There's actually no evidence that Arneson ever used the LG rules from the Domesday book in play. Its certainly possible, but nothing we have indicates that. The rules he used for the medieval wargame at Bill Hoyts house were absolutely not the LG rules. We can tell conclusively because the troop units used are wrong. That's one of the things we looked at pretty hard a couple years ago.
Hi, if you don't mind me, a complete stranger, asking out of the blue, did you ever get to do anything more with the the Snider variant or with Mark Bufkin's maps? Would be nice for those to be available in some form.
it is interesting that Gary has two different origins stories in the dragon magazine. The one you covered is clearly after Gary was trying to push the rules one way without considering what their original agreement was between him and Arnesen and clearly there is a lot of spin doctoring in his explanation. His earlier statement about where it came from, which is also in the dragon magazine was very different and that was probably because Gary was still very enamored by Arneson. And having to move from Minnesota away from his team to Wisconsin did not help in advocating his ideas initially fall in love with guy has a very war mindset in which a lot of kriegspiel rules are all over the place. this of course increase the game lawyering issue. This was a lesson that we in Minnesota learned back when MMSA formed. David Wesley pretty much killed that situation out by reducing the number of rules by making it all under one hat and the arbiter was created under the term referee. That referee became known as dungeon, master or game master to paint how you wanna look at it.. David Arneson who was there from the beginning, learned this rule very clearly as it hit home. He knew straight up the dangers of this potential opening up a Pandora’s box that Gygax seemed to walk right into. of course, the result of this power creep and very strange ideas about the game splintering off because guy didn’t concentrate on what role-playing was but rather the game side of the mechanics made it very hard to put everything back into the box and I really don’t think Gygax realize this. I really suggest you reach out to John Kentner to see the interviews all four of them with Gygax. it is very interesting that each of those stories and origin differ from each other. Where as those from Minnesota even though they are thousands of miles away from each other didn’t vary. I will remind people that Arnesen had the game and a complete set of rules, they were organized and helped with the help of David Megarry, Gail Gaylord, and Rockford. Arnesen‘s notes and information were done much like anyone who does work on testing out ideas for a game. He understood how the notes work and everyone else understood that the rules were once it was explained. But it did kind of require Ernest to be the cipher because of the way he wrote the rules. There were several drops submitted to Gary, and I am pretty certain that the first set of drafts were probably just his notes with annotations to the side as well. Later additions were drafted cleaner and better so there are multiple drafts submitted to Gary. One of which I know you have seen and is very clearly written. So the slight that it was just a couple of pages was a joke and an insult considering most game rules at the time were probably less than what he submitted. And yes, the missing manual that I keep harping about is the one which explains the role-playingpeople these days, they know what role-play means which adds to the confusion when you try to explain it to the newer crowd what it used to mean and that would be a subject matter for a good video There’s a lot of packed information in this video and I loved it. Insanely good work.
Leonard Patt! Yes! I knew there were rules for a fantasy game from a gamer in New England from around 1969/1970, but I could not recall his name or where I had seen that information before. Thanks, Martin!
Martin credits the source which is Jon Peterson from a Blog that Jon wrote back in 2016 about Leonard Pratt and how his two-page rules helped inspire the Chainmail fantasy rules. You can easily find the Blog if you do a search on Jon Peterson's web site. Thanks Martin -- for crediting Jon.
Looking forward to lots of Jon Peterson's Blog material that he wrote after writing the 1st Ed of Playing at the World -- going to make it into the 2nd Ed of Playing at the World. Coming out later this summer!!
Something interesting to consider is that there is the history of D&D and there is the history of roleplaying games. It is easy to confuse the two because I think Gary Gygax himself confused the two. That is the D&D is the origin of roleplaying games and he is the fountain personality. Although he may have spearheaded D&D, but not roleplaying games themselves. There are a lot of personality that came together to create roleplaying games of which one is D&D.
Thanks for the video! I plan to see Tom tomorrow for some boardgaming so I will share your compliment of his art style with him. Always a pleasure to get your take on events and learn some things in the process as you connect the dots between your various sources.
I'm not going to say I'm jealous that you get to game with Mr. Wham but... actually, yes. I'm going to say that. I've seen your posts on FB when you all game together and it's so cool to see. Enjoy, and yes, please tell him he's got yet another fan out here in Pasadena! Cheers!
@@daddyrolleda1 I will let him know and let us know if and when you can make it to Lake Geneva and join us. It's an open invitation for anyone who wants to pop into Culver's here on a Friday around 11 am. The more the merrier!
That is such a great offer. I will endeavor to get out that way soon. It probably won't be until next year, unfortunately, as I already went to a Con this year at DaveCon in Minneapolis, and funds are not exactly flowing right now!
Sorry it’s a little late this week. I was on a little vacation trip to Sacramento when the video came out. I have that CD collection of dragon. I really want to go through and read all of them. But you do an amazing job of summarizing. Great video Martin! Thanks for all you do for this hobby.
I'm so glad to hear that! I'm excited about it, too, albeit a little anxious since it's my first Kickstarter. I'm glad the writing is all complete and all the layout and art is done with the exception of the additional pages from the stretch goal (the writing for those is done; just waiting on the layout and one more illustration). Thanks again! And, I hope you enjoy the video when you have a chance to watch. Cheers!
Glad to have you watching and commenting! Thanks! I just briefly checked your profile and saw that you weren't comfortable being on camera. There's a reason my videos are just "hands and books"! (It's also partially by request of my teenage daughter who somehow thinks my videos could be used as ammunition for her to be made fun of, for whatever reason). Cheers!
@@daddyrolleda1 lol ya i hear ya, im just back into the hobby since 2020, started in 81 like yourself then of course family and kids, so a brief delay from about 92 to 2020 :), got back into it during covid and decided i was so far behind that ill just create my own flavour of the game i loved in high school :) cheers Keep 'em Rollin'
Yes, both Metamorphosis Alpha and Gamma World had "mental mutations" which are essentially the same as psionics (mechanically they work different, but the general idea is the same: "mind powers").
@@daddyrolleda1 I really enjoy your videos. Most TTRPG channels focus solely on short product reviews and WOTC drama. You put a lot of research and time into your videos and it shows.
Congratulations on the KS! I hope that when you get through this series you will consider compiling it. From there, you'd be well on your way to a decent history of D&D. I would buy it. Heck, I would even read it!
Yes, debating on getting this book or not. I own the OD&D rules (and they are available in PDF form anyway through DriveThru)-- so wish they had NOT included those in the book and sold if for $50 or $60. I feel like $99 is a huge cash grab. I'll probably get it anyway -- but not happy at $99. It's a rip-off. Also, John Peterson's 2nd Ed of Playing at the World is coming out later this Summer. So looking forward to his 2Ed book -- more than the WoTC book.
We have a saying in software engineering: releasing is a feature, your product must have it. Any creation, whether it is a game, an invention, or software, has little value while it is sitting in the lab and not in the hands of the users. Creators will sometimes drag their feet, wanting to perfect and test every aspect of their vision, but releasing a complete product (perhaps imperfect but complete enough for an end user to consume and get some benefit) , this is when it becomes a product. Unfortunately, draft game notes do not constitute a product. Mr Gygax codified the great ideas that had been circulating into a product that could be sold, understood, and consumed by other gamers.
