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Evidence from the Arneson vs Gygax court case, including early draft of D&D with notes
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<blockquote data-quote="Alzrius" data-source="post: 9275589" data-attributes="member: 8461"><p>The sheer number of glimpses into the evolution of the game from this July 1st, 1973 draft copy that Gary wrote is incredible. I'm only a few pages in, and there are so many jumping out at me:</p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The foreword unambiguously says that the evolution of the game was as follows: The Castle & Crusade Society -> Chainmail -> Arneson's Blackmoor campaign (part of the C&C Great Kingdom) -> the D&D game.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The foreword directly cites Burrough's John Carter, Howard's Conan, the "de Camp & Pratt fantasies," and Leiber's Fafhrd and Gray Mouser as being the sort of stories whose fans the game will appeal to. No mention of Tolkien.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Only five ability scores: Intelligence, Cunning, Strength, Health, and Appearance. Notice the lack of any sort of Dexterity analogue.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The example NPC given is "Xylarthar," while in the published product it was changed to "<a href="https://grognardia.blogspot.com/2020/10/the-first-characters.html" target="_blank">Xylarthen</a>."</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">"Fighter" is used interchangeably with "Fighting Men," (possibly?) disproving the idea that the class was ever supposed to be male-specific.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Apparently the only races available (besides humans) are dwarves and elves. No sign of hobbits/halflings.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">It's easy to miss, but the level titles for the 2nd- and 3rd-level magic user are swapped from what the published version would be, i.e. in this draft "conjurer" is the 2nd-level title, and "seer" is the 3rd, whereas the opposite is true in the published version released in 1974.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Apparently, non-player characters were originally going to be called "non-real players" (or "non-real men").</li> </ul><p>And that's just in the first couple dozen pages. What a treasure trove!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Alzrius, post: 9275589, member: 8461"] The sheer number of glimpses into the evolution of the game from this July 1st, 1973 draft copy that Gary wrote is incredible. I'm only a few pages in, and there are so many jumping out at me: [LIST] [*]The foreword unambiguously says that the evolution of the game was as follows: The Castle & Crusade Society -> Chainmail -> Arneson's Blackmoor campaign (part of the C&C Great Kingdom) -> the D&D game. [*]The foreword directly cites Burrough's John Carter, Howard's Conan, the "de Camp & Pratt fantasies," and Leiber's Fafhrd and Gray Mouser as being the sort of stories whose fans the game will appeal to. No mention of Tolkien. [*]Only five ability scores: Intelligence, Cunning, Strength, Health, and Appearance. Notice the lack of any sort of Dexterity analogue. [*]The example NPC given is "Xylarthar," while in the published product it was changed to "[URL='https://grognardia.blogspot.com/2020/10/the-first-characters.html']Xylarthen[/URL]." [*]"Fighter" is used interchangeably with "Fighting Men," (possibly?) disproving the idea that the class was ever supposed to be male-specific. [*]Apparently the only races available (besides humans) are dwarves and elves. No sign of hobbits/halflings. [*]It's easy to miss, but the level titles for the 2nd- and 3rd-level magic user are swapped from what the published version would be, i.e. in this draft "conjurer" is the 2nd-level title, and "seer" is the 3rd, whereas the opposite is true in the published version released in 1974. [*]Apparently, non-player characters were originally going to be called "non-real players" (or "non-real men"). [/LIST] And that's just in the first couple dozen pages. What a treasure trove! [/QUOTE]
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Evidence from the Arneson vs Gygax court case, including early draft of D&D with notes
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