say shape the article. Kuntz is the one who comes off the most critical of Gary here, not any of the other folks.
The problem with Rob is that he seems to have burned many bridges over time. He actually had a shot with the rise of 3e and the third party publishers, but the three folks he went with, Necromancer, Kenzer, and Troll Lord all had issues with his modules, include a public blow-up between Clark Peterson and him. Then he exited Castle Zagyg. Ever since then, most of his stuff has been self published on his own whim. He did release his "Castle notes" a while back on DVDs and I don't believe they were well received, based on what reviews are read online. All the while, he's grown more and more critical of the gaming industry, alluding to thinking that the commercial market make games less creative.
I think Rob suffers from what a lot of creative types may suffer in gaming--a good player and DM, not a great writer. I mean, in this day and age, now with the OGL and the retro-clone movement, he could really take advantage of those opportunities. He hasn't seemed to be able to do that. Whatever the reason, it's not for a lack of opportunity or market.
Quote from: EOTB;1101388So let's think about everything that's happened this year with Kotaku, Gygax, and Kuntz.
I don't think it's out of the ballpark to speculate that Kotaku wants to de-emphasize Gary's legacy. The author of the article has already stated "And yet, perhaps Gygax has enjoyed enough time on D&D's altar of hero worship (https://kotaku.com/graphic-novel-about-d-ds-creator-is-enchanting-but-fal-1795058665)." That's one of the reasons that it seemed weird at GaryCon when she wrote the article sympathetic to Gail Gygax but negative about GaryCon itself and also Tenkar. Remember (https://www.tenkarstavern.com/2019/02/interesting-exchange-i-had-with.html) that (https://www.tenkarstavern.com/2019/03/more-reporter-more-fun-can-you-actually.html#comment-form)? At the time people shrugged and said "it could have been worse".
So the 1st article seemed to use a in-fight between the family to throw shade at GaryCon and Tenkar, neither of whom are beloved by certain communities.
Reading the actual article in question,
https://kotaku.com/fantasys-widow-the-fight-over-the-legacy-of-dungeons-1833127876
I am perplexed how this article throws shade at GaryCon. The article doesn't judge GaryCon itself negatively at all, either from the author or quoted subject (Gail). Tenkar is another matter, as he has pretty much spent way too much time with a grudge, and his responses really come off as paranoid--it's pretty clear he's taken a grudge with her way too far over time. Tenkar and perhaps Frank Mentzer (by mentioning his ousting from the con) might look bad, but that doesn't really make the Convention itself look bad.
The article on Gail pretty much comes across as fair, and its more about Gail and her beliefs and conflicts and mindset than anybody else's. It also doesn't have a lot of the ideological stuff about gaming and author value judgement Kotaku might be known for--this type of article could have been in the Chicago Tribune or New York Times.
(Disclaimer, I'm the one who screen-captured Tenkar alluding to Gail as a C--t, and I'm very sympathetic to Gail, so those are my biases).
I'm just not seeing any sort of coordinated effort to take Gary Gygax down by people with these articles. In the newer article, the only person I see with an axe to grind is Rob based on how he words his statements, the others come off very reasonably.
Quote from: JeremyR;1101371And if you've read it, you'll see that it dispels any myth that Arneson was a "rules light" guy. Probably the first and only RPG that has a separate to hit for when your character fights a lion. And figuring out experience for defeated opponents requires multiplying three fractions together.
Yeah, maybe that's why it never garnered a big enough player base to keep it alive.
Quote from: EOTB;1101388So here's where I speculate and draw a speculative conclusion that everyone involved is trying to use the gaming community's affection as either leverage for revenge and/or gain.
Always follow the money.
Always.
Thank you EOTB for the excellent post.
Quote from: Spinachcat;1101473Always follow the money.
Always.
That assumes that everybody is evil, cynical, or has an ulterior motive. Or that it's even money based.
There are still some areas of that analysis that are big stretches. (Again, EOTB admits to it being "tin foil" stuff).
For instance, thinking that just because the film maker is using the first name of the journalist covering him that they're entangled together...that's just overthinking things.
The Paul Stromberg theories also gets contradicted by the fact that Paul has sold some of Gary Gygax's stuff, and is working with Gail on archiving Gary's stuff. He actually did an Reddit IAMA (https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/ae9ef5/the_lost_treasures_of_gygax_ask_me_anything/) earlier this year about that. If he was part of any conspiracy to "tear Gary down", it would hurt him, and that's assuming he is in it "just for the money", which I doubt. If anything, he has an interest in making sure both men are appreciated and remembered. It would make no sense for him to "diminish Gygax". Paul has contributed to several historical volumes such as the Art and Arcana volume, and other works, so I think he has more or less proved himself as a sincere historian.
Honestly, I don't think even Rob is motivated by money as much as something personal or even a personal quirkiness. He's been real eccentric over the years.
Quote from: JRT;1101496That assumes that everybody is evil, cynical, or has an ulterior motive. Or that it's even money based.
There are still some areas of that analysis that are big stretches. (Again, EOTB admits to it being "tin foil" stuff).
For instance, thinking that just because the film maker is using the first name of the journalist covering him that they're entangled together...that's just overthinking things.
The Paul Stromberg theories also gets contradicted by the fact that Paul has sold some of Gary Gygax's stuff, and is working with Gail on archiving Gary's stuff. He actually did an Reddit IAMA (https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/ae9ef5/the_lost_treasures_of_gygax_ask_me_anything/) earlier this year about that. If he was part of any conspiracy to "tear Gary down", it would hurt him, and that's assuming he is in it "just for the money", which I doubt. If anything, he has an interest in making sure both men are appreciated and remembered. It would make no sense for him to "diminish Gygax". Paul has contributed to several historical volumes such as the Art and Arcana volume, and other works, so I think he has more or less proved himself as a sincere historian.
Honestly, I don't think even Rob is motivated by money as much as something personal or even a personal quirkiness. He's been real eccentric over the years.
You don't need an evil cabal, you only need people with converging interests acting in their own interest.
As for following the money...
People do bad stuff for a number of reasons: Envy, Jealousy, Revenge, Fame, Power, Sex, Love, Money.
I'll know when JRT can no longer use the internet because you'll be able to type the word "Gygax" on a forum without him appearing. But he'll never get more than 50% of the experience points awarded on an adventure.
And JRT, I didn't say that Stormberg was tearing Gygax down or diminishing him. That's a bad-cop job. Stormberg builds Arneson up throughout.
Quote from: EOTB;1101514I'll know when JRT can no longer use the internet because you'll be able to type the word "Gygax" on a forum without him appearing. But he'll never get more than 50% of the experience points awarded on an adventure.
Nah, I've left a lot of forums alone for several years. Most of my time has been here and very little posting.
QuoteAnd JRT, I didn't say that Stormberg was tearing Gygax down or diminishing him. That's a bad-cop job. Stormberg builds Arneson up throughout.
You're still implying there's some big conspiracy between all the members of this article, some sort of coordinated good-cop, bad-cop thing. I don't buy it.
Well, Paul Stormberg is Rob Kuntz's business partner in Three Line Studios and literally the publisher of his Dave Arneson's True Genius book so it's not like the connection between them is a deep secret (though of course the article didn't mention that). OTOH Stormberg is also working with and, at least for a while seemed to be positioned as the public face of the Gygax Estate (when he did that out-of-the-blue Reddit AMA about all the cool unpublished IP in Gary's archives earlier this year) so he can't really be credibly portrayed as some sort of anti-Gygax crusader, which is apparently Rob's latest angle.
Quote from: JRT;1101517You're still implying there's some big conspiracy between all the members of this article, some sort of coordinated good-cop, bad-cop thing. I don't buy it.
No, you keep implying there's some big conspiracy between all the members (edit) of the article (/edit) which is certainly not happening. I'm noting that there's a journalist who's 2-for-2 in dropping big Gygax stories when old school D&D-related things are happening and not before or after, that make people look bad who aren't necessarily beloved in her wider circles. Perhaps that's just calendar crapshoot bingo. I don't need every person I interact with to be on board with the others. I just need them to want to interact with me for some reason that furthers my own purpose - even if they're simply "useful". I may even be willing to help them achieve whatever petty or not-petty goal motivates them.
Quote from: JRT;1101496That assumes that everybody is evil, cynical, or has an ulterior motive.
Yes.
Humans aren't that complicated.
The reason you always follow the money is because the money trail is the easiest to track and verify. In cases where envy, jealousy or other motives exist, following the money trail still does the trick because money is the major way how we interact with the world, and thus becomes the trackable signifier of other motives.
There 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.
I'd known of Rob's odd attitude for a while now via other connections. But did not know the rabbit hole was this deep. And may be deeper. I got the impression it was just low level sniping, much like Arneson did on occasion. But that Kotaku is anything but low level?
I have a feeling money may not be the prime mover in this. It reads like a grudge, done to spite someone. It certainly contradicts parts of what others from the original group have recounted.
But who knows? I doubt we ever will know the why of all this.
Quote from: Omega;1101547But who knows? I doubt we ever will know the why of all this.
My opinion is that it can be found in Rob Kuntz's own words in the True Genius of Dave Arneson. Basically boils down to that he felt he contributed creatively during the genesis of D&D by running and designing El Raja Key, and later Greyhawk itself. But was rewarded by working stock at early TSR and having most if not nearly of all his ideas for published material shot down.
Finally left along with the most people from the Twin Cities including Arneson. To what appears to me a classic case of a clash of workplace expectations. Mind you this all occur in 1975 and 1976. D&D was a thing but it wasn't a mega hit yet. Then AD&D and TSR making millions occured in the last 1970s.
I had some personal experience with small business that echoes what Kuntz wrote.
The upshot we will never know exactly what happened because there is too much emotion wrapped up it. But it is a major clue as to the source of Kuntz's motivations. You don't have to believe me, read True Genius for yourself. Fortunately it is one of the more clearly written sections.
Quote from: estar;1101557Mind you this all occur in 1975 and 1976. D&D was a thing but it wasn't a mega hit yet. Then AD&D and TSR making millions occured in the last 1970s.
That's a key point that always seems to get lost in the "Dave Arneson = Jack Kirby" narrative. By pretty much everyone's admission Dave Arneson's substantive contribution to D&D was done by mid-1973 (at the latest) and he had nothing at all to do with anything that came after (i.e. pretty much everything people think of when they think of D&D - the AD&D hardbacks, Basic boxed sets, modules, World of Greyhawk, etc). He did work at TSR for about a year c. 1976 but the only things that came out under his byline during that time were a couple of articles in TSR's house magazines (the D&D Blackmoor supplement listing him as author predates his actual employment at TSR, and by many accounts was no more than ~50% actually written by him and the material that was - mostly the Temple of the Frog adventure, is material that originated in that same pre-publication era: we know that Twin Cities players were playing that adventure c. 1972). By the time D&D became a commercial juggernaut c. 1979-82 and made Gary Gygax rich, Arneson had been completely out of the picture for many years, and to the extent his contribution to D&D ever amounted to something more than ideas - that any of the actual written text of the 1974 D&D rules is directly attributable to him, which is debatable (at best) - it had long since been superseded and replaced (and yet TSR continued to pay him a 5% author royalty on every copy of the D&D Basic Set - his contention in the lawsuits was that he felt he should
also get that royalty (and co-author credit) for AD&D rulebooks and (A)D&D-branded modules and accessories*).
The Arneson = Kirby comparison would only been apt if Kirby had never returned to Marvel after WWII but nevertheless came knocking in the 60s claiming he was owed 50% ownership and royalties for all of Marvel's titles (over and above the royalties and credits he was receiving for Captain America) because Marvel's "house" art style was derived from work he did there in the 40s.
*From what I understand (from
Empire of the Imagination, IIRC) the ultimate settlement DID give Arneson a royalty on AD&D rulebooks (at 2.5% instead of 5%) but didn't give him co-author credit (though if you compare printings of the AD&D DMG you'll see that his name does appear in the "Acknowledgments" section of later printings after not being included in early ones) and didn't give him any royalty for modules or other accessory products (dice, geomorph sets, etc.)
In nutshell everything I read and researched on the subject can be summarized as Dave Arneson is the inventor of tabletop roleplaying, and Gary Gygax is the inventor of Dungeon & Dragons the first published tabletop roleplaying game.
I am leading with that as a response to T. Foster is that everything he say is true but it only pertains to Dungeons & Dragon the first published tabletop roleplaying game. Which would have not existed without Dave Arneson having invented tabletop roleplaying.
There are two equal and co-dependent halves to the path that lead to our hobby and industry. People need to keep in mind that prior to the Lake Geneva Blackmoor sessions, he was running the Blackmoor for nearly two years (late 1970 to fall of 1972). About the same amount of time Gygax took from running Greyhawk with his manuscript to the publication of D&D, from late 1972 to early 1974.
Wasn't a case of Dave having a good idea. It was a case of Dave developing a novel type of game but was an indifferent writer and was better suited to teaching other his ideas face to face. A case Gygax was a type of gamer that had the discipline to see a published project through. Just as important while Gygax didn't invent tabletop roleplaying, he was skilled enough of a game designer to create a new tabletop roleplaying game that was fun, endurable, and compelling to play. Enough so that his game's fundamental concepts are still in use today.
And the circumstances had a role to play as well. My view that the Greyhawk was a campaign focused on dungeon exploration because Dave opted to bring referee the Blackmoor Dungeon when he went down to Lake Geneva. He opted to run the Blackmoor Dungeon because he had to travel and it was a part of the campaign he could easily transport. The circumstance could been easily different.
There been other controversial disparate creative parings the aforementioned Stan Lee & Jack Kirby. There is the well known Steve Job, Steve Wozinak. In Gygax & Arneson I feel we have two men who have very different temperaments and skills outside of gaming Whose creative legacy are highly dependent on each other. Gygax work by far is the more visible and successful of the two, but Dave's work is the foundation on which it all rests. And it was work honed by nearly two years of running Blackmoor that was continued independently of Gygax's work on OD&D and Greyhawk.
The question one need to be answer are
- Would have Dungeons & Dragons be written without Dave's help or running the Lake Geneva session?
- What was work involved by Dave Arneson in developing the idea of a tabletop roleplaying campaign through his Blackmoor Campaign.
- What would have happened to Dave Arneson innovations if Gygax never had written Dungeons & Dragons?
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.
Over the years, Rob has burned enough bridges and walked away from enough business partners under acrimonious circumstances (often with advance in the pocket and no manuscript to show, or unpaid art in other instances when it was his own outfit) that you can see a pattern.
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 (https://kotaku.com/two-women-accuse-skyrim-composer-jeremy-soule-of-sexual-1837677315) 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. (https://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?41047-Dungeons-and-Deceptions&p=1101473&viewfull=1#post1101473)"?
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. (https://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?41047-Dungeons-and-Deceptions&p=1101473&viewfull=1#post1101473)"?
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.
Quote from: Omega;1101734One of these days I'll start digging again as I really want to know the origin.
There's more than one origin but Diplomacy played a big role (no pun intended), I think. Its players started to roleplay during the course of the game. What would be interesting to know for posterity is if any Braunstein players had been in such a Diplomacy game or were generally inspired by the beginning introduction of characterization in games.
(For me, that is the quantum leap from wargames to RPG: characterization. As such the answer to the question who invented RPGs might be that it was a drawn-out, collaborative effort that simply culminated in D&D.)
I am told that you know when you have attained success because that is when you see the trolls appear. ;)
EOTB has been trolling away on 3 forums i know of already. must have a lot of free time.
Glad to answer questions for people who see the movie and want to know more.
Our facebook page is troll free: https://www.facebook.com/blackmoorsecrets/
I hope those who watch enjoy the movie.
Now to go talk to the admins at ODD74 about trolls.
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 think this is definitely true. The early issues of White Dwarf seem to be about a different game than the one I started playing in the '80s. OD&D is a different beast from both AD&D and the B/X lineage, with a different attitude. A big chunk of the OSR was/is about rediscovering that game (trying to).
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1101757There's more than one origin but Diplomacy played a big role (no pun intended), I think. Its players started to roleplay during the course of the game. What would be interesting to know for posterity is if any Braunstein players had been in such a Diplomacy game or were generally inspired by the beginning introduction of characterization in games.
(For me, that is the quantum leap from wargames to RPG: characterization. As such the answer to the question who invented RPGs might be that it was a drawn-out, collaborative effort that simply culminated in D&D.)
Possibly. But it too is from the same general era of the 60s so that sort proto RP may have been kicked off by something else. It probably did not trigger the academic use. But
At a guess at least the scholastic iterations probably had some vetting or percolation going on before seeing actual use. Either that or the uses I am aware of were the testbeds. Closest trigger I can pin down is possibly Third Wave, a school social sim played out in the late 60s that went a little awry, and a second one a year or so later. By the early 70s there were books like Beyond Simulation which later teachers referenced for their own sims.
Here is a little snippet that RPG players may recognize.
QuoteMarilyn Kourilsky identifies three important learning principles that are applied by participation in a mini*economy.(2)
1. Real as opposed to vicarious experience
2. Active rather than passive roles in the learning situation
3. Actual decision-making and bearing the consequences of those decisions
( 2 Marilyn Kourilsky, Beyond Simulation : The Mini-Society Approach to Instruction in Economics and Other Social Sciences , (Los Angeles: Education Resource Associates, 1974), pgs. 2-3.)
Turning up on a forum and in the first post accusing people of trolling, while writing stuff like "Typical Internet Gamer in Grandma's Basement" and "hee hee hee Pretty funny really."... #kettleblack
This is getting good now.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]3786[/ATTACH]
Quote from: Secrets of Blackmoor;1101760I am told that you know when you have attained success because that is when you see the trolls appear. ;)
EOTB has been trolling away on 3 forums i know of already. must have a lot of free time.
