Minnesota Team Plan Dave Arneson Convention in October 2022

 As a response to the post I made yesterday about DaveCon 2023, one of the members of the Minnesota Team of gamers reached out to me and told me a bit more about their plans for a separate convention in October this year. 

The Minnesota Team told me they do not wish to be seen as working against DaveCon. The original Blackmoor players have been meeting for gaming each year for as long as Dave Arneson was alive. When Dave passed away, Bob Meyer took over responsibilities as the Dungeon Master of the group starting with the memorial game in 2010 that Dave's daughter also mentions in Secrets of Blackmoor. The planned convention in October is to be a continuation of these annual conventions. While no official announcement has yet been made, I was told that David Wesely will be present running Braunstein Games as will Bill Hoyt. Most likely other members of the original group and their friends will also attend. 

What this means to me is that fans of Blackmoor, Dave Arneson and gaming in general get two conventions instead of one. And there seems to be enough of an interest to support both conventions. That is a very good thing. I hope as many as possible support all of these projects to commemorate the legacy of Dave Arneson and celebrate gaming in all its forms.

-Havard

DaveCon 2023 in the works

 The convention known as DaveCon will return for 2023. The convention named after Dave Arneson will take place in Minnesota in April of next year according to organizer Victor Dorso. Special guests for next years convention will include Blackmoor alumni David Wesely, Mike Carr and Bill Hoyt.

In a recent interview at Tabletop Taproom, Dorso talked about his plans for next year's convention with host Tom /Jedion. In the interview, Dorso says that he sees DaveCon as a continuation of the annual Blackmoor games, that the original Blackmoor players held at the gaming store known as The Source following Arneson's passing in 2009. Dorso also talked about how last year's convention with the theme of unification was met with some negativity from various individuals both from Minnesota and others wanting to start a rival convention. He also admits that controversy surrounding Ernie Gygax Jr. may have contributed to these reactions. However, Dorso is optimistic about nex year's convention that will take place at a larger venue. 

Dorso has a great deal of plans for next year's convention and plans on making the event much larger than last years with gaming events, food, beer and other activities, including an app that will let gamers order food and have it brought to their tables. He also stressed that both men and women are welcome at the convention and should feel safe to attend. Children are also welcome as long as they are there in the company of an adult. 

Highlights for next year's convention include Braunstein games with David Wesely and Mike Carr running the classic adventure B1 In Search of Unknown, written by Carr and published by TSR in 1978. Bill Hoyt's Blackmoor Castle model that Dave Arneson used for his games will also be on display at the convention. Many old and new RPGs will be played at Dave Con 2023.

A separate Dave Arneson convention organised by others has been discussed for later this year, but nothing formal has been announced yet. Dave Wesely spoke fondly about his experiences at DaveCon 2022 and says he would gladly participate at both conventions, suggesting that there would be enough interest for two such conventions to the Co-Creator of D&D. 

It has always been the idea of this author to support all things that would honor the gaming legacy of Dave Arneson and the Minnesota Gamers. I think having Mike Carr as a guest of honor along with Wesely and Hoyt puts a much needed emphasis of next years DaveCon as an event in that tradition. 

Further discussion of this article here.

-Havard

DA4 Duchy of Ten back in Print!

 The Complete DA module series is now available as Print on Demand from DrivethruRPG. The final module, DA4 Duchy of Ten just became available in this format. It had previously only been available as a PDF.

DA4 notably is the only module in the series that was not credited to Dave Arneson, but only to Dave Ritchie who had been credited as co-author of the previous three modules. Arneson later said that, unlike with the previous three adventures, he had not been consulted for this one. On the other hand, much of the adventure background repeats and expands upon elements that can be found in earlier instalments of the series. When Arneson's company Zeitgeist Games detailed these lands, they stayed fairly close to the descriptions of the Duchy as shown in DA4. 

Read my review of DA4 from a few years back here. 

Get your copy of Duchy of Ten here  (Non-affiliate link)

-Havard

DA1 Adventures in Blackmoor - Once again in print format!

 As I reported a few days ago, Drivetrhu RPG is now offering some of the old WotC owned TSR modules of the DA series as Print on Demand products.

DA2 Temple of the Frog and DA3 City of the Gods were mentioned in my previous article, but now the time has come for DA1 Adventures in Blackmoor!

Back in 2016 I reported that DA1 had been made available for sale as a PDF from DrivethruRPG.  Adventures in Blackmoor is backed with information about the world of Blackmoor. I wrote a review of it back in 2009 that you can read here. 

ORDER A PRINT COPY HERE

(Non-affiliate link)

Thanks to Morfie at The Piazza for letting me know about this release. Thanks to Dartamian and Night Druid for letting me know about the other DA modules!

Are you going to get a copy of DA1 Adventures in Blackmoor to add to your collection? Please let me know :)

-Havard

Blackmoor is back in print!

 Last week two classic Blacmoor adventures once again became available as print on demand releases from Wizards of the Coast. 

