Ernie Gygax Passes Away

 

I was saddened to learn the news that Ernie Gygax, the eldest son of Gary Gygax passed away yesterday. Ernie had been in and out of hospitals for the last few years. Growing up in the Gygax household as his father was developing D&D, he became one of the games' first Play testers. His legacy was memorialised in the game as Tenser. 

My thoughts go to his wife Donna, the Gygax family and friends. 

Rest in Peace.

-Havard

Ernie Gygax Univited From DaveCon 2023

 

DaveCon has univited Ernie Gygax as a special guest. The first DaveCon took place earlier this year and was organized by Victor Dorso who has announced plans for a second DaveCon in April next year. Recently, several gaming conventions, including DaveCon recieved criticism for associating themselves with the son of Gary Gygax due to various controversies other sites than this one has covered in detail.

Personally, I would rather keep this blog focused on other issues connected to Dave Arneson's legacy and less about drama, but I hope that with this decision, fans of gaming will come out to support DaveCon.

Discuss this article at The Comeback Inn.

-Havard

GoG attacks DaveCon over Ernie Gygax as Special Guest

 

Gamer On Gamers, a YouTube channel with more than 3000 subscribers recently called out DaveCon 2023 for bringing in Ernie Gygax as one of the Special Guests. The YouTuber referred to Ernie as a "well documented bigot".

Now, I generally don't like to get into Internet drama on this blog, but I do care about Dave Arneson's legacy. For this reason I remain supportive Victor Dorso's DaveCon, but I wonder if there could be more suitable people to invite as special guests for an event dedicated to Dave Arneson?

-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

Gygax Alumni to Celebrate Dave Arneson's Legacy at New Convention DaveCon in 2022

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The new gaming convention DaveCon was announced last year and is to be held in Roseville, Minnesota, for the first time this year from April 8-10th (bring a sweater probably?). Dave Arneson passed away on April 7th so it is possible that this is the reason for the date.

Although very little is known about the actual gaming events of the convention, the list of guests surprisingly included several names of people who had much stronger ties to Gary Gygax than to Dave, including Ernie Gygax and Tim Kask. It is nice to see that the theme of the convention is "Unification" which could be seen as an olive branch offered for the harsh criticism offered from the Gygax camp towards Dave when he was still alive. The inclusion of Ernie Gygax caused some concern given this Gygax son's association with the somewhat controversial TSR Con. This convention appears to be a completely separate event though, created by Victor Dorso of the newly formed Angry Dwarf Games.

It is also nice to see long time friends of Dave Arneson such as David Wesely and Bill Hoyt on the guest list. Convention website includes the following disclaimer: "Angry Dwarf Games LLC and DaveCon are not in any way affiliated with the Estate of Dave Arneson LLC". It is a shame that this convention has not reached out to Dave Arneson's family for this event. It would also have been nice to see the documentary crew from Secrets of Blackmoor appear at the convention, but they have apparently not been invited at this time. 

Hopefully, this convention will work out the remaining kinks in the months to come, and end up being a true celebration of Dave Arneson's legacy

-Havard