Glad to answer questions for people who see the movie and want to know more.
Now to go talk to the admins at ODD74 about trolls.
So strange. Griff literally said on Dragonsfoot "troll on"
Quote from: secrets of blackmoorThose of you who post about the film without knowing what you are talking about - TROLL ON! :P
https://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=2028197#p2028197
He also tried to bait me into trolling him on ODD74 by on the one hand saying he was glad conversation was so polite there, while simultaneously calling me a complete moron. I don't bring drama to Fin's board because he asks people not to. That's for places like here.
Quote from: secrets of blackmoorThis is such a pleasant discussion.
People posting ideas politely - Not attacking one another.
I am somewhat in shock.
I go to other forums and I get attacked by complete morons over this article and I didn't even write it.
Thank you mods for keeping it clean.
http://odd74.proboards.com/post/221190
Now he's trying to bait me on to Facebook, which I won't touch with the proverbial 10' pole, and threatening to go to complain to ODD74 about...my not talking about this there? Or maybe he's one of those guys that wants people to be banned for stuff they do on other sites. I dunno.
He also says he's willing to answer questions about the movie, but when I ask about the artifact purchase he himself brought up - no answers.
But then we know he's willing to slam a forum that doesn't do what he anticipates.
Quote from: secrets of blackmoorWe can't go to gamer forums and post about our own movie; we've tried and the moderators delete our posts. They're actually a bit mean about and seem to revel in shutting us down. We can't name any out of respect... DragonsFoot! -- OOPS!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/secretsofblackmoor/secrets-of-blackmoor-the-true-history-of-dungeons/posts/2604539
Note: the above was before I ever engaged with him.
@Griff - if you think EOTB is a troll, remember DON'T FEED THE TROLLS.
This guy did...
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0f/Frank_Mentzer_Lucca_2014_-07.jpg/449px-Frank_Mentzer_Lucca_2014_-07.jpg)
Edit: There's also a concept called #Boomerposting that seems apposite here.
Quote from: Omega;1101762Possibly. But it too is from the same general era of the 60s so that sort proto RP may have been kicked off by something else. It probably did not trigger the academic use. But
I just reread parts of Playing at the World; I forgot that the Twin Cities group was at the time of the Braunsteins involved in building the Napoleonic Simulation Game, a campaign leveraging Gygax' "Napoleonic Diplomacy II" for strategic play.
Quote from: EOTB;1101747EDIT - 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.
https://www.kotaku.com.au/2019/08/dungeons-deceptions-the-first-dd-players-push-back-on-the-legend-of-gary-gygax/
Yes, I read the article. Most of which was written many years ago. Not sure why she included references to the new Blackmoor Movie or to an Interview that she conducted with Rob ....
four years ago!!!
...Oh wait. Turns out she does have an agenda... she describes herself as chaotic nuetral on her own Instagram page. ...Why do you believe she would want to tell an accurate story over on Kotaku?
https://saveversusallwands.blogspot.com/2017/06/more-historical-howlers-from-cecilia.html
I like facts, they seem to stack up really nicely when one is trying to figure out the truth. Let's look at her earlier Kotaku articles about women in gaming that didn't receive the credit they were due... Hmmm... and how about her review of Rise of the Dungeon Master: Gary Gygax and the Creation of D&D... let's take a much closer look at what Cecilia has been publishing over the last few years...
Dungeons & Dragons Wouldn't Be What It Is Today Without These Women
https://kotaku.com/d-d-wouldn-t-be-what-it-is-today-without-these-women-1796426183
First woman she mentions in this article is Jean Wells who worked at TSR. ....Long after the release of 0D&D. After I had already been playing and running D&D
games for years! She mentions an article, an editorial she published in Dragon with Kim Mohan
"Women want equality, and why not?" in the July 1980 issue of Dragon magazine, and cites this as an example of women not having equality in gaming. Newsflash for you grogs that weren't actually there, Woman always were equal, by 1978 we had a well established routine for our games, women and female gamers were welcome to play at our tables, they could even play female characters, and our house rule out in Colorado for this was that female characters had -1 Str and +1 Chr, and there were young ladies who really enjoyed playing D&D, My first girlfriend, a female acquaintance who wanted to be my girlfriend, and my first wife, being amongst the original female gamers included our D&D group. Most of my friends didn't bring their girlfriends over for D&D because women simply weren't interested in D&D. Their eyes would simply glaze over at the mention of underground battles with vile orcs, in much the same way as a modern woman's eyes would glaze over if you even suggested she doesn't need her cellphone. It wasn't about women being excluded from the hobby, because they weren't. They chose not to be a part of the hobby, except for a select few, like uh, Andre Norton, who published a fantasy novel about Gary's Gameworld Greyhawk, called
Quag Keep in February of 1977, after sitting in with him, in a game of D&D. This still remains one of my favorite D&D fiction books by the way, not becuase of the Greyhawk setting, but because of Andre Norton, who was a super fantastic fantasy & science fiction writer of the highest caliber. When Cecilia says women weren't getting credit for wanting to be a part of D&D, she has no idea what she is really talking about, ...because she wasn't there. About the time she was born in 1992 or 1993 TSR was dying, and Gary hadn't been with the company for almost a decade. She has also never mentioned
Lee Gold, not even once.
Jean Wells worked at TSR but didn't even like gamers... in her own words... Years after she'd gotten the job off an ad in Dragon, Wells became the titular
"Sage" for the magazine's
"Sage Advice" column. She used the column to exercise her ferocious, sometimes cutting, wit. The strangest and most off-base questions were most likely to garner Wells' "
advice." In one column, a player wrote in,
"How much damage do bows do?" Wells responded,
"Answer: None. Bows do not do damage, arrows do. However, if you hit someone with a bow, I'd say it would probably do 1-4 points of damage and thereafter render the bow completely useless for firing arrows.""I adopted this approach because this is who I am," Wells said of the column in 2010.
"I felt the youngsters under the age of sixteen were spending far too much time being far too serious about a game when they needed to focus some of that attention back on their families and schools. I'd hoped the kids would see the humor in the situation and not take the game so seriously that every breath they took, every word they said was about D&D."I didn't read Dragon Magazine much after about issue #50 or so, because it was exclusively about AD&D and stupid stuff, instead of about D&D, and creativity. I had zero interest in focusing my attention back on my family, because they weren't focused on me, and school was a joke. Everyone halfway intelligent from middle school on, realized public school was simply a massive brainwashing scam that didn't teach anything about real life, and would only teach about being a good underpaid slave worker to the Bourgeois Capitalists. I certainly didn't need anyone from a gaming company sharply and wittily telling me what I needed to do with my life, or how to play D&D for that matter, since I had been playing for years already, before she had been hired on at TSR, and before she learned to GM (
The wrong way, I would add...) at TSR. I would agree though with Cecilia that it was a mistake that TSR didn't hire Darlene full time, as she was a fantastic cartographer, and it was her artwork on the map alone that persuaded me to buy the Greyhawk portfolio in 1980.
On focusing on school... see also: Pink Floyd
"Another Brick in the Wall".Okay let's look at Cecilia's
Rise of the Dungeon Master interview...
https://kotaku.com/graphic-novel-about-d-ds-creator-is-enchanting-but-fal-1795058665
I'll let Oakes Spaulding reveal certain truths about Cecilia's motivations with this in his 2017 post about this here;
Cecilia D'Anastasio's Silly Theories About the Tyranny of Gygax and Early D&D http://saveversusallwands.blogspot.com/2017/05/cecilia-danastasios-silly-theories.html
Next up is a Kotaku article on Gail Gygax, Which I'll post here, and take this opportunity to dispute some of her assertions with some real facts, that will be sure to provide some enlightenment for our dear readers here.
Fantasy's Widow: The Fight over the Legacy of Dungeons and Dragons
https://kotaku.com/fantasys-widow-the-fight-over-the-legacy-of-dungeons-1833127876
Gary really loved Gail, and she loved him. In his personal life, she was there for him, when he hit rock bottom, after he was ousted from TSR, Cecilia did get this part right. It was Gail who helped him rebuild his shattered life. She stood by him, through the worst of his personal debt crisis, and helped him rebuild his self-esteem and RPG brands even though TSR was hostile towards him, and took every opportunity to destroy anything that he created. I still have my
Dangerous Journeys and
Lejendary Adventures books, both brands of which were shut down by TSR in the 1990's. She helped him create these so he could earn a decent living, and I happily paid for them so that he could earn a living as a GM outside of TSR, and they could earn a living together as a family. He left her everything in his will, because he believed she would love all the things that he loved, and that simply wasn't true. I wish she had loved the things he loved, because then the world would be a much better place.
I'll start with the early 2000's and the legacy of games supplements that he produced with Stephen and Mac from Troll Lord Games. He picked Stephen and Mac to work with, because they reminded him, of himself when he was younger, the confident and brash young game designer who would carve a path in the game Industry and make a name for themselves, and they did, starting in 2001, with his help. But this went both ways, It was them, who helped him get Castle Gygax published at last, and when he finally departed this world, it was them, he trusted and worked with them the most, and was working with them to publish his new games supplements. By the time he left, he had realized his role as the Father of D&D, was helping any gamers, whenever and wherever they asked him, about breaking into the RPG Industry. In order to honor them for their contribution, I always make sure to bring at least a twelve pack of Dr. Pepper for Steve and the Troll Lords at GaryCon every year, just because they did this for him, and continue to prevail in publishing Castles & Crusades and supplements, even though Gail severed the relationship that Gary had made with them, while he was alive, almost immediately after he had died. Plus, you know, you should never let Steve go dry, when he is GMing, just 'sayin. They were the partners that Gary had picked, she should have had faith in them. Stephen is an excellent leader now, I see his loyal young followers at the Garycon every year, they drive up with him from Arkansas, or drive in from other parts of the country, and help him setup his booth, and then breakdown when he is done. They are fast and efficient, in first,and out first, and they help him at countless shows across the country. Plus they love sitting down at the table and playing great games, very much unlike the latest partner that Gail chose, that retard Tom DeSanto who is actually suing her, but only because he seems unable to produce anything meaningful, even though he is the Hollyweird producer, and she just holds all of Gary'sd old IP.
2016 Article on Tom Desanto taking over to oversee the Gygax catalog of published and unpublished works
https://variety.com/2016/film/news/gary-gygax-estate-dungeons-and-dragons-tom-desanto-1201824039/
2019 Article on Tom Desanto suing Gail Gygax, since he obviously doesn't produce movies anymore
https://www.enworld.org/threads/gail-gygax-sued-by-movie-producer.665634/
So, in less than two years, he's going after her, even though it can take decades for a script that is sold, to be actually produced. All that IP, and he couldn't even sell one option, for one movie or game? really? lame. Hollyweird at its finest.
I want to visit this whole thing about Gygax magazine as well, where Gail (and Which Cecilia mentioned in her article) is upset that she was sued by Ernie and Luke. They were just doing what Gygax's do, which is, ...you know, make cool roleplaying games and publications, and they actually got started and were doing exactly that, when Gail abruptly filed a trademark on the Gygax name and issued a cease and desist. At first they resisted, but then they realized, because she had filed first, she would actually prevail in a long term court battle and ended up releasing their Trademark claim, and abruptly ending the publication of Gygax magazine. If Gail were really a loving step-mother, and loved all of his children as she had loved him, then she would want to see them succeed as well, and would not stand in the way of their successful endeavors. Gary did give her all of the IP rights, but she is not sharing that with the rest of the Gygax family. Turns out, in the long run that this may actually be good for them though, because Tom DeSanto and his Hollyweird crew likely won't have any claim outside of what Gail Gygax was not sharing.
She doesn't share with gamers, and I would know, because like everyone else who likes D&D, I tried to contact her after Gary died. First, to offer my condolences, and second to offer my support for her projects. Gary did leave everything in his will to her, ...after all.
When she had her website and had announced the Gygax memorial in Lake Geneva, I tried unsuccessfully to contact her not once, but twice from her website contact page to see about donating, and to offer my personal support, however I received absolutely no response. Just crickets. It's not like anyone in RPG gaming could email her as a general rule as she didn't post publicly on any gaming forums at all, didn't leave any contact email on her website, opting instead only to use the generic and anonymous contact form. She would just make cryptic posts from time-to-time on her website. That was it. In her own words from the Kotaku article;
Gail wasn't much of a player, she said, preferring to "be the person behind the scenes and support him in whatever he needs." She rarely went down into the War Games room. "I just didn't think his fans would want 'the girlfriend' in there," she said. "It was just good bonding time for him, his sons and his fans. I would be in the kitchen cooking meals for them." She had the business-partnership marriage she'd been looking for, and took her bookkeeping duties seriously. And then I find out that she had canceled Gary's business arrangements with the Troll Lords. So it came as no surprise to me at all when she later turned on her own stepchildren and shutdown Gygax magazine. She wasn't really a gamer, she didn't like gamers, didn't want to spend time with gamers, and her only concern was what she could wrangle from the intellectual property that was his legacy. And of course she turned to non-gamers, people like Tom DeSantos in an attempt to maximize her profits, only to find herself swimming with some of the sharks of hollywood, The bad apples.
Looking back now, she probably would have made a lot more money, if she had just kept and honored the business agreements that Gary had made with, ...you know, them pesky tabletop game designers who literally would make a pilgrimage and visit him in his hometown every year.
But to hear it from Cecilia D'Anastasio you'd think every gamer in the D&D world was out to get Gail and "steal" Gygax's legacy. What both she and Gail still fails to consider and take into account even now, is that Gary Gygax's legacy has already been released to the general public in the form of the Open Gaming License, and absolutely no one in game design is interested in, ...well, giving that back to her, ...just for her exclusive use.
People are free to make movies, media and games using that IP, that was rudely taken from Gary by that first Hollyweird and businesspeople shark crew led by Lorraine Williams, and all they did is run TSR right into the ground, and left a smoking crater where a great gaming company once stood.
It's still not too late for Gail, She can love all of Gary's children as she once loved Gary, and share the bounty of what remains of the Gygax IP with them, or she can watch from the sidelines as the real gamers continue to pay homage to Gary and offer tribute and honors to all of Gary's children, but not her, but only because it is her who chooses to remain distant from the real fans and gamers that continue to support the entire Gygax family.
As for Cecilia D'Anastasio, I don't think much of her scholarship, fact-finding, and reporting skills. She seems to deliberately omit convenient facts like omitting the early women in gaming who were successful in promoting gaming and their own business like for example, Andre Norton, Ursula K. Leguin, and Lee Gold, and she would paint Gail Gygax as persecuted and misunderstood, when in fact it was Gail that withdrew her support of the very game designers that Gary had so ardently in life directly supported, as well shutting down her own step children when they took steps to earn a few dollars with game publications using their collective family name.
Publishing these untrue, inflammatory, and provocative reports does nothing but open old wounds, and harms RPG gaming as a whole, and I would contend, is Cecilia D'Anastasio's true goals, as evidenced by multiple articles that she has published the last few years, is to actually harm old school style gaming, and in this, she is succeeding so far.
Way to go young lady! Thanks for your great contribution to my favorite gaming hobby. (not!)
Well this thread is sordid fun! As to the "controversy" at hand ...
The idea that we need to "follow the money" to determine the truth is funny, because really ... why else would anyone care about this? Seriously, what possible reason could there be to produce lavish content designed to explore which of two dudes gets the moniker "Father of Role-playing"? I've read everything here, and I'm not seeing it.
Everyone seems to be in relative agreement as to what specific contributions each party made, but some are then agonizing over how much each contribution supports entitlement to the coveted moniker. Is pure pedantry so much of a force that someone would spend 100K to investigate this matter? Unless you are the best friend/wife/children/etc. of someone involved (and even then, sheesh), why is this nickname so very important to you? Those of you trying to argue that following the money results in ambiguous findings ... what possible other motive do you posit?
Lots of people who see everyone in terms of skin color or genitalia have done this sort of thing in the past in order to claim that their preferred ethnic or gender group is actually the one responsible for a given achievement, but seeing as how both Dave and Gary where white dudes even that falls flat.
I like the old crowd. I like Rob Kuntz. I send some messages to Luke, luke is a very nice guy BTW. I'd love t interview Ernie about his experiences. He's sort of the wonder child of RPG's as he was there too but he was just a kid. That is fascinating. I always make a point of saying hi to Ernie at Gary Con and also say hi to his dog. I threw money at the vet fund when his dog was hurt. Makes me happy to see her doing well.
I pretty much talk to everyone of the old crowd. People who thought I was gonna be a jerk will soon discover in person that I am a fun guy to hang out with. What's more I am true old school about gaming, I will be more likely to play a minis war game than an RPG when I'm at a convention. That is where all the old dudes hang out and those are the stars of any convention if you ask me.
At Gary Con I ran an unknown D&D manuscript for Areal combat called Battle in the Skies. It's Fight in the Skies with fantasy creatures. I even made a beautiful map for the game and then raffled it off at the end of the game. Mike Carr let me use his Fight in the Skies table to run the game too. I ran Tonisborg Dungeon which no one has seen yet from 1973. Next year I will run a naval battle using fletcher Pratt rules and huge lead ships.
I won't slam Gary because Gary was part of this magical event that changed everything. But I will correct those losers who know not what they speak of. I just corrected some troll mouth breather on what game was the first sci fi RPG published. Nope, its not metamorphosis alpha, sorry I thought so too until I took a moment to look.