This is true. There’s also no question that Gary and his associates poured an immense amount of effort and time into getting these rules out to people.
1:19:51 okay by coincidence I might be able to shine a little bit of light in on this. One of my other hobby is racing road bicycles, and I'm actually in Wisconsin right now finishing up racing at Tour of America's Dairyland 🙂. At the race that was in West Allis WI, there was a cheese and sausage store right next the start/finish line. I went in to to buy mom some genuine Wisconsin cheese.... In addition to an HUGE variety of cheese in the store, they also had a really good selection of sausage. So it does look like that in addition to cheese, Wisconsin also produces a lot of sausage, at least on the local level 🙂.
Being from California, I'm bombarded with California cheese ads so I sometimes forget about the amount of Wisconsin cheese, although I was aware of it much more than the sausages. One of the folks who commented here said that a Wisconsin Sausage is a "brat cooked in beer." Sounds pretty good to me!
Another nice history video! Maybe I mentioned this once before when Kwalish came up, but the I occasionally randomly think of the Apparatus of Kwalish which is such a weird magical item. That crawler arts looks like a crochet beast!
I don't recall you bringing it up, but it *is* definitely weird! I somewhat like the weird aspects of stuff like that, and from what I can find, I don't see it appearing until 3E or maybe it was 3.5. But I wonder if the folks who named it such were aware of the name's history, or if they just thought it sounded cool. I'd like to think they were aware and that it's an homage. Thanks for compliment! Glad you enjoyed the video. Cheers!
Oh wow! I stand VERY corrected! You are right - first appearance was the 1979 1st Edition Advanced D&D Dungeon Master's Guide! I think I mentioned in my video about the DMG that I find something new every time I read it. Well, turns out I also find new things even though I'm *not* reading it! Thank you so much for the correction. Cheers!
Re: Gygax vs. Kuntz . I never got to talk with Gary, but I interviewed Rob Kuntz and he IMO is a very friendly and generous person. I can definitely see him using smiling emojis and avoiding any sort of sniping.
@@daddyrolleda1you should read Dave Arneson's True Genius by Robert J. Kuntz . it’s a bit dense but has some interesting anecdotal information about arneson working at TSR
The idea for morale for D&D characters probably stems from wargaming, because morale rules are often extremely important in those games, and if you're the type of early D&D player that sees your character as more of a wargaming unit than as a fantasy hero it probably makes sense to include.
Oh, definitely, and Boot Hill is closer to a traditional war game than even Original D&D was. Boot Hill is sort of a hybrid type game and I think given that it had Bravery as a characteristic, it made sense for the author of this article to point that out.
Another awesome video! I actually have a question for you. I happened to be wandering around the salvation army store and found a tabletop game book. It was a brand new copy of Swords and Wizardry. It seems like its inspired by the old school dnd rulesets. have you played it. do you have thoughts on it?
Thank you so much for the compliment, and for watching and commenting! I really appreciate it! Yes, Swords & Wizardry was one of the first "retro-clones" when folks who were becoming disillusioned with 3E/3.5/4E and wanted a return to the classic games of the 70's and 80's. A few enterprising folks figured out that one could "reverse engineer" the D20 Open Game License to publish games that were compatible with older rule sets (which often were long out-of-print and many times very expensive on the secondary market). Matt Finch is the creator of Swords & Wizardry, and he was also instrumental in a game which preceded it, "OSRIC" (Old School Rules Index Compendium) which sought to create a "clone" of 1st Edition Advanced D&D. Swords & Wizardry has a similar goal, but for Original 1974 D&D instead. There are quite a few different versions of Swords & Wizardry (some include the Thief from the Greyhawk Supplement, for example, while some do not), including a boxed set. One of the things with these retro-clones is that, while they honor and seek to emulate a specific D&D rules set, they aren't always 100% faithful. That was a deliberate choice made at the time when doing something like this was new and the lines about what counted as "copyright infringement" were not necessarily clear. So, for example, S&W uses a single saving throw mechanic (rather than categories like Original D&D). It's a small change and doesn't really make it incompatible with anything designed for Original D&D rules, but for whatever reason it tends to bug some people. I do not have Swords & Wizardry, but I have played OSRIC as well as a similar game called Labyrinth Lord that was designed to emulate 1981 B/X D&D (before Old School Essentials came out). Matt Finch is also famous for having written "A Quick Primer for Old School Gaming" which sought to explain the principals of old-school style play to a generation that didn't grow up playing that way. It's well worth reading for old-time games! I hope that helps!
Yeah knowing what we know today, this article speaks more to the character of Gygax as a person, and not to any historical accuracy, as Gary was clearly trying to take more credit than was his due in this matter in order to justify his cutting Dave out of DnD profits by adding the word "Advanced" to the game.
That's long been the theory of many D&D scholars and it was claimed in legal documents by Gary that Advanced D&D was "a different game." It seems shaky reasoning to me, and the courts agreed which is why TSR ended up settling with Dave. Thanks for watching and commenting!
As a point of logic: Just because it says Dave began using the fantasy rules for his campaign, we cannot infer that he wasn’t already using some other fantasy rules for his campaign. Also, just because Dave located Blackmoor in the northeast of the Great Kingdom that does not mean Blackmoor did not exist prior to that. It could just have been the castle or even just the name. There’s nothing here to say that Arneson did not have fantasy concepts running in parallel to all this. I always heard that Gygax and Arneson put their ideas together to form D&D. That’s why it’s attributed to both of them. There’s nothing in this article that disputes that. Gygax is just talking about what happened from his perspective. He’s not talking about what Arneson was doing on his side, but that does not mean nor is it intended to imply that Arneson didn’t have his own stuff going on. It says Arneson modified the Chainmail fantasy campaign His modification could easily be adding things of his own that he’d been using for a while. My point is, I don’t see this as intending to diminish Arneson’s contribution. From a lineage perspective D&D did evolve from Chainmail. Really all people are doing now is looking at all the pre-D&D ideas that were floating around and evolved into the game. Like any “invention” there’s something that came before that inspired it. The question becomes how far can we trace the ideas back before we’re at the “And then the Gutenberg Press was invented. “ level.
The $1M question is how much did Gygax do and how much did Arneson do? The problem is that the pro-Arneson camp will say (Gygax was a poor game designer or something like that) and that it was all Arneson, and the pro-Gygax camp will say (Arneson was lazy or something like that) and that it was all Gygax. The neutral bias camp will say Gygax and Arneson are both awesome and that it was probably 50/50, and that much of it that can never be proven. I fall in this neutral bias camp (the camp that truly admires Arneson and Gygax, but is also biased because of this. So, almost everyone is biased in one way or another on this topic, and it depends on how you feel about Gygax and Arneson. Personally, being in the neutral camp I would put Arneson's contribution at ~60% and Gygax's contribution at ~40%, but we'll probably never know for sure. I also credence on verbal testimony, carries much less weight with me that written evidence. The other big argument is how much did Chainmail (and the earlier versions of it) have to do with it? The pro-Arneson camp will say nada, and the pro-Gygax camp will say a lot. I think nothing can be proven. It could have been an influence -- but then it might not have. Also, with all these draft fragments floating around -- people are trying to show one way or the other what Gygax did beyond the 18 pages of notes he got from Arneson. My opinion was that there was collaboration beyond the 18 pages -- just almost impossible to prove exactly what this was.
