Annual Celebration of Blackmoor Campaign Day - April 17th, 1970/1971 (See an Updated comment)

Update: The quote below that I referred to said 1971, but at this link the newsletter clearly shows April 17, 1970. Secrets of Blackmoor, but then it goes on to show another image of the next newsletter in the series with the date May 22, 1071. So did the other quotes I saw, think they were correcting the 1970 to 1971 because they thought 1071 was 1971 or something else. Was there a typo in both newsletters or just in one? Perhaps we should see the dates in all of the other newsletters before and after these two.
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As far as I know, the first published mention of a Blackmoor game seems to have appeared in Arneson's Corner of the Table fanzine (Vol. 3 No. 4) and it reads:

There will be a medevil "BRAUNSTEIN" April 17, 1971 at the home of David Arneson from 1500 hrs to 2400 hrs with refreshments being available on the usual basis. Players may come at any time and any number are welcome to attend what should prove to be an exciting time.  It will feature mythical creatures and a poker game under the Troll's bridge between sunup and sundown.

The First Fantasy Campaign "Blackmoor" Map from the Jovian Clouds Blackmoor Archives

Many say this the first Blackmoor Game ever played. I certainly do not have a problem with celebrating this as David Arneson's Blackmoor Campaign Day every year. After all I get to celebrate my birthday at the same time. April 17th, works out really good for me. Halenar Frosthelm is a pen name that dates back to 7th grade when I had delusions of writing books, but my first name is David, so anyone who celebrates today is celebrating my birthday too. While it would be a lot of fun to believe that the synergy between David Wesely and David Arneson came together to create the first instance of Blackmoor on this David's birthday April 17th, I do not believe that this was the first Blackmoor game.

It certainly does not claim to be the first time Blackmoor was played. Dave Arneson took over the Braunsteins when David Wesely left in October of 1970. I believe that is when Blackmoor truly began, and in truth I believe it really had begun earlier than that from the the synergy between Wesely and Arneson, they just did not know it yet.

John Snider, who was an early player, said here:

Dan:
One of the things people have discussed back and forth is chronology. Dave Arneson said he invented Blackmoor over the Christmas holiday, but it’s not clear which year. Do you remember if it was December of 1970 or December of 1971? Some folks have said it was the last week or two in 1970 but Chainmail wasn’t published till the summer of ’71, and since Mr. Arneson said he started off using Chainmail, it would seem to have to have been the last week or two of 1971. 

Mr. Snider:
I thought that Dave had a draft copy of chainmail (or something like it) prior to publication, at least what he had behind the judge's invisibility spell was a raft of paper and not a book .. that came later. I thought we started in 70 not 71.

Greg Svenson, who was another early player, said here:

I have the unique experience of being the sole survivor of the first dungeon adventure in the history of "Dungeons & Dragons", indeed in the history of role-playing in general. This is the story of that first dungeon adventure. 

During the Christmas break of 1970-71; our gaming group was meeting in Dave Arneson's basement in St. Paul, Minnesota. We had been playing a big Napoleonics miniatures campaign, which was getting bogged down in long drawn out miniatures battles. So, as a diversion for the group, one weekend Dave set up Blackmoor instead of Napoleonics on his ping pong table. The rules we used were based on "Chainmail", which is a set of medieval miniature rules with a fantasy supplement allowing for magic and various beings found in the "Lord of the Rings". I had never played any games like it before, although I had read "Lord of the Rings". Other members of the group had played the game before, but always doing adventures in and around the town of Blackmoor. By the end of the weekend I had fallen in love with the game.

Dave Arneson himself, wrote in The First Fantasy Campaign (pg. 42, 1977):

The Dungeon was first established in the Winter and Spring of 1970-71 and it grew from there.

Given the agreement and Winter/Christmas matchups and the announcement in April it was seem Winter 1970-71 would be accurate.

Then there is this:

However, in their earliest accounts virtually all of the Blackmoor players cited 1970 as the date of inception. Although several people, including Arneson, later decided that their memories must be faulty after looking at the documentary evidence (further muddying the waters), the most significant testimony is that of David Fant: He was the original Baron of Blackmoor and infamously became the first vampire. As such, he definitively played in the earliest sessions of Blackmoor, and yet he stopped playing when he got a job at KSTP at the end of 1970 and definitely was not playing with Arneson in 1971. (The fact he can definitively date the event which caused him to stop playing with Arneson lends his account substantial credibility.)

This seems to me to be quite solid as it references real world events.

And yes, just for the record based the information that I have seen over the past year.I have changed my position since I posted this and no longer believe that April 17th was the earliest beginning of Blackmoor.

So I celebrate the birth of Blackmoor as late November/December of 1970 and Blackmoor Campaign Day as April 17th. You will all have to decide what you think. I think nailing down a specific date is not really possible and fighting about it is a waste of good gaming time.




**My birthday part is this is 90% tongue in cheek, if you were wondering about that.