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<blockquote data-quote="Ridley's Cohort" data-source="post: 101108" data-attributes="member: 545">From reading between the lines on the early days, my take on the matter is Arneson was the first person to play &quot;D&amp;D as we know it&quot;.&nbsp; (Actually it was a heavily customized version of Chainmail but that is a minor detail.)Gygax was still playing a wargame that much more closely resembled a multiplayer mass combat WH40K than a RPG.Gygax got wind of Arneson's ideas and tried them out.&nbsp; But the important detail was Gygax eventually put the ideas into a publishable form.Did Gygax steal Arneson's ideas?&nbsp; I suppose, but he stole them fair and square.You could say the same thing about Edison and the light bulb.&nbsp; He was not the first or the second or the third guy to think up the idea of a light bulb.&nbsp; But he was the one who made it a practical consumer item for which he deservedly earns praise.Neither Gygax nor Arneson were the first or hundredth person to come up with some kind of group storytelling activity.&nbsp; Or even such a thing with combat.&nbsp; For example, there already existed double-blind strategic &amp; tactical third person adjudicated combat games as an esoteric tiny niche in the wargame world.Gygax was the first person to put these ideas into a practical, attractive, and saleable form.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Ridley's Cohort, post: 101108, member: 545"] From reading between the lines on the early days, my take on the matter is Arneson was the first person to play "D&D as we know it". (Actually it was a heavily customized version of Chainmail but that is a minor detail.) Gygax was still playing a wargame that much more closely resembled a multiplayer mass combat WH40K than a RPG. Gygax got wind of Arneson's ideas and tried them out. But the important detail was Gygax eventually put the ideas into a publishable form. Did Gygax [i]steal[/i] Arneson's ideas? I suppose, but he stole them fair and square. You could say the same thing about Edison and the light bulb. He was not the first or the second or the third guy to think up the [i]idea[/i] of a light bulb. But he was the one who made it a practical consumer item for which he deservedly earns praise. Neither Gygax nor Arneson were the first or hundredth person to come up with some kind of group storytelling activity. Or even such a thing with combat. For example, there already existed double-blind strategic & tactical third person adjudicated combat games as an esoteric tiny niche in the wargame world. Gygax was the first person to put these ideas into a practical, attractive, and saleable form. [/QUOTE]

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