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

[Parmandur]

I loved Game Wizards, and similarly came away with a different opinion of Arneson (not to mention Gygax and Lorraine Williams).

Overrated is difficult to assess without context, but I do think Arneson generally gets more credit than he deserves. He definitely was the first Dungeon Master and came up with key ideas, like levelling. On the other hand, he did so as part of a gaming group that was sort of collectively building towards such concepts, and he was not the first in that group to act as a sort of DM-like referee for war gaming, if not specifically a fantasy dungeon crawl.

Nevertheless, it is indisputable that Arneson got the thing working that Gygax was able to turn into D&D, and so no Arneson, no D&D. However, after that his contributions diminish rapidly, and while he typically blamed others, especially Gygax, for this, in reading the actual records it is pretty clear that Arneson had trouble actually producing material. And not just for TSR - he had contract after contract in which he basically failed to deliver what he promised as far as actual work.

Ultimately, he comes off as a great ideas guy who wasn't very good when it became time to produce.

Great Dungeon Master, lousy writer, it seems.

 

[mamba]

Great Dungeon Master, lousy writer, it seems.

lousy at producing content in general from what I have read

I am not sure who said it, but I think it sums it up perfectly: without Arneson, no one would play D&D, without Gygax, only one basement in Minnesota would.

 

[Parmandur]

lousy at producing content in general from what I have read

I am not sure who said it, but I think it sums it up perfectly: without Arneson, no one would play D&D, without Gygax, only one basement in Minnesota would.

You really couldn't make this story up.

 

[darjr]

lousy at producing content in general from what I have read

I am not sure who said it, but I think it sums it up perfectly: without Arneson, no one would play D&D, without Gygax, only one basement in Minnesota would.

It does seem like RPGs were brewing though.

I wonder what we might have gotten if it wasn’t for those two. I think a list could be made of what we probably wouldn’t have. Like Beholders and dungeon delving.

 

[Parmandur]

It does seem like RPGs were brewing though.

I wonder what we might have gotten if it wasn’t for those two. I think a list could be made of what we probably wouldn’t have. Like Beholders and dungeon delving.

So many D&D-isms have transcended the tabletop gaming hobby scene through video games and various art and culture, it is inconceivable me what 90's and later pop culture, let along TTRPGs, would look like without this particular set of events and influences with these particular people. Truly wild.

 

[mamba]

I wonder what we might have gotten if it wasn’t for those two.

yes, would be interesting to see what would have broken through in that case, what the attributes would have been, the classes, skills, spells, ... what the founding lore would have been

I assume the first one would have happened maybe a year or two later at most, whether it would have gotten a similar level of success and founded a genre or fizzled out with no one today remembering it is entirely unclear

 

[Alzrius]

I’ve read the book

You might find reading Dave Arneson's True Genius, by Rob Kuntz, worthwhile if you want to understand the pro-Arneson standpoint. Though I should warn you that despite its relative brevity (i.e. being only seventy pages or so in length), it is not light reading!

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

You might find reading Dave Arneson's True Genius, by Rob Kuntz, worthwhile if you want to understand the pro-Arneson standpoint. Though I should warn you that despite its relative brevity (i.e. being only seventy pages or so in length), it is not light reading!

So .... how do I put this. You know I have a strong interest in history. And a strong interest in theory.

I read the book, and let's just say that I found no reason to make a post about it.

YMMV, of course.

 

[Autumnal]

At one point I tallied up parallel inventions underway, but it was years back…let’s see.

M.A..R. Barker and Greg Stafford were both using their preexisting worlds (Tekumel and Glorantha, respectively) in wargaming, and had storytelling possibilities in mind. I don’t know what kind of mechanics Stafford was using; Barker was refining his Perfected system.

Steve Perrin and friends were doing some wargsming with elements of what became Basic Role Playing and RuneQuest. Anyone know how well they and Stafford knew each other circa 1973?

