OD&D Evidence Chainmail Had Material from Dave Arneson

[mwittig]

I've found some more information about the copyrights. Although Lowkey13 told us that three of the games that Lowry published have the same 1971 copyright date, Lowry had three additional copyrights in 1971, and those dates are not May 15, 1971. All six of them are shown below:

So we have:
1. Alexander the Great (Saturday, May 15, 1971)
2. Chainmail (Saturday, May 15, 1971)
3. Dunkirk (Saturday, May 15, 1971)

but we also have:
4. Tractics vol 1 (Saturday, Aug 21, 1971)
5. Tractics vol 2-3 (Saturday, Aug 21, 1971)
6. Hardtack (Wednesday, Dec 1, 1971)

The date is arbitrary. As you know, these copyrights were mass submitted in 1972. They were not contemporaneous with the actual publication dates.

If you're familiar with the topic you know that a selection of the 1st or the 15th indicates that the individual in question is most likely choosing a random date*; in addition, the actual retail practice back then means that this particular date, which fell on a Saturday, is certainly wrong.

Moreover, we can easily see that there are three copyrights submitted for three different products, in 1972, that all claim the exact same date a year prior in 1971. We further know that this is impossible, because contemporaneous evidence is that Chainmail, Dunkirk, and Alexander were released at different times.

So we know that this is an arbitrary and incorrect date that does not suffice as evidence of publication date.

I would say that those dates are a lot more right than yours is, unless Gygax had the best Saturday ever.

And yes, that must have been an extraordinarily productive Saturday! Gary invented three games from scratch and made it down to the copyright office and back in time for supper!

There seem to be some errors here. First, the date of the copyright was given by Lowry, not Gygax, because Lowry was the publisher.

Second, the date has nothing to do with the game designer finishing the design of the game.

Third, the instructions on the copyright form shown on page 2 of this thread specified to Lowry that the date he gave was to be the date that the book was "first placed on sale, sold, or publicly distributed":

“Give the complete date when copies of this particular edition were first placed on sale, sold, or publicly distributed. The date when copies were made or printed should not be confused with the date of publication.”

With only the first three copyright dates to consider, Lowkey13's explanation that the May 15, 1971 was arbitrary would appear possible, even likely. However, with the addition of the later three copyright dates, that no longer seems to be the case. The reason is that the Tractics dates of Saturday, Aug 21, 1971 does not appear to be arbitrary at all; in fact, that is the first day of Gen Con 4, which can be verified here:

Gen Con - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

So it appears that Lowry did follow the instructions given to him and did try to estimate when the products were "first placed on sale, sold, or publicly distributed"; in the case of Tractics, this appears to have been the first day of Gen Con 4. This suggests that the May 15, 1971 date is similarly an approximation by Lowry as to when those three products were "first placed on sale, sold, or publicly distributed".

Further, note that--as explained in the complete definition above from the copyright form-- this is not the date the books were printed. Therefore, there is no reason why the three games couldn't have been printed earlier, at different times, but all put on sale on the same day (Saturday, May 15). Further, as seen by the Tractics example, the fact that May 15 was a Saturday does not automatically mean that it is incorrect; as mentioned previously, hobby stores were open on Saturdays. Lowry's estimate could have rounded to the nearest half-month as well.

So the May 15 date does appear to be an estimate from Lowry as to when those three products were "first placed on sale, sold, or publicly distributed." With no evidence having yet surfaced supporting the March 1971 publication date used by nearly everyone, I again point to the unsupported 2006 Acaeum forum post as the likely source for that dating-- a date which places Chainmail just prior to Arneson's first announced Blackmoor game. From the evidence above, it appears more likely that Chainmail actually followed that first announced Blackmoor game-- which is consistent with the analysis at the top of this thread.

 

[pemerton]

I've found some more information about the copyrights.

<snip>

the instructions on the copyright form shown on page 2 of this thread specified to Lowry that the date he gave was to be the date that the book was "first placed on sale, sold, or publicly distributed":

<snip>

With only the first three copyright dates to consider, Lowkey13's explanation that the May 15, 1971 was arbitrary would appear possible, even likely. However, with the addition of the later three copyright dates, that no longer seems to be the case. The reason is that the Tractics dates of Saturday, Aug 21, 1971 does not appear to be arbitrary at all; in fact, that is the first day of Gen Con 4

<snip>

So it appears that Lowry did follow the instructions given to him and did try to estimate when the products were "first placed on sale, sold, or publicly distributed"

<snip>

So the May 15 date does appear to be an estimate from Lowry as to when those three products were "first placed on sale, sold, or publicly distributed."

I have no particular horse in the Gygax vs Arneson race, and have only an amateur knowledge about these events early in the history of Chainmail and D&D.

But your two statements about what "appears" to be the case are almost completely unwarranted. From the fact that someone completed a copyright registration form by reference to their best attempt to recall a first date of distribution (Day 1 of Gen Con) it doesn't follow that the game in question actually began to be distributed on that day. (And at least in this post you have nothing more than conjecture that this copyright registration form was a best attempt to estimate a first day of distribution.)

