D&D General When D&D Co-Creator Dave Arneson Asked WotC For A Job!

Back in 1997, after WotC had purchased the failing TSR (and D&D), and just prior to the launch of D&D 3E, Dave Arneson -- who co-created D&D in the 1970s along with Gary Gygax -- wrote to WotC president Peter Adkison asking to be put in charge of TSR.

Ben Riggs -- author of Slaying the Dragon -- discovered Arneson's letter to Adkison while researching his history of D&D.

Newly Discovered Letters Reveal D&D's Co-Creator Asked to be put in Charge of D&D in 1997 and it Did Not Go Well — Ben Riggs

While writing my book, Slaying the Dragon , I discovered a number of fascinating historical documents hidden from public view until now. Over the coming months, I’m going to be sharing some of these captivating documents with you. The first is a 1997 letter from D&D co-creator Dave Ar

www.writerbenriggs.com

The letter was full of typos -- Arneson even got Adkison's name wrong! According to Riggs, Adkison did not reply, and Arneson wrote to him a second time.

 

[MGibster]

But I don’t want to discount Gygax’s work or Arneson’s idea as a total fluke, personally.

D&D put Gygax on the map, but Cyborg Commando secured his position in the pantheon of game designers.

 

[R_J_K75]

As @Von Ether mentioned, it's not so much removing that a candidate went to college at all, just the name. Whether it's an Ivy League or HBCU institution, people could make assumptions based off of just where a person went.

That is a good point I hadn't considered. Here in WNY you have Alfred State, Dyouville, University at Buffalo, Buffalo State, Rochester Institute of Technology, then lastly the community colleges. All of which are now State Univerity of New York certified, which was not always the case. RIT and UB are considered the best out of them but relatively speaking theyre all pretty equal with the exception of UB for medicine because we have Roswell Cancer hospital and the burgeoning "Medical Cooridor" in Buffalo and RIT is considered superior for engineering type jobs. So I'm sure theres some truth to your stsatement.

It is a to an extent. But there is more to it. Most successful business people have had several failed businesses first. So persistence is a thing.

Just look at how many resteraunts and TV shows all the celebrity chefs have had thad came and went. They always seem to bounce back, except Mario Batali.

 

[R_J_K75]

My feeling is that people should know how to write a cover letter

I agree. One thing has occurred to me. With people using computers, phones and computers to text, email, write documents etc., even with grammar and spell check I think people are likely to overlook the occasional typo, or poor sentence structure in a professional setting. Regardless there's no excuse for not knowing basic communication skills. I feel bad for people who went to school at any level during the pandemic as I'm assuming their education at the time was either sub-par or non-existent. Those 2-3 years could leave them lacking greatly in the fundamentals.

 

[darjr]

D&D put Gygax on the map, but Cyborg Commando secured his position in the pantheon of game designers.

You kid but I think this gets to the central point. The writing and editing and layout and art for cyborg commando was really good, from my memory. The idea and game ideas were bad.

He didn’t have what he’d had with Dave and D&D.

 

[Mercurius]

It is a to an extent. But there is more to it. Most successful business people have had several failed businesses first. So persistence is a thing.

Entrepreneurship is an input to business—-so taking risks and keeping at it is also necessary.

Lightning in a bottle stuff surely has some “luck” and some insane things that disrupt could not easily be predicted.

Knowing people who run successful businesses has taught me not to be too jaded. Of course No one predicts Amazon or Facebook and how far they would go.

But I don’t want to discount Gygax’s work or Arneson’s idea as a total fluke, personally.

Yes, of course. But there are lots of factors, not to mention different definitions of what "success" means. But we also live in a specific cultural, societal, and economic context, that privileges certain types of people and personalities and interests. Obviously an artist should persist, and in that sense some of their success is within their own power; but persisting as an artist is a lot different than, say, persisting as a business person or economist or lawyer.

Depending upon the field, economic success correlates to different degrees with quality and aptitude. The highest paid athletes tend to be the best ones, but this isn't necessarily (if at all) the case with artists or intellectuals or people in the service industry, etc. Just as the smartest or most creative person you knew growing up, isn't necessarily the most successful - and this may or may not be due to persistence.