I enjoy going to Amazon and searching out your record of the day and then listening to it. If I like it I buy it, if not then I figure it was the alcohol that made your day. Great discussion on the Gygax phenomena of everything circles around his universe. Aren't all DM creators centralist and dictators at one point or another? The only difference is flat earth or spherical.
This comment made me crack up so much! Thank you for the bit about the records. That's amazing and I'm touched that you take the time to stay through the bonus content and then look up the albums. I always hoped that someone would do that, but wasn't sure if people would give it a chance. Thanks for sharing this with me, and for watching and commenting. I really appreciate it. Cheers, and happy music listening!
really intrigued to hear from rob kuntz ! he was there from the beginning - (when the minnesota group and the the lake geneva group first met up ). He is going to be at ArneCon 2 please go talk to him!
58:00 Geomorphs are among the best GM aids I've personally ever used and I wish they had a prominent place in late D&D (3E+) circles. To get a really good idea why, go search up Dave's Mapper and play around with the Dungeon, Village and City mappers. You can make them into a good layout base in a few minutes, and depending how much modular stuff you keep on hand can have a complete dungeon level in maybe half an hour.
I would be stumbling over words even worse than I already do! I was going to mention in one of the previous videos when I first noticed it that folks could turn it into a drinking game, but thought better of saying that as I'm not sure how many folks who are either not of age or who are sober watch the channel. 😀🍻
Since you don't have a copy yet, here's the draft material that's included in the new D&D book: Something they're calling "the first draft of D&D" from roughly 1973 containing 96 pages of material which is composed of: 70 pages of original material, 4 pages of front matter, and 22 pages of later insertions. It has hand corrections from both Arnenson and Gygax. The entire document is reproduced in full. Excerpts from a "Twin Cities draft" which is said to be produced by Arnenson and his circle. The whole thing isn't reproduced as they claim that it is "a word-for-word transcription" of the previous first draft that incorporates the hand-written corrections from Arnenson and Gygax. They do mention that this draft was half typed by Dave Megarry with Gail Gaylord typing the rest. They reproduce 4 pages of material from this draft. Excerpts from the "Mornard fragments" which you mentioned; 8 pages of this material are reproduced. I can't really offer much of an opinion on the material since I am far less educated on this topic than I would like, but I thought you might still like to know what all they included since you've been privy to other early drafts.
Thanks for talking about the contents of this book. Yes, doesn't really change much from information that has been around since 2018 -- and most of this has already been covered by Jon Peterson on his Blog site -- like the "Mornard fragments". Hate to shell out $99 (a bit of a cash grab IMO), but probably will buy it. Looking forward more to Jon Peterson's Playing at the World 2Ed that is coming out later this Summer.
had to make time. sorry I'm a day late. Omar Kwalish... I remember Apparatus of Kwalish. We never did get to use it. But, it seemed pretty cool. I always wondered how/why it came about. Bigby's Hand and Tenser's Floating Disc, etc. seem obviously useful spells. But, why would you turn a beer keg into a crab/scorpion mech? That's a story I'd like to hear.
That's so funny... not being one who plays too much 3.5/4E/5E (I did play a lot of 3.5 honestly but I'm not one for magical artifacts in my games), I didn't make this connection! I suspect the creators in 3.5 (to my knowledge, the Apparatus of Kwalish did not debut until 3.5 but it might have been 3E) grabbed this name from the old Dragon magazine articles but I wonder if they knew who the original creator was! Thank you so much for watching and commenting, and no need to apologize! I appreciate any time you can give to the channel. Cheers!
Ah, yes, of course! I don't know why I didn't get that. Math has never been my strong suit but believe it or not, I have gotten better over the years. But thanks for that correction/explanation. And most of all, thanks for your support of the channel!
You do a great job of navigating the minefield of conflicting data on the origins of the game. I think I've just come to the realization that I probably won't ever know the "full" story. And how can I? This became all the more apparent to me after attending DaveCon and then just *days* later I was sharing some of my experiences and then had to be corrected on a couple things that I had remembered incorrectly. And again that was me just trying to relay info of what had happened just a few days prior! So of course any number of details will be lost after 50 years (or more.) You call out the one gal in Secrets of Blackmoor (unfortunately her name escapes me at the moment) who said she remembered typing up tables for the OD&D rules and you cite that as a reason to question the validity of the legal documents that quote Dave Arneson as saying that Gary wrote everything. Now I agree that when it's a matter of he said/she said (literally!) that there just isn't a way that those of us who weren't there can ever know for sure, but I would probably be inclined to trust something that Dave said just a few years after the books were printed over something the other gal said several decades after the fact. But again, that's just my personal inclination, everyone will have to weigh the evidence for themselves. I definitely appreciate all the work you're putting into these videos, especially the walkthroughs of those old Dragon magazines.
We'll never know the full story. Really hard to piece a lot of this together -- when you are relying on a lot of verbal testimony, and there are three different camps, the anti-Gygax camp, the anti-Arneson camp and the neutral camp that is both pro-Arneson and Pro-Gygax. WotC's new book should maybe have a little more clarification with some additional new written artifacts and so will Jon Peterson's Playing at the World 2e. I like hearing about this stuff -- but I take a lot of the verbal testimony and commentary with a grain of salt -- yes, unfortunately it is a lot of verbal stuff with lots of conjecture -- and like Martin said several times in this video -- memories are not always that accurate. Also, when you talk about influence -- hard to prove what things did or didn't influence Gygax or Arneson. I think the more accurate thing to say is that there are a variety of things that came before D&D that helped Gygax and Arneson create D&D. We know Braunstein was a huge influence -- and what came before -- well we know Stratego (developed in the late 1800s) helped influence Braunstein -- and everyone in that time period knew about "Diplomacy". And then there's the Siege of Bodenburg game as well and wargaming in general. I think that's the one sure thing - D&D was not created in a vacuum -- there are definitely games (some published and some not published) that came before that helped influence the game. For the record, I fall into the neutral-bias camp (yes - even the neutral camp is biased). Love Arneson and Gygax both!! I am so grateful to them for BOTH creating D&D.
@@quantus5875 Well said! I'm definitely in the "neutral" camp who respects both sides but also understands that each perspective may have any number of gaps at this point in time. It's still fun trying to put all the pieces together and of course enjoy the great work of UA-camrs such as Daddy Rolled a 1.
@@kevinlamb2129 Agreed! I don't think any of these gaps will ever be proven. Just not enough written information on them -- it is starting to become a little worrisome with too much stuff coming verbally from memory now -- and with multiple biased camps. The biggest debt we owe I think historically is to Jon Peterson. Most of what we currently know is due to his immaculate research. Really looking forward to his 2nd Edition of Playing at the World that is coming out later this Summer. And yes thanks to Daddy Rolled a 1 and a few other UA-camrs that are making this historical content much, much more accessible to people. I've read "Playing at the World" twice cover to cover and I will tell you unless you're really into the history of D&D -- that book is not for everyone. I think the other relatively recent breakthrough was "Shadows over Blackmoor". I don't think it changes things that much historically, but I think it's great seeing games like "Braunstein" and the "Siege of Bodenburg" get more credit than they did the past (especially people learning about Braunstein and Bodenburg). They always did have credit (via Peterson and others) but now I think many more people know about it -- and it's really easy to see how Braunstein influenced Dave Arneson. So yeah, good times.
