|
|
Post by mormonyoyoman on May 3, 2017 13:56:18 GMT -5
I rolled 7 on a d6 and have confused myself.
|
|
|
|
Post by mormonyoyoman on May 3, 2017 13:59:09 GMT -5
All this yammering draws a wandering monster. Roll reaction time.  Yes, but non-yammering draws monsters too. Remember Gronan's 11 in a row??  Grandpa Tzhett not familiar with this Eleven Gronan rule or ruling. Please elucidate so I may argue, complain, praise, or obey it according to pure guesswork and whimsy. |
|
|
|
Post by captaincrumbcake on May 3, 2017 14:03:07 GMT -5
I rolled 7 on a d6 and have confused myself. Don't worry. I think that can be explained. Direct: 3.5 rules... I'm sure its in there somewhere. |
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on May 3, 2017 14:09:43 GMT -5
All this yammering draws a wandering monster. Roll reaction time. Yes, but non-yammering draws monsters too. Remember Gronan's 11 in a row?? Remember it? My right shoulder still hurts on foggy mornings. Kids, healing potions are your friends. Be nice to alchemists. |
|
|
|
Post by increment on May 3, 2017 14:11:04 GMT -5
We're still doing this? Man. Careful here. You are implying that Kuntz's method doesn't work without memories or documents. That is absolutely false. It does not rely on memories or documents in the case of any published game. So not to just hit rewind, but is the quote from "Chainmail Additions" about the rules just being guidelines part of the "game of Chainmail" or not? And who gets to decide if it is? This is really a question about whether or not "the published design" is actually something so easy to isolate. That's probably the way you've phrased this that is the least objectionable to me, so far. Part of where I think we're misaligned here is that I believe Blackmoor was a campaign, not a "game" in the sense of something that had a design, even a tacit one. A campaign is an activity: in retrospect we might review it as a collection of incidents. In the case of the Blackmoor campaign, those incidents were kind of a grab bag of miscellaneous game sessions and pieces of correspondence - some days it was a "medieval Braunstein", some days a tactical slugfest, some days it starts as one and turns into a wilderness adventure. D&D is, as we discussed, a set of books, and those particular books really don't tell you much about how you're supposed to use them. I don't have any trouble imagining how someone who had been playing a wargames campaign could pick up the D&D books and integrate some of what's in them into their campaign, just as they had already integrated in lots of other games in the past, like say Outdoor Survival. We might then say that person is now playing D&D, or maybe we might judge otherwise, depending on how the rules get hacked, adapted, changed. Still the same campaign. Campaigns are like that. That's why I think the stronger assertion that some campaign and some game design can be fundamentally identical is a category error: they would necessarily not have the same nature. The difference between a design and a campaign is kind of like the difference between a recipe for soup and a banquet that contains a soup course with the chef's take on that recipe; you can't put an equals sign between them. If on the other hand you were saying that the activities that people enjoyed in Blackmoor pre-D&D and the activities they enjoyed post-D&D were fundamentally identical, I wouldn't raise the same objection, nor would I if you were saying that people in Lake Geneva played post-D&D in a way that was fundamentally like what people were doing pre-D&D in Blackmoor. We can similarly compare design to design (if we can figure out how to scope a design). Though I will admit I get a bit nervous about how we define fundamental - was 1975 T&T "fundamentally" different from D&D, say? How different does something need to be in order to be a new game? And once again, who gets to decide - does Ken St. Andre, just because that's how he feels? So, any idea that there was a "game" of Blackmoor during the interesting period is I believe something more artificial that we are imposing on the past at great hazard to our fidelity to historical events. I think I mean something different by it than those words do. I think there's plenty of evidence to support the historical position about Blackmoor that I'm articulating. |
|
|
|
Post by robkuntz on May 3, 2017 14:11:59 GMT -5
I rolled 7 on a d6 and have confused myself. You must have rolled a 6 nand added your IQ again! I told you 100 years ago to stop doing this! |
|
|
|
Post by mormonyoyoman on May 3, 2017 14:42:54 GMT -5
I rolled 7 on a d6 and have confused myself. You must have rolled a 6 nand added your IQ again! I told you 100 years ago to stop doing this! I always forget your good advice. Shame on me. (In 1927, Rob Kuntz also advised "If I've told you a thousand billion times, don't exaggerate!") |
|
|
|
Post by mormonyoyoman on May 3, 2017 14:45:02 GMT -5
To prove my weak mindedness, I always forget which one is Increment and which one is Cedgewick.
