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Post by ripx187 on Sept 10, 2018 19:03:28 GMT -5
John Peterson ( increment ) is no doubt the leading researcher of Dungeons & Dragons, and his book "Playing At The World" is required reading for those of us who want to understand. In his adventures he uncovered a strange document that is very important, but in summary, Craig VanGrasstek wrote up and gave away a set of rules for a game that he had played in Minnesota. Some of this stuff sounds a lot like how Arneson ran Blackmoor, especially the magic system described in FFC where players purchased spells that were already prepared and ready to use. What is interesting is the combat system, which is much different than D&D as it doesn't use the avoidance mechanics but a different system entirely. Could this be describing the inner workings of the original Arneson combat? It kind of makes sense, it would require the fighter to prepare himself for dungeon exploration as well, having to replace armour which gets damaged during the course of exploration.
Playing At the World: Rules to the Game of Dungeon (1974) Playing at the World: 1974 Dungeon Variant, Now for Download These links are no doubt found elsewhere on the web, but I am interested you your thoughts on the subject. Does this sound like it would be a fun game to play? Have you played this way? Does any of this sound like something that you'd like to add to your own ruleset? |
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Post by mao on Sept 10, 2018 19:13:23 GMT -5
John Peterson ( increment ) is no doubt the leading researcher of Dungeons & Dragons, and his book "Playing At The World" is required reading for those of us who want to understand. In his adventures he uncovered a strange document that is very important, but in summary, Craig VanGrasstek wrote up and gave away a set of rules for a game that he had played in Minnesota. Some of this stuff sounds a lot like how Arneson ran Blackmoor, especially the magic system described in FFC where players purchased spells that were already prepared and ready to use. What is interesting is the combat system, which is much different than D&D as it doesn't use the avoidance mechanics but a different system entirely. Could this be describing the inner workings of the original Arneson combat? It kind of makes sense, it would require the fighter to prepare himself for dungeon exploration as well, having to replace armour which gets damaged during the course of exploration.
Playing At the World: Rules to the Game of Dungeon (1974) Playing at the World: 1974 Dungeon Variant, Now for Download These links are no doubt found elsewhere on the web, but I am interested you your thoughts on the subject. Does this sound like it would be a fun game to play? Have you played this way? Does any of this sound like something that you'd like to add to your own ruleset? This sounds intrging! Will take a look at the links and give feedback(hopefully Tues) |
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Post by Harry Wolf on Sept 10, 2018 20:59:59 GMT -5
John Peterson ( increment ) is no doubt the leading researcher of Dungeons & Dragons, and his book "Playing At The World" is required reading for those of us who want to understand. In his adventures he uncovered a strange document that is very important, but in summary, Craig VanGrasstek wrote up and gave away a set of rules for a game that he had played in Minnesota. Some of this stuff sounds a lot like how Arneson ran Blackmoor, especially the magic system described in FFC where players purchased spells that were already prepared and ready to use. What is interesting is the combat system, which is much different than D&D as it doesn't use the avoidance mechanics but a different system entirely. Could this be describing the inner workings of the original Arneson combat? It kind of makes sense, it would require the fighter to prepare himself for dungeon exploration as well, having to replace armour which gets damaged during the course of exploration.
Playing At the World: Rules to the Game of Dungeon (1974) Playing at the World: 1974 Dungeon Variant, Now for Download These links are no doubt found elsewhere on the web, but I am interested you your thoughts on the subject. Does this sound like it would be a fun game to play? Have you played this way? Does any of this sound like something that you'd like to add to your own ruleset? I glanced through it quickly, I would play in this game if given the chance. I wish all of those early variants had been committed to paper. After I read it more thoroughly I will comment more. BTW the title says 1874 and I was hoping it was not a typo.  |
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Post by Hexenritter Verlag on Sept 10, 2018 23:06:41 GMT -5
John Peterson ( increment ) is no doubt the leading researcher of Dungeons & Dragons, and his book "Playing At The World" is required reading for those of us who want to understand. In his adventures he uncovered a strange document that is very important, but in summary, Craig VanGrasstek wrote up and gave away a set of rules for a game that he had played in Minnesota. Some of this stuff sounds a lot like how Arneson ran Blackmoor, especially the magic system described in FFC where players purchased spells that were already prepared and ready to use. What is interesting is the combat system, which is much different than D&D as it doesn't use the avoidance mechanics but a different system entirely. Could this be describing the inner workings of the original Arneson combat? It kind of makes sense, it would require the fighter to prepare himself for dungeon exploration as well, having to replace armour which gets damaged during the course of exploration.