There’s a pretty rough rule-of-thumb that I’ve come up with to figure out what OD&D content was authored by Gygax, and what was written by Arneson: Look at a rule in the LBBs. Compare that rule to what is published in 1e AD&D. If it made it over with little to no editing other than a slight expansion and/or clarification: it was most likely Gygax. If it was heavily edited, and the rules and numbers are all different: that was almost certainly Arneson. I remember reading a Grognardia post years ago where James was comparing some OD&D and Basic set rules to the AD&D counterparts. The AD&D ones were really different… and not in ways that made them more realistic. They seemed more complex, but less rooted in reality. (I believe the rules were all dealing with air and sea movement and combat, and perhaps domain construction and management.) He was baffled at the changes. I’m pretty sure that was an example of Gary changing Dave’s rules and figures in order to present the 1e rules as an entirely different game. It probably won’t hold for every single example… but in general, I’m pretty sure that is something you can look at and get a sense of where Dave’s major contributions were.
haha, cool, I lived down the street from America's stonehenge (neé Mystery Hill), currently live about an hour away. Weird place, but not particularly mysterious.
One of Gary’s biggest strengths was his ability to turn any situation into self-promotion. I’m not sure he was deliberately downplaying Arneson’s contributions here out of malice… but he clearly wanted to make a name for himself and his company in the annals of gaming history. And it’s difficult to argue that he easily succeeded. I think Dave had a much less grandiose personality, and just wanted to play and design the games, and had little interest in the production and publication and promotional aspects of it. It was probably inevitable that Gygax would see an opportunity to steamroll over Dave and attempt to take all the credit… and there was probably a big part of him that honestly believed he actually deserved it.
Another factor is that I really do think he saw the game as he and his family's meal ticket. Dave Arneson was still a comparatively young single guy fresh out of college when D&D dropped, whereas Gary Gygax was a middle-aged high school dropout with five kids barely making ends meet as a part-time shoe cobbler. I think once he escaped that poverty situation through D&D's seemingly miraculous success, he likely found himself highly motivated to cling on for dear life no matter what it took. It doesn't excuse his efforts to minimize Dave's contribitions, but it sure does explain them. At least in part.
Ah, yes! I was pretty close. The calculator I used said $12.50 would be almost $65 today, so dividing by ten, that's pretty close to your calculation that $1.25 would be nearly $7.00 (rounding up). Thanks for watching and commenting!
@@daddyrolleda1 I was going to say that seems expensive for a magazine, but I have no idea what a physical copy of Dragon magazine would cost today if it existed.
Thank you for this! I was pretty aware of Wisconsin cheese (but I often forget due to being in California and having our own cheese "culture" - pardon the pun), but I was not familiar with Wisconsin sausages. They sound great!
So you're telling me Gygax didn't came up with most of the rules of the fantasy supplement by himself ? The more I listen to your channel, the more I realize he didn't came up with anything !
I feel bad because I think the way I talk about stuff and how I present it is probably giving people this impression. People are... complex. And memories are faulty, of course. Gary has a very important role in the history of the hobby we all love and his dedication to organizing, publishing, and distributing the rules was so important, as otherwise only a handful of people would've even known about it. From what I understand, he saw the Rules for Middle Earth, liked it, and then built upon it and published it for wider distribution. Back then, it was very common to borrow and share rules like this. A credit would've been nice (or, even obligatory in our modern thinking) but as I understand it, that was quite common. Thank you so much for watching and commenting. I'm so glad to have you here!
The most accurate view I've seen that records most of this is origins of D&D is by the TTRPG historian Jon Peterson that takes a neutral view IMO -- that BOTH Arneson and Gygax made many significant contributions to the game. And he documents the many antecedents to D&D: like Stratego, Kriegspeile (wargaming) in general, Diplomacy, The Siege of Bodenburg, Braunstein, Chainmail (and its antecedents), and Blackmoor. Yes, nothing was created in a vacuum.
I have read and watch alot of stuff on who created DND my conclusion is that the teuth is some where between A wrote it all and G stolen it and A failed to provide anything but a few hand written notes, what is not in question is that if gray hadn't done all the work dnd would be a few old notes in someones garge and the first mass roleplay game would be a game system that looks nothing like DnD
It's beginning to become clear that Gary lied about many things. Disappointing but not entirely surprising. He wanted the credit. He defined his life around it.
I'd really like to believe that "lied" is too strong a term. As I mentioned in my last video (the one before this one), these were all "people" and people are flawed. Gary seems to have been a good father and Luke Gygax tells many fond stories of him. Gary and his family were poor for a very long time (really poor; his wife had to start a vegetable garden to sell vegetables so they could eat and Luke talks about having to wear a sandwich baggie over his boot because it had a hole it in). So once Gary got a taste of financial stability, my understanding is that he really wanted to hold on to it for fear of being poor again. That kind of thing can color how one sees the world and also might color what a person says about a thing they had a part in creating. I'm really not trying to make excuses, as my initial reaction as I began learning about these details was very similar to yours, but as I've spent more time with it and also as I've been getting older, I've always tried to keep in mind that none of us know what is going on in each other's lives.
None of this is new info. Although most people that take the anti-Gygax view forget that Gygax re-hired Arneson in the mid 1980s (to write some adventures), before Gygax lost control of TSR. I'm not an expert on this, but my understanding they were on good terms before they both passed away.
I love that Futurama Gary Gygax cartoon!
“It’s been a…(rolls dice)…PLEASURE to meet you.”
There's actually no evidence that Arneson ever used the LG rules from the Domesday book in play. Its certainly possible, but nothing we have indicates that. The rules he used for the medieval wargame at Bill Hoyts house were absolutely not the LG rules. We can tell conclusively because the troop units used are wrong. That's one of the things we looked at pretty hard a couple years ago.
Hi, if you don't mind me, a complete stranger, asking out of the blue, did you ever get to do anything more with the the Snider variant or with Mark Bufkin's maps? Would be nice for those to be available in some form.
@@Painocus Plans are afoot for the Snider Varient. I should do something with the Bufkin maps, though...
it is interesting that Gary has two different origins stories in the dragon magazine. The one you covered is clearly after Gary was trying to push the rules one way without considering what their original agreement was between him and Arnesen and clearly there is a lot of spin doctoring in his explanation. His earlier statement about where it came from, which is also in the dragon magazine was very different and that was probably because Gary was still very enamored by Arneson. And having to move from Minnesota away from his team to Wisconsin did not help in advocating his ideas initially fall in love with guy has a very war mindset in which a lot of kriegspiel rules are all over the place. this of course increase the game lawyering issue. This was a lesson that we in Minnesota learned back when MMSA formed. David Wesley pretty much killed that situation out by reducing the number of rules by making it all under one hat and the arbiter was created under the term referee. That referee became known as dungeon, master or game master to paint how you wanna look at it..
