Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Rob Kuntz Recounts The Origins Of D&D
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Lord Rasputin" data-source="post: 7798400" data-attributes="member: 8410"><p>I’ll relate what Bob Meyer told the group when I played <em>Blackmoor</em> with him in late October 2017. This jibes with what Arneson had on his website (look in the Wayback Machine for the archive):</p><p></p><p>Meyer was playing a hero, and his hero came upon a bridge under which lived a troll. Meyer, figuring that his character is a hero and should act heroic, had his character charge at the troll. Thus Arneson broke out <em>Chainmail</em> and rolled a bunch of dice. End result: Meyer’s character bit the dust on the first action.</p><p></p><p>This didn’t sit well with the players, especially Meyer. He skipped out on <em>Blackmoor</em> games for some time (I think he did play in the Napoleonic games with this group in this timeframe, but don’t know for sure). After several weeks (I think this is spring 1971 for some reason), he came back, and Arneson no longer used <em>Chainmail</em> for combat in <em>Blackmoor</em>.</p><p></p><p>From this, we can deduce a few things. First is that nobody likes to go down in the first round. Well, <em>duh</em>, but that’s the nature of <em>Chainmail</em>: roll a bunch of d6s, loser has to take away figures based on he and the other player rolled. This makes sense for wargaming since each player has a lot of units, but for role playing games, the individual figure doesn’t make sense as the unit for attrition as the player has but one character. From a game design standpoint, this rewards the weaker combatant, since it makes the stronger combatant highly vulnerable to one bad roll. This isn’t fun, and player characters make more rolls than the monsters over the course of a campaign. This is likely the origin of hit points.</p><p></p><p>Arneson swapping out a whole combat system based on one bad set of rolls underscores something else: <em>a role playing game is more than its combat resolution system</em>. That gets at the crux of why Gygax thinks <em>Chainmail</em> is a big development: if the combat system is what’s important, then Gygax, coauthor of that combat system, did make an essential part of that game, and thus his contribution predates Arneson’s and thus Arneson only did some refocusing of the game. From Arneson’s standpoint, the combat resolution system was just one part of the game, something he could replace with little hassle. It could be <em>Chainmail</em>, but that didn’t work so out it goes, but the rest of the game stays the same.</p><p></p><p>Daniel Boggs did once point out that there’s more to <em>Chainmail</em> than it’s combat resolution system: namely, it’s spell and monster lists. Arneson likely kept using those, which again brings up Gygax’s argument. This also has a counter, which is that those lists are mostly common to fantasy literature, especially the monsters, so it’s mostly just a list of those game elements. (The monsters in <em>Monsters and Treasure</em> are almost all from mythology or literature, with almost no original creations.) I don’t think this is Gygax’s argument, though I find it better than the combat resolution system being key. Arneson almost surely did use the monsters and spells in <em>Chainmail</em> long after Meyer’s bad day with the troll.</p><p></p><p>The ease with which Arneson could swap the combat system leads me to think that he did use <em>Chainmail</em> in combat one more time: late 1972 in Lake Geneva. This makes sense, since he wants to show his game to Gygax and Gygax co-wrote <em>Chainmail</em> so you don’t need to explain to the player what you’re doing for combat if you use the combat system the player wrote. But as both participants in the troll under the bridge scenario agree on the specifics, the basics of <em>Chainmail</em> denialism seem to be true, absent other evidence. Yes, Arneson had good reason to downplay <em>Chainmail</em> and Gygax had good reason to play up <em>Chainmail</em>.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Lord Rasputin, post: 7798400, member: 8410"] I’ll relate what Bob Meyer told the group when I played [I]Blackmoor[/I] with him in late October 2017. This jibes with what Arneson had on his website (look in the Wayback Machine for the archive): Meyer was playing a hero, and his hero came upon a bridge under which lived a troll. Meyer, figuring that his character is a hero and should act heroic, had his character charge at the troll. Thus Arneson broke out [I]Chainmail[/I] and rolled a bunch of dice. End result: Meyer’s character bit the dust on the first action. This didn’t sit well with the players, especially Meyer. He skipped out on [I]Blackmoor[/I] games for some time (I think he did play in the Napoleonic games with this group in this timeframe, but don’t know for sure). After several weeks (I think this is spring 1971 for some reason), he came back, and Arneson no longer used [I]Chainmail[/I] for combat in [I]Blackmoor[/I]. From this, we can deduce a few things. First is that nobody likes to go down in the first round. Well, [I]duh[/I], but that’s the nature of [I]Chainmail[/I]: roll a bunch of d6s, loser has to take away figures based on he and the other player rolled. This makes sense for wargaming since each player has a lot of units, but for role playing games, the individual figure doesn’t make sense as the unit for attrition as the player has but one character. From a game design standpoint, this rewards the weaker combatant, since it makes the stronger combatant highly vulnerable to one bad roll. This isn’t fun, and player characters make more rolls than the monsters over the course of a campaign. This is likely the origin of hit points. Arneson swapping out a whole combat system based on one bad set of rolls underscores something else: [I]a role playing game is more than its combat resolution system[/I]. That gets at the crux of why Gygax thinks [I]Chainmail[/I] is a big development: if the combat system is what’s important, then Gygax, coauthor of that combat system, did make an essential part of that game, and thus his contribution predates Arneson’s and thus Arneson only did some refocusing of the game. From Arneson’s standpoint, the combat resolution system was just one part of the game, something he could replace with little hassle. It could be [I]Chainmail[/I], but that didn’t work so out it goes, but the rest of the game stays the same. Daniel Boggs did once point out that there’s more to [I]Chainmail[/I] than it’s combat resolution system: namely, it’s spell and monster lists. Arneson likely kept using those, which again brings up Gygax’s argument. This also has a counter, which is that those lists are mostly common to fantasy literature, especially the monsters, so it’s mostly just a list of those game elements. (The monsters in [I]Monsters and Treasure[/I] are almost all from mythology or literature, with almost no original creations.) I don’t think this is Gygax’s argument, though I find it better than the combat resolution system being key. Arneson almost surely did use the monsters and spells in [I]Chainmail[/I] long after Meyer’s bad day with the troll. The ease with which Arneson could swap the combat system leads me to think that he did use [I]Chainmail[/I] in combat one more time: late 1972 in Lake Geneva. This makes sense, since he wants to show his game to Gygax and Gygax co-wrote [I]Chainmail[/I] so you don’t need to explain to the player what you’re doing for combat if you use the combat system the player wrote. But as both participants in the troll under the bridge scenario agree on the specifics, the basics of [I]Chainmail[/I] denialism seem to be true, absent other evidence. Yes, Arneson had good reason to downplay [I]Chainmail[/I] and Gygax had good reason to play up [I]Chainmail[/I]. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Rob Kuntz Recounts The Origins Of D&D
Top