Every so often I read something on the net about Dave Arneson fans who have the most unreasonable opinions. Supposedly, there are a number of these people who insist that Dave Arneson was the sole originator of Dungeons & Dragons and that Gary merely spread the good word.
Now, I am sure that a few of these people do exist. But in my experience they are not many. Sometimes I see people praising Dave Arneson who are just using Dave's name as an excuse to attack Gary Gygax or D&D. It is often easy to see that many of them aren't real D&D fans or they have some other reason to dislike Gary or his legacy. Most of those people are clearly not real Dave Arneson fans, but people just using Arneson's name to serve their own agenda.
As to real Dave Arneson fans, they are usually not very vocal at all. The ones who do speak out are often found at The Comeback Inn where we are all a very reasonable lot.
As more and more fans of D&D are becoming interested in the origins of the hobby, it is not surprising that many look into the role Dave Arneson and his group played in creating the game. While there are still many things that are unclear about what aspects of the game were added when and by whom, I think it is unfair to assume that one group of fans are less reasonable than another.
This is the second day of Blackmoor Week and we are soon approaching Dave Arneson Game Day (October 1st). It is a good time to remind people of the people and the ideas that lead to the creation of the game and also of the great ideas that were lost along the way as Dave and Gary were both eventually cast aside.
More discussion of this topic here!
-Havard
II do wonder what would have happened if Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax had both given themselves 50 percent stakes in some sort of "Dungeons & Dragons LLC" and then set up TSR with an exclusive licence to sell D&D products for them.
ReplyDeleteWould there have been more Blackmoor products from TSR?
Would TSR's Blackmoor have been a thing outside of Mystara?
Would we have had the BECMI / AD&D split, without sneaky people using that as an excuse to try to avoid paying Dave?
Would a stronger Blackmoor line, from TSR, invalidated the need for one or more of the later TSR settings?
If more development for Blackmoor and Greyhawk had been done at TSR, would any of the 2e campaign settings have happened?