David Arneson who was there from the beginning, learned this rule very clearly as it hit home. He knew straight up the dangers of this potential opening up a Pandora’s box that Gygax seemed to walk right into. of course, the result of this power creep and very strange ideas about the game splintering off because guy didn’t concentrate on what role-playing was but rather the game side of the mechanics made it very hard to put everything back into the box and I really don’t think Gygax realize this.
I really suggest you reach out to John Kentner to see the interviews all four of them with Gygax. it is very interesting that each of those stories and origin differ from each other. Where as those from Minnesota even though they are thousands of miles away from each other didn’t vary.
I will remind people that Arnesen had the game and a complete set of rules, they were organized and helped with the help of David Megarry, Gail Gaylord, and Rockford. Arnesen‘s notes and information were done much like anyone who does work on testing out ideas for a game. He understood how the notes work and everyone else understood that the rules were once it was explained. But it did kind of require Ernest to be the cipher because of the way he wrote the rules. There were several drops submitted to Gary, and I am pretty certain that the first set of drafts were probably just his notes with annotations to the side as well. Later additions were drafted cleaner and better so there are multiple drafts submitted to Gary. One of which I know you have seen and is very clearly written. So the slight that it was just a couple of pages was a joke and an insult considering most game rules at the time were probably less than what he submitted. And yes, the missing manual that I keep harping about is the one which explains the role-playingpeople these days, they know what role-play means which adds to the confusion when you try to explain it to the newer crowd what it used to mean and that would be a subject matter for a good video
There’s a lot of packed information in this video and I loved it. Insanely good work.
@54:30 "You get laid off and come home to discover your wife has maxed out three credit cards you didn't know about. Make a Morale Check at -4."
Ha! That cracked me up!
Leonard Patt! Yes! I knew there were rules for a fantasy game from a gamer in New England from around 1969/1970, but I could not recall his name or where I had seen that information before. Thanks, Martin!
Glad to be of help! Thank you for watching and commenting, and for your support of the channel. Cheers!
Martin credits the source which is Jon Peterson from a Blog that Jon wrote back in 2016 about Leonard Pratt and how his two-page rules helped inspire the Chainmail fantasy rules. You can easily find the Blog if you do a search on Jon Peterson's web site. Thanks Martin -- for crediting Jon.
Looking forward to lots of Jon Peterson's Blog material that he wrote after writing the 1st Ed of Playing at the World -- going to make it into the 2nd Ed of Playing at the World. Coming out later this summer!!
Something interesting to consider is that there is the history of D&D and there is the history of roleplaying games. It is easy to confuse the two because I think Gary Gygax himself confused the two. That is the D&D is the origin of roleplaying games and he is the fountain personality. Although he may have spearheaded D&D, but not roleplaying games themselves. There are a lot of personality that came together to create roleplaying games of which one is D&D.
Exactly 👍👍👍
Thanks for the video! I plan to see Tom tomorrow for some boardgaming so I will share your compliment of his art style with him. Always a pleasure to get your take on events and learn some things in the process as you connect the dots between your various sources.
I'm not going to say I'm jealous that you get to game with Mr. Wham but... actually, yes. I'm going to say that. I've seen your posts on FB when you all game together and it's so cool to see. Enjoy, and yes, please tell him he's got yet another fan out here in Pasadena! Cheers!
@@daddyrolleda1 I will let him know and let us know if and when you can make it to Lake Geneva and join us. It's an open invitation for anyone who wants to pop into Culver's here on a Friday around 11 am. The more the merrier!
That is such a great offer. I will endeavor to get out that way soon. It probably won't be until next year, unfortunately, as I already went to a Con this year at DaveCon in Minneapolis, and funds are not exactly flowing right now!
Sorry it’s a little late this week. I was on a little vacation trip to Sacramento when the video came out. I have that CD collection of dragon. I really want to go through and read all of them. But you do an amazing job of summarizing. Great video Martin! Thanks for all you do for this hobby.
I really appreciate your support. It means so much to me. Cheers!
Before I watch, I gotta say congratulations on your Kickstarter. I'm excited to get my hands on it!
I'm so glad to hear that! I'm excited about it, too, albeit a little anxious since it's my first Kickstarter. I'm glad the writing is all complete and all the layout and art is done with the exception of the additional pages from the stretch goal (the writing for those is done; just waiting on the layout and one more illustration).
Thanks again! And, I hope you enjoy the video when you have a chance to watch. Cheers!
the more of these vids that come out the more i try to learn.... try being the keyword
Glad to have you watching and commenting! Thanks! I just briefly checked your profile and saw that you weren't comfortable being on camera. There's a reason my videos are just "hands and books"! (It's also partially by request of my teenage daughter who somehow thinks my videos could be used as ammunition for her to be made fun of, for whatever reason).
Cheers!
@@daddyrolleda1 lol ya i hear ya, im just back into the hobby since 2020, started in 81 like yourself then of course family and kids, so a brief delay from about 92 to 2020 :), got back into it during covid and decided i was so far behind that ill just create my own flavour of the game i loved in high school :) cheers Keep 'em Rollin'
At 52.00. Psionics was a main character trait in Gamma World, from what I recall.
Yes, both Metamorphosis Alpha and Gamma World had "mental mutations" which are essentially the same as psionics (mechanically they work different, but the general idea is the same: "mind powers").
Love the dragon issues videos.
Thank you so much for your support, again! I'm truly honored by your generosity. Cheers!
@@daddyrolleda1 I really enjoy your videos. Most TTRPG channels focus solely on short product reviews and WOTC drama. You put a lot of research and time into your videos and it shows.
I am a history buff and a forever GM, so this channel scratches two itches.
So great to hear! Thanks again!
Congratulations on the KS! I hope that when you get through this series you will consider compiling it. From there, you'd be well on your way to a decent history of D&D. I would buy it. Heck, I would even read it!
Thank you!
I hadn't thought of that, but it's certainly an idea I can consider. Thanks! And thanks for your support of the channel!
Great video as always Martin, very informative.
Thank you so much! I really appreciate you watching and commenting. Cheers!
Martin. Got my copy of “Dungeons & Dragons - the Making of Original D&D: 1970-1977” in yesterday. ❤
I hope you enjoy it! I still have yet to order a copy!
Yes, debating on getting this book or not. I own the OD&D rules (and they are available in PDF form anyway through DriveThru)-- so wish they had NOT included those in the book and sold if for $50 or $60. I feel like $99 is a huge cash grab. I'll probably get it anyway -- but not happy at $99. It's a rip-off.
Also, John Peterson's 2nd Ed of Playing at the World is coming out later this Summer. So looking forward to his 2Ed book -- more than the WoTC book.
We have a saying in software engineering: releasing is a feature, your product must have it. Any creation, whether it is a game, an invention, or software, has little value while it is sitting in the lab and not in the hands of the users. Creators will sometimes drag their feet, wanting to perfect and test every aspect of their vision, but releasing a complete product (perhaps imperfect but complete enough for an end user to consume and get some benefit) , this is when it becomes a product. Unfortunately, draft game notes do not constitute a product. Mr Gygax codified the great ideas that had been circulating into a product that could be sold, understood, and consumed by other gamers.