Even moreso it does not follow that other copyright forms completed by the same person were completed according to the same (conjectured) motivation. Maybe someone remembered when Tractics first went on sail but couldn't remember for the others, and so labelled them all 15 May!

Your earlier posts also seem to assume that the forms were completed in strict accordance with the instructions on them, whereas @lowkey13 has posted suggesting that this is not uniformly the actual practice in the industry. (And that's before we get to the possibility of outright lying.)

And do you have evidence as to who actually filled in the forms? Was it the publisher, Gygax, a secretary, a lawyer? What instructions was the person given who completed them. Was a lawyer (or secretary) told These ones were some time in May and so just made up a date in accordance with industry practice?

I'm all for doing documentary/archival history, but particularly in this post you seem to be going well beyond what the documents tell us into unfounded speculations about the facts that gave rise to those documents.

I again point to the unsupported 2006 Acaeum forum post as the likely source for that dating-- a date which places Chainmail just prior to Arneson's first announced Blackmoor game.

I thought there was a poster upthread, maybe more than one, who indicated that that date is widely accepted in the literature based on the testimony of those who were there at the time.

And I'm a bit puzzled over why you think its significant that Arneson announced, some time in April, a "medeval (sic) Braunstein" for April 17. In your post I didn't see a date for the actual announcement. But once Arneson had got hold of a copy of Chainmail how long do you think it would take him to organise a mediaeval Braunstein? And what evidence do you have about the circulation of new hobby games among shops and fans in that part of the US during that time period? Without such evidence you can't really say whether this is a plausible or doubtful period of elapsed time between Chainmail being published by Gygax and it being used by Arneson.

 

[Bardic Dave]

Some very sensible stuff.

Good luck! Try not to make the same mistake I did if he doesn't appear to actually listen to you or directly address your criticisms. It's become apparent to me that the OP is very comfortable making strong assertions on the basis of not much. He genuinely doesn't appear to understand why his position is so fragile. He truly seems to think that if the timeline he's invented is consistent with his "analysis", his "analysis" must be correct and therefore the invented timeline must be accurate. He appears to believe that's good enough: that because he can imagine how it might have happened, it therefore most likely actually did happen like that. His analysis doesn't go any deeper than that and he appears to be perfectly comfortable with that.

 

[Bardic Dave]

He also appears to believe that any alleged inconsistency in the conventionally accepted timeline is direct supporting evidence for his assertions, as if there are only two possible versions of events—his version or the conventionally accepted version.

 

[pemerton]

It's become apparent to me that the OP is very comfortable making strong assertions on the basis of not much.

Well I XPed the OP for reasons similar to those @Hriston has stated in this thread: some interesting points are made about the context of certain texts, and on that basis a conjecture or hypothesis is put forward - that the identified patterns of name use would be consistent with an Arneson-Gygax interaction that is contrary to the received account.

The problem for me is when conjecture, or tentative hypothesis formation, is then treated as proof. It's not proof; rather, its the identification of something interesting and an interesting explanation, which now has to be investigated to see whether or not it is true.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Umbran]

Mod Note:
So, back a page, I gave a warning. Some of you have kept to the spirit of that, and thanks for that. Others... not so much.

I now have a rhetorical question for all of you: Why are you continuing to post in this thread? Because, from the outside, it looks a whole lot like XKCD 386:

You folks do realize that allowing someone's incorrect analysis go unanswered will not break the Universe, right? And, in fact, once you have determined that someone really isn't receptive to your statements, continuing to pound away at it is apt to do more harm than good, for you, for them, and for whatever point you are trying to make.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[mwittig]

But your two statements about what "appears" to be the case are almost completely unwarranted. From the fact that someone completed a copyright registration form by reference to their best attempt to recall a first date of distribution (Day 1 of Gen Con) it doesn't follow that the game in question actually began to be distributed on that day.

Pemerton,
Thank you for joining the discussion and providing a reasoned explanation for disagreeing. I agree that there is no proof that Tractics was distributed on the day Lowry claimed it was (day 1 of Gen Con 4). However, Lowry claiming it on a copyright form represents some evidence that it was, and i think that it is also evidence that the other dates he gave were similar approximations of when the products went on sale, rather than arbitrary dates. He may have remembered the day wrong for Chainmail, and his May 15 date could be an estimation. However, he did claim that date within just 7 months (his copyright form was notarized on Dec. 31, 1971). Therefore, while he may not have gotten the exact day right, he’d have to have been off by 2 months in his estimation to match the March date that many books claim.

Now let’s look at the flip side: what is the evidence of the March 1971 date that everyone has chosen to use? I know of no statement by Arneson, Gygax, or Perren supporting that date. While it appears in many books, none that I have seen offer a citation or explanation from where that date came from. From researching this, as best as I have been able to tell, that March date stems from the 2006 forum post I referenced earlier, which itself offers no citation or explanation.

Now given that context, would you agree that the evidence for Chainmail being published in May, though far from a certainty, is still stronger than the known evidence that Chainmail was published in March?