Now, when it comes to someone like EOTB, I think he is a piece of work. He isn't commenting about the Thing Being Discussed, he's trying to provoke drama and an dredge up garbage. He's on 3 forums now trying to do that. On ODD74 he has to mind his Ps. and Q's because the mods there actually mod discussions. He is actually hilarious over there because he tries to use innuendo and it flops. Based on his post count he seems like a newb there and all the true history experts ignore him for the most part.
Dragonsfoot is notorious for being a place of really bad mod-ing. People tell me that in messages all the time.
The thing about Trolls is they spend their entire lives digging up details and picking at what they think is subtle nuance. These are people who spend all their time online trashing and provoking people.
The only reason I stay in the discussions where they try to trash me is because I know how forums work. I post about my movie and then discussions bubble up in the stack based on their activity. As long as I can post and the trolls counter post, they actually make my discussion bubble up to the top. This gives me more visibility. It's like a free ad for my movie.
This is the little known computer stack known as the: Bubble Up Troll Function.
Anyone with half a brain can see who the troll is and who the person being trolled is based on content.
So yeah. Why trash Rob? He was there and you wish you were there. At least I do. But now we can record interviews with people like Rob and get pretty darned close.
I have a pretty extensive interview with Tim Kask. I may use that in the second film. Tim gets pretty vitriolic about Dave Arneson in his interview, but to me that is more perspective on the subject.
If you want to know more about secrets of Blackmoor, I am more likely to respond on a moderated site than this one. You can also come chat on our facebook page, or on twitter.
Ok now everyone - Lets say the magic words: BUBBLE UP TROLLS!
Who are these Gygax folks y'all keep referring to?
Have they published anything of note, which I might have heard of?
QuoteBut I will correct those losers who know not what they speak of. I just corrected some troll mouth breather on what game was the first sci fi RPG published. Nope, its not metamorphosis alpha, sorry I thought so too until I took a moment to look.
Someone is a loser for taking Jim Ward's word on something? I guess we'll have to take your word for it.
Quote from: GameDaddy;1101780Gary really loved Gail, and she loved him. In his personal life, she was there for him, when he hit rock bottom, after he was ousted from TSR, Cecilia did get this part right. It was Gail who helped him rebuild his shattered life. She stood by him, through the worst of his personal debt crisis, and helped him rebuild his self-esteem and RPG brands even though TSR was hostile towards him, and took every opportunity to destroy anything that he created. I still have my Dangerous Journeys and Lejendary Adventures books, both brands of which were shut down by TSR in the 1990's. She helped him create these so he could earn a decent living, and I happily paid for them so that he could earn a living as a GM outside of TSR, and they could earn a living together as a family. He left her everything in his will, because he believed she would love all the things that he loved, and that simply wasn't true. I wish she had loved the things he loved, because then the world would be a much better place.
Lejendary Adventures wasn't shut down by TSR. Gail cancelled the license for that game like she did for Castle Zagyg.
As for "because he believed"...are you speaking from a specific conversation you had with Gary, or just projected what you think he might have wanted? Maybe he chose Gail simply because he felt that was what was right and correct? Maybe he didn't care what she did with his work as long as she was happy.
QuoteI want to visit this whole thing about Gygax magazine as well, where Gail (and Which Cecilia mentioned in her article) is upset that she was sued by Ernie and Luke. They were just doing what Gygax's do, which is, ...you know, make cool roleplaying games and publications, and they actually got started and were doing exactly that, when Gail abruptly filed a trademark on the Gygax name and issued a cease and desist. At first they resisted, but then they realized, because she had filed first, she would actually prevail in a long term court battle and ended up releasing their Trademark claim, and abruptly ending the publication of Gygax magazine. If Gail were really a loving step-mother, and loved all of his children as she had loved him, then she would want to see them succeed as well, and would not stand in the way of their successful endeavors. Gary did give her all of the IP rights, but she is not sharing that with the rest of the Gygax family. Turns out, in the long run that this may actually be good for them though, because Tom DeSanto and his Hollyweird crew likely won't have any claim outside of what Gail Gygax was not sharing.
I'm going to quote from another post I did on a different message forum, because there's a lot more to it than that.
The Gygax Magazine thing is a lot more complex and I wanted to answer this question since a lot of people think they were sued by Gail. It's a bit more complex than that, and I feel I should re-iterate what I've said elsewhere.
- Gygax Magazine was the brain child of Jayson Elliot. He did an interview (see it here (https://rootshed.com/interview-with-jayson-elliot-founder-of-the-new-tsr/)) about the magazine once the announcement "leaked". I say leaked in quotes in that the leak seemed a bit planned. There are a few contradictions in that interview.
- From what I understand, Gygax magazine was a partnership, but Luke and Ernie had a minority stake in the company. (So, for instance, if there was a falling out between the Gygaxes and Jayson, Jayson would own the trademark.
- But there's the thing about the Trademark. TSR was registered at the USPTO before there was any TSR announcement, and the new TSR spent a lot of time and money promoting Gygax magazine, etc. However, they never bothered to register the trademark.
- Even when the release was made, and Gail made a statement concerned about the trademark, TSR still didn't register the trademark. They went along with their publishing plan. You would think they would have made this a priority considering Gail made her feelings clear.
- Gail ended up registering this trademark on the anniversary of Gary's death the next year.
- After over a year, TSR sent a challenge with their attorneys to the Trademark Action board. The TTAB pretty much requires both parties to go through the arbitration process. For about 16 months there was a series of registrations where TSR kept filing motions to suspend while they settle.
- November 2016, a settlement happens. TSR makes a deal with Gail. Luke and Ernie do not want to be part of that deal, so they leave. From what I heard, Gail simply wanted them to agree not to attack her online.
- Around March, 2017, Gygax shuts down, with no new issues published since the November 2016 settlement.
This leads to ask several questions. Why did TSR not try to register the trademark? I mean, they weren't stupid people, they had a lot of social media going and planned things like an unboxing party and there was loads of publicity, etc. Why does Jayson talk about Gail being nice the whole time when it seems she wasn't onboard. Did they think perhaps they could get Gail to agree to a deal? Did they actually want the controversy because this kept them in the press? The whole thing seems odd to me.
As for the whole thing about the trademark--well, I know in life Gary did not want to trademark his own name like some famous people do, simply since he never wanted to lose that in a lawsuit. The big issues is you trademark for commerce purposes, not to "honour" somebody. When a gamer sees the name Gygax by itself, they aren't thinking of Luke, Ernie, Gail, or anybody else--they are thinking of Gary. Having somebody outside of the estate trademark the name could conceptually be used to prevent her from publishing Gary's own work, even if they say they have no intention of doing so.
First of all, this was based on Dragon Magazine, so why not first look for other terms--Drake, Firewyrm, Draco, or something synonym that wouldn't challenge the still in-use Dragon trademark WoTC owns. If you wanted Luke and Ernie's endorsement, you could have simply done something like say "Luke and Ernie Gygax present", or even "The Gygax Brothers present". There were ways to do this properly without trying to trademark the Gygax surname. Despite people complaining about Gail trying to shut down Gary's sons from using their name, there's no evidence she's done that at all. Ernie did his Kickstarter, for instance. There is a difference between using your own full name and attempting to trademark your surname.
But the other thing about this magazine is that I don't think this magazine would have survived even if there was no dispute. The fact is, magazines are a hard sell in this day an age. (Heck, publications that have been around for decades have cut back). WoTC felt a print magazine like Dragon isn't viable. and Kobold Quarterly had folded earlier. I think they kind of felt word of mouth would suddenly build a market for this. The TSR company has only produced one thing of note since then--they Kickstarted a Top Secret game (another acquired trademark) and got Merle M. Rasmussen to write a new game. The only other products than that or back issues of Gygax magazine is a few extracted modules from Gygax magazine. This company seems to be mostly based on nostalgia, or getting trademarks and making something out of them. That doesn't seem to be a healthy business model.
If people want to blame Gail for shutting this down, that's their choice. But, as expressed above, this was a lot more complicated a matter.
And let's also bring up some other contradictions to your viewpoint.
QuoteThey were just doing what Gygax's do, which is, ...you know, make cool roleplaying games and publications
Let's take a look at what the children have done. None of the girls, nor Alex have done any RPG game writing or periodicals. That leaves Luke and Ernie.
Here's the total of what's been written. One Gamma World module from the 80s. Ernie did some collaboration on a section of Dangerous Journeys. Then a decade later, Gaxmoor. Luke doesn't seem interested in publishing, he's more about social stuff, GaryCon, etc. They contribute articles to Gygax magazine. Ernie does a Kickstarter--which is in limbo right now and I am not going to hash out the mire that has become here. There's a Kickstarter for Gaxmoor, but that's basically just a revamp of the product for 5th edition. But there's not a lot of stuff. I may have missed a few things but the Bibliography of works by any child of Gary's isn't going to be long. That kind of puts the lie to the fact that Gary had setup a writing dynasty.
The kids were never interested in working with their father on his projects while he was alive. The biggest contributions Luke and Alex made were playing characters in his LA campaigns, which is what they are credited for. I once asked Gary why Luke and Ernie didn't help him with projects like Lejendary Adventures or similar items. He responded: "As they've told me, there's no money in it for it to be worth their time". In fact, Ernie never played Lejendary Adventures because at the time, he was uninterested in RPGs, he was more into board games. Note that it's only after their death that they decided to get more into gaming again.
I don't write this to pick on them, but I hate the fact that everybody automatically assumes the best intentions of Luke or Ernie and the worst of Gail. At the very minimum, I'd like to see the same level of skeptical criticism aimed at Gail also aimed at them as well.
QuoteGail wasn't much of a player, she said, preferring to "be the person behind the scenes and support him in whatever he needs." She rarely went down into the War Games room. "I just didn't think his fans would want 'the girlfriend' in there," she said. "It was just good bonding time for him, his sons and his fans. I would be in the kitchen cooking meals for them." She had the business-partnership marriage she'd been looking for, and took her bookkeeping duties seriously...
She wasn't really a gamer, she didn't like gamers, didn't want to spend time with gamers...
So, basically, your argument is that because Gail wasn't as interested in gaming as Gary was, she "didn't like gamers"? This was the woman who let Gary treat the ENWorld mods to a game at GenCon during their wedding anniversary?
You're basically arguing that being a gamer is more true than not being one, and the fact Gail isn't doing what the majority of gamers want is some kind of betrayal.
Fuck that shit. We aren't owed anything. This is the woman Gary chose in his life. Deal with it. It's common that the spouse of a famous creator may not care about his or her creative activity.
This is the problem. Gary's fans treat Gary like some sort of "Gamer Christ", and it drives them up the wall that people who were close to him or even related to him aren't treating him with the same level of reverence as they do. But heck, that's life.
QuoteAs for Cecilia D'Anastasio, I don't think much of her scholarship, fact-finding, and reporting skills...and she would paint Gail Gygax as persecuted and misunderstood
There's a lot in that article that portrays Gail as an unreliable narrator at times, and it even calls into question her perception of things. I didn't see this article as some sort of sympathetic puff piece, rather it portrays a rather sad state of affairs. Ultimately it reminds us that there are human beings involved with all of this, which is ultimately much more important than the game itself.
All I will say about that is this. I truly hope someday Gail is able to find peace of mind and can move on from Gary's death. And I really feel for Alex.
Quote from: EOTB;1101801Someone is a loser for taking Jim Ward's word on something? I guess we'll have to take your word for it.
Jim is the author, he can't define it for historians.
Some historians will say it is, some won't. Sorry, that is how history works. Although described as Fantasy, Tekumel is a planet that has been sucked into a pocket universe thousands of years in the future. Barker self published in 1974 then TSR published it in 1975. Metamorphosis Alpha was published in 1976.
I won't go into the whole drama surrounding MA and Snider's Mutant. But I will say we've found drafts of Mutant and are going to work toward finally getting it published.
If you want to get into specific language within the text you can. My personal view is that E.P.T. was the first published Sci Fi RPG because it has weird tech devices, the eyes. And it has robots. The races are described as either indigenous, or the remains of spacefaring races. Again, to me, this sure seems like sci fi.
You may se it how you want to.
Quote from: JRT;1101802So, basically, your argument is that because Gail wasn't as interested in gaming as Gary was, she "didn't like gamers"? This was the woman who let Gary treat the ENWorld mods to a game at GenCon during their wedding anniversary?
Well no wonder she does not like gamers, those are some serious A grade assholes ruining her wedding anniversary.
Quote from: Secrets of Blackmoor;1101806Jim is the author, he can't define it for historians.
Some historians will say it is, some won't. Sorry, that is how history works. Although described as Fantasy, Tekumel is a planet that has been sucked into a pocket universe thousands of years in the future. Barker self published in 1974 then TSR published it in 1975. Metamorphosis Alpha was published in 1976.
I won't go into the whole drama surrounding MA and Snider's Mutant. But I will say we've found drafts of Mutant and are going to work toward finally getting it published.
If you want to get into specific language within the text you can. My personal view is that E.P.T. was the first published Sci Fi RPG because it has weird tech devices, the eyes. And it has robots. The races are described as either indigenous, or the remains of spacefaring races. Again, to me, this sure seems like sci fi.
You may se it how you want to.
But why was the other guy a loser for believing Jim Ward's opinion on a contested subject?
As much as a I love Gamma World (and Metamorphosis Alpha), I'm totally good with Tekumel being labeled the first sci-fi RPG. It's an excellent example of planetary romance. It would make a great TV series.
Quote from: GameDaddy;1101780In one column, a player wrote in, "How much damage do bows do?" Wells responded, "Answer: None. Bows do not do damage, arrows do.
I love that answer! In high school, we'd flip through Sage Advice just to laugh at the weirdos who would write in. It became a running joke that we'd bug whoever was DMing with bizarre "Sage Advice" style questions and bust into hysterics. We were merciless on rules lawyers, usually declaring that "remembering something from Arduin" won over actual quotes from the DMG.
For shits and giggles, around 1985, we sent in a letter asking "Is giving the DM a piece of pizza worth 1D6 or 2D6 healing?" but we sadly never got an answer. FYI, the correct answer is healing value of pizza depends on its heat, toppings and hunger of the DM, but generally defaults to 2D6 for the one player or 1D6 for the group.
And crunchy tacos are worth 1D4 healing.
Quote from: EOTB;1101811But why was the other guy a loser for believing Jim Ward's opinion on a contested subject?
EOTB, you just don't understand. Griff(ter) is the only one who knows THE TRUTH. There is only room in this world for the Truth Teller and those who accept His Truth, thus everyone else must be losers.
And if you give Vimeo snuggles and hugs, you can see how interviews were edited to ensure ONLY the Truth would enter the viewer's eyeballs! Which thoroughly explains the Kotaku article tie-in as everyone knows Kotaku is the bastion of integrity, honesty and all that good stuff of goodness!
However, I hope Snider's Mutant in its original form gets published, even if just a PDF.
Quote from: Shasarak;1101808Well no wonder she does not like gamers, those are some serious A grade assholes ruining her wedding anniversary.
Yes, ...like for example Gary. You know, if she were actually a gamer, a game at some point during her anniversary shouldn't actually ruin her anniversary, right?
*YAWN*
Because it was a personal discussion and not a published work. I can do that. In America we are allowed freedom of speech up to certain limits, it's crazy I know.
This is a lame reaction from you my friend. I expect a higher level of provocation. ;)
Quote from: Shasarak;1101808Well no wonder she does not like gamers, those are some serious A grade assholes ruining her wedding anniversary.
No, I provided that as an example of why saying she didn't like gamers is a falsehood.
See the thread in question. This is one of the happiest memories I think the Internet has of Gary.
https://www.enworld.org/threads/gaming-with-gygax.204729/
Note the quote from that thread, from the very first post.
QuoteWe had our picture taken with Gary, he signed our character sheets and books in some cases. Then was when we found out that that night was HIS 20TH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY. Gary was playing D&D with a bunch of geeks in his hotel room on his 20th wedding anniversary!! And she was right there the WHOLE TIME and was the most gracious, charming and delightful woman that you could ever hope to meet. Unbelievable.
Quote from: GameDaddy;1101816Yes, ...like for example Gary. You know, if she were actually a gamer, a game at some point during her anniversary shouldn't actually ruin her anniversary, right?
And it didn't bother her, as stated above.
Quote from: JRT;1101802Lejendary Adventures wasn't shut down by TSR. Gail cancelled the license for that game like she did for Castle Zagyg.
...So, basically, your argument is that because Gail wasn't as interested in gaming as Gary was, she "didn't like gamers"? This was the woman who let Gary treat the ENWorld mods to a game at GenCon during their wedding anniversary?
You're basically arguing that being a gamer is more true than not being one, and the fact Gail isn't doing what the majority of gamers want is some kind of betrayal.
Fuck that shit. We aren't owed anything. This is the woman Gary chose in his life. Deal with it. It's common that the spouse of a famous creator may not care about his or her creative activity.
This is the problem. Gary's fans treat Gary like some sort of "Gamer Christ", and it drives them up the wall that people who were close to him or even related to him aren't treating him with the same level of reverence as they do. But heck, that's life.
Yes, you are owed something by your significant life partner. If you happen to be a gamer, it is not nice to be put down or have your hobby ostracized or otherwise have your favorite pastimes treated as some sort of Stigmata, to be tolerated but not enjoyed or shared. Screw that. What kind of partner are you if you are doing that to your significant other, just because they enjoy gaming?
But then, you are not really a gamer, or you would inherently already understand this. It would seem Griff is right, you are just here to Troll, because you secretly despise gamers. Good luck with that.
Quote from: JRT;1101802All I will say about that is this. I truly hope someday Gail is able to find peace of mind and can move on from Gary's death. And I really feel for Alex.