|
|
|
|
Post by robkuntz on May 3, 2017 14:47:34 GMT -5
To prove my weak mindedness, I always forget which one is Increment and which one is Cedgewick. You did pretty good this time around... The one on the left is Increment and the right, Cedgewick... Unless you're Chinese, then reverse. |
|
|
|
Post by mormonyoyoman on May 3, 2017 14:49:49 GMT -5
What if I'm part Korean?
|
|
|
|
Post by robkuntz on May 3, 2017 14:55:18 GMT -5
Best tell your wife first and then we'll decide what part it is, your north or south. |
|
|
|
Post by increment on May 3, 2017 14:56:47 GMT -5
To prove my weak mindedness, I always forget which one is Increment and which one is Cedgewick. increment is the guy who's been trying to make his way out the door for the last two hours of this party. |
|
|
|
Post by robkuntz on May 3, 2017 15:00:42 GMT -5
To prove my weak mindedness, I always forget which one is Increment and which one is Cedgewick. increment is the guy who's been trying to make his way out the door for the last two hours of this party. It's Hotel California's one-way, revolving door... PD had it installed last week to up the page views and PMs. |
|
|
|
Post by increment on May 3, 2017 15:08:10 GMT -5
increment is the guy who's been trying to make his way out the door for the last two hours of this party. It's Hotel California's one-way, revolving door... PD had it installed last week to up the page views and PMs. No obligatory Comeback Inn joke? I thought this was a hotbed of Blackmoor fandom. |
|
|
|
Post by robkuntz on May 3, 2017 15:17:29 GMT -5
We're still doing this? Man. Careful here. You are implying that Kuntz's method doesn't work without memories or documents. That is absolutely false. It does not rely on memories or documents in the case of any published game. So not to just hit rewind, but is the quote from "Chainmail Additions" about the rules just being guidelines part of the "game of Chainmail" or not? And who gets to decide if it is? This is really a question about whether or not "the published design" is actually something so easy to isolate. That's probably the way you've phrased this that is the least objectionable to me, so far. Part of where I think we're misaligned here is that I believe Blackmoor was a campaign, not a "game" in the sense of something that had a design, even a tacit one. A campaign is an activity: in retrospect we might review it as a collection of incidents. In the case of the Blackmoor campaign, those incidents were kind of a grab bag of miscellaneous game sessions and pieces of correspondence - some days it was a "medieval Braunstein", some days a tactical slugfest, some days it starts as one and turns into a wilderness adventure. D&D is, as we discussed, a set of books, and those particular books really don't tell you much about how you're supposed to use them. I don't have any trouble imagining how someone who had been playing a wargames campaign could pick up the D&D books and integrate some of what's in them into their campaign, just as they had already integrated in lots of other games in the past, like say Outdoor Survival. We might then say that person is now playing D&D, or maybe we might judge otherwise, depending on how the rules get hacked, adapted, changed. Campaigns are like that. That's why I think the stronger assertion that some campaign and some game design can be fundamentally identical is a category error: they would necessarily not have the same nature. The difference between a design and a campaign is kind of like the difference between a recipe for soup and a banquet that contains a soup course with the chef's take on that recipe; you can't put an equals sign between them. If on the other hand you were saying that the activities that people enjoyed in Blackmoor pre-D&D and the activities they enjoyed post-D&D were fundamentally identical, I wouldn't raise the same objection, nor would I if you were saying that people in Lake Geneva played post-D&D in a way that was fundamentally like what people were doing pre-D&D in Blackmoor. We can similarly compare design to design. Though I will admit I get a bit nervous about how we define fundamental - was 1975 T&T "fundamentally" different from D&D, say? How different does something need to be in order to be a new game? And once again, who gets to decide - does Ken St. Andre, just because that's how he feels? So, any idea that there was a "game" of Blackmoor during the interesting period is I believe something more artificial that we are imposing on the past at great hazard to our fidelity to historical events. I think I mean something different by it than those words do. I think there's plenty of evidence to support the historical position about Blackmoor that I'm articulating. Okay J., I'm not really gonna go down this rabbit hole for too long as I see it as more speculation than game theory. But let's start with a false premise brought about by the word, "campaign". You are using it in the sense of a super-imposed contraction, as a campaign lexically cannot be a game but a game can incorporate campaign play. Thus their juxtaposition as first premised is, in a word, corrupt; and moreover, and in proper context, refutes the argument you are making as a game and campaign do not stand as different entities but incorporate rules and structures, however variable. Am I missing something here?? To me there is no meat on this bone for a meal. |