Playing At the World: Rules to the Game of Dungeon (1974) Playing at the World: 1974 Dungeon Variant, Now for Download These links are no doubt found elsewhere on the web, but I am interested you your thoughts on the subject. Does this sound like it would be a fun game to play? Have you played this way? Does any of this sound like something that you'd like to add to your own ruleset? I glanced through it quickly, I would play in this game if given the chance. I wish all of those early variants had been committed to paper. After I read it more thoroughly I will comment more. BTW the title says 1874 and I was hoping it was not a typo. I edited it to 1974 as it should've read. |
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Post by mao on Sept 11, 2018 8:00:51 GMT -5
Too cool, The more people dig into the early days, the more we see our beloved games influence. How many more of these are hidden. I personally had created an RPG based on Melee, in the fall of 1976, very primitive but a true RPG. I'm not sure how much exposure to OD&D I had.
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Post by ripx187 on Sept 11, 2018 8:23:06 GMT -5
I glanced through it quickly, I would play in this game if given the chance. I wish all of those early variants had been committed to paper. After I read it more thoroughly I will comment more. BTW the title says 1874 and I was hoping it was not a typo. I edited it to 1974 as it should've read. Thanks Ebon. I wasn't sure how to do that. I am with Harry Wolf though. What would a dungeon game be like if it had been invented in 1874? What would D&D look like today? |
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Post by Hexenritter Verlag on Sept 11, 2018 9:40:28 GMT -5
You hit the edit button & you can edit your posts title - or at least us moderators/admin staff can; I am not sure in regular members have that ability on their own posts or not.
That would be wild to see where D&D was today if it started in 1874.
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Post by El Borak on Sept 11, 2018 10:23:02 GMT -5
You hit the edit button & you can edit your posts title - or at least us moderators/admin staff can; I am not sure in regular members have that ability on their own posts or not. That would be wild to see where D&D was today if it started in 1874. Yes, any member that is the OP in a thread can edit the thread title. We could always travel back in time and find out! I'm always sad that I don't have exclusive access to time travel and a Doc Savage dedicated team to help me with it. |
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Post by mao on Sept 11, 2018 11:49:17 GMT -5
You hit the edit button & you can edit your posts title - or at least us moderators/admin staff can; I am not sure in regular members have that ability on their own posts or not. That would be wild to see where D&D was today if it started in 1874. I think military wargames go back to 1900 ish -1920?Little Wars was played by HG Wells, Fletcher Pratt Naval rules and the two writers of Fafird and The Grey Mouser |
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Post by ripx187 on Sept 11, 2018 13:34:10 GMT -5
You hit the edit button & you can edit your posts title - or at least us moderators/admin staff can; I am not sure in regular members have that ability on their own posts or not. That would be wild to see where D&D was today if it started in 1874. I think military wargames go back to 1900 ish -1920?Little Wars was played by HG Wells, Fletcher Pratt Naval rules and the two writers of Fafird and The Grey Mouser Technically it started with Chess, but I personally feel that the game was first developed in a mature way in 1812 by Lieutenant Georg Leopold von Reiswitz in Prussia as a way to train officers. |
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Post by mao on Sept 11, 2018 17:15:38 GMT -5
I find it stretching my suspension of disbelief that the writer of these rules had no exposer to OD&D. Still it is remarkable.