That makes two of us... And I hope she actually reconciles with the rest of the Gygax family, and changes her mind about gamers. Alex seems to be doing ok, and he seems to like to hangout with gamers.
Quote from: EOTB;1101801Someone is a loser for taking Jim Ward's word on something? I guess we'll have to take your word for it.
Well of course. The first Sci-fi RPG was OD&D with the Blackmoor setting. I mean it kicks off with an alien invasion/takeover plot. :cool:
Quote from: JRT;1101819And it didn't bother her, as stated above.
Yes, because if a woman says that something does not bother her then that means that it does not bother her.
:rolleyes:
Quote from: Secrets of Blackmoor;1101817*YAWN*
Because it was a personal discussion and not a published work. I can do that. In America we are allowed freedom of speech up to certain limits, it's crazy I know.
This is a lame reaction from you my friend. I expect a higher level of provocation. ;)
I don't know you so I'd prefer you not refer to me in a familiar manner.
I don't provoke; I compare what people have said about a given subject over time for consistency. That's why most of my posts are links and quotes. Most people find inconsistency to play into credibility, which is the question raised by the article.
You continue to point to the fact I haven't seen the movie; no shit sherlock. Look at the thread title. I know you're humping its leg for your movie, but its about the article. Which I have read. I don't need to see your movie because it's content old-schoolers largely know - you said yourself; the people who will be surprised by its contents are 5ers new to the hobby. I'm not questioning who role-played first. I'm questioning the presentation of the article, and the marketing of the movie (the interior of the movie isn't about your marketing, is it?), and whether or not the conflicts of interest are laid bare for people to consider against what is said by some of its participants.
Was the ownership of DA's artifacts by Stormberg, and his possible financial gain in their appreciation, ever disclosed in the movie? If the movie purchased artifacts from Stormberg, Kuntz, or any other participant - was that disclosed in the movie? These are both ethical to disclose because they are presented in the article - and I presume the movie - as independent of each. But the article is also marketing the movie via link, so the whole thing becomes a tangled ball of yarn.
http://odd74.proboards.com/post/221215
QuoteI am fine with the counter points being made, but single line comments like EOTB (13 posts) and Dungeonmonkey (49 posts) smack of trolling. And yes, they are trolls. i've been exchanging barbs with them in one form or another on other forums. They are actually going to my facebook page to cherry pick comments to cut and paste and post. The sort of obsessive behavior with all the searching and cutting and pasting in order to libel someone publicly is actually on the border of legality.
For the record: the bolded is a lie. I'm not posting on facebook about this or been on facebook during this entire time. I haven't seen anything SOB has posted to Facebook. If someone else is also posting about this, it isn't due to coordination as I haven't had any contact with this other poster directly or indirectly.
QuoteThe only reason I engaged was because they make my discussions bubble up in the stack. it's what I call the Bubble Up Troll Function. It actually works better than LIFO or FIFO! Good news for you programmers out there, you now have a new tool for your stacks.
Apparently EOTB is the person who got Kentzer banned from Dragon's Foot by provoking him to the point of his being banned by the mods for whatever he said. My discussion on DF got locked typical for DF which is why I do not go there. I just posted as a way to do direct marketing for my project.
I read other posts on here by EOTB and all he does is troll at Arneson in his comments. He is a troll. Why allow scum bags to roam freely when you can go look at how they are on other forums and see their true nature? I'd say the same for Dungeonmonkey.
Please ban these idiots, they are a waste of skin.
Anyone can look at my 13 posts on ODD74 in the past few weeks (joined Jul 29, 2019 at 5:21pm) on my profile and see there's 1 post about Arneson and Gygax which was very even-handed, and not derogatory to him in any way.
Why post these here? Let me assure you, it isn't because I'm concerned about SOB's opinion or favor, or to simply generate cross-board drama. It's to show the totality of his approach, which he tries to separate between audiences. Again,
look at what people are doing and why. Look at their behavior. SOB admits he desperately wants trolling to raise his movie's profile. He's repeatedly tried to introduce an argument on a board that expressly doesn't want it, because he wants to claim a scalp. He whines about the same discussion on another board he's already insulted because the thread was merely locked. In the end, unable to generate the conflict and result on the ground he desires, he begs for the banning anyway, while calling me "friend" here.
All while promising to be unbiased, purely factual, well-researched, and even-handed in all of his other endeavors, and disclaiming that these articles aren't intended to provoke the community intentionally for the purpose of generating additional interest (and revenue).
If anyone reading this wants to believe that, the article's slants, and anything else related: God bless. I think the point is beyond well-made now. There's little point in keeping the frame no the little man behind the curtain once the curtain has been lifted.
Quote from: Brad;1101281What version of D&D was published months after..? I am not aware of such a game.
Still waiting for a reply to this, or will hedgehobbit just go back to lurking...
Quote from: Brad;1101851Still waiting for a reply to this, or will hedgehobbit just go back to lurking...
Lurking is what hedge hobbits do!
Anyway, there was this article. it was not well received.
But have you seen Secrets of Blackmoor. It really does present a much more balanced and factual narrative.
Most of the film is about what the Twin cities gamers do in regard to the inclusion of Role Playing. After all David Wesely and Dave Arneson invent role playing together. It's really is a fascinating story.
Consider checking it out.
Thanks, Griff
Bubble Up Troll Function
Quote from: Secrets of Blackmoor;1101806Jim is the author, he can't define it for historians.
Some historians will say it is, some won't. Sorry, that is how history works. Although described as Fantasy, Tekumel is a planet that has been sucked into a pocket universe thousands of years in the future. Barker self published in 1974 then TSR published it in 1975. Metamorphosis Alpha was published in 1976.
I won't go into the whole drama surrounding MA and Snider's Mutant. But I will say we've found drafts of Mutant and are going to work toward finally getting it published.
If you want to get into specific language within the text you can. My personal view is that E.P.T. was the first published Sci Fi RPG because it has weird tech devices, the eyes. And it has robots. The races are described as either indigenous, or the remains of spacefaring races. Again, to me, this sure seems like sci fi.
You may se it how you want to.
I hate to be pedantic here but Tekumel sure sounds like sci fantasy (like 40k) to me instead of sci fi. It isn't sufficient if it has certain elements to qualify as that; an absence of certain other fantastical elements (magic, magical monsters or items, divinity, etc) is also required.
Hedge Hobbit should be a Halfling subrace option!!
Quote from: Secrets of Blackmoor;1101864But have you seen Secrets of Blackmoor.
Let us know when its free on YouTube.
Quote from: Secrets of Blackmoor;1101864Bubble Up Troll Function
No surprise that Griff(ter) is a graduate of the Zweihander school of marketing.
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1101867I hate to be pedantic here but Tekumel sure sounds like sci fantasy (like 40k) to me instead of sci fi.
Start a thread on Sci-Fantasy vs. Sci-Fi and let's see everybody's definitions.
To me, any soft scifi is going to be sci-fantasy.
That is the question it seems. Do you call Tekumel sci fi or sci fantasy?
I have read most of the Tekumel products extensively. It is my favorite setting as I grew tired of standard Fantasy generic land after a few years.
the forward with extensive history is Sci FI. I don't mince around and slice it up as different genre. If it's sci fi, it's sci fi. If it's elves and "come back to the Valley... fah la la lah li..." It's fantasy. Just how I slice and dice it.
I have the perfect soundtrack to listen to while reading this thread. Enjoy!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXIjE_gDw94
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1101867I hate to be pedantic here but Tekumel sure sounds like sci fantasy (like 40k) to me instead of sci fi. It isn't sufficient if it has certain elements to qualify as that; an absence of certain other fantastical elements (magic, magical monsters or items, divinity, etc) is also required.
That is because Tekumel is explicitly Science Fantasy and not Sci-Fi. I have the books, I talked to Barker. The books very clearly state that in the pocket dimension Tekumel is trapped in, magic works and the gods are real. Same as Blackmoor from the other direction. A fantasy setting with SF elements as opposed to a post apoc setting with fantasy elements.
Quote from: Spinachcat;1101874Start a thread on Sci-Fantasy vs. Sci-Fi and let's see everybody's definitions.
To me, any soft scifi is going to be sci-fantasy.
Ah, I don't know, I struggle to see any definition of soft scifi that encompasses worlds in which "protection from evil" spell magic exists (http://thoulsparadise.blogspot.com/2013/12/characters-in-empire-of-petal-throne.html).
Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1101054And the flip side is that that level of exposure and activities, combined with being a man of vocal opinions, can make you a lot of enemies, which may account for some of the reaction against him.
I suspect that is the motive behind much of this bullfuckery. The rest is the result of malcontents who assume that because
they couldn't have possibly created something, no one else could either. It's also a way for some to retroactively justify things they might not have liked about Gygax or D&D. Not happy with something in (A)D&D? It's all the fault of that asshole Gygax, who "stole" D&D and therefore should have never been able to put in strength limits for female characters. Miffed that Gygax wrote that he found Lord of the Rings boring? Console yourself with the fantasy that he didn't really create D&D. Got your panties in a twist because his widow is skittish about releasing a project you worked on? Be a shill for a pseudo-documentary that claims to be the "true story" of how that sneaky SOB Gary Gygax is stealing credit for something invented by others. It's shit for the birds, pure and simple.
Quote from: Brad;1101060The issue is when you say stuff like that, you're "diminishing Arneson's contribution!" No, that's not true whatsoever. Arneson was the muse to Gygax's symphony, but as time passed Gygax gave less and less credit to Arneson for good reason: 18 pages of crappy notes <<<<<<<<< literally thousands of pages of finely detailed rules. At some point (AD&D I suppose) Arneson's initial idea had outlived its contributory significance.
According to Tim Kask, Arneson contributed very little and what he contributed was often incoherent, unreadable or just plain bad. His Q&A at Dragonsfoot about what a schmuck Arneson was is fucking hilarious.
Quote from: Haffrung;1101256Is anyone surprised that a bunch of guys who A) feel old and neglected, and B) have likely never demonstrated the discipline and toil necessary to turn ideas into commercial success, should identify with Arneson over Gygax? Arneson was the ur-grognard.
Kuntz especially. Just imagine being well into your 60s and the only thing people want to ask you about is what you accomplished when you were in 9th grade. It's like Bette Davis in
What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?
Quote from: Haffrung;1101257Not really. Jack Kirby worked his ass off 10+ hours a day for decades delivering commercial-quality content.
And continued his success after leaving Marvel for DC. What did Arneson do after leaving TSR? Next they'll be claiming Pete Best was the "real" talent in the Beatles and not those opportunists, Lennon and McCartney. :rolleyes:
Quote from: thedungeondelver;1101905I have the perfect soundtrack to listen to while reading this thread. Enjoy!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXIjE_gDw94
Ah, the Mike Curb Congregation! For those who found Up With People too edgy.
Quote from: EOTB;1101388I'm gonna go full tin-foil hat for a moment. I acknowledge this. But it seems there might be some threads and patterns at play here. I'm just tying together pieces of info left around the internet and could be completely wrong. But there's a whole lot of weird going on with this article and this timing from multiple sides.
I think you're on to something. There does seem to be an awful lot of "synergy" between the Grifter and the author from Kotaku. Maybe he's just a smarmy prick for calling her by her first name so often, or maybe they're friends/collaborators. Either way, it's rather hard NOT to smell a rat.
QuoteTo me this seems driven mainly by Rob Kuntz. He has some bile, whether created before Gary's death or after, and now he's going to do as much damage as possible. There's no fact checking in that article; for a filmmaker who continues to present himself as a simple unbiased historian who's definitely not doing a combined operation in conjunction with this kotoku author, it seems to get brough up wherever the movie is discussed. And any journalist worth their salt doesn't take one angry guy's word for it unless they really want to. Let's take a look at what just a few searches brings up on good old Rob's migrating attitudes over the years - something you'd think a journalist would at least mention, if not challenge him on.
A real journalist (including opinion writers) with any kind of ethical standards would come clean up front if they're in cahoots with the person they're doing a favorable story about, or an axe to grind against someone who's on the receiving end of an unfavorable article. For example, someone who wrote
this (https://kotaku.com/1795086353) two years ago is probably not interested in giving the late Gary Gygax a fair shake:
Quote from: Cecilia D'AnastasioGood comment. I am a diehard D&D fan who seriously dislikes Gygax and his legacy.
Another poster asks:
Quote"Outta curiosity, is this a subject that's been explored much? The whole "we love your product but you're kind of a tool and your worldview actively distances people from your creation" problem with the creators' legacies?
It's a hell of a topic, if potentially really exhausting to explore."
To which our "journalist" responds:
Quote from: Cecilia D'AnastasioIt's being explored c;
Thus does Cecilia D'Anastasio give away what she's up to: a two-and-a-half year (and running!) campaign to shit on Gary Gygax and his "legacy" (which would include his life's work as well as his personal life -including his family) by any means necessary. His widow and kids don't get along? Run that story like it matters to anyone other than that family*. Someone publishes a comic about early D&D? Be sure to regurgitate long-debunked revisionist bullshit about how Gygax stole the credit for the game from Arneson. A Grifter is peddling a pseudo-documentary spewing the same bullshit? Promote the hell out of it -just make sure not to mention your throbbing hate-on for a dead man!
* For the record, I feel unclean to the point of self-hatred for even
reading that pile of shit.
As for the try-hard Grifter, who is desperate to re-coup his $100,000 expenditure, a word of advice:
Being dishonest, obnoxious and willfully stupid worked for Red Letter Moron because he wasn't selling anything. His hour-long videos about humping cats and mutilating women in his basement were available free of charge on YouTube and dim-witted though he is, I would be surprised if he spent a hundred grand on all his retarded videos combined.
You are one dumb twat.
If there's one thing I've learned over the last couple of decades, it's that any person or group claiming to have "The True (or Secret) Story Of..." or that has words like
fact or
truth in their name/title is almost certainly a purveyor of horseshit.
Quote from: Elfdart;1101997A real journalist (including opinion writers) with any kind of ethical standards would come clean up front if they're in cahoots with the person they're doing a favorable story about, or an axe to grind against someone who's on the receiving end of an unfavorable article. For example, someone who wrote this (https://kotaku.com/1795086353) two years ago is probably not interested in giving the late Gary Gygax a fair shake:
Quote from: Cecilia d'AnastasioGood comment. I am a diehard D&D fan who seriously dislikes Gygax and his legacy.
Good find. And there you have it. :cool:
Quote from: Melan;1102001Good find. And there you have it. :cool:
Yes, good find, Elfdart. Points towards patience and a goal.
Quote from: Elfdart;1101997For the record, I feel unclean to the point of self-hatred for even reading that pile of shit.
I think it has become fairly apparent that I am not the greatest fan of D&D but I can relate. Whatever the man's faults may or may not have been, he, unlike Kotaku writers, has contributed to our hobby. In fact, he contributed enormously.
That being said, I think Arneson and Wesely should be more famous names than they currently are. Wesely/Braunstein in particular seems obscure.
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1102012That being said, I think Arneson and Wesely should be more famous names than they currently are. Wesely/Braunstein in particular seems obscure.
Arneson is fairly well known.
The reason he is not better known is the same reasons some other RPG designers and contributors arent. They more or less dropped off the radar after some point. I can not think of anything notable Arneson did after the BECMI Blackmoor series of setting books/modules.
Personally I think Arneson should have been credited somewhere in the BX books as BX still cleaves very close to OD&D.
Quote from: Omega;1102020Personally I think Arneson should have been credited somewhere in the BX books as BX still cleaves very close to OD&D.
Arneson is credited.
The title page of the '77-'79 Basic rulebook says "By Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. Edited by Eric Holmes."
The title page of the '81 Basic rulebook says "By Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. Edited by Tom Moldvay. Previous edition edited by J. Eric Holmes."
The title page of the '81 Expert rulebook says "By Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. Edited by David Cook with Steve Marsh."
The Rules Cyclopedia says "The D&D Cyclopedia is a derivative work based on the original DUNGEONS & DRAGONS game by E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson..." And if I recall correctly, the '83 boxed sets credited Gygax and Arneson and said something like edited or revised by Frank Mentzer. (Someone else can confirm or correct that, I'm pretty sure. All by BECMI stuff is a storage box, somewhere.)
Quote from: Omega;1101734One of these days I'll start digging again as I really want to know the origin.
One possibly contributing factor is the ascent of costume parties and role-playing by participants during the social event.
"Amongst the general population, costume parties also occurred with increasing frequency from the late 1940s onward, although for the most part the costumes were simple affairs until the mid-1970s. [...] The hobby of fan costuming and modern cosplay largely developed from the World Science Fiction Conventions (Worldcons), starting with the first in New York in 1939 when two attendees, Forrest J Ackerman and Myrtle R. Douglas, wore "futuristicostumes".[8] From the 2nd World Science Fiction Convention (1940) in Chicago, masquerade balls were a traditional feature of the convention."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costume_party
You can see these costume parties in movies and TV shows of the 60s repeatedly, at times with the costumed person acting out the role. So it's something that was a bit in public awareness.
(https://falconmovies.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/panther4.jpg) (https://i.pinimg.com/originals/35/c1/eb/35c1ebaa25fadbd9f37a1f7e6880efd1.jpg)
And Wesely brought that acting out into wargaming by introducing intrigue (a la Diplomacy), which lends itself to adopting the role of an individual and acting the part. That's how wargames were infused with a social game level until something new came out of the fusion.
Quote from: Omega;1102020Arneson is fairly well known.