|
|
|
Post by mormonyoyoman on May 3, 2017 15:21:46 GMT -5
Best tell your wife first and then we'll decide what part it is, your north or south. It's the left ear. |
|
|
|
Post by increment on May 3, 2017 15:23:31 GMT -5
Okay J., I'm not really gonna go down this rabbit hole for too long as I see it as more speculation than game theory. But let's start with a false premise brought about by the word, "campaign". You are using it in the sense of a super-imposed contraction, as a campaign lexically cannot be a game but a game can incorporate campaign play. Thus their juxtaposition as first premised is, in a word, corrupt; and moreover, and in proper context, refutes the argument you are making as a game and campaign do not stand as different entities but incorporate rules and structures, however variable. Am I missing something here?? To me there is no meat on this bone for a meal. It's not game theory, but I don't think it's speculation either. A published design can incorporate a "campaign play" mode, sure, that's a term people use; Arneson say was going to publish his "Ships of the Line" rules as "campaign" rules for DGUTS. D&D marketed itself as campaign rules. But a campaign, like I said, is a series of incidents, incorporating things like a session that takes place on May 22, 1971. Published rules aren't made up of incidents, they are made up of text. It is a category error to conflate campaigns with rules. Campaigns can change rules while remaining the same campaign; rules can be appropriated and hacked by radically different campaigns that we still might say are "using" DGUTS. |
|
|
|
Post by robkuntz on May 3, 2017 15:34:56 GMT -5
Okay J., I'm not really gonna go down this rabbit hole for too long as I see it as more speculation than game theory. But let's start with a false premise brought about by the word, "campaign". You are using it in the sense of a super-imposed contraction, as a campaign lexically cannot be a game but a game can incorporate campaign play. Thus their juxtaposition as first premised is, in a word, corrupt; and moreover, and in proper context, refutes the argument you are making as a game and campaign do not stand as different entities but incorporate rules and structures, however variable. Am I missing something here?? To me there is no meat on this bone for a meal. It's not game theory, but I don't think it's speculation either. A published design can incorporate a "campaign play" mode, sure, that's a term people use; Arneson say was going to publish his "Ships of the Line" rules as "campaign" rules for DGUTS. D&D marketed itself as campaign rules. But a campaign, like I said, is a series of incidents, incorporating things like a session that takes place on May 22, 1971. Published rules aren't made up of incidents, they are made up of text. It is a category error to conflate campaigns with rules. Campaigns can change rules while remaining the same campaign; rules can be appropriated and hacked by radically different campaigns that we still might say are "using" DGUTS. Doesn't matter if you hack em or start with no rules and build, there is a structure and rules or else you do not have a game, and campaign play has structure and rules. Even in Improv there is one rule and thus structure: 1) Improvise. Campaigns do not allow for the hacking of rules, adjudicators or designers of games do. Campaign play is a game with rules and structure and nothing else. |
|
|
|
Post by robkuntz on May 3, 2017 15:36:39 GMT -5
Best tell your wife first and then we'll decide what part it is, your north or south. It's the left ear. Figures... |
|
|
|
Post by increment on May 3, 2017 15:43:32 GMT -5
