2020 - The Year of Blackmoor - 50th Anniversary - Day One Hundred and Fifty

Celebrating 2020 - The Year of Blackmoor - 50th Anniversary of Blackmoor and of Role-Playing!

Arneson writes:

Magic Swords & Matrix

Prior to setting up Blackmoor, I spent a considerable effort in setting up an entire family of Magical Swords. The Swords, indeed comprise most of the early magical artifacts. A small table was prepared and the Swords' characteristics set up on cards.

Later on a new Table was forumlated and used for generating Swords in other Castles. After the 3rd year there were four other Castles in the Blackmoor campaign and I had at least three myself, so more uniform rules were needed. The magical items list at the end of Chapter II was, again, the first attempt to set up such a matrix. The nature and the powers of the Spells and Swords were taken right from the available copies of Chainmail, which served as the basis for all our combat.

But we know that last was not really true other than very briefly as the players rebelled against dying after only one hit, so Arneson devised his own combat system, with hit points and the whole shebang. Chainmail was used for mass combat between armies. Which is of course what it is really designed to do best.

Magic Swords Personality Matrix "Blackmoor"

Below will be posted a few example portions of this Matrix:

So yeah, this is a pretty extensive matrix.

Next up is a section just noted as Matrix and Arneson writes:

Matrix

The Magic Swords of Mythology are varied creatures that can give great power to their owners, *who are sometimes helpless without them. Only Swords have these powerful variations and capabilities. Other weapons are relegated lesser bonuses due to their shapes, that do not lend themselves to magical incantations.

*Do you know the reference?

As you can see a lot goes into designing a magic sword. Also some pretty big chunks of this made its way into OD&D via the Magic Swords section in Volume II Monsters & Treasure.

Here are a portion of the Tables that are referred to above:

Part of the instructions on building a Sword using these tables.

Holy Swords are my favorite type of Magic Sword. As Paladins are my favorite character class. The bad rap that Paladins get is not due to the class, it is (IMO) due entirely to the misinterpretations of the class resulting in something that is not Lawful or Good.

This details how special abilities are determined and assigned to swords.

While I do create and enjoy a wide range of magic items, I love to create magic swords and I really agree with Arneson about them being the premium magic item above  all others.

Now tomorrow we are going to look at Gypsy Sayings and Chance Cards. Now before people go off on the word Gypsy I must note that this was writen back in the early 1970s and for most of America any knowledge that Gypsy would be offensive to anyone was something that was off in the dim misty future, unknown and undreamt of. For myself growing up watching movies the Gypsies were this mysterious exotic people that had this wonderful music and amazing folk dancing and this close knit culture. Growing up in America, I would see all of these deeply ethnic cultures in movies that had this rich heritage on display and while I had quite a bit of that in my immediate family that was unique to us, there was barely a trace of that in the surrounding world at large.In so many ways America can be culture-less and we are poorer for it.

It was a long, long time before I found out that Gypsies were widely viewed negatively, instead of just a few idiots here and there. As a kid I thought of hate for different cultures as being unique to a few people and not a widespread thing. I love different cultures and accents from different places around the world. Accents different than my own are music to my ears. I do not ever want everyone to sound the same. I love cultures that have colorful ethnic clothing. I love the bright colors and patterns that different peoples have and when I see people dressing in the clothing of their ancestral homeland, I think that is something to celebrate. 

I suppose I was very lucky to have parents that did not teach me to hate. My parents grew up in the center of WV during the depression of the 1930s farming with horses back in the center of the Appalachian Mountains.My dad had worked for a few year in Parkersburg on the Ohio River before returning home and getting married. During the second summer of their marriage a black man that my dad knew from working in the city came and stayed a week with my parents in their home and like most things my dad had a very long funny story to go with it. My dad had hundreds if not thousands of stories. But I remember my mom saying "He was the first black man I had ever seen." It was hard to imagine living in such an isolated area that you could be 20 years old and say that. But before television when you lived in a remote rural area it was isolated.

So I said all of that to say that I grew up viewing ethnicity as a high value thing and something that people should be proud of that the music and dance and stories and songs of different cultures was a good thing and my view of Gypsies was and remains positive. I was long gone from childhood before I ever heard the word the words Romani/Roma as the correct names for Gypsies. I think it is very sad that a word that sounds so beautiful when read and spoken is viewed as an insult and as a slur. In the early 70s I (and I think Arneson too) was totally naive to such an idea. I never dreamed that this and many other words were negative and when people read things from years ago, I think they should be conscious of the fact that many people did not use many words in a negative sense nor did they have any idea that there was anything bad about those words. So I think we should be very careful about ascribing ill intent to things from previous years and different times.

There were words that my parents taught me at a young age not to use, even if other people did use them. They also taught me why I should not use them. From my vantage point, now at 64 years old, I am amazed at how poorly our schools teach history and how little is covered in school. I have read a lot of history on my own over the years and I am saddened by all of the history I had in school from 4th grade on of pretty much being a repeat of the same small amount of partially accurate stuff every year and how much more could have been taught. 

So I hope that you can enjoy the post tomorrow (or rather tonight as I write this in the wee hours and am late getting this posted) and not get hung up on things from a different time and place. While the majority of us stop doing things once we learn they are wrong, it is a mistake to try to retcon  history and I believe it must presented as it was and viewed on its own merit in context. Do virtually all of us grow up with unconscious bias in various areas?Yes, all do. Should we look back on our youth and view ourselves as 
being terrible people for those things we did not know at the time, no that would be very wrong. No we should judge ourselves based on what we do after we learn things. We should give other people the same leeway. I do not assume people are bad people (as individuals) unless they show me that is the case. 

So I hope to see you back here for the next post.