I guess what I don't want is roleplayers to think that Gygax plopped D&D into existence out of nowhere. I think the absolute minimum any (serious) roleplayer should know is that the creation of D&D was the culmination of a development that began many years earlier - with Wesely, Arneson and then Gygax each adding until the publication of OD&D. And then it continued to develop, of course.
Cos-play was a thing in science-fiction fandom especially at the various World-cons (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Worldcons).
But from listening to Wesely and reading other account that had little to do with the Braunstein scenarios. The Braunstein represent another step in the increasing sophistication of wargaming. In this case setting up a scenario where there are multiple faction with multiple agendas with multiple victory conditions. Some of those factions happened to be actual individuals within the setting of the scenario. While other are the usual players controlling a force or organization.
One element of Blackmoor that led it to be the first tabletop roleplaying campaign was the initial setup was everybody controlling an individual character. Nobody had control over a organization or force as you would in playing out the battle of Waterloo, or playing Prussia in the Grand Napoleonic Campaign.
It was established early on that Dave was flexible as to what the players want to do as long as it was handled from the viewpoint of the character. Which is keeping in the spirit of how Dave ran Braunsteins and his grand campaigns. What was left was to shift the focus of the campaign onto the exploits of the players as their characters rather than fighting out the war between the good guys and bad guys that was centerpiece of the three "scenarios" of the campaign. (First Fantasy Campaign). That shift, I believe occurred with the Blackmoor dungeons.
Exploring the dungeons had three things going for it.
1) It as something done as a individual character
2) The element of greed in the treasure and magic that could be looted
3) The allure of exploring the unknown but in a way that more focused and intimate because it occurred in a maze with rooms.
As a consequences it became the central thing that players wanted to do. So much so that the good guys neglected the war and lost Castle Blackmoor to the baddies. And keep in mind that the baddies were players as well.
As for the larger trends like the fact people cos-played at conventions. That impacted things after the release of Dungeons & Dragons. They primed the pump so to speak and created an environment where people were receptive to something like D&D.
But also keep in mind this was also the era of the wargame boom especially for hex and counter wargames by SPI and Avalon Hill. The pump was primed for more sophisticated gaming overall. Until the early 80s (1980 to 1982), D&D and other roleplaying games were just one choice out of a buffet of gaming.
Now I am a Rat named Grifter. I love it!
Gonna be be my next game character, or an NPC when I run Tonisborg.
For all of you Fans of Grifter the Rat, here is what other fans of Grifter the Rat are saying about his little project:
https://vargold.blogspot.com/2019/09/secrets-of-blackmoor-film.html?fbclid=IwAR20pEk2psQEb4SLJaPq-PBnEjXrPDBDimseL8m_TX6wkfnaEhquOyXrVkk (https://vargold.blogspot.com/2019/09/secrets-of-blackmoor-film.html?fbclid=IwAR20pEk2psQEb4SLJaPq-PBnEjXrPDBDimseL8m_TX6wkfnaEhquOyXrVkk)
I need to go check and see if Grifter the Rat domain name is taken yet. Otherwise, may have to grab onto it.
Good idea. Maybe also start a thread about your movie somewhere so we can talk about the article here (thread title, remember?). The whole bubble up thing is beyond tiresome now, and you're right: it's clear who's trolling the article thread. Maybe people will stop calling you by a nickname or negatively referring to the movie here if you let them concentrate on the article author instead of you and your film.
I know this is hard to believe, but you and this film were always side points at best. The point is the ongoing activities of the author.
Quote from: Philotomy Jurament;1102024Arneson is credited.
The title page of the '77-'79 Basic rulebook says "By Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. Edited by Eric Holmes."
The title page of the '81 Basic rulebook says "By Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. Edited by Tom Moldvay. Previous edition edited by J. Eric Holmes."
The title page of the '81 Expert rulebook says "By Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. Edited by David Cook with Steve Marsh."
The Rules Cyclopedia says "The D&D Cyclopedia is a derivative work based on the original DUNGEONS & DRAGONS game by E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson..." And if I recall correctly, the '83 boxed sets credited Gygax and Arneson and said something like edited or revised by Frank Mentzer. (Someone else can confirm or correct that, I'm pretty sure. All by BECMI stuff is a storage box, somewhere.)
FWIW the BECMI D&D Sets are credited as follows:
Basic Set (1983):
Dungeons & Dragons Players Manual and
Dungeon Master's Rulebook "by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson; Revised by Frank Mentzer"
Expert Set (1983):
Dungeons & Dragons Fantasy Adventure Game
Expert Rulebook "by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson; Revised by Frank Mentzer"
Companion Set (1984):
Dungeons & Dragons Fantasy Adventure Game "by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson;"
Players Companion: Book One and
Dungeon Masters Companion: Book Two "by Frank Mentzer"
Master Set (1985):
Dungeons & Dragons Fantasy Adventure Game "by Gary Gygax;"
Master Player's Book and
Dungeon Masters' Book "Compiled by Frank Mentzer" [these credits are presumably what triggered Dave Arneson's 1985 lawsuit against TSR]
Immortals Set (1986):
Dungeons & Dragons Fantasy Adventure Game;
Players' Guide to Immortals and
Dungeon Master's Guide to Immortals "by Frank Mentzer"
Well, there was a lot of attacking Rob Kuntz in there too.
I like Rob. Personal attacks on Rob do not fly with me.
I like Cecilia too. Cecilia has her own plans, so does her editor. I know all the background on her story, while the tone isn't what I would choose personally, I have to say that she has all the facts correct. No one is saying, wait a minute I gotta fact check this. As an indy film maker, when a site with a gagillion viewers says: Hey can we interview you for an article? What am I going to say except: OH HELL YES!
Consider this:
When Arneson shows off his new game concept to Gary Gygax, Ernie Gygax, Rob kuntz, and Terri Kuntz, they have never played an RPG before that moment. The next morning Gary calls Rob and say come over, along with "you know what this is? It's a way to generate story lines for books." They play for a while and try to reproduce what they saw Arneson do. Without the years of experience Arneson has as the world's only Dungeon Master, they can't do it. The map that was produced in that game still exists in a collector's stash somewhere.
Gary does not know how to run a game. How will he learn to do this? He has to go to the Twin Cities and sit with Arneson and his group to learn how to DM. There is no other way to learn. And he and Rob have already tried to recreate it and couldn't do it.
When Gary learns to DM, he becomes the third DM after Arneson and Greg Svenson. Dave was busy one day in 1972 and he asked Greg to referee Bill Heaton and Mel Johnson as they worked to figure out what the Blue Knight's magical armor does, along with the magic horse. We can bracket this event and date based on reports about the Blue Knight in Arneson's fanzine Corner of the Table Top.
This is what happens when you do research. You have to spend loads of money on documents and artifacts. You find stories that don't match the common myths.
As to Kotaku, I will also say that all the gamers having big butt hurt is what Rob predicts in the article and here we see everyone raging.
Score:
Mouth Breathers - 0
Rob Kuntz - 1,000,000+
So you see, the bubble Up Troll Function really does work!
Score:
Mouth Breathers: 0
Grifter the Rat: 1,000,000+
If you want to know my personal "Agenda," it's in this Podcast here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4AIJ_WYODc (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4AIJ_WYODc)
Gonna send you a PM with a free code to see the movie. If you still think it is garbage, you can then at least cite why you think it is garbage based on facts. I am totally open to criticism.
Sincerely, Grifter the Rat ( I may even get T-shirts made.)
You should totally post that at ODD74
You can cut paste it for me.
hee hee hee
Quote from: Secrets of Blackmoor;1102087Well, there was a lot of attacking Rob Kuntz in there too.
I like Rob. Personal attacks on Rob do not fly with me.
I like Cecilia too. Cecilia has her own plans, so does her editor. I know all the background on her story, while the tone isn't what I would choose personally, I have to say that she has all the facts correct. No one is saying, wait a minute I gotta fact check this. As an indy film maker, when a site with a gagillion viewers says: Hey can we interview you for an article? What am I going to say except: OH HELL YES!
Consider this:
When Arneson shows off his new game concept to Gary Gygax, Ernie Gygax, Rob kuntz, and Terri Kuntz, they have never played an RPG before that moment. The next morning Gary calls Rob and say come over, along with "you know what this is? It's a way to generate story lines for books." They play for a while and try to reproduce what they saw Arneson do. Without the years of experience Arneson has as the world's only Dungeon Master, they can't do it. The map that was produced in that game still exists in a collector's stash somewhere.
Gary does not know how to run a game. How will he learn to do this? He has to go to the Twin Cities and sit with Arneson and his group to learn how to DM. There is no other way to learn. And he and Rob have already tried to recreate it and couldn't do it.
When Gary learns to DM, he becomes the third DM after Arneson and Greg Svenson. Dave was busy one day in 1972 and he asked Greg to referee Bill Heaton and Mel Johnson as they worked to figure out what the Blue Knight's magical armor does, along with the magic horse. We can bracket this event and date based on reports about the Blue Knight in Arneson's fanzine Corner of the Table Top.
This is what happens when you do research. You have to spend loads of money on documents and artifacts. You find stories that don't match the common myths.
As to Kotaku, I will also say that all the gamers having big butt hurt is what Rob predicts in the article and here we see everyone raging.
Score:
Mouth Breathers - 0
Rob Kuntz - 1,000,000+
So you see, the bubble Up Troll Function really does work!
Score:
Mouth Breathers: 0
Grifter the Rat: 1,000,000+
If you want to know my personal "Agenda," it's in this Podcast here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4AIJ_WYODc (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4AIJ_WYODc)
Gonna send you a PM with a free code to see the movie. If you still think it is garbage, you can then at least cite why you think it is garbage based on facts. I am totally open to criticism.
Sincerely, Grifter the Rat ( I may even get T-shirts made.)
Did you hone your gaslighting skills in the Soviet gulags, or perhaps somewhere in academia?
Quote from: EOTB;1102066Good idea. Maybe also start a thread about your movie somewhere so we can talk about the article here (thread title, remember?). The whole bubble up thing is beyond tiresome now, and you're right: it's clear who's trolling the article thread. Maybe people will stop calling you by a nickname or negatively referring to the movie here if you let them concentrate on the article author instead of you and your film.
I know this is hard to believe, but you and this film were always side points at best. The point is the ongoing activities of the author.
How true. I mean, the internet is awash with books and videos about the origins of D&D. The only things noteworthy about this one are the obnoxious trolling and dishonesty of the Grifter and his relationship with a Kotaku scribbler who has some sort of half-crazed vendetta against a man who has been dead for over a decade.
This is totally random, but I can't help but think of parallels betwen this and Gnostic Christianity with Gary being cast as the Demiurge and Arneson as the true God.
Edit: I'm greatly interested in the origins of the hobby, but it sucks that this is being executed in the manner of a hit job on Gygax.
Next time I play a Yosaki I am definitely going to call him Grifter.
Probably would not rely on him for an accurate history and on the other hand it is going to be a hilarious imaginative romp.
Please, when referring to me here, please use the title: His royal highness the lowly Grifter the Rat, king of everything that is not what we approve of.
I sent you some freebie screeners. I hope you enjoy them.
So yeah, while you guys all argue over who did what, you ignore what is really happening.
Gary and Dave's names are being removed from all new D&D product. That line about it in the kotaku article is an un-cited quote from Secrets of Blackmoor which goes like this: "It is an Irony that modern editions of D&D do not have either of their names showing on the cover." We got the idea from Megarry.
David Megarry, who was at TSR along with a very small cadre of people in '76, has this to say about it:
"David Megarry
David Megarry Scott Young The "sides" are somewhat artificial. Now that ego's are out of the way, we, the living, can moderate the division and start to bring a balance, if you will, to this great creation which was started in basements and is ending up in Fortune 500 board rooms. Just as the Irish figured out The Troubles, let us also do what needs to be done to keep Gygax and Arneson from being forgotten collectively and end the division. It is already happening: their names are relegated to small type on D&D credits. It won't be long before even that goes away. Luke is trying to keep his father's name alive with Gary Con and understands what contribution Arneson had to the collective effort. The Secrets of Blackmoor documentary is our effort to keep Arneson's name alive and maybe the Minnesota crowd needs to start an Arnecon (or whatever...don't worry, Luke, I will guarantee that it will be six months different;) The Kotaku article demonstrates that corporate could take over the narrative and construe whatever makes them the most fame and fortune."
Taken from a facebook discussion on Old School Gamers group.
To the contrary; most people here don't care who did what. We see the articles as part of a drive to make it happen. My understanding is that just in the past day Kuntz has dredged up more stuff regarding EGG's 1st wife - no specifics, all innuendo, etc.
How does bringing old family stuff into the public narrative keep Gygax on the cover of books?
FYi Alexander Kalinowski and Estar, I liked your posts.
Thoughtful stuff.
Quote from: EOTB;1102139To the contrary; most people here don't care who did what. We see the articles as part of a drive to make it happen. My understanding is that just in the past day Kuntz has dredged up more stuff regarding EGG's 1st wife - no specifics, all innuendo, etc.
How does bringing old family stuff into the public narrative keep Gygax on the cover of books?
I guess then you are saying that David Megarry is lying somehow? This comment was in direct reference to the Kotaku article.
You keep straw manning it. Answer the question. :)
Quote from: Secrets of Blackmoor;1102142I guess then you are saying that David Megarry is lying somehow? This comment was in direct reference to the Kotaku article.
You keep straw manning it. Answer the question. :)
Perhaps you could point me to the question mark.
I am asking you to define what you say in your previous comment about my comment, which was kind of a comment about previous comments that were comments about my comments.
So yeah, is megarry lying?
But if you say no one cares about the true history of D&D, then why the butt hurt over the kotaku article?
Score:
Mouth Breathers - 0
Cecilia - 2,000,000
Huzzah
Quote from: Secrets of Blackmoor;1101864After all David Wesely and Dave Arneson invent role playing together. It's really is a fascinating story.
They did not invent role playing. You need to be more accurate in your assertions if you want to be taken seriously.
Quote from: Secrets of Blackmoor;1102131So yeah, while you guys all argue over who did what, you ignore what is really happening.
Gary and Dave's names are being removed from all new D&D product. That line about it in the kotaku article is an un-cited quote from Secrets of Blackmoor which goes like this: "It is an Irony that modern editions of D&D do not have either of their names showing on the cover." We got the idea from Megarry.
David Megarry, who was at TSR along with a very small cadre of people in '76, has this to say about it:
"David Megarry
David Megarry Scott Young The "sides" are somewhat artificial. Now that ego's are out of the way, we, the living, can moderate the division and start to bring a balance, if you will, to this great creation which was started in basements and is ending up in Fortune 500 board rooms. Just as the Irish figured out The Troubles, let us also do what needs to be done to keep Gygax and Arneson from being forgotten collectively and end the division. It is already happening: their names are relegated to small type on D&D credits. It won't be long before even that goes away. Luke is trying to keep his father's name alive with Gary Con and understands what contribution Arneson had to the collective effort. The Secrets of Blackmoor documentary is our effort to keep Arneson's name alive and maybe the Minnesota crowd needs to start an Arnecon (or whatever...don't worry, Luke, I will guarantee that it will be six months different;) The Kotaku article demonstrates that corporate could take over the narrative and construe whatever makes them the most fame and fortune."
Taken from a facebook discussion on Old School Gamers group.
Just looking at the latest version of DnD, the Pathfinder 2e core rule book, I can see Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax listed there together with Monte Cook, Ron Edwards, Daniel Solis, John Stavropoulos, Jonathan Tweet and Skip Williams.
Maybe David Megarry is over reacting about them being forgotten? Maybe he should pay attention to what is being produced rather then what he thinks is being produced.
Quote from: The Spaniard;1102152They did not invent role playing. You need to be more accurate in your assertions if you want to be taken seriously.
I'm game. I am always willing to say that I can be wrong.
Who do you think invented RPG's, the Bronte sisters perhaps?
I'm not being sarcastic either, just curious to know your thoughts .
Quote from: Secrets of Blackmoor;1102146But if you say no one cares about the true history of D&D, then why the butt hurt over the kotaku article?
QuoteTo the contrary; most people here don't care who did what.
One of these things is not like the other. It doesn't surprise me the distinction is lost on this guy.
Kuntz has, since this all started, began laying down more slimy innuendo. Why wasn't that quoted from FB? Or if someone else has an FB account, please do. I'd be interested in seeing the exact details, all I've "heard" are digital eyerolls and that he's now dragging EGG's 1st wife into the mix directly and laying more innuendo about EGG's character. Hey, SOB - you have an FB account and I can't imagine you don't have Kuntz as a friend - wanna share?
If Dave Megarry thinks that this all eventually leads toward a "reevaluation" - congratulations! He's on the same point that's been made in this thread for several pages and SOB doesn't want the conversation to linger on; that there's an author with an agenda who seems to want to see stuff like that happen. But so long as SOB gets his clicks out of it, I'm not all that sure he cares...if he does, he's merely useful instead. Kotaku will happily help reduce broad-based cultural likability and acceptability - not accomplishment or, directly, credit(s). But whip up the social media heat leading to. Kuntz doesn't seem to care so long as he can salve any narcissistic injury he ever thought EGG inflicted on his creative talents.
Quote from: Shasarak;1102153Just looking at the latest version of DnD, the Pathfinder 2e core rule book, I can see Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax listed there together with Monte Cook, Ron Edwards, Daniel Solis, John Stavropoulos, Jonathan Tweet and Skip Williams.
Maybe David Megarry is over reacting about them being forgotten? Maybe he should pay attention to what is being produced rather then what he thinks is being produced.
Not gonna argue with you. I do think he is being a bit figurative.
