OD&D Evidence Chainmail Had Material from Dave Arneson

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Bohandas]

What on earth is the "Tree" creature? It seems to be distinct from the Ent.

 

[Hriston]

What on earth is the "Tree" creature? It seems to be distinct from the Ent.

I believe they’re meant to represent the huorns, which took part in the Last March of the Ents and participated in the Battle of the Hornburg in volume II of the LotR, for example. The name is in the “short” form of Entish and translates roughly as “talking tree”.

 

[Umbran]

As I said in the article, "It is important to note that absolute dates do not play a role in this type of analysis; only the relative order in which the lists of creature name were created is relevant."

Just to give lowkey13 some backup here. You are trying to divine how information flowed from one source to another through time, so you need the dates of the texts used for analysis to be well-established.

You cannot look at a list from 1977, and assume that it appeared exactly the same in a previous edition, years earlier. Find the list from the previous work, or don't include this in your argument.

 

[mwittig]

What on earth is the "Tree" creature? It seems to be distinct from the Ent.

Ents and Trees from Patt:

Ents and Trees from the Fantasy Supplement:

 

[Bardic Dave]

I have the same objection to your analysis as lowkey and umbran, namely that you're making assumptions about the chronology that aren't supported by the material. You can't look at a 1977 document and infer anything concrete about its 1970 antecedent. Your entire argument appears to rest on that inference, so your entire argument is unfortunately flawed.

 

[mwittig]

You are trying to divine how information flowed from one source to another through time, so you need the dates of the texts used for analysis to be well-established.

You cannot look at a list from 1977, and assume that it appeared exactly the same in a previous edition, years earlier. Find the list from the previous work, or don't include this in your argument.

Let me give an example of how it is possible to establish the order of which a set of events occurred without knowing the exact dates of individual events.

Here are three events:

The dog eats its dinner.
Karen pours the chips into a bowl.
Karen opens the bag.

There are six different ways of ordering these events (permutations):
Case A
The dog eats its dinner.
Karen pours the chips into a bowl.
Karen opens the bag.
Case B
The dog eats its dinner.
Karen opens the bag.
Karen pours the chips into a bowl.
Case C
Karen pours the chips into a bowl.
The dog eats its dinner.
Karen opens the bag.
Case D
Karen pours the chips into a bowl.
Karen opens the bag.
The dog eats its dinner.
Case E
Karen opens the bag.
The dog eats its dinner.
Karen pours the chips into a bowl.
Case F
Karen opens the bag.
Karen pours the chips into a bowl.
The dog eats its dinner.

Knowing the context of the three events is that they are all part of the process of Karen feeding her dog, it quickly becomes clear that the only way of arranging all three of these events in a way that makes sense is according to Case F. We were able to successfully determine the order of the events without knowing the time at which any of them occurred.

The same approach applies to the three cases above. In Case A, the assumed order of events is:

Chainmail, “Magic Swords,” “Magic Protection Points”

Study the first two columns of the table under Case A and note the changes Arneson supposedly made in copying down the creatures from Chainmail. Ask yourself, does it really make sense that Arneson would have copied a bunch of creature names from Chainmail, but made a special effort to exclude the creature names that were unique to Chainmail? Why didn’t he copy down the unique creatures Lycanthrope, Roc, and True Troll, since he had apparently copied down Elemental, Ghoul, Giant, Goblin, and so on? Why would he copy down Werebear and Werewolf, but change their spelling to the non-standard spellings “Were bear” and “Were wolf”? Neither of these actions make any sense and suggest that the assumed order is wrong.

Similarly, in Case B, the assumed order of events is: Chainmail, “Magic Protection Points,” “Magic Swords”
Study the second and third columns of the table and note the changes Arneson supposedly made between when he wrote the “Magic Protection Points” material and the “Magic Swords” material. Ask yourself, does it really make sense that Arneson would have suddenly eliminated all of the creatures unique to Chainmail? Taking a look at the first and second columns now, you’ll note that Arneson appears to have removed the Werewolf and Werebear in favor of the term “Lycanthrope”. Then, supposedly, at the same time he eliminated all of the creatures unique to Chainmail, he added back the Werewolf and Werebear, eliminated the term “Lycanthrope” that he had previously added, and changed the spelling of Werewolf and Werebear to the non-standard spellings “Were Wolf” and “Were Bear.” None of these actions make any sense and suggest that the assumed order is wrong.

In Case C, the assumed order of events is: “Magic Swords”, Chainmail, “Magic Protection Points”
In this case, since we’re going from Arneson’s “Magic Swords” material to Gygax’s Fantasy Supplement in the first two columns, with Gygax therefore making the changes. What changes does he appear to have made? Well, in preparing the Fantasy Supplement, it appears that Gygax added all the creatures unique to Chainmail to Arneson’s list of creatures (e.g., Lycanthrope, Roc, True Troll). He also appears to have created the grouping term “Lycanthrope” that encompasses Werewolves and Werebears, and to have corrected Arneson’s non-standard spellings of “Were Wolf” and “Were Bear” to Werewolf and Werebear. Do these actions make sense? Yes, they do—certainly a lot more sense than the other two cases. Therefore, it appears that the assumed order of case C is correct.