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Post by El Borak on Sept 11, 2018 19:00:20 GMT -5
I find it stretching my suspension of disbelief that the writer of these rules had no exposer to OD&D. Still it is remarkable. Well if you read the article he was influenced by Arneson's group at a 2nd or 3rd hand remove. If you have ever played telephone with a line of 10-20 people I would say it was transmitted pretty well, all the basics are covered. |
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Post by ripx187 on Sept 12, 2018 16:59:46 GMT -5
I find it stretching my suspension of disbelief that the writer of these rules had no exposer to OD&D. Still it is remarkable. In 1974 there were only 1,000 copies of the printed rules, well, at least officially. Finding a copy of these rules was an adventure in and of itself. Van Grasstek's story makes sense, he may have seen an ad or another fan describing a game in a fanzine, but if he had had access to the official rules, he no doubt would have played that way. Everybody else did. What I find interesting is that he had a complete system, unlike Tunnels & Trolls which would be released the next year. Van Grasstek made no money and gave these rules away for free while people were fighting to get their hands on D&D, if Van Grasstek had known that he was sitting on a cash cow he wouldn't have pulled the rules when told that he was cutting into Arneson's product. I think that this really was just a college kid describing a game that they played in the club and he thought that others would get a kick out of it too. This document is also a unique system, especially when compared to D&D. Tunnels & Trolls claimed a unique system but it clearly wasn't, not like this! I don't think that I could have played the original Dungeons & Dragons without some kind of help, but I could play the game of Dungeon! It was written clearly, and covered all of the bases, while D&D itself left much to be invented by the user. |
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Post by mao on Sept 12, 2018 17:06:07 GMT -5
I find it stretching my suspension of disbelief that the writer of these rules had no exposer to OD&D. Still it is remarkable. In 1974 there were only 1,000 copies of the printed rules, well, at least officially. Finding a copy of these rules was an adventure in and of itself. Van Grasstek's story makes sense, he may have seen an ad or another fan describing a game in a fanzine, but if he had had access to the official rules, he no doubt would have played that way. Everybody else did. What I find interesting is that he had a complete system, unlike Tunnels & Trolls which would be released the next year. Van Grasstek made no money and gave these rules away for free while people were fighting to get their hands on D&D, if Van Grasstek had known that he was sitting on a cash cow he wouldn't have pulled the rules when told that he was cutting into Arneson's product. I think that this really was just a college kid describing a game that they played in the club and he thought that others would get a kick out of it too. This document is also a unique system, especially when compared to D&D. Tunnels & Trolls claimed a unique system but it clearly wasn't, not like this! I don't think that I could have played the original Dungeons & Dragons without some kind of help, but I could play the game of Dungeon! It was written clearly, and covered all of the bases, while D&D itself left much to be invented by the user. it's too close, I just don't buy the narrative, but as I said , I do think it's cool. |
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Post by secretsofblackmoor on Sept 22, 2018 19:26:26 GMT -5
:::Shrug::: It's a quandary as to what is the first and second published set of rules. This is more likely the older rules set: boggswood.blogspot.com/2018/09/almost-forgotten-published-rpg-ruleset.htmlAlso, since Vangrasstek saw Blue Petal's game, he was essentially mimicking Blackmoor. And by published, I suppose I need a more specific definition for "published" as Arneson published anecdotal information about Blackmoor, and Brown Stone Texas, beginning in Corner of the Table Top (Arneson's newsletter for the MMSA). The first notices of his Fantasy Games are in april and may of 1971. |
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Post by aldarron on Oct 1, 2018 7:54:54 GMT -5
Righto, it's useful to realize that the Mnnstf Dungeon game that Von Grasstek codified stemmed from a public demo game that Arneson ran at the university in February of 74 as part of an effort to market D&D. Participants and observers just went off and tried to recreate the game as they remembered it, more or less.
Mao, regarding wargames and RPG's you might be interested to know that the Twin Cities gamers were regularly employing Tottens 19thcentury Strategos rules in their games. Don't Give up the Ship and Valley Forge are derivations of those rules (lots more of that stuff on my blog if you are interested - Hidden in Shadows)
Peterson's publication of the game for everyone to see was a super terrific thing. Before that, if you wanted to see a copy of Von Grassteks rules you had to go in person to the Special Collections wing of Michigan State University in East Lansing. Not exactly an easy thing for most folks.