The two adventures in question are part of the series of modules published by TSR between 1986-1987. Labelled the DA series or Dave Arneson series, the adventures were written by Dave Arneson and David Ritchie for the BECMI edition of D&D. Four DA modules were published and it is interesting to see that the two first to make it back to Print on Demand format from DrivethruRPG are two that focus on some of the most iconic adventure locations of Dave Arneson's setting.

You can get both modules as PDF or in Print Format from DrivethruRPG by following these links:

DA2 Temple of the Frog

DA3 City of the Gods

I also hope that WotC will release DA1 Adventures in Blackmoor soon. Not only was this the first module in the series, but it also serves as a great introduction to the setting. 

In any case, it is really cool to see these adventures back in print. Are you planning to pick them up, dear readers? 

-Havard

Was DaveCon 2022 a Failure?

 As mentioned earlier on this blog, DaveCon 2022, a convention taking place on April 8.-11 2022 in Minneapolis Minnesota, was an event to commemorate the legacy of Dave Arneson. In the days following the convention, there have been surprisingly few reports or photos coming out of the event and for the most part the social media connected to the organisers, the event itself and guests of honor were pretty much silent. This struck me as a bad sign. 

Ernie Gygax and David Wesely

However, some reports are now coming out, suggesting that DaveCon was a a great time for those who were there, although a much smaller event than many of the participants were hoping for. In a video by TSR alumni Tim Kask, the former Dragon Magazine editor suggested that the reasons for the convention not being more successful was a schism formed in Minneapolis caused by "colossal egos" and negativity from the Arneson Estate. 

As a long time fan of Dave Arneson, I would have liked to see this event be an amazing success. It is great that we have finally reached a point in history where people from all corners of the hobby would like to recognise the importance of the legacy of Dave Arneson and his Minnesota group of gamers. As Tim Kask says, it was the meeting between this tradition of gaming and the Lake Geneva group of gamers that gave rise to Dungeons & Dragons. As I have mentioned before, I think it is admirable of Tim Kask, who had a big falling out with Dave Arneson, to be willing to participate in a convention that honored this legacy.

While I am not subject to all on goings over there from where I sit on the other side of the Atlantic, I think Kask is wrong about the Arneson Estate having any blame for what happened to this convention. DaveCon organizer Vic Dorso has previously claimed that he was told not to contact the Estate which seems very strange to me and makes me suspect that this would have been a misunderstanding. 

As to the reasons why the convention was not met with more enthusiasm, I think the answer is a little more complicated than how Kask relates it. Here are a few things:

1) Unfortunate associations with Ernie's other endeavours. While DaveCon apparently has no connections to Ernie Gygax' other gaming industry ventures, having Ernie  as one of the first announced guests of honor was not just an odd choice for a convention dedicated to Dave Arneson, but it also made the bad reputation of Ernie's other involvements bleed over onto DaveCon in the eyes of many fans. It did not help that the DaveCon organiser was observed on social media joking with one of Ernie's less reputable partners about not needing to respect the Arneson Estate. (Note: This blog is not taking an anti Ernie stance or suggesting that Ernie should not have been invited, but given the current atmosphere in many corners of our hobby, perhaps including his name as one of the main headliners was a poor decision from a PR perspective).

2) Although Blackmoor Alumni such as David Wesely and Bill Hoyt were brought on board as guests of honor, there was very little about the convention that brought associations to Dave Arneson or Blackmoor. No photos of Dave were used, no Blackmoor imagery or even much textual description of the importance of Dave's legacy in the promo material. 

3) Failure to involve Blackmoor alumni or hardcore fans. I am not subject to the organiser's efforts to engage the Minnesota gamers, but I know that some discussions on closed forums blew up. On the other hand, The Comeback Inn or the Blackmoor related Facebook groups that I organise saw close to zero engagement. There are many other Blackmoor players from the original campaign still around. The Arneson Estate could have been contacted. What about Dustin Clingman who published Blackmoor with Dave for the 3rd and 4th edition of Blackmoor? Or the producers of the Secrets of Blackmoor Documentary? Now, it is possible that all of these people were being difficult, but that is not my experiene with any of them, especially when it comes to an effort to honor Dave's legacy. 

I would like to stress that I am not saying any of this to gloat. I would like to see a convention in Dave's name be as successful as it has the potential to be. Maybe it could become something like GaryCon was in its early days which I hear was a small, but extremely cool convention. Victor Dorso has already announced that he is planning a new DaveCon in April next year, so hopefully some of the issues with this year's convention can be worked out by then. 

If anyone should want to organise future Dave Arneson related events, I can offer free advice to those who ask! :)

-Havard

Comeback Inn Forum is Back!

 After a period of downtime, we are happy to announce that the Comeback Inn Forum is once again up and running! We have updated the forum software and hopefully we are back better than ever before. We really appreciate your patience during our downtime and we really look forward to seeing everyone back at the ultimate fansite for Dave Arneson's Blackmoor!

Click here to return to Blackmoor!

-Havard