Freeform collaborative storytelling was a thing in sf fandom and growing in volume. Someone like Lee Gold would almost certainly have set up something like Alarums & Exuding sons within a year or few to discuss various kinds of mechanical underpinnings, conceptual tools, and writeups.

And that’s all US-based. I have No Clue<tm> what was going in the same late ‘60s/early ‘70s era elsewhere.

Charles Fort wrote that “we steam-engine when it’s steam-engine time”. I think it was that time for RPGs.

 

[QuentinGeorge]

It does seem like RPGs were brewing though.

I wonder what we might have gotten if it wasn’t for those two. I think a list could be made of what we probably wouldn’t have. Like Beholders and dungeon delving.

Without either Arneson or Gygax moving, is not possible Mike Carr or Dave Wesley cobbled together something?

 

[GreyLord]

I think with Video Games it was inevitable that the idea of RPGs as they are now would have somehow eventually been stumbled upon.

Perhaps not in the form of D&D, but some form of RPG would have happened. WE look at the evolution of games such as Call of Duty and see it develop from just a FPS to an FPS with skills and other things that contribute to it, or Assassin's Creed with how it started and how it looks today (more similar to a simple RPG in a way).

That said, I think Arneson gets too little credit in some ways, and I say that as an Avid Gygax fan.

Arneson didn't just have an "idea" of a game, he had rules and a working game. D&D was his game to the fullest extent (though also not his game...remember...chainmail...though if adventures in fantasy is anything to go on, a lot of stuff not connected to chainmail as well). However, if you like the D20 system...I believe you can thank Dave for that (and all of us who had no understanding of Chainmail because we didn't have the rules and used the alternative...that's right...D20 was an ALTERNATE system...Gygax wanted us all to use Chainmail).

The core of the game today, the D20 (and the AC system that goes with it though it's now reversed)...that's an Arneson device.

However, Gygax, from what I understand, did take the core ideas of Arneson and input many of his own ideas and numbers into the game itself. It wasn't just a rote exercise. It was a combination of his ideas mixed in with the ideas Arneson put forth. I feel the ORIGINAL game was truly a combination of Arneson's original rules and the additions and changes Gygax made to them.

Without Gygax, I don't think the game would have been greatly successful. Gygax was the more experienced rules creator and was better at understanding what could and what would not work (IMO).

The original rules were the wild, wild, west of RPGs. If you've ever read the three books, they are very skimpy on rules descriptions. It's really up to whoever is running the game to make heads or tails of it. It really DID require a referee (aka...Dungeonmaster) to run the game. I won't run a D&D game these days without the Greyhawk supplement. That one supplement changed the game.

Without Arneson, I feel much of what we know as D&D would not have existed. The D20 usage that we use today in D&D wouldn't be there (once again, IMO). In fact, 5e could be seen as a completely different game than TSR D&D...with one of the few remaining iconic items from TSR being the use of a D20...a reminder of Arneson...not Gygax.

Arneson liked rules just as much as the next guy (if you have Adventures in Fantasy...take a look through it. It's far more complicated to me than the three original books...or even the original books plus Blackmoor and Greyhawk combined). It's more defined in some ways than the Original 3 books. They probably are NOT the original rules for D&D, but they show he LOVED rules overall. He didn't just have ideas for D&D...he had rules. It was a working game he had.

NOW...that was his contribution. He contributed VERY little to what came after. There was a LOT that came after. AD&D can be seen as a culmination of all those various rules that came out...and the result is a VERY DIFFERENT game than OD&D. The evolution between OD&D and AD&D...to me...created a game which was almost as different between the two as AD&D and 3e. The difference between those 3 booklets and the PHB, DMG, and MM of AD&D are massive. It didn't change all at once, it was a gradual change between what was in the magazines, what came in the supplements, etc...but it was a cumulative change that was massive in the end. THAT's Gygax's legacy. AD&D and even B/X and BECMI are Gygax's legacy.