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Post by El Borak on Oct 1, 2018 8:31:16 GMT -5
The thing that seems to be glossed over here is that Louis Fallert (better known as Blue Petal) was a player in Blackmoor and as I understand it was a player before Gygax was shown Blackmoor and he was also part of the Arneson group for the playtest pre-publication OD&D so to say he was only vaguely aware of D&D is very odd on Petersen's part in the blog post. Craig VanGrasstek was playing in Louis Fallert game's during the time either before or after Gygax was introduced to Blackmoor. Since his game is said not to have D&D isms in it, then it would seem he played in Louis Fallert's Game before the D&D playtest started. But the stated time frame claims he did not play in Fallert's game until 1974 so Fallert we can assume continued with the Blackmoor protocols and had not yet introduced much of the D&D changes into his game. Which leads to the speculation that the initial playtest document may have been almost all Blackmoor without much change in the mechanics that would be introduced by the time of publication.
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Post by El Borak on Oct 1, 2018 8:33:02 GMT -5
Righto, it's useful to realize that the Mnnstf Dungeon game that Von Grasstek codified stemmed from a public demo game that Arneson ran at the university in February of 74 as part of an effort to market D&D. Participants and observers just went off and tried to recreate the game as they remembered it, more or less. Mao, regarding wargames and RPG's you might be interested to know that the Twin Cities gamers were regularly employing Tottens 19thcentury Strategos rules in their games. Don't Give up the Ship and Valley Forge are derivations of those rules (lots more of that stuff on my blog if you are interested - Hidden in Shadows) Peterson's publication of the game for everyone to see was a super terrific thing. Before that, if you wanted to see a copy of Von Grassteks rules you had to go in person to the Special Collections wing of Michigan State University in East Lansing. Not exactly an easy thing for most folks. So are you saying that Von Grasstek played in an Arneson run demo game and not Fallert's game as Petersen says? If that is the case, then he did know he was imitating D&D. |
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Post by mao on Oct 1, 2018 8:40:44 GMT -5
The thing that seems to be glossed over here is that Louis Fallert (better known as Blue Petal) was a player in Blackmoor and as I understand it was a player before Gygax was shown Blackmoor and he was also part of the Arneson group for the playtest pre-publication OD&D so to say he was only vaguely aware of D&D is very odd on Petersen's part in the blog post. Craig VanGrasstek was playing in Louis Fallert game's during the time either before or after Gygax was introduced to Blackmoor. Since his game is said not to have D&D isms in it, then it would seem he played in Louis Fallert's Game before the D&D playtest started. But the stated time frame claims he did not play in Fallert's game until 1974 so Fallert we can assume continued with the Blackmoor protocols and had not yet introduced much of the D&D changes into his game. Which leads to the speculation that the initial playtest document may have been almost all Blackmoor without much change in the mechanics that would be introduced by the time of publication. Wow that is sooooo interesting...... |
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Post by aldarron on Oct 1, 2018 13:22:29 GMT -5
The thing that seems to be glossed over here is that Louis Fallert (better known as Blue Petal) was a player in Blackmoor and as I understand it was a player before Gygax was shown Blackmoor and he was also part of the Arneson group for the playtest pre-publication OD&D so to say he was only vaguely aware of D&D is very odd on Petersen's part in the blog post. Craig VanGrasstek was playing in Louis Fallert game's during the time either before or after Gygax was introduced to Blackmoor. Since his game is said not to have D&D isms in it, then it would seem he played in Louis Fallert's Game before the D&D playtest started. But the stated time frame claims he did not play in Fallert's game until 1974 so Fallert we can assume continued with the Blackmoor protocols and had not yet introduced much of the D&D changes into his game. Which leads to the speculation that the initial playtest document may have been almost all Blackmoor without much change in the mechanics that would be introduced by the time of publication. ? I'm not sure where you are getting this information. To my knowledge, Louis Fallert was never a Blackmoor player, and I can say with complete certainty that he was not among the pre D&D players of Blackmoor. It is my understanding that Fallert was first exposed to RPG gaming at the Arneson D&D demo as mentioned above. It is not even clear if Fallert played in the demo or just watched. It is conceivably possible he had some opportunity to play in one of the occasional spin off games that happened in 1973, or in a game Mike Mornard ran, but I've never seen anyone make that claim and I don't think it very likely. Also, I'm not sure why you say Von Grassteks game has no D&Disms in it. Vocabulary wise, that is fairly true, but structurally it follows D&D pretty well - the three class structure for instance is a dead giveaway. Blackmoor had no such thing, or rather, it had a lot more character types than just those three. One of these days I'll have to write a blog post about how we can tell what is derivative and what is not. |