When I spoke to him he talked a lot about game history in terms of Board Games, he's a huge board game fanatic. So he asked us: do you know who created RISK, or Monopoly? And then he said: over time the creator is no longer cited, which is a shame.
New D&D editions do not have the creators on the cover. Likely in 50 years they won't have their names on the inside either.
Quote from: Philotomy Jurament;1102024Arneson is credited.
You are totally right and I totally missed that on
several glance throughs.
doh!:o
Quote from: Brad;1102093Did you hone your gaslighting skills in the Soviet gulags, or perhaps somewhere in academia?
Must be from Argentina. :rolleyes:
Quote from: ArrozConLeche;1102101This is totally random, but I can't help but think of parallels betwen this and Gnostic Christianity with Gary being cast as the Demiurge and Arneson as the true God.
Edit: I'm greatly interested in the origins of the hobby, but it sucks that this is being executed in the manner of a hit job on Gygax.
Same here. Its something that has had me curious as to the root or seed idea since that experience way back before D&D came out.
Quote from: Secrets of Blackmoor;1102146I am asking you to define what you say in your previous comment about my comment, which was kind of a comment about previous comments that were comments about my comments.
So yeah, is megarry lying?
But if you say no one cares about the true history of D&D, then why the butt hurt over the kotaku article?
Score:
Mouth Breathers - 0
Cecilia - 2,000,000
Huzzah
Emphasis mine, why does anybody take this guy seriously?
Since his first post he's been insulting people, and continuing the argument on this thread gives him what he wants, it pushes his movie up on the google algorithm and the woke brigade will see him calling us names and will rain digital peepee touches on him although not money we all know they don't put their money where their mouth is.
So to you SOB I have only one thing to say GFYS
Quote from: Elfdart;1101982According to Tim Kask, Arneson contributed very little and what he contributed was often incoherent, unreadable or just plain bad. His Q&A at Dragonsfoot about what a schmuck Arneson was is fucking hilarious.
I think that's the article I read.
Who came up with the idea for polyhedrals for damage and/or HD?
Quote from: Secrets of Blackmoor;1102131Gary and Dave's names are being removed from all new D&D product. That line about it in the kotaku article is an un-cited quote from Secrets of Blackmoor which goes like this: "It is an Irony that modern editions of D&D do not have either of their names showing on the cover." We got the idea from Megarry..
Why would their names be on the cover? They didn't write 5th Edition. Their names are on the credits page, under the
Based on a game created by section, which seems perfectly appropriate. They are even sorted at the top, before the folks who worked on subsequent editions.
Quote from: Secrets of Blackmoor;1102155I'm game. I am always willing to say that I can be wrong.
Who do you think invented RPG's, the Bronte sisters perhaps?
I'm not being sarcastic either, just curious to know your thoughts .
I think the problem is RP vs RPG.
Role Playing goes back quite a bit as noted before.
Role Playing as a game with some sort of defined rules goes back before Arneson, Gygax, and others so far named as it was allready percolating up through academic use in schools. And wargaming, and possibly board gaming. The question then is again what was the seed. Or seeds as there may have been several with parallel or convergent themes percolating up through various venues.
This is what research from different angles starts to reveal and why I keep poking at it.
Personal theory is at least one of the seeds was the resurgence of fantasy literature in the 60s. Tolkien, Lovecraft, Leiber, and others were seeing new interest and even new stories for Mythos. And Conan would as well in the late 70s.
Add to that at least Gygag's prior exposure to proto-LARPs and things get more interesting. I wonder if Arneson had any experiences as well.
None of this takes away from Arneson, Gygag, and others work. It just shows where the foundations were being laid.
At this point, I'm not super interested in nailing down who invented role playing or RPGs, especially for some scholarly platonic definition of RPG. I'm no scholar, and don't pretend to be, but my personal view is that the role playing game as I know it (and continue to enjoy it), came from a concept that Arneson brought to life in his gaming and that was developed and popularized and spread largely through the efforts of Gygax. Maybe Gary wouldn't have done it without Arneson's game. Maybe Arneson's game would've never become what we know of as D&D and spawned the RPG industry without Gygax. Maybe both of them are standing on the shoulders of others. Maybe not. Maybe one or both of them were flawed people. Maybe that's not so unusual? Anyway, the whole thing leaves me kind of scratching my head. And -- at least as far as I'm concerned -- it won't change anything the next time I go to my gaming shelf and pull down some books and some dice for a game.
Quote from: Omega;1102173Personal theory is at least one of the seeds was the resurgence of fantasy literature in the 60s. Tolkien, Lovecraft, Leiber, and others were seeing new interest and even new stories for Mythos. And Conan would as well in the late 70s.
Add to that at least Gygag's prior exposure to proto-LARPs and things get more interesting. I wonder if Arneson had any experiences as well.
None of this takes away from Arneson, Gygag, and others work. It just shows where the foundations were being laid.
Well, yeah, that's a reasonable position to take; things don't just arise in a vacuum. It does seem like there was some sort of critical mass that was reached with all the pulp, swords and sorcery, and high fantasy stuff, and that in turn was combined with wargaming, POOF, we get RPGs.
I mean, don't most RPGs say something about playing Cowboys and Indians or Cops and Robbers being essentially RPGs, but with more codified rules? If those authors truly believe that, RPGs have been around forever, just in a non-written form. Maybe we should treat D&D more like the printing press than anything else...it's a technology that allows us to more thoroughly enjoy "let's pretend".
This entire thread has proven to me that any amount of fame will lead to human maggots feeding on your bloated corpse of a reputation after you die.
Quote from: ArrozConLeche;1102101This is totally random, but I can't help but think of parallels betwen this and Gnostic Christianity with Gary being cast as the Demiurge and Arneson as the true God.
Edit: I'm greatly interested in the origins of the hobby, but it sucks that this is being executed in the manner of a hit job on Gygax.
That's all it is, too. A hit-job. One manufactured by someone who hated Gary Gygax (whoever that nobody from Kotaku is) and this guy who has a movie and associated agenda to sell.
You know it is very odd that all the people, the Kotaku writer included, who seemingly have their (middle) finger on the pulse of D&D history never seem to want to talk to Ernie Gygax. Or Luke. Or Elise. Or Heidi. They were all there. Is it maybe that because what they would say doesn't fit the narrative of Gary Gygax as a thief? Isn't that how cognitive dissonance or at least bias works? Just shut out inconvenient points where facts - real facts, actual facts - could be gathered and pretend you have no recourse to the truth?
But, again, nah. The Kotaku hitpiece was written for clicks, by someone who hates Gary and wants his works expunged from D&D, and is being brought up in this thread by someone whose user-name is about as transparent in terms of self-aggrandizement as "Zweihander".
Quote from: Aglondir;1102172Why would their names be on the cover? They didn't write 5th Edition. Their names are on the credits page, under the Based on a game created by section, which seems perfectly appropriate. They are even sorted at the top, before the folks who worked on subsequent editions.
Yeah, having their names on inside cover seems exactly appropriate to me. I guess I could see a case for Gygax's name on the front of 2e AD&D since it was still mostly his design work, but not 3e 4e or 5e.
Quote from: Omega;1102173I think the problem is RP vs RPG.
Role Playing goes back quite a bit as noted before.
Role Playing as a game with some sort of defined rules goes back before Arneson, Gygax, and others so far named as it was allready percolating up through academic use in schools. And wargaming, and possibly board gaming. The question then is again what was the seed. Or seeds as there may have been several with parallel or convergent themes percolating up through various venues.
This is what research from different angles starts to reveal and why I keep poking at it.
Personal theory is at least one of the seeds was the resurgence of fantasy literature in the 60s. Tolkien, Lovecraft, Leiber, and others were seeing new interest and even new stories for Mythos. And Conan would as well in the late 70s.
Add to that at least Gygag's prior exposure to proto-LARPs and things get more interesting. I wonder if Arneson had any experiences as well.
None of this takes away from Arneson, Gygag, and others work. It just shows where the foundations were being laid.
Yup. I would agree. All the gamers of the period were reading the same stuff for the most part.
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1102025I guess what I don't want is roleplayers to think that Gygax plopped D&D into existence out of nowhere. I think the absolute minimum any (serious) roleplayer should know is that the creation of D&D was the culmination of a development that began many years earlier - with Wesely, Arneson and then Gygax each adding until the publication of OD&D. And then it continued to develop, of course.
Good point. I think the entire thing is somewhat of a hodge podge. Most research types will snap off one piece and go from one angle, but the culture was certainly there, or it wouldn't have taken on like it did. The public needed to be ready for it or it was a no go.
You make me wonder if the game had been released even ten years earlier, would it have become popular at all?
After reading "Playing at the World", what I'm curious about, is what happened during the year that Dave was on staff at Lake Geneva? His published credits during that time are meager, and then he left. Surely that was the time for him to cement his place, but for whatever reasons, he faded out.
Quote from: S'mon;1102215Yeah, having their names on inside cover seems exactly appropriate to me. I guess I could see a case for Gygax's name on the front of 2e AD&D since it was still mostly his design work, but not 3e 4e or 5e.
um. His name isnt on the front of 2e?
He isnt even credited as a writer for 2e despite a fair chunk being copy-paste from AD&D. Cook is credited as the designer with development by Winter and Pickins and editing by Breault. He is mentioned in the footnote at the bottom of the credits. Gygax and Arneson get mentioned in the special thanks entry right after though.
From 86 to 87 he wrote the setting book+adventure and two modules for Blackmoor.
Quote from: Omega;1102240From 86 to 87 he wrote the setting book+adventure and two modules for Blackmoor.
I was referring to the period '75-'76 before the big split. Let's face it, Dave failed to follow up Supplement 2 with anything much during this crucial growth period for TSR, then left under unclear circumstances.
Every time I read an interview of Rob Kuntz I like him less.
This was the guy who invented turning invisible and abandoning the rest of the party to loot all the treasure. Screw him.
Quote from: Omega;1102238um. His name isnt on the front of 2e?
Correct.
Quote from: Secrets of Blackmoor;1102155I'm game. I am always willing to say that I can be wrong.
Who do you think invented RPG's, the Bronte sisters perhaps?
I'm not being sarcastic either, just curious to know your thoughts .
Role playing has existed as long as kids have been using their imaginations to play games. To say the guys in Minnesota invented role playing is disingenuous. If you said they expanded or modified or adapted to create a game with a set of rules, or a new form of, or something to that effect would be more accurate. I don't care much about the Dave vs Gary argument. I still love playing the game regardless of who did what, and my opinion on that really doesn't matter to anyone else anyway. However, since your statements related to your movie are being marketed about what "really happened", I'll point out inaccuracies as I see them. Am I being pedantic? Maybe, but I don't think I'm wrong.
Quote from: The Spaniard;1102257Role playing has existed as long as kids have been using their imaginations to play games. To say the guys in Minnesota invented role playing is disingenuous. If you said they expanded or modified or adapted to create a game with a set of rules, or a new form of, or something to that effect would be more accurate.
This guy gets it. We role-played as kids with action figures, live action, coppers & robbers, etc. way before D&D was a thing. Role-playing games as a concept was not invented by Gary and Arneson.
..which makes the gatekeeping we see toward the concept in some corners of the web pretty bizarre.
Quote from: The Spaniard;1102257Role playing has existed as long as kids have been using their imaginations to play games. To say the guys in Minnesota invented role playing is disingenuous. If you said they expanded or modified or adapted to create a game with a set of rules, or a new form of, or something to that effect would be more accurate. I don't care much about the Dave vs Gary argument. I still love playing the game regardless of who did what, and my opinion on that really doesn't matter to anyone else anyway. However, since your statements related to your movie are being marketed about what "really happened", I'll point out inaccuracies as I see them. Am I being pedantic? Maybe, but I don't think I'm wrong.
We pretty much agree with you. In single line movie marketing slogans you say things to draw interest.
Within the movie itself, we pose some contradictory information. Arneson saying essentially: I invented it. But then we show that others in the group do RPG things before Arneson. Gail Gaylord says "There was so much make believe, that was the best part." Later the narrator says "... and there is very little difference between Arneson's game and what children have always called make believe."
How you evaluate these ideas is up to you as you watch the film.
There is a lot in there that a lot of people do not know about regarding how one goes from war gaming to effectively playing make believe. Of course RPG's are that odd mix of make believe mixed with rules. Make believe conflict mixed with systems for giving players a sense of having agency rather than just saying bang you're dead.
So while I agree on the idea of make believe being part of RPG's, I see it differently. From a purely psychological perspective children of a certain age will do something called switching where they will use words for one thing to imaginatively describe other things, so a shoe can be a boat, it's a form of play. Most gamers are beyond the age of make believe. So Arneson is borrowing this make believe element and then employing it in an adult setting where people are leveraging adult information to mix into the make believe. I consider this to be a much different thing than just make believe.
But, I don't exactly disagree with what you are saying. It's more an issue of the scope of the play where the two differ. RPG's leverage play methodology from make believe.
If RPG's were just make believe, I would think that we would call RPG's make believe.
Griff
Quote from: The_Shadow;1102233After reading "Playing at the World", what I'm curious about, is what happened during the year that Dave was on staff at Lake Geneva? His published credits during that time are meager, and then he left. Surely that was the time for him to cement his place, but for whatever reasons, he faded out.
Rob Kuntz talks about it in the Kotaku article. David Megarry talks about it a good deal online these days. Look for the big discussion on the Kotaku article in the group old school gamers on Facebook.
A company does some pretty basic and menial stuff. Dave Arneson was running the shipping department, he was quite good at it. It wasn't what he expected to be doing, but he pitched in. He was packing TSR products in boxes and shipping them to people. David Megarry was treasurer. He was receiving orders by mail. opening the letters separating the checks and logging how much money came in. Then he was running to the bank to cash the checks. I think Rob Kuntz had been shipping before Arneson. Tim Kask was writing the Dragon magazine. Soukup was making art, correct me if I'm wrong, maybe it was another artist. Terri Kuntz was running the hobby store. Gary and Blume were upstairs designing games.
This is the typical anti Arneson bias about this time period. Before TSR he is very prolific, during TSR he is not, and after TSR he is highly prolific again. Gee, could it be he's busting his ass all week running the shipping department? Maybe.
All the assertions about Arneson being lazy happen afterward. Consider that an entire Arneson war game manuscript exists that was supposed to get published by TSR and gets shelved.
The big meeting where everyone figured out they weren't actually part of a team happened and Dave Arneson tried to stay on as long as he could. During that time, a lot of effort was put into making his time there miserable. I've been told they were even opening and reading the personal mail that was sent to him at TSR. the upstairs crowd is Gygax, Blume, Kask. You could ask Tim Kask, but he would deny it.
Certainly Gary Gygax and Blume aren't too distracted with menial things.
That is the thing about businesses, they often are set up to fail.
I watch local business ventures to see how the boss acts. Anytime I see a boss who does not get into any stage of his/her business up to their elbows to help move things along, I begin to think that something is suspect. Most of those small business ventures fail. TSR failed miserably. They did ok as long as they had the game equivalent of beanie babies, but once the product reached market saturation TSR is a complete failure. It lasted from 1974 to 1986, or so. It was an abysmal failure. Maybe the seeds were sewn from the beginning.
I am not interested in the business aspect of TSR, but I pick up stories and I get whispers from all quarters about poor business dealings.
Something like 9 to 11 million spent on making dice because they think they can dominate the dice making industry by making their own dice -- you tell me what you think of TSR Dice.
People buying themselves cars on company money.
The old house, or hotel they bought on company money so they wouldn't have to pay taxes on it.
There's even a rumor about trying to raise the remains of a burned out steam ship from lake geneva.
By the time Lorraine comes along, she can pick up TSR for a song compared to all the cash that came through the doors in previous years. So while gamers moan about Gary losing his company, I tend to see it differently, it would not have ended up in Lorraine's hands if not for a desperate need for cash. The Blumes were looking at the books and likely realized they were hemorrhaging cash. Low sales vs. huge expenses to maintain a large staff. A huge catalog of games that were no longer selling like hotcakes but they have to store them and pay taxes on inventory.
On top of a big down turn in sales the company had no reserves of cash.
Gary Gygax went to Hollywood and left his company in the hands of absolute goons. By the time he came back, he was no longer part of the club and they ousted him. Welcome to how business is done in America.
I don't know who was doing all the poor management with the company, as far as I know Gary was away for a bit trying to get a movie deal and settled for a cartoon deal -- You can tell me what you think of the cartoon. A multi million dollar enterprise took a nose dive and just tunneled into the dirt.
So when people say that Gary's company was stolen, I'm like gee these were Gary's friends who betrayed him and also, these guys gutted TSR for every penny they could pay themselves the entire time it existed.
So yeah, Dave Arneson didn't do anything except ship product to customers during the time he was at TSR, but those geniuses who remained somehow were able to completely gut what today would be a massive game corporation.
After TSR Arneson went off and had his own company where he too learned that running a business is hard and he lost his ass there. Adventure games was also a complete failure.
Someone out there is working on a book about the shenanigans at TSR and how to run a business into the ground as we speak. I know there is a podcast about it.
Both Gary and Dave were effectively penniless when they passed away - that is a sad ending for both men.
And while gamer are excited about D&D 5e, I see tell tale signs as the starter sets are beginning to get dumped at lower prices. Is this a down turn in sales? Is the D&D trend of the 2010's starting to fade?
Quote from: Secrets of Blackmoor;1102225You make me wonder if the game had been released even ten years earlier, would it have become popular at all?
The popularity if LotR certainly helped as well, I think. It's one way for gamers to return to the lands of Middle-Earth after you have finished the books. Or even if you don't, then at least to lands somewhat like them.