So...does Arneson deserve royalties, or did he? Should George Lucas (if he hadn't sold the rights to Disney) deserve royalties for all Star Wars merchandise, even those materials he didn't have a hand in creating? Does JK Rowling deserve royalties for all Harry Potter merchandise, even the stuff she has no hand in making? Does the Disney Family deserve to keep getting money from Disney, even from things that have no relation to things they originally had a hand in creating?

If you say yes to those questions, you probably feel that Arneson should have continued to get royalties, even from things such as the MM2. If you answered no, you probably feel he should not have.

Even as AD&D (IMO) was really truly a Gygax creation finally (as much as 3e and 4e were a WoTC creation, and 5e is also), I still think as one of the originators of the game, Arneson probably was deserving or royalties for his placement at it's beginning (and as I mentioned, his contributions and legacy still affect the game today, even if people don't realize it).

 

[Yora]

Without either Arneson or Gygax moving, is not possible Mike Carr or Dave Wesley cobbled together something?

It seems to be a quite common opinion that RPGs were something that was going to happen in the 70s anyway. Arneson and Gygax did not exist in a vacuum and create games out of nothing. They were part of a collaborative community and I believe there were several wargames going on that could be considered proto-RPGs in hindsight.

If it hadn't been Gygax' hack of Arneson's Blackmoor, then RPGs might have evolved very differently over the last 50 years, and they might perhaps be much more niche than they are now. But I think we would still have games that we would very much recognize as being RPGs.
I think the biggest step in the transition from wargames was to have the PC generals leave their troops behind, or players make a special Spy character to play out a special mission to break into the enemy's headquarters for spying or sabotage. At that point, you're basically playing an RPG, and that step had been taken well before Blackmoor.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

To the extent that people are interested in understanding the various developments that led to RPGs, as well as what was going on around at that time, I would recommend The Elusive Shift.

It really goes into the various cultures of play at the time, and includes a lot of information about some of the other proto-RPGs that were kicking around.

If you want to understand the relationship of Arneson and Gygax, including the formation of TSR and the falling out, Game Wizards is an incomparable source.


(If you want to do a really deep dive, then you can go through Playing at the World, but that's not as fun to read and since it predates the other two and is much more general, it doesn't go into the specific details of those events like the latter two books.)

 

[Reynard]

To the extent that people are interested in understanding the various developments that led to RPGs, as well as what was going on around at that time, I would recommend The Elusive Shift.

Great book.

I'm in the camp that leans toward RPGs emerging out of fandom roleplay had Gygax never codified and commercialized Arneson's game. They would look more like LARPs and story games, I think, though I imagine a parallel evolution of warhames-with-plots developing. After all, other folks were building small unit games with persistent heroes at the same time as Gygax. The man was nothing if not an accumulator of existing ideas.

I still like to imagine a world where that British spaghetti western game was the ur RPG, rather than D&D.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I still like to imagine a world where that British spaghetti western game was the ur RPG, rather than D&D.

So close!!!!! I was thinking of that one.

And yet, I think the relative failure of Boot Hill might tell us something. For whatever reason, the alchemy of D&D (the zeitgeist of the 70s with fantasy, the leveling system that provided rewards for continued play, the inclusion of combat, etc.) may have been that added bit of "secret sauce" that led to commercial success.

Or not. You never know with the alternate histories.

 

[Bayushi_seikuro]

This one paragraph is really all you need to pass judgement.

If you believe the man co-created D&D (and you say you do), then it is not possible that he is overrated. He is the man who literally co-created the greatest RPG of all time and the RPG all others would be modeled after.

I wonder how many creations or inventions you see in the world like this, because it really also sounds like the Apple story with Jobs and Wozniak.

 

[Bayushi_seikuro]

So...does Arneson deserve royalties, or did he? Should George Lucas (if he hadn't sold the rights to Disney) deserve royalties for all Star Wars merchandise, even those materials he didn't have a hand in creating?