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Post by aldarron on Oct 1, 2018 13:29:09 GMT -5
Righto, it's useful to realize that the Mnnstf Dungeon game that Von Grasstek codified stemmed from a public demo game that Arneson ran at the university in February of 74 as part of an effort to market D&D. Participants and observers just went off and tried to recreate the game as they remembered it, more or less. Mao, regarding wargames and RPG's you might be interested to know that the Twin Cities gamers were regularly employing Tottens 19thcentury Strategos rules in their games. Don't Give up the Ship and Valley Forge are derivations of those rules (lots more of that stuff on my blog if you are interested - Hidden in Shadows) Peterson's publication of the game for everyone to see was a super terrific thing. Before that, if you wanted to see a copy of Von Grassteks rules you had to go in person to the Special Collections wing of Michigan State University in East Lansing. Not exactly an easy thing for most folks. So are you saying that Von Grasstek played in an Arneson run demo game and not Fallert's game as Petersen says? If that is the case, then he did know he was imitating D&D. Ah, no. I'm sure I didn't say that. See the above post. I'm pretty sure 14 year old Von Grasstek was not at the university demo. Fallert was. Other people were. Fallert was among those who then went and tried to recreate the game based on what they saw. |
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Post by El Borak on Oct 1, 2018 14:12:13 GMT -5
The thing that seems to be glossed over here is that Louis Fallert (better known as Blue Petal) was a player in Blackmoor and as I understand it was a player before Gygax was shown Blackmoor and he was also part of the Arneson group for the playtest pre-publication OD&D so to say he was only vaguely aware of D&D is very odd on Petersen's part in the blog post. Craig VanGrasstek was playing in Louis Fallert game's during the time either before or after Gygax was introduced to Blackmoor. Since his game is said not to have D&D isms in it, then it would seem he played in Louis Fallert's Game before the D&D playtest started. But the stated time frame claims he did not play in Fallert's game until 1974 so Fallert we can assume continued with the Blackmoor protocols and had not yet introduced much of the D&D changes into his game. Which leads to the speculation that the initial playtest document may have been almost all Blackmoor without much change in the mechanics that would be introduced by the time of publication. ? I'm not sure where you are getting this information. To my knowledge, Louis Fallert was never a Blackmoor player, and I can say with complete certainty that he was not among the pre D&D players of Blackmoor. It is my understanding that Fallert was first exposed to RPG gaming at the Arneson D&D demo as mentioned above. It is not even clear if Fallert played in the demo or just watched. It is conceivably possible he had some opportunity to play in one of the occasional spin off games that happened in 1973, or in a game Mike Mornard ran, but I've never seen anyone make that claim and I don't think it very likely. Fallert known as Blue Petal is listed as an original Blackmoor major player in FFC and I have seen Blue Petal mentioned in numerous places. Also, I'm not sure why you say Von Grassteks game has no D&Disms in it. Vocabulary wise, that is fairly true, but structurally it follows D&D pretty well - the three class structure for instance is a dead giveaway. Blackmoor had no such thing, or rather, it had a lot more character types than just those three. One of these days I'll have to write a blog post about how we can tell what is derivative and what is not. I'm going by Petersen's article that claims no connection to D&D and my statement"Since his game is said not to have D&D isms in it" comes from reading Petersen's blog post where he makes the case that VanGrasstek didn't know about D&D and was preserving things from Blackmoor. |
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Post by El Borak on Oct 1, 2018 14:14:40 GMT -5
So are you saying that Von Grasstek played in an Arneson run demo game and not Fallert's game as Petersen says? If that is the case, then he did know he was imitating D&D. Ah, no. I'm sure I didn't say that. See the above post. I'm pretty sure 14 year old Von Grasstek was not at the university demo. Fallert was. Other people were. Fallert was among those who then went and tried to recreate the game based on what they saw. I seem to be misunderstanding this statement Righto, it's useful to realize that the Mnnstf Dungeon game that Von Grasstek codified stemmed from a public demo game that Arneson ran at the university in February of 74 as part of an effort to market D&D. Participants and observers just went off and tried to recreate the game as they remembered it, more or less. |
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Post by El Borak on Oct 1, 2018 14:17:30 GMT -5
Oh BTW how was it that everybody seemed to have a copy of Tottens 19th century Strategos rules in the late 60's but they are no where to be found now? The different research refers to all manner of rule variants for different rules, but no information about any of that seems to be available anywhere.