Campaigns do not allow for the hacking of rules, adjudicators or designers of games do. Campaign play is a game with rules and structure and nothing else. Adjudicators are what I largely mean here, yes, that the referee and players do the hacking. But it's really not a matter of what rules allow. I think any chef that follows a recipe inevitably does it their way, by accident or on purpose. A bowl of soup served to you by one chef will be colder than another, maybe one forgot to add the pepper, maybe another was inspired to add hibiscus and it made the soup amazing. A given bowl of soup served to you is not equal to a recipe. We know that, among other things, because they are not all equal to each other, so they can't all be equal to some other one thing. A campaign is a collection of sessions where players and referees implement rules, but those rules are subject to the same vicissitudes as a bowl of soup you are being served. I mean, a group of players might decide to try to be very strict and follow a printed set of rules to the letter, but another group may be much less formal and more improvisational - and another just incompetent, where everybody is still trying to play like they're following some rules they used in a previous campaign. A campaign is made up of the sessions where that incompetence or improvisation or strictness is implemented around a tabletop, or through the mail, or whatever. A campaign is not equal to a set of published rules. This is just the nature of human endeavor. You may pick up the Kama Sutra and say "honey, tonight we're doing what's on page 51." You can study the picture on page 51 all you want, but what you go do in the bedroom afterwards, whether it is a faithful approximation of page 51 or perhaps falls short of it, is not equal to a picture on a piece of paper. Putting an equals sign between them is a category error. |
|
|
|
Post by robkuntz on May 3, 2017 16:00:41 GMT -5
Campaigns do not allow for the hacking of rules, adjudicators or designers of games do. Campaign play is a game with rules and structure and nothing else. Adjudicators are what I largely mean here, yes, that the referee and players do the hacking. But it's really not a matter of what rules allow. I think any chef that follows a recipe inevitably does it their way, by accident or on purpose. A bowl of soup served to you by one chef will be colder than another, maybe one forgot to add the pepper, maybe another was inspired to add hibiscus and it made the soup amazing. A given bowl of soup served to you is not equal to a recipe. A campaign is a collection of sessions where players and referees implement rules, but those rules are subject to the same vicissitudes as a bowl of soup you are being served. I mean, a group of players might decide to try to be very strict and follow a printed set of rules to the letter, but another group may be much less formal and more improvisational - and another just incompetent, where everybody is still trying to play like they're following some rules they used in a previous campaign. A campaign is made up of the sessions where that incompetence or improvisation or strictness is implemented around a tabletop, or through the mail, or whatever. A campaign is not equal to a set of published rules. This is just the nature of human endeavor. You may pick up the Kama Sutra and say "honey, tonight we're doing what's on page 51." You can study the picture on page 51 all you want, but what you go do in the bedroom afterwards, whether it is a faithful approximation of page 51 or perhaps falls short of it, is not equal to a picture on a piece of paper. Putting an equals sign between them is a category error. Let me simplify this: If you are suggesting that there is more openness for introducing rules and elements to designs incorporating campaign play then that becomes problematical according to the initial conditions of the design itself and/or by its inferred mutability (published or not). Is this the track you are on and if so what is the goal, as your initial point (designs are not campaigns) really doesn't track to this latitude or longitude. |
|
|
|
Post by increment on May 3, 2017 16:13:32 GMT -5
Let me simplify this: If you are suggesting that there is more openness for introducing rules and elements to designs incorporating campaign play Sorry to interrupt you, but right there is where we are disconnecting. Does a recipe contain text to "incorporate" the idea that every chef will inevitably follow it differently? Designs don't have any say in whether or not referees who are incompetent will botch them in a given session, or whether a group will only use them partially, or experiment with them and then try something else, or whatever. It's just what can happen, in the course of a campaign, in the actual moments in time that the soup gets served up. I'd go so far as to say that for things as complicated as RPGs can get, it is actually pretty hard to follow the rules, and most people don't have the will to do it exactingly. Looking down the pike a long while, one place where I suspect you and I are in pretty good alignment is when it comes to Gary's management of the transition to AD&D, and what it means (I gather, at least, from hearing people talk about your book) to try to "close" a system. Did Gary actually succeed in closing AD&D? The published rules say so, and Gary made a big deal about it in the Dragon. But did anyone care? Numerous other magazines (and sometimes even the Dragon) were full of hacks and edits to AD&D, despite Gary's protestations that AD&D was standardized and canonical. And that's just what was published. Around the tabletop, it was much more of a Wild West of misunderstanding, creativity, and whatever the people sitting down at the table wanted out of their campaign. No one could stop them from saying what they were doing was D&D. |
