Wednesday, July 26, 2017

500 Likes!

My blog just got 500 Likes on Facebook. Thank you very much! :)



Thank you everyone who keep coming back to check out my articles. Thank you for the comments and feedback! This is what makes doing something like this meaningful :)


-Havard

Tuesday, July 25, 2017

Chainmail Co-Creator Jeff Perren 70 years today!

Today is a good time to honor another important figure in the history of our hobby. Jeff Perren turns 70 years old today. He was a member of the Lake Geneva Tactical Association (LGTSA) which was the group who used to meet regularly in Gary Gygax' basement for gaming. Among gamers today, Jeff Perren is best known as the Co-Creator of Chainmail. The original version of the ruleset was distributed in the Domesday Book, which many of my readers will know was the fanzine for the Castles & Crusades Society.

Edit: Frank Mentzer revealed the following on the origins on the original edition of Chainmail:
"I believe that Jeff was the sole Compiler/Author of Chainmail (the version for the club, gathering various good ideas and massaging them into coherence). For publication, Gary had to give it more work. I also believe this fact is vastly overlooked."
The original version of the ruleset was distributed in 1970, while Guidon Games published their 1st edition in 1971. TSR published their first version (3rd edition) in 1975 (Acaeum).

For a while, many incorrectly assumed that Blackmoor was simply a variant of the Chainmail game, but although I think that most people these days accept that that is just a myth, gaming historians and fans still debate to what extent Chainmail did influence the two creators of Dungeons & Dragons. My friend DHBoggs has written som excellent articles about this on his blog here.



No matter where you land on those debates, I think we should all be able to recognize that Chainmail was an important milestone in the development of our hobby and we can be thankful for Jeff Perren's contributions. In this short interview, Perren humbly admits that he recieved no royalties for Chainmail, but that he is happy that some of the things he created are still loved. The World of Greyhawk also has a region, Perrenland, that is named after him.

Happy birthday Jeff!



***





Note: Image taken from this blog
Note: Thanks to author Matt Forbeck for making me aware of the date of Mr Perren's Birthday.

More discussion of this topic at The Comeback Inn


-Havard

Blackmoor Player Bill Hoyt Shares Campaign Notes in Free PDF

  Bill Hoyt is one of the surviving members of the Blackmoor Bunch, the group that played in Dave's Blackmoor campaign and parttook in o...