To some extent it goes back to that Calvin Coolidge quote: "the business of America is business." Meaning, it isn't culture or philosophy or art or community - except to the extent that those things serve business (and economics). So we have fused the idea of "success" with economics, and live within an economic system that doesn't encourage imagination, artistry, creativity, or even uniqueness - except to the degree those those things have financial benefit. A vicious cycle, really.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

You kid but I think this gets to the central point. The writing and editing and layout and art for cyborg commando was really good, from my memory. The idea and game ideas were bad.

He didn’t have what he’d had with Dave and D&D.

I think that (1) people often overlook Gygax's stature in the hobbyist community prior to D&D (due to his writing, game design, and founding GenCon), and (2) you would be hard pressed to find a single game designer in the history of the hobby that wouldn't kill for Gygax's output from 1974 - 1984 (basically, until he went to Hollywood in 1983).

It's like when people make jokes about one-hit wonders in music. Do you know how bands out there would KILL for a single hit?

Yeah, other than being responsible for the development of the single most popular RPG in history, founding GenCon, creating some of the most iconic adventures that continue to resonate to this day (Keep, Tomb, Temple, Village, Giants, Tharizdun, etc.), writing a rulebook that people are still in awe of for reasons goof and bad (1e DMG), creating one of the iconic D&D campaign settings (Greyhawk) and adding in the archetypes that continue to populate CRPGs today (such as Paladins, Drow, etc.) ... what did Gygax ever really do?

Sure, as a novelist (Gord series), Gygax was pretty terrible. His later games veered from awful (Cyborg Commando) to ... well, interesting if not successful (DJ, LA).

His issues are already well documented (the Hollywood sojourn, not standing up the Blumes and some of their business decisions, some of his views re: women etc., his selective memory about where ideas came from and so on), but the dude had a heck of a run.

 

[darjr]

I think that (1) people often overlook Gygax's stature in the hobbyist community prior to D&D (due to his writing, game design, and founding GenCon), and (2) you would be hard pressed to find a single game designer in the history of the hobby that wouldn't kill for Gygax's output from 1974 - 1984 (basically, until he went to Hollywood in 1984).

It's like when people make jokes about one-hit wonders in music. Do you know how bands out there would KILL for a single hit?

Yeah, other than being responsible for the development of the single most popular RPG in history, founding GenCon, creating some of the most iconic adventures that continue to resonate to this day (Keep, Tomb, Temple, Village, Giants, Tharizdun, etc.), writing a rulebook that people are still in awe of for reasons goof and bad (1e DMG), creating one of the iconic D&D campaign settings (Greyhawk) and adding in the archetypes that continue to populate CRPGs today (such as Paladins, Drow, etc.) ... what did Gygax ever really do?

Sure, as a novelist (Gord series), Gygax was pretty terrible. His later games veered from awful (Cyborg Commando) to ... well, interesting if not successful (DJ, LA).

His issues are already well documented (the Hollywood sojourn, not standing up the Blumes and some of their business decisions, some of his views re: women etc., his selective memory about where ideas came from and so on), but the dude had a hack of a run.

Good points, I’m not taking any of that away from him. It’s huge.

Still the point that together they did D&D, that first box set, largely with work by Gygax, given, but it was the thing. They needed each other to do it.

 

[Mercurius]

Even that undersells him a bit, @Snarf Zagyg . Whatever we think of Gary the person or even Gary the game designer, his impact on the hobby is second to none. If there was an RPG Hall of Fame, he'd be the first inducted.

 

[Alzrius]

I think that (1) people often overlook Gygax's stature in the hobbyist community prior to D&D (due to his writing, game design, and founding GenCon), and (2) you would be hard pressed to find a single game designer in the history of the hobby that wouldn't kill for Gygax's output from 1974 - 1984 (basically, until he went to Hollywood in 1984).

Minor nitpick, but I believe Gary went to Hollywood in mid-late 1982. Looking back through Flint Dille's autobiographical book The Gamesmaster: Almost Famous in the Geek '80s, he says that he met Gary for the first time in Anaheim, CA at the end of May, 1982, and that "a few weeks later" Gary wrote him and said he was moving out to California and wanted to know if Dille was interested in writing movies with him. He also mentions joining Gary in looking to pick out the residence that would become the Dungeons & Dragons Entertainment Corporation, where Gary would live while he was out there.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Even that undersells him a bit, @Snarf Zagyg . Whatever we think of Gary the person or even Gary the game designer, his impact on the hobby is second to none. If there was an RPG Hall of Fame, he'd be the first inducted.

Hall of Fame — The Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts & Design

www.originsawards.net

Inducted 1980.