If the analysis at the top of this thread is correct, then a number of conclusions should be able to be drawn from it and supported with evidence.
One of the conclusions drawn from the analysis that has been examined in this thread so far is that Arneson’s Blackmoor campaign
must predate
Chainmail. The March 1971 issue of
International Wargamer had no
Chainmail ad, while the April issue did; this indicated that
Chainmail was available no earlier than April of 1971. The letter describing Blackmoor and the map of Blackmoor, both dating to March of 1971, indicated that Arneson’s campaign had already been in progress for some time prior to the publication of
Chainmail. This was corroborated by original Blackmoor player Greg Svenson’s story,
The First Dungeon Adventure, which recounts the first dungeon adventure that he says occurred during his Christmas break from 1970-71. Svenson’s dating was corroborated by a second original Blackmoor player. Although Svenson’s dating has been viewed as erroneous by historians because it would indicate that Blackmoor predated
Chainmail, the analysis at the top of this thread indicates that Svenson’s (and his corroborator’s) dating has been correct all along.
Another conclusion that can be drawn from the analysis is that Arneson drew from Patt’s article, “Rules for Middle Earth”; this, in turn, suggests that it was Arneson that had given Patt's article to Gygax. As Lowkey13 pointed out, though, a conflicting theory for how Gygax had gotten the Patt article has already been proposed:
So a little understanding is required to understand my skepticism. Start here:
Chainmail (1971) is correctly regarded as the first commercially-available fantasy wargame system. The Fantasy Supplement that Gary G...
playingattheworld.blogspot.com
That's a quick guide showing that Patt is likely the inspiration for Chainmail. Notably Peterson found evidence that Perren read the
Courier (the magazine that Patt's contribution was published in) as he has a letter published in the very next magazine.
Lets take a look at what Peterson wrote:
The Fantasy Supplement that Gary Gygax and Jeff Perren tacked on to the end of Chainmail inspired Dave Arneson as he created the Blackmoor setting, and formed the basis for the original set of monsters and spells underlying Dungeons & Dragons.
[…]
If these rules were so obscure it took me this long to find them, how do we know for sure that the authors of Chainmail saw them, and saw them during the time Chainmail was in development? Because they subscribed to that newsletter and even contributed to it. Handily, the very issue of the Courier carrying these fantasy rules also contains an article by S. Manganiello on “French Uniforms of the Seven Years War” which, in the following issue of the Courier, Jeff Perren attacks in a letter. This proves that at least one of the two authors of Chainmail received and studied the very issue of the Courier containing these fantasy rules at the time, and surely could have shared it with his co-designer. Although these rules came out not long before Chainmail, we know from Gygax’s own account that the Fantasy Supplement was a last-minute addition to Chainmail: he later called it an “afterthought.”
[…]
Nonetheless, we must acknowledge that Gary had a singular gift for streamlining, augmenting and popularizing rules originally devised by others: certainly we wouldn’t say that Patt’s original rules could have inspired Blackmoor, and thus Dungeons & Dragons, without Gary’s magic touch and the elaboration we find in the Chainmail Fantasy Supplement.
Peterson’s find seems to suggest that Perren provided Gygax with Patt’s article. However, I interviewed Perren, and, contrary to what was stated in the quote above, Perren said that he had nothing to do with the Fantasy Supplement. This is not surprising, as Gygax himself suggested multiple times that Perren did not coauthor the Fantasy Supplement. Additionally, although Perren did subscribe to
The Courier and even recalled seeing Patt’s article, he didn’t recall giving it to Gygax. In fact, he didn't know how Gygax had gotten the idea to do the Fantasy Supplement.
With the prevailing theory of how Gygax had gotten hold of Patt’s rules seemingly debunked, we next turn to the analysis at the top of this thread to see what it indicates. It indicates a number of things:
1) Arneson drew from Patt’s article (since Arneson included the obscure creature name “Anti-Hero” from Patt’s article)
2) Gygax drew from Patt’s article (since Gygax included the obscure creature names “Anti-Hero” and “Tree” from Patt’s article)
3) Arneson drew from Patt’s article
directly, because Arneson’s material predates Gygax’s Fantasy Supplement (therefore, Arneson could not have drawn from Patt’s article via Gygax’s Fantasy Supplement)
4) Gygax drew from Patt’s article
directly, because Gygax’s Fantasy Supplement includes an obscure creature name, the “Tree” creature, while Arneson’s material did not.
5) Arneson drew from Patt’s article first; Gygax then drew material from both Arneson’s material and Patt’s article directly, indicating that Gygax had both Arneson’s material and Patt’s material in front of him when he typed up the Fantasy Supplement.
The analysis at the top of this thread therefore indicates the following chain:
Patt—Arneson—Gygax
But, at the time Patt lived in New England and Arneson lived in Minnesota. Additionally, while Patt’s rules were demonstrated at the Miniature Figure Collectors of America convention in Philadelphia, the convention was only one day long. It therefore seems highly unlikely that Arneson traveled to Philadelphia from Minnesota to attend a one-day convention. Yet, the analysis above indicates that Arneson drew directly from Patt’s material. So, how did he get it?
It turns out that one of Arneson’s friends, prominent wargamer and miniatures painter Duke Seifried, did attend the MFCA convention. In fact, not only did Duke Seifried attend the MFCA convention, but he even played in the demonstration game of “Rules for Middle Earth” that Patt’s club, the New England Wargamers Association (NEWA) put on during the convention. Although Seifried passed away in 2018, one of Seifried’s other friends recalls:
I didn’t attend the MFCA convention that year, but I have a definite memory of Duke Seifried calling me afterwards and telling me he had just “played Lord of the Rings”! Even by Duke standards he was excited!
Another of Seifried’s friends even recalled the exact same chain indicated by the analysis above:
Duke's absolute surety that that game [NEWA’s Middle Earth demonstration] put the bee in Arneson's—and through him, Gygax's—bonnet carries a lot of weight with me.
So, with Seifried inserted, the chain indicated by the analysis at the top of this thread is:
Patt—Seifried—Arneson—Gygax
Seifried was the Executive Vice President of TSR in its heyday and was apparently one Gygax’s top supporters while he was there (see Shannon Appelcline’s book,
Designer’s & Dragons). Yet, Seifried attended the Blackmoor Studios Dedication to Dave Arneson at Full Sail University in 2011, where he had this to say about Arneson:
While others played a part in the explosion of this idea, make no mistake—Dave Arneson was the creator of fantasy role-playing.
You can see him deliver that statement with conviction here:
Just as in the case earlier in the thread with which came first, Blackmoor or
Chainmail, we again see that a conclusion drawn from the analysis at the top of this thread is supported by the evidence.
It appears that Seifried told Arneson about NEWA's display, and Arneson then developed his fantasy rules for Blackmoor, drawing from Patt's article in the process. Arneson then sent Gygax his material along with a copy of Patt's rules. Gygax then drew from both Arneson material (apparently including earlier versions of the Fantasy Reference Table, the Fantasy Combat Table, and the creature descriptions), as well as Patt's article, in typing up the Fantasy Supplement. This is appears to be the reason why Gygax called the Fantasy Supplement an "afterthought" during an early interview, as its development was much quicker than if Gygax had started from scratch.
(If anyone knows where Gygax made that "afterthought" comment, a citation for it would be appreciated.)
