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Message: <blockquote data-quote="rogueattorney" data-source="post: 1589517" data-attributes="member: 17551">The easy question first:  Tactical Studies Rules - or something like that.  They were wargamers, remember.O.K., now the hard one.  My understanding from reading a number of accounts from both G.G. and D.A. is that Gary co-wrote a medieval miniatures wargame called Chainmail.  This was a straight historical wargame, but had rules for 1:1 fighting and a "Fantasy Supplement" for adding magic and monsters to the mix.  Dave Arneson adapted the 1:1 rules, the Fantasy Supplement, and the suggestion that underground sieges and mining could be played out w/ pen and paper, and began a dungeon campaign - Blackmoor.  Gygax and Arneson were part of the same wargaming association, and corresponed regarding Arneson's adoption of the Chainmail rules to his Blackmoor campaign.  Arneson sent a bunch of his house rules to Gygax, detailing his campaign.  At about the same time, Gygax started his Greyhawk campaign.  Gygax put Arneson's rules together, added some of his own stuff, and then published the first Dungeons & Dragons set.  Gygax and Arneson each began working on Supplements developed from their own campaign, and each were published in 1975.The controversy comes from who developed what and when.  How much did Arneson take from Chainmail?  How much of what Arneson provided Gygax ended up in the D&D rules? How much did Gygax add to what Arneson provided?  Etc.  The OD&Dities article cited above is a good source for Gygax's version of things, and I believe Arneson's website has a decent write up of his version.  Here's an article from the Acaeum, going into the influence Chainmail had on Arneson: <a href="http://www.acaeum.com/DDIndexes/SetPages/Chainmail.html" target="_blank">http://www.acaeum.com/DDIndexes/SetPages/Chainmail.html</a>There are also a number or retellings of the creation of D&D in The Dragon.  The Dragon CD-Rom archive is a great source for the game's history.Personally, I don't think it matters too much.  It was clearly a collaberative effort, and the game never would have happened without both men.  The reason Gygax tends to overshadow Arneson is because of Gygax's continuing involvement in gaming and massive amount of gaming materials he's written in the years since the creation of D&D.R.A.</blockquote>

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