TSR The Dueling Essays of Arneson & Gygax

A recent article and documentary about Dave Arneson's involvement in Dungeons & Dragons shares a different perspective on the game's creation, with a particular emphasis on Rob Kuntz's testimony. Some of it contradicts what Gary Gygax positioned as D&D's origins. Fortunately we can read what both designers thoughts in their very own words -- published in the same book.

Alzrius pointed out that both Arneson and Gygax contributed essays to Lawrence Schick's Heroic Worlds. What's startling is how their essays contradict each other just pages apart.

Heroic Worlds, published in 1991, was an attempt to catalog every tabletop role-playing games publication. It was a massive undertaking that was possible only because of the limited scope of the hobby. Thanks to electronic publishing, the Open Game License, and the Internet, tabletop gaming products have exploded -- DriveThruRPG has over 30,000 products alone -- making it impossible to produce a book of this scope ever again. It also provides a snapshot in time of the thoughts of various game designers, including Steve Jackon, Jennell Jaquays, Tom Moldavy, Sandy Petersen, Ken St. Andre, Michael Stackpole, Greg Stafford, Erick Wujcik and more.

Arneson kicks off the D&D controversy on page 131:

My first set of miniatures rules was for fighting out battles with sailing ships. This led me to meet several people, including Gary Gygax, at an early GenCon. These people later participated in a historical campaign I refereed. When I began refereeing what later became D&D in Minnesota, I mentioned it to them. They were interested, and when some of us went down to visit we all played this strange game...the lads in Lake Geneva got turned on to it. Tactical Studies Rules, a Lake Geneva-based game company, was already publishing historical rules and was willing to do D&D.

Gygax follows up on the origins of D&D in a short one-page essay on the very next page:

In the late 1960s a club called the Lake Geneva Tactical Studies Association met weekly at my home for military/naval miniatures gaming. From this activity sprang Chainmail. The D&D game was drawn from its rules, and that is indisputable. Chainmail was the progenitor of D&D, but the child grew to excel its parent.

This point is disputed by RPG archivist, Paul Stromberg, in the Kotaku article, "Dungeons & Deceptions: The First D&D Players Push Back On The Legend Of Gary Gygax":

“People think that Blackmoor arose from Chainmail, and thus Chainmail gave rise to Dungeons & Dragons. That is not correct,” said Stormberg, the RPG historian. While Chainmail, amongst other things, was an influence on Blackmoor, Arneson’s game was “entirely new,” he said. “It’s a game entirely unlike Chainmail. It’s like saying a Rodin uses red and a Picasso uses red so they’re the same style of painting.”

This perspective is shared by Arneson himself in his first essay:

Contrary to rumor, the players and I were all quite in control of our mental processes when D&D was designed. I also hasten to point out hat the Chainmail connection was the use of the Combat Matrix and nothing more. Find a first-edition Chainmail and compare it to a first-edition Original D&D someday and you will see that for yourself: not a hit point, character class, level, or armor class, much less any role-playing aspects in Chainmail.

Arneson's perspective on the game industry comes through in the other essays scattered throughout the book. Here's his version of how Blackmoor came about:

I originally began with a simple dungeon and expanded it into several dungeons loosely organized as a campaign. The rules were not really an organized set, more notes on what I had earlier. Today people expect a lot more detail, coherency, organization, and story.

Here's Arneson's thoughts on writing a scenario:

When I design a scenario, sometimes the plot or situation will come from books I read, and sometimes it just pops into my head...Changes are made, and then the work is sent off to be butchered--er, ah, edited, I mean...The original Blackmoor supplement included what was the very first published scenario. My intention was that it would serve as a guideline for other GMs to design their own. Instead, it spawn an entire "service" industry. Oh, well...

And finally here's what Arneson thought of the game industry:

My serious advice to the would-be role-playing-game author will sound cruel and heartless, and most will be offended and not listen. To would be game designers I say: seek useful employment in another field...play your own house rules with your friends and associates; it will be less painful and far more fun. (On the other hand, frankly, I wouldn't have listened to an old fogey like me.)

Gygax's thoughts on the subject of D&D are well-known; Arneson's less so, and Heroic Worlds is a trove of his perspective on tabletop gaming and publishing, undoubtedly informed by his legal tussles with TSR. The difference between Arenson and Gygax's approach to gaming is starkly illustrated in their essays. And yet, despite their long and sometimes antagonistic history, Gygax ends his essay on a hopeful note:

Dave Arneson and I have spoken frequently since the time we devised D&D. We don't plan to collaborate on another game, but just maybe one day he'll decide to combine talents again.

Did Gygax mean "we'll" instead of "he'll"? Gygax ends the essay with our only answer: Who knows?

 

[Yaarel]

NO!

The first appearance of the Thief (OD&D) was in the Great Plains Game Newsletter #9. prior to the appearance in OD&D's Greyhawk (which is after Men & Magic).

In the newsletter, Gygax thanks "Gary Schweitzer" (Gary Switzer) of Aero Games; this version of the Aero Games Thief has already been discussed. You are literally making stuff up! Given the large number of sources (documents, contemporary accounts, people who played the Aero Games thief) what are you doing?

This is one of the better-known origins. And since it isn't flattering to Gygax, you can't just retreat to "Ya'll are a bunch of ignorant Gygax worshippers ..."

NO!

The first appearance of the Thief is in the transcripts of the Arneson campaign.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I'm sure I posted this at some point a while ago, but since I'm a helper, I'll do it again

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

This can only be resolved in Thunderdome.

 

[Yaarel]

It is an academic error to ignore the Arneson transcripts.

Gygax is reading these transcripts with great attention.

Gygax himself knows Megarry invented the Thief character.

Whether TSR publishes rules for Thief early or late is irrelevant.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Yaarel]

Since an 8 minute video on youtube caused you to do a total 180 on everything you said before, and now you are concerned about "academic error" how about reading Playing at the World (available at Amazon) and get back to us?

Thanks.

My perspective went from ‘cocreators’ (which is also the perspective of Secrets of Blackmoor).

My change in perspective comes from Gygax’s own words in Foreward of the original Dungeons & Dragons which states that these rules are the result of Arneson’s campaign.

In the context of the evidence of the transcripts, and Gygax’s own propensity to steal and unwillingness to cede credit to anyone else,

my honesty requires me to credit Arneson as the inventor of D&D.

Gygax is D&D 1e.

Arneson is D&D.

Every single version of D&D ‘from step one’ is in the manuscripts of Arneson and his gaming group.

 

[Yaarel]

Playing at the World is a seminal work and still enjoys academic respect.

But this book has been around long enough for other scholars to clarify errors within the book, including errors concerning dates and attribution.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Alzrius]

For those wondering about the thief debate, here are some resources:

A post on Havard's blog says the following:

Although it is not mentioned by Dave Arneson, it has recently been revealed that David Megarry's Thief character, was also involved in trying to thwart Nicholson's plans.

There's also a thread on odd74 where one poster asserts:

In Blackmoor, Dave Megarry played a thief (McDuck) in 1972, but of course, his skills and advancement was no different than any other characters'. It was his activities that made him a thief. So Megarry's character advanced in levels as a fighter would.

By contrast, Jon Peterson traces the history of the thief character class to Gary Switzer of Aero Hobbies, who subsequently told Gary Gygax about the idea, and later formed the genesis for the thief class that we saw in Supplement I: Greyhawk.