This is true. There’s also no question that Gary and his associates poured an immense amount of effort and time into getting these rules out to people.
1:19:51 okay by coincidence I might be able to shine a little bit of light in on this. One of my other hobby is racing road bicycles, and I'm actually in Wisconsin right now finishing up racing at Tour of America's Dairyland 🙂. At the race that was in West Allis WI, there was a cheese and sausage store right next the start/finish line. I went in to to buy mom some genuine Wisconsin cheese.... In addition to an HUGE variety of cheese in the store, they also had a really good selection of sausage. So it does look like that in addition to cheese, Wisconsin also produces a lot of sausage, at least on the local level 🙂.
Being from California, I'm bombarded with California cheese ads so I sometimes forget about the amount of Wisconsin cheese, although I was aware of it much more than the sausages. One of the folks who commented here said that a Wisconsin Sausage is a "brat cooked in beer." Sounds pretty good to me!
Another nice history video! Maybe I mentioned this once before when Kwalish came up, but the I occasionally randomly think of the Apparatus of Kwalish which is such a weird magical item. That crawler arts looks like a crochet beast!
I don't recall you bringing it up, but it *is* definitely weird! I somewhat like the weird aspects of stuff like that, and from what I can find, I don't see it appearing until 3E or maybe it was 3.5. But I wonder if the folks who named it such were aware of the name's history, or if they just thought it sounded cool. I'd like to think they were aware and that it's an homage.
Thanks for compliment! Glad you enjoyed the video. Cheers!
@@daddyrolleda1 it was 100% in 2e dmg, that’s how I know about it. I thought it was in 1e too?
Oh wow! I stand VERY corrected! You are right - first appearance was the 1979 1st Edition Advanced D&D Dungeon Master's Guide!
I think I mentioned in my video about the DMG that I find something new every time I read it. Well, turns out I also find new things even though I'm *not* reading it!
Thank you so much for the correction. Cheers!
Re: Gygax vs. Kuntz . I never got to talk with Gary, but I interviewed Rob Kuntz and he IMO is a very friendly and generous person. I can definitely see him using smiling emojis and avoiding any sort of sniping.
It sure seemed that way in reading that back-and-forth with Gary!
@@daddyrolleda1you should read Dave Arneson's True Genius
by Robert J. Kuntz . it’s a bit dense but has some interesting anecdotal information about arneson working at TSR
I will definitely try to pick that up. I do recall Rob having written that, but for whatever reason it just wasn't on my radar. Thanks!
54:30 but my character bravely ran away, and he looked great doing it 😎🤓.
Ha! Yes! 3 Morale, 18 Charisma!
Another interesting video, thanks!
I'm really glad to hear you enjoyed it. Thank you so much for watching and letting me know!
The idea for morale for D&D characters probably stems from wargaming, because morale rules are often extremely important in those games, and if you're the type of early D&D player that sees your character as more of a wargaming unit than as a fantasy hero it probably makes sense to include.
Oh, definitely, and Boot Hill is closer to a traditional war game than even Original D&D was. Boot Hill is sort of a hybrid type game and I think given that it had Bravery as a characteristic, it made sense for the author of this article to point that out.
Another awesome video!
I actually have a question for you. I happened to be wandering around the salvation army store and found a tabletop game book. It was a brand new copy of Swords and Wizardry. It seems like its inspired by the old school dnd rulesets. have you played it. do you have thoughts on it?
Thank you so much for the compliment, and for watching and commenting! I really appreciate it!
Yes, Swords & Wizardry was one of the first "retro-clones" when folks who were becoming disillusioned with 3E/3.5/4E and wanted a return to the classic games of the 70's and 80's. A few enterprising folks figured out that one could "reverse engineer" the D20 Open Game License to publish games that were compatible with older rule sets (which often were long out-of-print and many times very expensive on the secondary market).
Matt Finch is the creator of Swords & Wizardry, and he was also instrumental in a game which preceded it, "OSRIC" (Old School Rules Index Compendium) which sought to create a "clone" of 1st Edition Advanced D&D. Swords & Wizardry has a similar goal, but for Original 1974 D&D instead. There are quite a few different versions of Swords & Wizardry (some include the Thief from the Greyhawk Supplement, for example, while some do not), including a boxed set.
One of the things with these retro-clones is that, while they honor and seek to emulate a specific D&D rules set, they aren't always 100% faithful. That was a deliberate choice made at the time when doing something like this was new and the lines about what counted as "copyright infringement" were not necessarily clear. So, for example, S&W uses a single saving throw mechanic (rather than categories like Original D&D). It's a small change and doesn't really make it incompatible with anything designed for Original D&D rules, but for whatever reason it tends to bug some people.
I do not have Swords & Wizardry, but I have played OSRIC as well as a similar game called Labyrinth Lord that was designed to emulate 1981 B/X D&D (before Old School Essentials came out).
Matt Finch is also famous for having written "A Quick Primer for Old School Gaming" which sought to explain the principals of old-school style play to a generation that didn't grow up playing that way. It's well worth reading for old-time games!
I hope that helps!
Love all the infighting
Why don't you interview Rob Kuntz he is getting ready to push a book and/or movie project and is stepping out lately,
Yeah knowing what we know today, this article speaks more to the character of Gygax as a person, and not to any historical accuracy, as Gary was clearly trying to take more credit than was his due in this matter in order to justify his cutting Dave out of DnD profits by adding the word "Advanced" to the game.
That's long been the theory of many D&D scholars and it was claimed in legal documents by Gary that Advanced D&D was "a different game." It seems shaky reasoning to me, and the courts agreed which is why TSR ended up settling with Dave.
Thanks for watching and commenting!
As a point of logic: Just because it says Dave began using the fantasy rules for his campaign, we cannot infer that he wasn’t already using some other fantasy rules for his campaign.
Also, just because Dave located Blackmoor in the northeast of the Great Kingdom that does not mean Blackmoor did not exist prior to that. It could just have been the castle or even just the name.
There’s nothing here to say that Arneson did not have fantasy concepts running in parallel to all this. I always heard that Gygax and Arneson put their ideas together to form D&D. That’s why it’s attributed to both of them. There’s nothing in this article that disputes that. Gygax is just talking about what happened from his perspective. He’s not talking about what Arneson was doing on his side, but that does not mean nor is it intended to imply that Arneson didn’t have his own stuff going on. It says Arneson modified the Chainmail fantasy campaign His modification could easily be adding things of his own that he’d been using for a while.
My point is, I don’t see this as intending to diminish Arneson’s contribution. From a lineage perspective D&D did evolve from Chainmail. Really all people are doing now is looking at all the pre-D&D ideas that were floating around and evolved into the game. Like any “invention” there’s something that came before that inspired it. The question becomes how far can we trace the ideas back before we’re at the “And then the Gutenberg Press was invented. “ level.
