D&D General Dave Arneson: Is He Underrated, or Overrated?

[Parmandur]

As I've argued before, D&D is essentially a western dressed up in Fantasy (originally swords & sorcery, but with increasing high fantasy trapping as time went on).

Which makes sense if you think about it. While D&D was riding on the fantasy zeitgeist of the 70s, it was still created by people who grew up watching and absorbing the tropes and ideals of westerns within the culture.

I would say that ia true. H2nce why their second RPG was a straight Western. Thet didn't catch on, and in no alternate 70's would it have.

 

[Dioltach]

If you're going to make that argument, you need to understand that Westerns are essentially the same stories as medieval chivalric romances and other genres (including detectives, picaresque novels and at least some sci-fi and fantasy, up to and including Star Wars).

(The most visible identifier being that you can travel through a hostile environment, and the first random stranger you encounter is your uncle/your father's killer/your future wife/your father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate. It's a closed world, where essentially every element is related to the hero and their quest.)

 

[Cadence]

As I've argued before, D&D is essentially a western dressed up in Fantasy (originally swords & sorcery, but with increasing high fantasy trapping as time went on).

Which makes sense if you think about it. While D&D was riding on the fantasy zeitgeist of the 70s, it was still created by people who grew up watching and absorbing the tropes and ideals of westerns within the culture.

Is talking about genres a tiny bit analogous to talking about species vs culture in DnD?

Star Wars is Sci-Fi raised by Westerns?
SISU is a WWII flick raised by Westerns?
Blazing Saddles is a Western raised by Comedies?

Seven Samurai is _____ ?
Magnificent Seven is a Western raised by ___?

 

[Reynard]

Is talking about genres tiny bit analogous to talking about species vs culture in DnD?

Star Wars is Sci-Fi raised by Westerns?
SISU is a WWII flick raised by Westerns?
Blazing Saddles is a Western raised by Comedies?

Seven Samurai is _____ ?
Magnificent Seven is a Western raised by ___?

Genre is largely defined by aesthetic rather than tropes, I feel. Otherwise the main genre would be "Western (Hemisphere I mean) Adventure" but instead we break it up based on whether there is a guy in a fedora, a guy in armor, a guy in a space suit, or a guy in spurs on the cover. Note: none of them have shirts on.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Boot Hill, despite TSR pushing it pretty hard, never took off. Neither did competing products throughout the 1980s. It took adding fantasy and horror into Westerns in 1990s for games like Deadlands and the Wild West setting for Werewolf to succeed.

If Boot Hill had been the first RPG, I don't think it would have experienced anything like the success D&D did.

Back in the day, I never even looked at a Boot Hill product. Same went for Gangbusters. Now, Gamma World was something I dug quite a bit.

That doesn't explain why Medieval France (or England really) was still connecting with audiences and the Old West wasn't.

I would posit that a large part of that is due to Lord of the Rings' paperback releases and Tolkien's "deplorable cultus." Also, R.E. Howard's Ace/Lancer books with their Frank Frazetta covers. Fans were already engaging in stepping into those worlds by way of Amra and countless Middle-Earth fanzines. Audiences were primed for fantasy adventure on so many different levels when D&D came out.

 

[Mannahnin]

thank you for this.

I do get that odd giddy feeling when he has to say he was part of a second wave of players, in 1972. That in a way even he feels he must state that he wasn’t there originally.

I think his recollections have his dates off by a year (Arneson and Megarry I believe first showed it to Gygax in late Feb 1973), but yeah.

I wish Secrets of Blackmoor part 2 was out. Or in production.

@Yora

I started getting interested in 60s and 70s wargames recently. I've occasionally read some posts that people wrote 10 years ago (damn, late OSR was that long ago?) but now that I have much more context about early RPGs and actually think about how I'd do a wargame campaign in a fantasy world, I'm really starting to discover how the wargamers relevant to RPG history already were talking in ways that sound very similar to GMs.

Yes, it's really interesting, digging into Playing at the World in particular, how many things people were doing beforehand that had elements of roleplaying and GMing in them.

And yeah, the OSR is pushing twenty years old now. OSRIC was published in 2006, and it was the product of multiple years of discussion about the older editions (and people writing and publishing new third party adventures for 1E) and their value, before the retroclones actually started being published.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

To be frank, Appelcline's review is (to my mind) one of the least helpful takes out there when it comes to understanding Dave Arneson's True Genius, simply because it only offers modest information about what's there in favor of critiquing the book for how much it goes against Appelcline's beliefs with regards to the development of the hobby. Hence his use of terms such as "Arnesonian revisionism" and "Chainmail denialism." He sees the entire thing as -isms that refute his version of history.

So I've tried, twice now, to avoid the topic ... under the theory that if you have nothing good to say, say nothing.

But that said, Appelcline's review is, in my estimation, generous. Shannon states that, "I found the booklet almost unreadable." I probably would not have used the qualifier, "almost."

I do not have a lot of regrets in life. Choosing to watch Dexter after the first few seasons (and definitely after the Trinity season)? Yeah, that's a regret. But another thing I regret is spending any money on this little booklet. If it had been free, it would have been overpriced; as it was, I recall finishing it and thinking to myself, "Self, I just spent $30 on 70 pages mostly gibberish." (The amount is approximate, but it was insane for the booklet).

If you want to find out more about the history of the hobby, this isn't the book for you. If you want to learn more about theory, this also isn't the book for you. Rob Kuntz is a person who has done a lot for this hobby, and that should always be respected for those contributions. But if a person's past was a 100% reliable indicator of quality, then Cyborg Commando would have been the bestest game ever.

In my opinion, the problems with this book are manifold and manifest, and while I am happy you found something in it, the banal observation that Arneson was running a free-wheeling game that Gygax had to, you know, write down so people would buy it hardly qualifies as worth the the effort, especially when you add in the incomprehensible gobbledygook that he tries to couch this argle bargle in.

 

[Yora]

Is talking about genres a tiny bit analogous to talking about species vs culture in DnD?

Star Wars is Sci-Fi raised by Westerns?
SISU is a WWII flick raised by Westerns?
Blazing Saddles is a Western raised by Comedies?

Seven Samurai is _____ ?
Magnificent Seven is a Western raised by ___?

70s entertainment is influenced by 50s and 60s entertainment?

You might be on to something there.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I would posit that a large part of that is due to Lord of the Rings' paperback releases and Tolkien's "deplorable cultus." Also, R.E. Howard's Ace/Lancer books with their Frank Frazetta covers. Fans were already engaging in stepping into those worlds by way of Amra and countless Middle-Earth fanzines. Audiences were primed for fantasy adventure on so many different levels when D&D came out.

Don't forget Marvel Comics publishing Conan starting in 1970, which were a big hit.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

Don't forget Marvel Comics publishing Conan starting in 1970, which were a big hit.

When I was a kid, the local barber shop had stacks of comics in the waiting area. All kinds of stuff... for instance, I remember reading this one while I was waiting for Wayne to get through his current customer: