2020 - The Year of Blackmoor - 50th Anniversary - Day Ninety-Eight *** Dave Arneson Passed 11 Years Ago Today

Today I interrupt my regularly scheduled post for a more solemn occasion:

Today April 7th, 2020 is eleven years since David "Dave" Lance Arneson passed away at the very young age of only 62. If he were still with us he would have been 74 years old on his birthday in October this year.

Here on the anniversary of his passing, the 50th Anniversary of the beginnings of Blackmoor (the game and the world setting), it is bittersweet to realize that he did not live long enough to see the start of the early stages of an interest in his contributions to gaming. From his wargaming, to the Braunsteins with David Wesely, to his creation of Blackmoor with his friends, to his introduction of Blackmoor to Gygax, Kuntz and friends , to the creation of Dungeons and Dragons, the publication of The First Fantasy Campaign, the publication of Adventures in Fantasy and beyond. We can only wonder at what he could have contributed to the Secrets of Blackmoor Documentary Volume I and counting.

Unlike most, he kept his childlike love of games his entire life and enjoyed gaming up to the end of his life. When David Wesely left the Twin Cities for service in the Army Reserves in October of 1970, Arneson took over running the Braunstein's for his fellow players. This is when the true creation of Blackmoor begin. Some players remember playing in Blackmoor in December of 1970 and one left the game because of his work, so he can precisely date when it happened. Other people claim that the official date is April 17, 1971. I am inclined to go with November-December 1970 as the true date, because when Arneson started running the Braunstein's himself, that is when I believe Blackmoor came to life. At that point it became inevitable in my opinion because it was a short step from what they were already doing. The Aha! moment of "What do you want to do?" had already occurred and after that it was the play testing and trying ideas to find out how this new thing worked. Although beyond the scope of this we must not forget the contributions of Duane Jenkins and many others in the creation of roleplaying and the campaign.

Arneson wanted to share this with other people and may have had thoughts of publishing, so he thought of Gygax who was part of the widespread gaming community.

From the Wikipedia Article 

Much of the fantasy medieval trope of D&D, such as the concept of adventuring in "dungeons" originated with Blackmoor, but it also incorporated time travel and science fiction elements. These... ... were also present from the early to mid-1970s in the original campaign and parallel and intertwined games run by John Snider... Arneson described Blackmoor as "roleplaying in a non-traditional medieval setting. I have such things as steam power, gunpowder, and submarines in limited numbers. There was even a tank running around for a while. The emphasis is on the *story* and the roleplaying.

*IMPORTANT NOTE: Not story as railroad with script to follow, but story as created during play with great value placed on player choice. 

Steampunk - yeah Dave Arneson created it, Gonzo gaming - Dave Arneson created it, Science Fiction gaming - Dave Arneson created it, etc, etc, etc.

I will note here that Arneson and Gygax had previously collaborated on  Don’t Give Up the Ship a Napoleonic naval battle ruleset. More from Wikipedia starting with two years after the beginning of Blackmoor:

In November 1972, Dave Arneson and Dave Megarry traveled to Lake Geneva to meet with Gary Gygax, to provide a demonstration of Blackmoor and Dungeon! While meeting at Gygax's house, Dave Arneson ran the Lake Geneva gamers through their first session of Blackmoor. Rob Kuntz describes Dave Arneson as the referee, and the Lake Geneva players as being Gary Gygax, Ernie Gygax, Terry Kuntz, and himself. Kuntz describes Dave Megarry as the de facto leader of the group, as he understood the Blackmoor game and campaign world. In Wargaming magazine, Rob Kuntz wrote a short summary of their first Blackmoor session:

Gary, myself and a few other local wargamers were the first "lucky" fellows from Lake Geneva to experience the rigors of Blackmoor. This idea caught on deeply with Gary after an exciting adventure in which our party of heroes fought a troll, were fireballed by a magic-user, then fled to the outdoors (being chased by the Magic-user and his minions), fought four (gulp!) Balrogs, followed a map to sixteen ogres and destroyed them with a wish from a sword we had procured from the hapless troll earlier.

From the Secrets of Blackmoor FB page: 

When Dave Arneson brought Blackmoor to Gary Gygax's house in 1972, a peculiar verbal exchange transpired:
Rob Kuntz, "Where are the rules?"
Dave Arneson, "There are none"

and 

The mechanics of role playing games are all the little crunchy rules that are implemented within the role playing state, or condition, for the resolution of events. These rules are not role playing, they are just sub-routines within Arneson's play concept, according to Rob Kuntz. 