The $1M question is how much did Gygax do and how much did Arneson do? The problem is that the pro-Arneson camp will say (Gygax was a poor game designer or something like that) and that it was all Arneson, and the pro-Gygax camp will say (Arneson was lazy or something like that) and that it was all Gygax. The neutral bias camp will say Gygax and Arneson are both awesome and that it was probably 50/50, and that much of it that can never be proven. I fall in this neutral bias camp (the camp that truly admires Arneson and Gygax, but is also biased because of this. So, almost everyone is biased in one way or another on this topic, and it depends on how you feel about Gygax and Arneson. Personally, being in the neutral camp I would put Arneson's contribution at ~60% and Gygax's contribution at ~40%, but we'll probably never know for sure. I also credence on verbal testimony, carries much less weight with me that written evidence.
The other big argument is how much did Chainmail (and the earlier versions of it) have to do with it? The pro-Arneson camp will say nada, and the pro-Gygax camp will say a lot. I think nothing can be proven. It could have been an influence -- but then it might not have. Also, with all these draft fragments floating around -- people are trying to show one way or the other what Gygax did beyond the 18 pages of notes he got from Arneson. My opinion was that there was collaboration beyond the 18 pages -- just almost impossible to prove exactly what this was.
I enjoy going to Amazon and searching out your record of the day and then listening to it.
If I like it I buy it, if not then I figure it was the alcohol that made your day.
Great discussion on the Gygax phenomena of everything circles around his universe. Aren't all DM creators centralist and dictators at one point or another? The only difference is flat earth or spherical.
This comment made me crack up so much! Thank you for the bit about the records. That's amazing and I'm touched that you take the time to stay through the bonus content and then look up the albums. I always hoped that someone would do that, but wasn't sure if people would give it a chance.
Thanks for sharing this with me, and for watching and commenting. I really appreciate it. Cheers, and happy music listening!
really intrigued to hear from rob kuntz ! he was there from the beginning - (when the minnesota group and the the lake geneva group first met up ). He is going to be at ArneCon 2 please go talk to him!
58:00 Geomorphs are among the best GM aids I've personally ever used and I wish they had a prominent place in late D&D (3E+) circles. To get a really good idea why, go search up Dave's Mapper and play around with the Dungeon, Village and City mappers. You can make them into a good layout base in a few minutes, and depending how much modular stuff you keep on hand can have a complete dungeon level in maybe half an hour.
Take a shot every time you say "in any event" 😂
I would be stumbling over words even worse than I already do!
I was going to mention in one of the previous videos when I first noticed it that folks could turn it into a drinking game, but thought better of saying that as I'm not sure how many folks who are either not of age or who are sober watch the channel. 😀🍻
Since you don't have a copy yet, here's the draft material that's included in the new D&D book:
Something they're calling "the first draft of D&D" from roughly 1973 containing 96 pages of material which is composed of: 70 pages of original material, 4 pages of front matter, and 22 pages of later insertions. It has hand corrections from both Arnenson and Gygax. The entire document is reproduced in full.
Excerpts from a "Twin Cities draft" which is said to be produced by Arnenson and his circle. The whole thing isn't reproduced as they claim that it is "a word-for-word transcription" of the previous first draft that incorporates the hand-written corrections from Arnenson and Gygax. They do mention that this draft was half typed by Dave Megarry with Gail Gaylord typing the rest. They reproduce 4 pages of material from this draft.
Excerpts from the "Mornard fragments" which you mentioned; 8 pages of this material are reproduced.
I can't really offer much of an opinion on the material since I am far less educated on this topic than I would like, but I thought you might still like to know what all they included since you've been privy to other early drafts.
Thanks for talking about the contents of this book. Yes, doesn't really change much from information that has been around since 2018 -- and most of this has already been covered by Jon Peterson on his Blog site -- like the "Mornard fragments". Hate to shell out $99 (a bit of a cash grab IMO), but probably will buy it.
Looking forward more to Jon Peterson's Playing at the World 2Ed that is coming out later this Summer.
had to make time. sorry I'm a day late.
Omar Kwalish... I remember Apparatus of Kwalish. We never did get to use it. But, it seemed pretty cool. I always wondered how/why it came about. Bigby's Hand and Tenser's Floating Disc, etc. seem obviously useful spells. But, why would you turn a beer keg into a crab/scorpion mech? That's a story I'd like to hear.
That's so funny... not being one who plays too much 3.5/4E/5E (I did play a lot of 3.5 honestly but I'm not one for magical artifacts in my games), I didn't make this connection! I suspect the creators in 3.5 (to my knowledge, the Apparatus of Kwalish did not debut until 3.5 but it might have been 3E) grabbed this name from the old Dragon magazine articles but I wonder if they knew who the original creator was!
Thank you so much for watching and commenting, and no need to apologize! I appreciate any time you can give to the channel. Cheers!
300% increase is the same as "four-fold" because it is x + 300%x. The same as 100% increase is double or two-fold, because it is x + 100%x
Ah, yes, of course! I don't know why I didn't get that. Math has never been my strong suit but believe it or not, I have gotten better over the years. But thanks for that correction/explanation. And most of all, thanks for your support of the channel!
You do a great job of navigating the minefield of conflicting data on the origins of the game. I think I've just come to the realization that I probably won't ever know the "full" story. And how can I? This became all the more apparent to me after attending DaveCon and then just *days* later I was sharing some of my experiences and then had to be corrected on a couple things that I had remembered incorrectly. And again that was me just trying to relay info of what had happened just a few days prior! So of course any number of details will be lost after 50 years (or more.) You call out the one gal in Secrets of Blackmoor (unfortunately her name escapes me at the moment) who said she remembered typing up tables for the OD&D rules and you cite that as a reason to question the validity of the legal documents that quote Dave Arneson as saying that Gary wrote everything. Now I agree that when it's a matter of he said/she said (literally!) that there just isn't a way that those of us who weren't there can ever know for sure, but I would probably be inclined to trust something that Dave said just a few years after the books were printed over something the other gal said several decades after the fact. But again, that's just my personal inclination, everyone will have to weigh the evidence for themselves. I definitely appreciate all the work you're putting into these videos, especially the walkthroughs of those old Dragon magazines.
We'll never know the full story. Really hard to piece a lot of this together -- when you are relying on a lot of verbal testimony, and there are three different camps, the anti-Gygax camp, the anti-Arneson camp and the neutral camp that is both pro-Arneson and Pro-Gygax. WotC's new book should maybe have a little more clarification with some additional new written artifacts and so will Jon Peterson's Playing at the World 2e. I like hearing about this stuff -- but I take a lot of the verbal testimony and commentary with a grain of salt -- yes, unfortunately it is a lot of verbal stuff with lots of conjecture -- and like Martin said several times in this video -- memories are not always that accurate.
Also, when you talk about influence -- hard to prove what things did or didn't influence Gygax or Arneson. I think the more accurate thing to say is that there are a variety of things that came before D&D that helped Gygax and Arneson create D&D. We know Braunstein was a huge influence -- and what came before -- well we know Stratego (developed in the late 1800s) helped influence Braunstein -- and everyone in that time period knew about "Diplomacy". And then there's the Siege of Bodenburg game as well and wargaming in general. I think that's the one sure thing - D&D was not created in a vacuum -- there are definitely games (some published and some not published) that came before that helped influence the game.
For the record, I fall into the neutral-bias camp (yes - even the neutral camp is biased). Love Arneson and Gygax both!! I am so grateful to them for BOTH creating D&D.
