Arduin Week Day Five 2021

Today I want to highlight a post by DM David (blog) titled Once subversive, the Arduin Grimoire’s influence reaches today’s games.

He says,

Dave Hargrave’s campaign world of Arduin was not built; it was piled. To create Arduin, Hargrave took every fantastic element he dreamed up or fancied and piled them into one work of love. If Tekumal is a museum, with treasures for contemplation, then Arduin is a dragon’s horde, with everything shiny heaped to the walls.

Dragon's Horde is an apt description, as Arduin is filled with riches and to the discerning reader there are still things to be found in Arduin that is found no where else. Gygax commercialized Arneson's creation, but Hargrave fully understood Arneson's creation and built on what Arneson wrought in the same spirit in which Arneson wrought. No disrespect to Gygax, but for me when I sit down at the table, I want to do what Arneson did, what Hargrave did and that is put fun and immersion ahead of all rules. Some people say that "fun" is vague and meaningless to use to describe the game. I say that "fun" is shorthand for several hours of monologue about the game. (I am trying to remember who said that and where I read it.) All I can say is if you don't understand "fun," then you need to play a truly old school game and find out what it is.

In a look back on the trilogy, Ryk Spoor called Arduin “one of the most absolutely concentrated essences of the fun of roleplaying games ever made.”

And

To us, Hargrave preached bigger imaginary playgrounds. “The very essence of fantasy gaming is its total lack of limitation on the scope of play, both in its content and in its appeal to people of all ages, races, occupations or whatever,” Hargrave wrote. “So don’t limit the game by excluding aliens or any other type of character or monster. If they don’t fit what you feel is what the game is all about, don’t just say ‘NO!,’ whittle on them a bit until they do fit.” (Vol. II, p.99)