Quote from: Secrets of Blackmoor;1102286And while gamer are excited about D&D 5e, I see tell tale signs as the starter sets are beginning to get dumped at lower prices. Is this a down turn in sales? Is the D&D trend of the 2010's starting to fade?
Meh. The current D&D5e boom might or might not be starting to fade, but you can't judge that by the fate of the starter set. WotC has been trying and failing to recapture the magic of the original red box for almost as long as they've owned the D&D brand.
Quote from: Itachi;1102260This guy gets it. We role-played as kids with action figures, live action, coppers & robbers, etc. way before D&D was a thing. Role-playing games as a concept was not invented by Gary and Arneson.
..which makes the gatekeeping we see toward the concept in some corners of the web pretty bizarre.
Pretending to be someone else doing something else doesn't equal a tabletop roleplaying game or a campaign.
It not gatekeeping to make an argument that a person was the first to put together all the elements we now recognize as a tabletop roleplaying campaign and that there was a person that wrote the first game that supported those types of campaigns.
Quote from: Dimitrios;1102520Meh. The current D&D5e boom might or might not be starting to fade, but you can't judge that by the fate of the starter set. WotC has been trying and failing to recapture the magic of the original red box for almost as long as they've owned the D&D brand.
If the Starter Set price is going down it's because it's been out since mid 2014 and they've just released the superior Essentials Kit, currently #45 in All Books on amazon.com (https://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/ref=pd_zg_ts_books). The PHB is at #64.
It was always cheap anyway though.
oops....
Quote from: S'mon;1102526If the Starter Set price is going down it's because it's been out since mid 2014 and they've just released the superior Essentials Kit, currently #45 in All Books on amazon.com (https://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/ref=pd_zg_ts_books). The PHB is at #64.
It was always cheap anyway though.
Wow, that essentials kit is like a 1970's price tag on Amazon. You can't make money like that. Not like those Paizo PF books, those were pricey.
I will make a prediction: the gamers who discovered RPG's with the 5e D&D are young and as they hit post college and family stage in life, they will abandon RPG's for a while. Then after a decade or two, they will be the Grognards teasing all the noobs playing D&D 13e. ;)
Quote from: Secrets of Blackmoor;1102558Wow, that essentials kit is like a 1970's price tag on Amazon.
Sadly in my country it's not that cheap - I did ok getting it for £17.67.
Having paid £20 for Return of the Runelords #6 at Orc's Nest I am trying to avoid any more Paizocrack.
Quote from: The_Shadow;1102242I was referring to the period '75-'76 before the big split. Let's face it, Dave failed to follow up Supplement 2 with anything much during this crucial growth period for TSR, then left under unclear circumstances.
More importantly, his one major credit at TSR (Blackmoor) was mostly the work of others.
Quote from: Elfdart;1102661More importantly, his one major credit at TSR (Blackmoor) was mostly the work of others.
I am getting flash backs to Oriental Adventures so I guess it happens to all designers eventually.
Quote from: S'mon;1102526If the Starter Set price is going down it's because it's been out since mid 2014.....
It was always cheap anyway though.
The 5th edition D&D starter box has always performed very well at our store. At 20 bucks or darn near it is a very easy sell. If it had a few miniatures inside it would be even better.
Earlier today we hot restocked with four more copies of it to the two we had on hand - we will likely sell out of those within two weeks.
There is a very good nice 'churn'churn or turnover on that item.
- Ed C.
Quote from: Omega;1102240From 86 to 87 he wrote the setting book+adventure and two modules for Blackmoor.
You mean David J. Ritchie did.
It's really not clear that Dave Arneson ever wrote anything without someone ghost writing for him. Does he have anything that is a solo credit? I think maybe the index he did to the D&D booklets.
Quote from: Shasarak;1102666I am getting flash backs to Oriental Adventures so I guess it happens to all designers eventually.
Of course, while Zeb Cook did write most of OA, it did have a fair amount of EGG material, like the spell descriptions for existing spells (taken from the PHB). And for better for worse, most of the Barbarian class.
Hmm, a thought on all this "what did Dave Arneson actually write"...
Back in the 90s, I was working on a significant software implementation for the product I was working on that would allow us to double the number of systems it could manage. I did most of the design while another co-worker helped me with design and did a significant share of the coding. Our supervisor wrote the documentation based on conversations with us. From the perspective of someone looking at the output of the project that could be consumed by someone not intimately familiar, that is somewhat analogous to Gygax and Arneson (though granted, the code we wrote is a bit more objective product that Arneson's game sessions). So we have one person writing something up based on conversations with the other person. Is my co-worker's and my contribution less meaningful because our supervisor wrote the documentation?
Frank
Quote from: ffilz;1102708Hmm, a thought on all this "what did Dave Arneson actually write"...
Back in the 90s, I was working on a significant software implementation for the product I was working on that would allow us to double the number of systems it could manage. I did most of the design while another co-worker helped me with design and did a significant share of the coding. Our supervisor wrote the documentation based on conversations with us. From the perspective of someone looking at the output of the project that could be consumed by someone not intimately familiar, that is somewhat analogous to Gygax and Arneson (though granted, the code we wrote is a bit more objective product that Arneson's game sessions). So we have one person writing something up based on conversations with the other person. Is my co-worker's and my contribution less meaningful because our supervisor wrote the documentation?
Frank
I don't know.
In order to get a better analogy, imagine you and your co-worker wrote your code on the fly and only kinda sorta understood what you were doing. Then, when trying to explain what the code does to your supervisor, the conversation goes more or less like this:
Super - So, what does the code do?
You - It sorta does something like allow you to double your manageable systems.
Super - Sorta?
Co-worker - Yeah, kinda sorta.
Super - Uh?
You - It does this amazing thing, where you gain manageable systems the more you do it.
Super - Do what?
Co-worker - Yes!
Super - I'm getting lost here guys.
You - Don't worry, I'll give you some pages of my notes on how the code works.
Super - Oh, that'd be great.
Co-worker - Didn't we write those notes when we were super baked that night while watching "Dude, where's my car?"?
You - Oh....yeah...
Super - !?!?!?!
You - iT jUSt wOrKS!
Super - /sigh...
Quote from: ffilz;1102708Is my co-worker's and my contribution less meaningful because our supervisor wrote the documentation?
Depends on if the documentation is the actual product?
Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1102715Depends on if the documentation is the actual product?
True, not a perfect analogy, but it still confirms for me my feeling that Arneson is due significant credit for "inventing" RPGs or at least the RPG Campaign, but then when I think of RPG, campaign is part of it even understanding that the business exercises may be called a game, though any time I've participated in that sort of role play, it's never been called a game, just "we're going to role play" or "we're going to do a role play".
What I really don't understand here is why people seem to need to diminish Arneson's contribution in order to validate Gygax's. While I have my personal dislikes of Gygax, they don't at all make me discount his contribution, and for the most part, the Arneson defenders have not attacked Gygax. But to some folks, Gygax has acquired god status and dare anyone say ANYTHING bad about him. Now here's a quote from a letter Gygax sent to APAs AND published in Dragon #16"
QuoteSpell point systems are also currently in vogue amongst the fringe
group which haunt the pages of "Amateur Press Association" publications.
Now APAs are generally beneath contempt, for they typify the
lowest form of vanity press. There one finds pages and pages of banal
chatter and inept writing from persons incapable of creating anything
which is publishable elsewhere. Therefore, they pay money to tout their
sophomoric ideas, criticise those who are able to write and design, and
generally make themselves obnoxious. * While there are notable exceptions,
they are far too few to give any merit to the vehicles they appear
in. From this morass rose the notion that a spell point system should be
inserted into D&D. Strangely enough, "realism" was used as one of the
principal reasons for use of spell points. These mutterings are not as
widespread as the few proponents of such a system imagine. The D&D
magic system is drawn directly from CHAINMAIL. It, in turn, was inspired
by the superb writing of Jack Vance. This "Vancian" magic system
works splendidly in the game. If it has any fault, it is towards
making characters who are magic-users too powerful. This sort of fault
is better corrected within the existing framework of the game -- by requiring
more time to cast spells, by making magic-users progress more
slowly in experience levels. Spell points add nothing to D&D except
more complication, more record keeping, more wasted time, and a
precept which is totally foreign to the rest of the game.
That's just mean. The letter was filled with more diatribe. So yea, after that, I had not the greatest opinion of Gygax (which has softened with age), but I still absolutely credit him with bringing D&D to us and kicking the RPG hobby into high gear. But Arneson has a critical role, even if he never published anything. But he didn't totally disappear (and based on this wiki article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Arneson he started a computer game company). Maybe he had a hard time communicating what made his Blackmoor game special to Gygax, but that doesn't mean his contribution is almost meaningless.
Frank
Actually saying that Arneson did nothing in the mid to late 80's is categorically not true. But you know - google search for stuff.
After TSR and the failure of his own company Adventure Games I am pretty sure he was working for Coleco along with Wesely, Megarry, Maker, Nicholson , and some others. As a consulting firm they were not always cited individually for their efforts. If you want to know more about their team just ask Janelle Jaquays as she was the manager in charge of working with the 4D interactive team.
http://gdri.smspower.org/wiki/index.php/4D_Interactive_Systems
Ask questions yes, but don't answer them until you've at least done a basic search on the internet. This link took me 1 minute to find.
Griff
Frankly, for all the credit Gygax and Arneson deserve for creating the hobby in the form we have today, they're both overrated, one-hit wonders in terms of game design. And I firmly believe the hobby would exist one way or the other without them, be it coming from boardgames, videogames, movies or whatever.
The likes of Greg Stafford and Robin Laws deserve much more praise IMO.
Quote from: Itachi;1102744Frankly, for all the credit Gygax and Arneson deserve for creating the hobby in the form we have today, they're both overrated, one-hit wonders in terms of game design. And I firmly believe the hobby would exist one way or the other without them, be it coming from boardgames, videogames, movies or whatever.
The likes of Greg Stafford and Robin Laws deserve much more praise IMO.
Inventors eventually stop contributing in their field (even if it's because they die at some point...), but that doesn't mean we don't owe them recognition and praise. Sure, go ahead and praise folks for what they did with the concept of RPGs. Greg Stafford is certainly on my list, I'm not so sure about Robin Laws, but at some point it's personal preferences. MAR Barker, Luke Crane, Vincent Baker, Jim Ward, Marc Miller, and Steve Jackson are some other names on my list. But there's tons of good RPG designers out there who have contributed lots.
Frank
Dangerous Journeys and Legendary Adventure both take the AD&D paradigm and move it close to the rules-heavy or rules-light spectrum, respectively. They're complete games that are well-designed.
TSR bought DJ from Gygax to remove it as a competitor, and to settle a lawsuit it brought and didn't want to take the distance, and promptly buried it. So if it was not a "hit" that's not because it wasn't possible.
LA came out right around the same time as the 3E juggernaut - which saw many companies drop their native designs and transform their games into d20 games.
People can criticize Gygax for a lot; a lack of prolific design over a long period of time is an ignorant charge, however.
At the end of the day, both men are dead. Arguing over their respective contributions doesn't change the contributions or anything else. And I expect all the elders of the hobby will face character assassinations for their printed thoughts and rules eventually, even DA who waded into the "questionable taste" end of the scale occasionally. That's the new world we live in.
Quote from: Itachi;1102744Frankly, for all the credit Gygax and Arneson deserve for creating the hobby in the form we have today, they're both overrated, one-hit wonders in terms of game design. And I firmly believe the hobby would exist one way or the other without them, be it coming from boardgames, videogames, movies or whatever.
The likes of Greg Stafford and Robin Laws deserve much more praise IMO.
Why not praise them all, as others have just said?
I don't know a lot about Gary's later life, but I know Dave made a lot of games, you just have't actually looked to see what they are yet. :) And he was working as a computer game design teacher the last decade of his life. Perhaps his contribution cannot be measured directly. Arneson also spent some time using D&D in classrooms as a way to help children learn.
OK, thanks to Mr Secrets, I saw the movie. Honestly, I don't know what to make of this mess. Aside from a couple of real howlers*, the main problem with the video is that it's over two hours long, but all the remotely interesting material adds up to about 20 minutes. It also spends an inordinate amount of time going on about what a nice guy Dave Arneson was, only to pull the rug out by posting video of Arneson bragging about how he has court documents, blah, blah, blah... He sounds like Wilford Brimley in an infomercial about "diabetus". Whether intentionally or not, the filmmakers confirm what Tim Kask describes here (https://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=429282#p429282).
*1) Wargames only became popular after D&D was a hit? Uh, OK.
2) The reason Gygax wrote hundreds of pages and Arneson only contributed a few is because Gary Gygax was a faster typist? Jeez, that's pathetic!
As for the claim that Arneson was the creator of role-playing in tabletop games, this might be true in terms of wargaming (which I doubt -more likely, Arneson was the first to blow his own horn on the subject), but people were role-playing in tabletop games before the 1960s. In fact, two games released in the 1950s required it: Disney's Peter Pan game (where players took on the roles of Peter, Wendy and the others) and Alfred Hitchcock's Why? (where they played detectives searching for ghosts). This also leaves out that people often role-play in games that aren't really RPGs -like an uncle of mine who always talked like a New Jersey mobster when playing Monopoly, since the game is set in Atlantic City. So if anyone deserves credit for inventing RPGs, it would be whoever designed Peter Pan and Why?. No doubt someone will find other, older games that fit the bill as well. The point is that his claim to being the Grand Poobah of role-playing games appears even more specious than his claim to being the creator of D&D.
Overall, this whole project strikes me as an attempt to replicate The Secret History Of Star Wars in video form: Claim that the "real" story is somehow hidden and seed websites and forums with claims that you have The True Story. The maker of this video claims to have spent $100,000 on it, and is hoping enough people will cough up $5.99 a pop or more to watch it. With YouTube flooded with videos covering the same territory, good luck with that (though it's clear now why Mr Secrets is trolling FRPG sites so furiously, plugging his movie).
Quote from: Secrets of Blackmoor;1102756Why not praise them all, as others have just said?
That would be more convincing if it came from a poster who
wasn't in cahoots with a Kotaku writer who scribbles one attack on Gygax after another.
Quote from: Shasarak;1102666I am getting flash backs to Oriental Adventures so I guess it happens to all designers eventually.
Actually this is fairly common in board gaming. Designers sell their designs to a publisher and the publisher then hammers it into something viable. Sometimes heavily overhauling the system in the process. Seems to be not as common anymore.
Others get their theme totally changed. That is still pretty common. I've been playtester for a number of games and more than a few had their themes totally jettisoned for something else. Alot less common in RPGs.
Quote from: JeremyR;1102681You mean David J. Ritchie did.
It's really not clear that Dave Arneson ever wrote anything without someone ghost writing for him. Does he have anything that is a solo credit? I think maybe the index he did to the D&D booklets.
Alot of RPGs and modules were, and still are, group endeavors in one form or another. Editors, co-writers, ghost-writers, freelancers, and so on.
Quote from: Omega;1102836Actually this is fairly common in board gaming. Designers sell their designs to a publisher and the publisher then hammers it into something viable. Sometimes heavily overhauling the system in the process. Seems to be not as common anymore.
Others get their theme totally changed. That is still pretty common. I've been playtester for a number of games and more than a few had their themes totally jettisoned for something else. Alot less common in RPGs.
In this case it was more Zeb Cook turning François Marcela-Froidevals initial manuscript into an actual product and then Gary slapping his name on it.
I think Zeb Cook should have had author credit on OA. It's clearly not written by Gygax. He did outline the product and they worked according to that basic outline, but it's not "his" book in the same way the core books were.
TSR was in deep financial trouble in '85. The Blumes thought the money train would never stop growing, and blew expenses frivolous stuff out in excess of the very healthy revenues coming in (dozens of company cars, etc.) UA, and OA, staved off the same sort of problems that sank TSR in the 90s. What I've heard from TSR alum at GaryCon, and elsewhere, was that the thought was that having Gygax's name on the cover would sell more books; without which, Zeb and everyone else were out of a job. I would also guess that Gary liked having his name on also; I'm not claiming some sort of pure altruism here.
Quote from: Elfdart;1102834As for the claim that Arneson was the creator of role-playing in tabletop games, this might be true in terms of wargaming (which I doubt -more likely, Arneson was the first to blow his own horn on the subject), but people were role-playing in tabletop games before the 1960s. In fact, two games released in the 1950s required it: Disney's Peter Pan game (where players took on the roles of Peter, Wendy and the others) and Alfred Hitchcock's Why? (where they played detectives searching for ghosts). This also leaves out that people often role-play in games that aren't really RPGs -like an uncle of mine who always talked like a New Jersey mobster when playing Monopoly, since the game is set in Atlantic City. So if anyone deserves credit for inventing RPGs, it would be whoever designed Peter Pan and Why?.
Peter Pan and
Why? (of which I know nothing, and can't evaluate the claims that they were RPGs) didn't lead to anything. No one took them up, copied them, created fandoms, conventions, new companies, and expanded them to other genres. If they are in fact RPGs (which I doubt), they were not the wellspring of modern gaming. D&D was.
If someone, say an ancient Roman, fully created something 99% like D&D, totally in isolation, and then coincidentally, Gygax and Arneson made a similar game while knowing nothing of it, they remain the creators of RPGs, and that ancient Roman remains an interesting historical footnote (like
Why? assuming it is in fact an RPG and interesting, of which I'm yet to be persuaded).
I would also ask "can a character attempt anything?" in
Why? or
Peter Pan? Can Peter Pan attempt to kill Wendy, or seduce Captain Hook? Can the ghost-seeking detective decide to stop seeking ghosts and stat a hot dog stand? Surely this freedom of action is an essential element of RPGs, and differentiates the genre from a guy talking like a tycoon for laughs while playing
Monopoly, or even from early hybrid games like
En Garde.