I think the issue here is George Lucas specifically negotiated for the rights for toys. Possibly as a way to make more money that no one else valued as something to haggle for.

Even better than that, look into how much money Sir Alec Guiness would have/did receive from Star Wars? By the time of his death, he got over $100M because he got 2.25% of the final grosses.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

So...does Arneson deserve royalties, or did he?

Deserve is a loaded term.

Again, if you read the book (in this case, Game Wizards) you will likely have a much more informed opinion on the question than you previously did.

Without giving it away, let's just say that in my opinion, a confluence of factors, ranging from a few curious early decisions, to somehow getting past summary judgment, to factual misrepresentations in the case that were unchallenged (perhaps because the attorneys were unaware of the hobby), to timing, led to an incredibly favorable settlement for Arneson. If nothing else, you have to respect the job his attorneys did.

But in terms of the law, after I understood the case and viewed what was actually at issue, I was definitely of the opinion that Arneson received a windfall compared to what he was legally entitled to. Whether or not he deserved it is something for people to decide for themselves.

 

[Alzrius]

So .... how do I put this. You know I have a strong interest in history. And a strong interest in theory.

I read the book, and let's just say that I found no reason to make a post about it.

YMMV, of course.

With the caveat that it's been several years now since I read the book, I think that particular work of Kuntz's is presented in a way that makes it very easy to discount, for several reasons.

The first is that Kuntz himself has a writing style that often comes across as being somewhat stilted in presentation. In sharp contrast to Gary Gygax's notable (though I think overstated by the community) use of purple prose, Kuntz has a tendency to write in a way that feels almost robotic, and it doesn't help to draw the reader in. He's absolutely capable of telling a compelling tale (as several of his more recent publications attest to), but this isn't the book to look to for examples of that.

It doesn't help that when he does reference historical events in Dave Arneson's True Genius, there's an aggrieved undertone toward Gary Gygax, which (to my estimation) has a (very mild) prejudicial effect with regard to his talking up the degree of credit that Arneson deserves. This is odd, not because Kuntz hasn't expressed similar sentiments elsewhere (he has), but because there are just as many (if not more) instances where he presents a much more fraternal attitude toward Gygax. Though now that I think about it, I suppose that's not too unusual; as they say, "no one hits my brother except me."

The third strike against the book is that it gets deep into theories of system design. Not game systems, but systems in general. These parts of the book read like a Ph.D. thesis with regard to various aspects of open vs. closed systems, input/output methods, structural presentations, etc. I know I've butchered this, both because of how long it's been since I've read the book and because this part is particularly arcane, but make no mistake: it is arcane, and that's off-putting to a lot of readers.

Moreover, the takeaway from the aforementioned section is that the original, 1974 version of Dungeons & Dragons was unique in that it combined elements of open and closed systems, whereas AD&D 1E had moved to an entirely closed system (and which became the basis for every iteration of the game going forward). Leaving aside how Kuntz associates this loss of the unique open/closed dynamic to the loss of Arneson from the design process, this seems almost designed to tick off everyone who isn't an OD&D grognard. I say "almost" because I'm certain that wasn't the intent, but even so it comes across as prime fodder for edition warring (albeit between OD&D and 1E).

The sad thing is that I think the book does have some genuine insights to offer. If you can work your way through the verbiage and manage to grok the stuff about systems design, there are (to my mind) valuable ideas about the very abstract notions that form the root of tabletop RPGs. But getting there is a lot of work, arguably more than it should be, and that's a shame since it means that the book's message will ultimately be lost.

 

[overgeeked]

Without either Arneson or Gygax moving, is not possible Mike Carr or Dave Wesley cobbled together something?

The thing people seem to skip over is that Dave Wesley did invent the RPG in the form of his Braunstein (German for Brown Stone) game. Arneson took that idea and moved it to fantasy with his Blackmoor game. Once Gygax got ahold of it he created the world of Greyhawk.