The First Person To Ever Play A Wizard: A Short Clip

This is a short interview clip with the first player of a wizard in an RPG, posted by David Megarry. Peter Gaylord played in Dave Arneson's Blackmoor campaign as the Wizard of the Wood in the early 1970s. Peter passed away earlier this year, aged 73. This was before D&D; Blackmoor was Dave Arneson's campaign setting, and was initially a wargaming setting and then part of what evolved into D&D.

[video=youtube;qnY_2qC1L34]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnY_2qC1L34[/video]​

"There has been a lot of demand for more information about Secrets of Blackmoor, as well as a desire to see more footage. Film making is a long process. Until a film is finished, all you have is masses of footage. We really appreciate all of the supportive messages people have sent and we want to thank you for your interest in this project.

This week, we've taken a small amount of time away from working on the movie and clipped together a brief segment from Pete Gaylord's interview.

Pete Gaylord was part of Dave Arneson's gaming group. He played one of the more famous characters in Arneson's Blackmoor games: The Wizard of the Wood.

Just as there is a first dungeon master, there is a first wizard.

Pete is the first person to ever be a wizard in a role playing game. His input as a player in Blackmoor is largely undocumented, yet without a player who wanted to be a wizard, Arneson would not have been forced to adapt his game to include magic spells. His story really is one of the secrets of blackmoor.

We hope you enjoy seeing Pete explain a little bit about his role in the creation of Blackmoor. This interview is very special to us. Pete is missed by everyone who knows him. His legacy is immortalized any time a D&D player decides to be a magic user."

Harvard's Blackmoor Blog wrote about the Wizard of the Wood here.

 

[pemerton]

Just for a twist on this twisted topic. What about EP for not fighting, or just plain spending a lot of time talking to NPC's.

4e has this.

 

[Lanefan]

Just for a twist on this twisted topic. What about EP for not fighting, or just plain spending a lot of time talking to NPC's.

4e has this.

5e has this also, does it not?

 

[Secrets of Blackmoor]

4e has this.

Interesting.

I doubt I would ever play 4E. As I am kind of stuck on 1E and all the other early games. Had all the 2E books, but never really liked how rigid it was, so never played it much. Back in the day there was a lot of discussion on how to handle this EP for other things.

In FFC Arneson spoke about how at one point he would give out EP for treasure, but only if the player spent the money. This need to spend money caused lots of more adventures.

Did any of you ever try playing Empire of the Petal throne?

 

[pemerton]

Did any of you ever try playing Empire of the Petal throne?

No. But as it happpens I've been reading the book (I've got the late-80s reprint) over the past few weeks.

It seems like a bit of a mis-match: there's all this history, cultural and linguistic detail, etc; but then all the actual gameplay looks like it's straight from classic D&D (dungeons, marching orders, XP-for-gold, etc).

 

[pemerton]

5e has this also, does it not?

I'm not sure about the official 5e XP rules.

I don't think it can be identical to 4e, because it doesn't have some of the components that go into the 4e system, like Skill Challenges and Quests (= goals).

 

[Secrets of Blackmoor]

No. But as it happpens I've been reading the book (I've got the late-80s reprint) over the past few weeks.

It seems like a bit of a mis-match: there's all this history, cultural and linguistic detail, etc; but then all the actual gameplay looks like it's straight from classic D&D (dungeons, marching orders, XP-for-gold, etc).

It is definitely the first sci fi RPG ever published. Tekumel is easily the most fascinating world ever created too. It is very difficult for someone who did not play with Barker to run it properly. The descriptions I've heard of Barker's Dm'ing make it sound like more of a DM railroading game. His players didn't care because the story was so good.

It's said that although the big three all published rules, Dave, Gary, And Barker, none of them actually really used their own rules; a lot of the time they were making it up on the spot.

 

[pemerton]

It is definitely the first sci fi RPG ever published. Tekumel is easily the most fascinating world ever created too.

I would think of it as science-fantasy rather than sci-fi - though maybe that's just terminological quibbling!

As published, the rules are a bit more structured than those presented in OD&D, though in some places it still has that stream-of-consciousness feel.

The presentation of the magic items is interesting: although the weapons are pretty D&D-ish (including aligned and intelligent swords), the demarcatin of other stuff into eyes, amulets, books/scrolls and misc. items (which, with their uniqueness rules, are in many ways more like D&D artefacts) is distinctive, and more "modern" in flavour.

I have been reading it to see what I might incorporate into a Dark Sun game. Not as much as I had hoped (it's less post-apocalyptic than I thought it might be), but there are some ideas in there that I think can be borrowed, including the eyes.

 

[Secrets of Blackmoor]

The early games are interesting because the rules are so clunky. It requires a lot of on the spot judgement by a DM. Yeah, sci fi fantasy, or sword and planet. Barkers game is more like post-post apocalypse. Humanity and it's enemies have had thousands of years to develop very complex societies. It seems like Barker is more interested in a game that is like an anthropologist's field trip through a weird country than simply a dungeon dive. Barker's underworld is also very brutal. It's a good idea to hire some NPC swordsmen to bring along as fodder for the beasties.

 

[Secrets of Blackmoor]

We have posted a short article about Dan Nicholson's Gnome Fighter on our facebook page.

https://www.facebook.com/blackmoorsecrets/posts/1239361422790037:0

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Hope you find it interesting. We will keep posting notices on this discussion about the film in the future, so as not to clutter up the forum with a lot of threads.