Quote from: The_Shadow;1102845Peter Pan and Why? (of which I know nothing, and can't evaluate the claims that they were RPGs) didn't lead to anything. No one took them up, copied them, created fandoms, conventions, new companies, and expanded them to other genres. If they are in fact RPGs (which I doubt), they were not the wellspring of modern gaming. D&D was.
If someone, say an ancient Roman, fully created something 99% like D&D, totally in isolation, and then coincidentally, Gygax and Arneson made a similar game while knowing nothing of it, they remain the creators of RPGs, and that ancient Roman remains an interesting historical footnote (like Why? assuming it is in fact an RPG and interesting, of which I'm yet to be persuaded).
I would also ask "can a character attempt anything?" in Why? or Peter Pan? Can Peter Pan attempt to kill Wendy, or seduce Captain Hook? Can the ghost-seeking detective decide to stop seeking ghosts and stat a hot dog stand? Surely this freedom of action is an essential element of RPGs, and differentiates the genre from a guy talking like a tycoon for laughs while playing Monopoly, or even from early hybrid games like En Garde.
Why does this last bit the so called "you can do anything" (even if we grant in almost any RPG there ARE some constraints) get so easily dismissed. I hadn't even played D&D a year before I figured out that was what fundamentally distinguished D&D from the war games (miniature and board) that I had played before. Now more recent game theory has given us things like the Lumpley Principle to help understand how that "you can do anything" works in practice.
Now if Monopoly players decided that based on what the New Jersey Gangster said during the game justified some new rules and allowed him to do something not written in the game, maybe that Monopoly game would then be on it's way to being an RPG. But while the funny voices has no impact on the game play, it is just "role play" or even just acting, and not an RPG.
And you're right, if there really was something earlier that did not lead to ongoing development, then it was just a parallel idea that went no where. Maybe the same spark wasn't there. Or maybe the audience wasn't sufficiently impressed. Or the idea was not successfully communicated. On this part, it may be true that Arneson could not write a document describing the idea, but he WAS able to communicate it to Gygax who was THEN able to write it down in a way that made it easier to convey (yet many folks STILL actually learned the RPG aspect of D&D from others by word of mouth and example rather than strictly picking it up from the rule book so I'm not sure Gygax's writing was the greatest at communicating the idea).
Frank
Quote from: Itachi;1102744Frankly, for all the credit Gygax and Arneson deserve for creating the hobby in the form we have today, they're both overrated, one-hit wonders in terms of game design. And I firmly believe the hobby would exist one way or the other without them, be it coming from boardgames, videogames, movies or whatever.
The likes of Greg Stafford and Robin Laws deserve much more praise IMO.
Mmmm. No this is false. Gygax had a lot of games that were successful before D&D came out, back when he was writing wargames. One of my favorites is
Alexander The Great, which was sold to
Avalon Hill before TSR was even formed. It was about the battle of Gaugamela where Alexander the Great faced off against Darius III. It was an incredible game, and first I learned how to consistently win playing Alexander, and then I learned how to consistently win playing Darius, it was easy to play, but very difficult to master, one of them early ancients wargames that I liked a lot.
Alexander the Greathttps://picclick.com/AVALON-HILL-ALEXANDER-the-GREAT-YEAR-193032957884.html
He also published Tractics written by
Mike Reese which was a set of WWII miniatures rules for wargaming using 1/78 HO or 1/72 scale miniatures. This was very successful, and was later expanded into a modern version that included the cold war going hot NATO Vs. the Warsaw pact, and I had played this in my wargaming group before anyone even knew about D&D. I actually sat in for a few turns of Tractics at GaryCon with Mike Reese, and I think his grandson last year, as well. It was pretty awesome! I have pics if anyone cares to see them...
Tracticshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tractics
Empire of the Petal Throne, a boxed set of a completely different RPG by M.A.R. Barker was originally published in 1975 by TSR (i.e. another words... Gary Gygax).
Empire of the Petal Thronehttps://tekumel.com/gaming_rulesEPT.html
Sooo.. not even close to a "One Hit Wonder". Gary was at the very epicenter of wargaming outside of SPI And Avalon HIll, the place where the "makers" of their time creating completely new things, and Gary had great credibility as a highly successful wargame designer both before and after the release of D&D, thank you very much.
And Dave Arneson too... In addition to D&D, he wrote
Don't Give up the Ship which was an age-of-sail set of wargaming rules. He also helped Dave Wesely develop
Braunstein, which was actually a wargame with roleplaying and politics included. The first time I played a version of this was in late 1977, and our game out in Colorado was closely modeled off the the Origins version of the Braunstein game that later became known as the National Security Decision Making Game. In the late 80's and 90's There were professional military people from the army war college, from AFA, from Annnapolis and West Point attending Origins every year and playing because it helped the battlefield commanders to better understand real world geopolitics, and many of these soldiers attended Origins and played NDSM game as war college projects, to better develop military strategies to help the politicians, and to ensure our national security.
Arneson also wrote up his Blackmoor campaign, and let Bob Bledsaw of Judges Guild do the maps for
The First Fantasy Campaign which was published in 1977 just a couple months after Dave left TSR.
Here is Larry Bond's Websitehttps://www.larry-bond.com/index.html
You might have heard of a game that was published in 1980 called
Harpoon, which was a modern Naval Wargame set in the cold war era the pitted the U.S. and her Nato Allies against Russia, the Warsaw Pact, and China. This was tremendously successful and spawned no less than four editions, with maybe a dozen different board games, as well as two dozen political fiction thriller books. Larry Bond's game was first published by Dave Arneson's game company
Adventure Games. Harpoon was successfully re-released as a computer game for Personal Computers (IBM-PC) in 1989. This saw a number of releases for PC including Harpoon II: Admiral's edition as well as Harpoon Classic 97', and at least two spinoffs as well.
In 1988 Dave Arneson founded
4d Interactive Systems in Minnesota... which made games for Amiga, Apple, Coleco, Atari PET/CBM, NES and TRS-80 computers. Here is a list of games that Dave Arneson's Computer Game company created between 1988 and 2006, when the gaming side was folded and the other part was spun off into a Computer service company that still exists today.
4D Interactive systems Gameshttp://gdri.smspower.org/wiki/index.php/4D_Interactive_Systems
4D Interacive Systems Inc. Computer Services Divisionhttps://st-paul.enquira.com/yellowpages/computer-technology/computer-software-services/4d-interactive-systems-inc-l19333.html
4D Systems, Inc. founded by
Dan Nicholson,
Dave Arneson,
David Wesely, and
David Megarry,
LoL!!!Blackmoor was successfully republisahed in 2004 as a d20 version with Zeitgiest games (That is when I met Dave Arneson, at the Origins release for this).
Dave Arneson had moved to Florida in 1999 and started teaching Computer Game Design as well as Tabletop game design classes at Full Sail University and continued with this work until he died in 2009. In 2010 The University dedicated a full new studio to Dave Arneson (The Blackmoor Studio, Haha!) and as of today, there are currently easily more than a thousand students enrolled in the computer game design program there, earning either their B.A. or Masters degree at a school that Dave Arneson founded. I'll call them Monday to find out their exact attendance figures, but it is now big, ...very big!
The Dave Arneson Game Studio Dedication at Full Sail Universityhttps://www.fullsail.edu/press-releases/2010/full-sail-universitys-new-game-studios-to-be-dedicated-to-late-gaming-legend-dave-arneson
Full Sail University Reviewhttps://www.cappex.com/colleges/full-sail-university
You know, I asked him specifically about this in my informal 2004 interview at Origins. i asked him why he moved to Florida (The agreeable climate and weather) and why he chose to teach computer game design more than RPG tabletop games. He laughed and said that computer and electronic games is where the money was at, and he's right, because now the Computer and Electronic Game Industry is much larger than the Film Industry. (computer games officially earned more $$$ worldwide than film as far back as 2015, and a lot of modern film successes are only due to their relationships with the game and comics Industry marvel Cough, DC cough... Games made into movies cough... the Umbrella corporation is watching you).
So to say that either of these two gentlemen were just one hit wonders, is quite possibly one of the most retarded statements ever made here on the RPGSite.
God help you, I do love Sandy Petersen's
RuneQuest (At least the Medeival Europe version), and there is that
Call of Cthulu RPG that is very popular, but I always felt that Sandy was about three-four years and one or two steps behind the early giants of the RPG Game Industry. As far as I know, he also doesn't have a full college at a University named after him like Dave Arneson does... or a gaming convention named after him, like Gary does ....just saying. SandyCon would be a great convention though, I'm sure, and I would go if someone would host it.
...and Robin Laws... He's my age, and got a late start in the gaming Industry, first getting one of his own games published in 1993, but he has serious cred, and has published a number of notable RPG games including
Feng Shui, Deadlands, Earthdawn, Talislanta, and
Vampire: The Dark Ages. Personally I'm also very fond of
Trail of Cthulu and
Ashen Stars. He is currently continuing to experience success with his second edition of
Feng Shui and
Gumshoe, a mystery/detective RPG. However no movie deals (yet) and also no colleges at a University named after him,
....so not quuite... in that same category as them early giants of the RPG games Industry.
Quote from: Shasarak;1102839In this case it was more Zeb Cook turning François Marcela-Froidevals initial manuscript into an actual product and then Gary slapping his name on it.
Um... I have OA.
Gary has credit as the AD&D designer.
Gary and Franciose are credited as coming up with the concept.
Dave is the only person credited with the OA design.
Quote from: Omega;1102876Um... I have OA.
Gary has credit as the AD&D designer.
Gary and Franciose are credited as coming up with the concept.
Dave is the only person credited with the OA design.
I was about to write the same thing. OA just has
Gary Gygax on the cover, but UA (released at the same time) has
by Gary Gygax on the cover. I don't know what the significance of the addition/subtraction of "by" is, but it is odd.
UA also sticks the credits wayyyy at the back of the book.
Creation and Design: Gary Gygax
Design Consultants: Frank Mentzer & Jeff Grubb
Editing and Typography: Kim Mohan
Quote from: GameDaddy;1102853Mmmm. No this is false. Gygax had a lot of games that were successful before D&D came out, back when he was writing wargames. One of my favorites is Alexander The Great, which was sold to Avalon Hill before TSR was even formed. It was about the battle of Gaugamela where Alexander the Great faced off against Darius III. It was an incredible game, and first I learned how to consistently win playing Alexander, and then I learned how to consistently win playing Darius, it was easy to play, but very difficult to master, one of them early ancients wargames that I liked a lot.
Alexander the Great
https://picclick.com/AVALON-HILL-ALEXANDER-the-GREAT-YEAR-193032957884.html
He also published Tractics written by Mike Reese which was a set of WWII miniatures rules for wargaming using 1/78 HO or 1/72 scale miniatures. This was very successful, and was later expanded into a modern version that included the cold war going hot NATO Vs. the Warsaw pact, and I had played this in my wargaming group before anyone even knew about D&D. I actually sat in for a few turns of Tractics at GaryCon with Mike Reese, and I think his grandson last year, as well. It was pretty awesome! I have pics if anyone cares to see them...
Tractics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tractics
Empire of the Petal Throne, a boxed set of a completely different RPG by M.A.R. Barker was originally published in 1975 by TSR (i.e. another words... Gary Gygax).
Empire of the Petal Throne
https://tekumel.com/gaming_rulesEPT.html
Sooo.. not even close to a "One Hit Wonder". Gary was at the very epicenter of wargaming outside of SPI And Avalon HIll, the place where the "makers" of their time creating completely new things, and Gary had great credibility as a highly successful wargame designer both before and after the release of D&D, thank you very much.
And Dave Arneson too... In addition to D&D, he wrote Don't Give up the Ship which was an age-of-sail set of wargaming rules. He also helped Dave Wesely develop Braunstein, which was actually a wargame with roleplaying and politics included. The first time I played a version of this was in late 1977, and our game out in Colorado was closely modeled off the the Origins version of the Braunstein game that later became known as the National Security Decision Making Game. In the late 80's and 90's There were professional military people from the army war college, from AFA, from Annnapolis and West Point attending Origins every year and playing because it helped the battlefield commanders to better understand real world geopolitics, and many of these soldiers attended Origins and played NDSM game as war college projects, to better develop military strategies to help the politicians, and to ensure our national security.
Arneson also wrote up his Blackmoor campaign, and let Bob Bledsaw of Judges Guild do the maps for The First Fantasy Campaign which was published in 1977 just a couple months after Dave left TSR.
Here is Larry Bond's Website
https://www.larry-bond.com/index.html
You might have heard of a game that was published in 1980 called Harpoon, which was a modern Naval Wargame set in the cold war era the pitted the U.S. and her Nato Allies against Russia, the Warsaw Pact, and China. This was tremendously successful and spawned no less than four editions, with maybe a dozen different board games, as well as two dozen political fiction thriller books. Larry Bond's game was first published by Dave Arneson's game company Adventure Games. Harpoon was successfully re-released as a computer game for Personal Computers (IBM-PC) in 1989. This saw a number of releases for PC including Harpoon II: Admiral's edition as well as Harpoon Classic 97', and at least two spinoffs as well.
In 1988 Dave Arneson founded 4d Interactive Systems in Minnesota... which made games for Amiga, Apple, Coleco, Atari PET/CBM, NES and TRS-80 computers. Here is a list of games that Dave Arneson's Computer Game company created between 1988 and 2006, when the gaming side was folded and the other part was spun off into a Computer service company that still exists today.
4D Interactive systems Games
http://gdri.smspower.org/wiki/index.php/4D_Interactive_Systems
4D Interacive Systems Inc. Computer Services Division
https://st-paul.enquira.com/yellowpages/computer-technology/computer-software-services/4d-interactive-systems-inc-l19333.html
4D Systems, Inc. founded by Dan Nicholson, Dave Arneson, David Wesely, and David Megarry, LoL!!!
Blackmoor was successfully republisahed in 2004 as a d20 version with Zeitgiest games (That is when I met Dave Arneson, at the Origins release for this).
Dave Arneson had moved to Florida in 1999 and started teaching Computer Game Design as well as Tabletop game design classes at Full Sail University and continued with this work until he died in 2009. In 2010 The University dedicated a full new studio to Dave Arneson (The Blackmoor Studio, Haha!) and as of today, there are currently easily more than a thousand students enrolled in the computer game design program there, earning either their B.A. or Masters degree at a school that Dave Arneson founded. I'll call them Monday to find out their exact attendance figures, but it is now big, ...very big!
The Dave Arneson Game Studio Dedication at Full Sail University
https://www.fullsail.edu/press-releases/2010/full-sail-universitys-new-game-studios-to-be-dedicated-to-late-gaming-legend-dave-arneson
Full Sail University Review
https://www.cappex.com/colleges/full-sail-university
You know, I asked him specifically about this in my informal 2004 interview at Origins. i asked him why he moved to Florida (The agreeable climate and weather) and why he chose to teach computer game design more than RPG tabletop games. He laughed and said that computer and electronic games is where the money was at, and he's right, because now the Computer and Electronic Game Industry is much larger than the Film Industry. (computer games officially earned more $$$ worldwide than film as far back as 2015, and a lot of modern film successes are only due to their relationships with the game and comics Industry marvel Cough, DC cough... Games made into movies cough... the Umbrella corporation is watching you).
So to say that either of these two gentlemen were just one hit wonders, is quite possibly one of the most retarded statements ever made here on the RPGSite.
God help you, I do love Sandy Petersen's RuneQuest (At least the Medeival Europe version), and there is that Call of Cthulu RPG that is very popular, but I always felt that Sandy was about three-four years and one or two steps behind the early giants of the RPG Game Industry. As far as I know, he also doesn't have a full college at a University named after him like Dave Arneson does... or a gaming convention named after him, like Gary does ....just saying. SandyCon would be a great convention though, I'm sure, and I would go if someone would host it.
...and Robin Laws... He's my age, and got a late start in the gaming Industry, first getting one of his own games published in 1993, but he has serious cred, and has published a number of notable RPG games including Feng Shui, Deadlands, Earthdawn, Talislanta, and Vampire: The Dark Ages. Personally I'm also very fond of Trail of Cthulu and Ashen Stars. He is currently continuing to experience success with his second edition of Feng Shui and Gumshoe, a mystery/detective RPG. However no movie deals (yet) and also no colleges at a University named after him, ....so not quuite... in that same category as them early giants of the RPG games Industry.
So much to say about so much of this. looked at this post yesterday, then said: Naw got stuff to do too much effort to talk about this.
Tractics - Gary may have added little tiny bits, I am told that he mostly just added his name.
Empire of the petal Throne - If you look at the green manuscript which was self published, Barker has everything in place already. Nope Gary is just publisher.
Chainmail - original published in Domesday Book. It was very tidy and simple then. Got expanded with a ton of provisional rules for everything from English longbow men to Swiss pike. No idea if the provisional stuff is playable. And of course the fantasy supplement, which Jon peterson has shown is derived from Leonard Patt's game.
Don't Give Up the Ship - was originally Arneson's system. Morale is derived from Totten via Wesely. There is a very playable small draft by Arneson in about '70 then Gary jumps on board and the rules become bigger and again lots of odd provisional things. I have several copies of the original, even have the typed version by Arneson himself. I also have later unpublished manuscripts because Arneson planned to re-release an updated version before his death.
The interesting thing is to look at the TSR catalog, Ignoring all the D&D products which are not game systems unto themselves, how many Twin Cites games do you find there?