How are these game mechanics used in a role playing game?
As one plays a game, situations arise…
"You come to a door in the dungeon. What do you want do?" 

This will sound familiar to anyone who has played these games. The "What do you want to do", that comes from the referee, is a semantic trigger that tells the players it is now their turn to alter reality by making a decision. 

From "Who is Dave Arneson?" (note some links on this site do not work as they have changed): 

Practically all players of Dungeons and Dragons have heard of Gary Gygax.  But you may be surprised to learn that during Gary’s very first role-playing game session in November of 1972, he wasn’t the DM.  In fact, Gary was just another player in the party, listening intently while the DM narrated.  The list of the other players in Gary’s group that night reads like a Who’s Who of role-playing games: Robert Kuntz, coauthor of both the Greyhawk and Gods, Demi-Gods, and Heroes supplements; Terry Kuntz, future creator of the infamous Beholder; Ernie Gygax, future player of Tenser, the eponymous magic-user of Tenser’s Floating Disk and Tenser’s Transformation, and Dave Megarry, creator of the classic dungeon-crawl board game DUNGEON!  And who was the DM of Gary’s very first role-playing game session?  None other than Dave Arneson.  Robert Kuntz later recorded a few events from that momentous game:

“…our party of heroes fought a troll, were fireballed by a magic-user, then fled to the outdoors (being chased by the magic-user and his minions), fought four (gulp!) Balrogs, followed a map to sixteen ogres and destroyed them with a wish from a sword we had procured from the hapless troll earlier…”

If you’ve ever played Dungeons and Dragons, you might mistakenly believe from reading the above account that they were playing D&D, which in fact didn’t exist in 1972.  Instead, they were playing an entirely new genre of game that Arneson had been developing for at least 18 months prior to demonstrating it to the Gygax.  Dave and his friends referred to his new creation simply as “Blackmoor.”  It was the world’s first role-playing game, the “prototype” of Dungeons & Dragons as Gygax himself called it.  Following that first session, which “caught on deeply with Gary” and left him “exuberant,” Gygax went to work “immediately.”  In about six weeks, after dozens of phone calls with Arneson, Gygax finished typing up a 100-page first draft of what would later become known as Dungeons & Dragons…

This next is from the Empire of Imagination: Gary Gygax and the Birth of Dungeons & Dragons

Gary, like his Blackmoor gaming companions of the evening, didn't sleep much that night. ... ... Gary lay in bed recalling the night's events. He and his band of adventurers had, in the course of that evening, explored a dungeon, fought a troll, been chased form the dungeon by a fireball-wielding wizard, encountered a handful of Balrogs, and, to top it all off, skirmished with over a dozen ogres. It wasn't so much the fighting of these creatures that had his head spinning... No, it wasn't the warfare that had his mind turning that night. It was the look and feel of the dank dungeon as they made their way through its dimly lit corridors; it was the plume of smoke that rose above the trees of the ogre camp as they approached. These visions had all been aptly described to them by the game's referee and creator, Dave Arneson. Furthermore, Gary's group was playing along, each adopting a persona with a certain set of skills, weapons, and armor. Each player spoke and acted as his character within the confines of the game, while the referee would describe not only the sights and sounds but also the effects of their actions.

You will note from this game description that virtually all of the elements that make up an Original Dungeons and Dragons game were already present at the time Gygax was first exposed to the Blackmoor game. The game engine and the structure, look and feel  of play were already fully formed before Gygax ever set pen to paper. I am not denying the contributions of Gygax in converting Arneson's game to written form, his part of the crunch and his major role in bringing OD&D to publication. Let us just credit each man for what they did.

After EOI compared  it to one of Arneson's Napoleon Simulation Campaign he says:

But never before had such a game been so immersive and flowing, with a single referee to set the game's parameters and keep the **story going, while each player played his own part. It felt like a form of group storytelling, or a play with a director but no ***script. The game was spontaneous and improvisational, unleashing tremendous creativity,****...

**game going, not implying following a script.
*** and no predetermined outcome.
****IMO following here as in other places and in other works fiction sometimes replaces fact.

So today remember Dave Arneson and tip your hat to him every time you game.