@@quantus5875 Well said! I'm definitely in the "neutral" camp who respects both sides but also understands that each perspective may have any number of gaps at this point in time. It's still fun trying to put all the pieces together and of course enjoy the great work of UA-camrs such as Daddy Rolled a 1.
@@kevinlamb2129 Agreed! I don't think any of these gaps will ever be proven. Just not enough written information on them -- it is starting to become a little worrisome with too much stuff coming verbally from memory now -- and with multiple biased camps. The biggest debt we owe I think historically is to Jon Peterson. Most of what we currently know is due to his immaculate research. Really looking forward to his 2nd Edition of Playing at the World that is coming out later this Summer. And yes thanks to Daddy Rolled a 1 and a few other UA-camrs that are making this historical content much, much more accessible to people. I've read "Playing at the World" twice cover to cover and I will tell you unless you're really into the history of D&D -- that book is not for everyone. I think the other relatively recent breakthrough was "Shadows over Blackmoor". I don't think it changes things that much historically, but I think it's great seeing games like "Braunstein" and the "Siege of Bodenburg" get more credit than they did the past (especially people learning about Braunstein and Bodenburg). They always did have credit (via Peterson and others) but now I think many more people know about it -- and it's really easy to see how Braunstein influenced Dave Arneson. So yeah, good times.
the old voice didn't bother me, but I like the sound on this video as well.
Glad to hear it! Thanks for letting me know.
There’s a pretty rough rule-of-thumb that I’ve come up with to figure out what OD&D content was authored by Gygax, and what was written by Arneson:
Look at a rule in the LBBs. Compare that rule to what is published in 1e AD&D.
If it made it over with little to no editing other than a slight expansion and/or clarification: it was most likely Gygax.
If it was heavily edited, and the rules and numbers are all different: that was almost certainly Arneson.
I remember reading a Grognardia post years ago where James was comparing some OD&D and Basic set rules to the AD&D counterparts. The AD&D ones were really different… and not in ways that made them more realistic. They seemed more complex, but less rooted in reality.
(I believe the rules were all dealing with air and sea movement and combat, and perhaps domain construction and management.)
He was baffled at the changes.
I’m pretty sure that was an example of Gary changing Dave’s rules and figures in order to present the 1e rules as an entirely different game.
It probably won’t hold for every single example… but in general, I’m pretty sure that is something you can look at and get a sense of where Dave’s major contributions were.
Wisconsin has a deep German heritage and sausage is a core part of that identity. It's just less prominent than the beer and cheese.
I feel like I need to spend time in Wisconsin one day. Ideally at GaryCon, but we'll see.
haha, cool, I lived down the street from America's stonehenge (neé Mystery Hill), currently live about an hour away. Weird place, but not particularly mysterious.
Oh, how cool! Just the name sounds intriguing!
One of Gary’s biggest strengths was his ability to turn any situation into self-promotion.
I’m not sure he was deliberately downplaying Arneson’s contributions here out of malice… but he clearly wanted to make a name for himself and his company in the annals of gaming history.
And it’s difficult to argue that he easily succeeded.
I think Dave had a much less grandiose personality, and just wanted to play and design the games, and had little interest in the production and publication and promotional aspects of it.
It was probably inevitable that Gygax would see an opportunity to steamroll over Dave and attempt to take all the credit… and there was probably a big part of him that honestly believed he actually deserved it.
Another factor is that I really do think he saw the game as he and his family's meal ticket. Dave Arneson was still a comparatively young single guy fresh out of college when D&D dropped, whereas Gary Gygax was a middle-aged high school dropout with five kids barely making ends meet as a part-time shoe cobbler. I think once he escaped that poverty situation through D&D's seemingly miraculous success, he likely found himself highly motivated to cling on for dear life no matter what it took. It doesn't excuse his efforts to minimize Dave's contribitions, but it sure does explain them. At least in part.
$1.25 1977 dollars is nearly $7 2024 dollars.
Ah, yes! I was pretty close. The calculator I used said $12.50 would be almost $65 today, so dividing by ten, that's pretty close to your calculation that $1.25 would be nearly $7.00 (rounding up).
Thanks for watching and commenting!
@@daddyrolleda1 I was going to say that seems expensive for a magazine, but I have no idea what a physical copy of Dragon magazine would cost today if it existed.
Wisconsin sausages are brats grilled in beer.
Thank you for this! I was pretty aware of Wisconsin cheese (but I often forget due to being in California and having our own cheese "culture" - pardon the pun), but I was not familiar with Wisconsin sausages. They sound great!
"What to do it the dog eats your dice..." Go to the vet.
Good point!
So you're telling me Gygax didn't came up with most of the rules of the fantasy supplement by himself ? The more I listen to your channel, the more I realize he didn't came up with anything !
I feel bad because I think the way I talk about stuff and how I present it is probably giving people this impression. People are... complex. And memories are faulty, of course. Gary has a very important role in the history of the hobby we all love and his dedication to organizing, publishing, and distributing the rules was so important, as otherwise only a handful of people would've even known about it.
From what I understand, he saw the Rules for Middle Earth, liked it, and then built upon it and published it for wider distribution. Back then, it was very common to borrow and share rules like this. A credit would've been nice (or, even obligatory in our modern thinking) but as I understand it, that was quite common.
Thank you so much for watching and commenting. I'm so glad to have you here!
The most accurate view I've seen that records most of this is origins of D&D is by the TTRPG historian Jon Peterson that takes a neutral view IMO -- that BOTH Arneson and Gygax made many significant contributions to the game. And he documents the many antecedents to D&D: like Stratego, Kriegspeile (wargaming) in general, Diplomacy, The Siege of Bodenburg, Braunstein, Chainmail (and its antecedents), and Blackmoor. Yes, nothing was created in a vacuum.
I have read and watch alot of stuff on who created DND my conclusion is that the teuth is some where between A wrote it all and G stolen it and A failed to provide anything but a few hand written notes, what is not in question is that if gray hadn't done all the work dnd would be a few old notes in someones garge and the first mass roleplay game would be a game system that looks nothing like DnD
It's beginning to become clear that Gary lied about many things. Disappointing but not entirely surprising. He wanted the credit. He defined his life around it.
I'd really like to believe that "lied" is too strong a term. As I mentioned in my last video (the one before this one), these were all "people" and people are flawed. Gary seems to have been a good father and Luke Gygax tells many fond stories of him. Gary and his family were poor for a very long time (really poor; his wife had to start a vegetable garden to sell vegetables so they could eat and Luke talks about having to wear a sandwich baggie over his boot because it had a hole it in). So once Gary got a taste of financial stability, my understanding is that he really wanted to hold on to it for fear of being poor again. That kind of thing can color how one sees the world and also might color what a person says about a thing they had a part in creating.
I'm really not trying to make excuses, as my initial reaction as I began learning about these details was very similar to yours, but as I've spent more time with it and also as I've been getting older, I've always tried to keep in mind that none of us know what is going on in each other's lives.
None of this is new info. Although most people that take the anti-Gygax view forget that Gygax re-hired Arneson in the mid 1980s (to write some adventures), before Gygax lost control of TSR. I'm not an expert on this, but my understanding they were on good terms before they both passed away.