D&D General Evidence from the Arneson vs Gygax court case, including early draft of D&D with notes

[Snarf Zagyg]

Fair enough. TSR settled out of court.

But the court case by Arneson is strong.

I think that one of the better analyses of the strengths and weaknesses of Arneson's court claims can be found in Game Wizards, which, as far as I know, is the only publication to correctly invoke Nimmer.

Based upon that, the litigation documents, and my own experience, my own opinion is that as a matter of law, Arneson's actual legal case was not very strong, but the combination of excellent lawyering, an unclear contract, and some incorrect attributions that made it into evidence were more than sufficient to get past summary judgment. And once you do that, you get leverage.

Again, this has nothing to do with "Who invented the game," or "Who deserves credit," or "Who is more macho," but just the actual legal claims presented.

 

[Alzrius]

Again, this has nothing to do with "Who invented the game," or "Who deserves credit," or "Who is more macho," but just the actual legal claims presented.

Which is also something that's stated in The Game Wizards (bad paraphrasing on my part here); that the courts ultimately figure out what's legal, not what/who was "right" or "wrong."

 

[Alzrius]

And to make it more maddeningly, Dave was continually revising, deleting, and adding throughout the life of the Blackmoor Campaign, including switching to the published D&D rules.

Don't forget the contentious issue of when Arneson started using the "Fantasy Supplement" from Chainmail in his Blackmoor game, and how much influence that had.

 

[ilgatto]

I stumbled across this randomly on Facebook thanks to the Secrets of Blackmoor page and thought more people should see it.

Someone over on the Ruins of Murkhill forum filed a request for the complete documents related to the Arneson v Gygax case and it was granted.

That Murkhill link goes to the section of the forum discussing this case. People are finding all kinds of great nuggets already.

"Submitted for your consideration, a PDF copy of the complete court filings of civil case 4-79-109 David L. Arneson vs. Gary Gygax and TSR Hobbies, Inc including letters, testimony, and evidentiary documents obtained freely from the National Archives Office at Chicago. The linked PDF's contain over 900 pages, a portion of which can also be viewed by visiting their website at:

catalog.archives.gov/id/200185170

ws.onehub.com/folders/uh3vxwq1

The link will expire within 30 days of this posting after which time, anyone desiring access to these files should contact the National Archives"

In that second link are two PDFs with the same info, the larger file has sharper images.

As of today, the link will expire in 20 days. I'd suggest anyone who wants to look at this grab a copy soon.

It looks to have a complete early draft of D&D as part of the evidence included, along with various handwritten notes.

@Snarf Zagyg , @darjr , @Morrus

Wow.

What a brilliant idea, what a find!

Statues will have to be erected.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

Which is also something that's stated in The Game Wizards (bad paraphrasing on my part here); that the courts ultimately figure out what's legal, not what/who was "right" or "wrong."

Indeed. How's that Monty Python lone go, "We don't morally judge you, we just want the money" or something like that? Ought to be the motto of the American Bar Association.

 

[Mannahnin]

The truth as it often is in the middle. Dave Arneson figured out tabletop roleplaying. He started Blackmoor as a fantasy Braunstein campaign and bit by bit in the coming years he added this and that until it was a tabletop roleplaying campaign. Then he showed Gygax a part of what he did.

Gygax was a go-getter who was disciplined and organized enough to write and publish wargames. Inspired by what Dave did, he asked Dave to teach how to run a tabletop roleplaying campaign, wrote up a set of formal rules, got Dave to help him edit them and comment on them. In addition he came up with some of his own ideas from the running the Greyhawk dungeon campaign. Made a final version and published it as Dungeon & Dragons.

Great overview. I also want to note that Gary's first draft based on Dave's notes (again going from recent memory as it was mentioned in the Jason Tondro interview about the new upcoming book) was around 50 pages. And that was expanded to around/over 100 in the collaboration phase where they were communicating back and forth. That includes Gygax omitting some of Arneson's rules and ideas, something Dave complained about later in writing, including in First Fantasy Campaign, as I recall.

Dungeons & Dragons is a game Gary produced, based off Dave's Blackmoor. Dave may deserve the title of inventor of RPGs (although stuff like Braunstein and Western Gunfight also contain most or all of the elements we think of today as needed for an RPG), but there is no "D&D" (even under another name) without Gary.

 

[Chanceand]

Wow.

What a brilliant idea, what a find!

Statues will have to be erected.

To little old me? Wow.

 

[robertsconley]

Don't forget the contentious issue of when Arneson started using the "Fantasy Supplement" from Chainmail in his Blackmoor game, and how much influence that had.

In the absence of Dave Arneson's actual notes (the ones he used to run Blackmoor), I give greater weight to folks' accounts of him being an excellent "seat of his pants" referee who was continually adding and tweaking things to his campaign. For example, coming up with a cleric class to act as the "Van Helsing" when Dave Fant transformed into a Dracula-style vampire. I have no doubt that Chainmail and its appendices play a part in the Blackmoor campaign, but like most of the other campaigns, all the accounts, including Dave's, have it quickly veered into being its own thing.

Which is why those notes are one of the remaining "holy grails" that people want from that time period.

 

[Alzrius]

For example, coming up with a cleric class to act as the "Van Helsing" when Dave Fant transformed into a Dracula-style vampire.

Minor digression: I'm given to understand that happened because Fant was moving away (I can't recall why) and his character was essentially being retired; since his character was still in Blackmoor, they needed a way to effectively remove him from play, and becoming a vampire (and renaming himself "Sir Fang") and fleeing into the dungeon was how Arneson (possibly in collaboration with Fant?) handled things.

Of course, then there was a vampire the PCs had to deal with, hence the eventual creation of the cleric class.

 

[Yaarel]

Again, this has nothing to do with "Who invented the game," or "Who deserves credit," or "Who is more macho," but just the actual legal claims presented.

The documents provided for the court case, also evidence what the proto-D&D looks like, that culminates in the publication of D&D in 1974.