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Post by ripx187 on Oct 1, 2018 15:54:12 GMT -5
This is great stuff, guys!
In Peterson's book, Playing at the World, I believe that he says that Mike Mornard introduced Blue Petal to the game, who in turn ran a game for the collages group, including VanGrasstek. I have never heard of a demo! This is new information. I am not sure if it relates to anything though.
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Post by ripx187 on Oct 1, 2018 16:09:07 GMT -5
Oh BTW how was it that everybody seemed to have a copy of Tottens 19th century Strategos rules in the late 60's but they are no where to be found now? The different research refers to all manner of rule variants for different rules, but no information about any of that seems to be available anywhere. OH! That is an interesting question. I doubt that I am smart enough for this conversation, but why let that get in the way now? The best way to learn war games is to play war games. This could very well be a verbal tradition, but most clubs were in colleges. It only takes one guy who can get access to the rules. With the exception of Featherstone, wargame rules were published in pamphlet forms and further discussed in newsletters. Most hobbyists were playing by mail and had to agree on rules. I'm fairly certain that if an old-school wargamer from the 60's were to look at my game that he would see Strategos. |
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Post by secretsofblackmoor on Oct 5, 2018 19:59:19 GMT -5
We have interviews with several people about Blue Petal. As we understand it, Arneson gave a demo at the university club. Blue Petal was there along with several Sci Fi fans. He went home and made up his own game, which he then introduced to the Sci FI community. Others also made up dungeon games in that community.
Thus, Blue Petal is the fulcrum if you will. And the idea of dungeon games expands out within the Sci FI community as a result of his seeing Arneson running Blackmoor.
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Post by shimrod on Oct 3, 2019 10:44:08 GMT -5
I'm not sure of the whole chain of causality, but yes, I understand that people who didn't have access to the actual rules (either Blackmoor or D&D) did try recreating them here and there based on first or second-hand play experience. And that The Game of Dungeon, or "Minneapolis Dungeon" is one of, if not the only, surviving example of such a local game; one which local fans have apparently continued playing periodically. It's pretty awesome that VanGrasstek wrote it up like this and that today we can read it ourselves.
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Post by aldarron on Oct 3, 2019 11:11:57 GMT -5
>>>Fallert known as Blue Petal is listed as an original Blackmoor major player in FFC and I have seen Blue Petal mentioned in numerous places. That is incorrect. As I said, Bluepetal had no particular connection to Blackmoor. You may perhaps be confusing Lois Fallert with William Heaton. Heaton's character carried the sword "Blue" and he became known as "The Blue rider" after acquiring a set of blue mechanized armor. Please site sources if you think otherwise. |
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Post by aldarron on Oct 3, 2019 11:24:11 GMT -5
Oh BTW how was it that everybody seemed to have a copy of Tottens 19th century Strategos rules in the late 60's but they are no where to be found now? The different research refers to all manner of rule variants for different rules, but no information about any of that seems to be available anywhere. OH! That is an interesting question. I doubt that I am smart enough for this conversation, but why let that get in the way now? The best way to learn war games is to play war games. This could very well be a verbal tradition, but most clubs were in colleges. It only takes one guy who can get access to the rules. With the exception of Featherstone, wargame rules were published in pamphlet forms and further discussed in newsletters. Most hobbyists were playing by mail and had to agree on rules. I'm fairly certain that if an old-school wargamer from the 60's were to look at my game that he would see Strategos. The got it from the university library. These days you can download the book online. |
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