 

[Bardic Dave]

Let me give an example of how it is possible to establish the order of which a set of events occurred without knowing the exact dates of individual events.

Here are three events:

The dog eats its dinner.
Karen pours the chips into a bowl.
Karen opens the bag.

There are six different ways of ordering these events (permutations):
Case A
The dog eats its dinner.
Karen pours the chips into a bowl.
Karen opens the bag.
Case B
The dog eats its dinner.
Karen opens the bag.
Karen pours the chips into a bowl.
Case C
Karen pours the chips into a bowl.
The dog eats its dinner.
Karen opens the bag.
Case D
Karen pours the chips into a bowl.
Karen opens the bag.
The dog eats its dinner.
Case E
Karen opens the bag.
The dog eats its dinner.
Karen pours the chips into a bowl.
Case F
Karen opens the bag.
Karen pours the chips into a bowl.
The dog eats its dinner.

Knowing the context of the three events is that they are all part of the process of Karen feeding her dog, it quickly becomes clear that the only way of arranging all three of these events in a way that makes sense is according to Case F. We were able to successfully determine the order of the events without knowing the time at which any of them occurred.

The same approach applies to the three cases above. In Case A, the assumed order of events is:

Chainmail, “Magic Swords,” “Magic Protection Points”

Study the first two columns of the table under Case A and note the changes Arneson supposedly made in copying down the creatures from Chainmail. Ask yourself, does it really make sense that Arneson would have copied a bunch of creature names from Chainmail, but made a special effort to exclude the creature names that were unique to Chainmail? Why didn’t he copy down the unique creatures Lycanthrope, Roc, and True Troll, since he had apparently copied down Elemental, Ghoul, Giant, Goblin, and so on? Why would he copy down Werebear and Werewolf, but change their spelling to the non-standard spellings “Were bear” and “Were wolf”? Neither of these actions make any sense and suggest that the assumed order is wrong.

Similarly, in Case B, the assumed order of events is: Chainmail, “Magic Protection Points,” “Magic Swords”
Study the second and third columns of the table and note the changes Arneson supposedly made between when he wrote the “Magic Protection Points” material and the “Magic Swords” material. Ask yourself, does it really make sense that Arneson would have suddenly eliminated all of the creatures unique to Chainmail? Taking a look at the first and second columns now, you’ll note that Arneson appears to have removed the Werewolf and Werebear in favor of the term “Lycanthrope”. Then, supposedly, at the same time he eliminated all of the creatures unique to Chainmail, he added back the Werewolf and Werebear, eliminated the term “Lycanthrope” that he had previously added, and changed the spelling of Werewolf and Werebear to the non-standard spellings “Were Wolf” and “Were Bear.” None of these actions make any sense and suggest that the assumed order is wrong.

In Case C, the assumed order of events is: “Magic Swords”, Chainmail, “Magic Protection Points”
In this case, since we’re going from Arneson’s “Magic Swords” material to Gygax’s Fantasy Supplement in the first two columns, with Gygax therefore making the changes. What changes does he appear to have made? Well, in preparing the Fantasy Supplement, it appears that Gygax added all the creatures unique to Chainmail to Arneson’s list of creatures (e.g., Lycanthrope, Roc, True Troll). He also appears to have created the grouping term “Lycanthrope” that encompasses Werewolves and Werebears, and to have corrected Arneson’s non-standard spellings of “Were Wolf” and “Were Bear” to Werewolf and Werebear. Do these actions make sense? Yes, they do—certainly a lot more sense than the other two cases. Therefore, it appears that the assumed order of case C is correct.

You're missing the point, and your analogy doesn't address Umbran's critique. The original 1970 text no longer exists, as far as we know. You're using the 1977 text as a proxy for the missing 1970 text, but you can't do that. All you've shown is that in crafting the 1977 document, it's plausible that Arneson relied on a source that wasn't Chainmail. You haven't shown anything about what he did in 1970, which is the important time period for the claim you're making.

 

[mwittig]

The original 1970 text no longer exists, as far as we know. You're using the 1977 text as a proxy for the missing 1970 text, but you can't do that.

Recall what Arneson said:
“First Fantasy Campaign, which I did for Judges Guild, is literally my original campaign notes without any plots or real organization.” [11]

The analysis above appears to confirm Arneson’s statement by demonstrating that the creatures listed in the Magic Swords section, which Arneson said predated Blackmoor (see above for the quote) logically fit only before Gygax’s Fantasy Supplement, not after (Cases A and B demonstrate the logical inconsistencies that occur when the Fantasy Supplement is assumed to precede the Magic Swords material). While the Magic Sword text was not published until 1977 with the rest of Arnesons original campaign notes, this analysis does show that it dates no later than just prior to the publication of The Fantasy Supplement with Chainmail in approximately the first half of 1971. One could argue that Arneson prepared the Magic Swords material in 1977, but that would require that Arneson anticipated that someone would run this exact analysis later and that he very carefully chose the creature names in the Magic Swords material to trick it, but the chance of this is realistically negligible.