|
|
|
Post by robkuntz on May 3, 2017 16:26:34 GMT -5
Let me simplify this: If you are suggesting that there is more openness for introducing rules and elements to designs incorporating campaign play Sorry to interrupt you, but right there is where we are disconnecting. Does a recipe contain text to "incorporate" the idea that every chef will inevitably follow it differently? Designs don't have any say in whether or not referees who are incompetent will botch them in a given session, or whether a group will only use them partially, or experiment with them and then try something else, or whatever. It's just what can happen, in the course of a campaign, in the actual moments in time that the soup gets served up. I'd go so far as to say that for things as complicated as RPGs can get, it is actually pretty hard to follow the rules, and most people don't have the will to do it exactingly. Looking down the pike a long while, one place where I suspect you and I are in pretty good alignment is when it comes to Gary's management of the transition to AD&D, and what it means (I gather, at least, from hearing people talk about your book) to try to "close" a system. Did Gary actually succeed in closing AD&D? The published rules say so, and Gary made a big deal about it in the Dragon. But did anyone care? The Dragon and numerous other magazines were full of hacks and edits to AD&D, despite Gary's protestations that AD&D was standardized and canonical. And that's just what was published. Around the tabletop, it was much more of a Wild West of misunderstanding, creativity, and whatever the people sitting down at the table wanted out of their campaign. No one could stop them from saying what they were doing was D&D. Well the last point is moot, really, as Gary set the precedent that was put more stringently into place by WotC, et al and that persists to this day, We go from 100% creators-as-consumers to a growing dilution through AD&D as the disposable/standardized model hits Random House distribution outlets and then to 3rd edition, where mechanization and standardization of play completely squelches it entirely, as the system cannot be managed in real time without way too much fiddling or the breaking of it. In my larger work (note sig below) I also refer to this systemic change as the Three Stooges Paradox. |
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on May 3, 2017 17:01:34 GMT -5
increment is the guy who's been trying to make his way out the door for the last two hours of this party. "Cease thy eyeing of possible exits," Goodgulf reprimanded the frightened boggie. |
|
|
|
Post by Admin Pete on May 3, 2017 17:53:43 GMT -5
It's Hotel California's one-way, revolving door... PD had it installed last week to up the page views and PMs. No obligatory Comeback Inn joke? I thought this was a hotbed of Blackmoor fandom. The Comeback Inn is found here and that is havard 's Territory, this place is the hotbed of old school Fantasy Roleplaying and other old school Roleplaying games, such as Classic Traveller, and other games. We have some fans of Gamma World and Metamorphisis Alpha and a host of other games. We are just over two years old and barely getting started yet, but we serve a side of Blackmoor and look at this post thinking out loud about a possible project. Who knows, perhaps Midgard and Korns and other things will also go into that stew and then apply Dave Arneson style thinking to it. We celebrate what is, but we support doing new original stuff and I view this as a place to brainstorm. When you brainstorn you write down every idea without judgement. Then you go back and go through all of the ideas and look for the gems and jewels, the silver, gold, platinum, but especially for magic. |
|
|
|
Post by mormonyoyoman on May 3, 2017 17:55:43 GMT -5
Seriously. That's the one which had surgery. And you may say that it surge me right, if the pun is EARresistible. |
|
|
|
Post by Admin Pete on May 3, 2017 18:10:55 GMT -5
Did Gary actually succeed in closing AD&D? I submit that he succeeded beyond his wildest dreams in converting to a closed system. The closed system mandates the use of game modules as opposed to creating the entire campaign from scratch as we were exhorted to do in OD&D. TSR/WotC sold the game world on modules all the way from AD&D to virtually everything currently on the market from anyone. [Please note that I am not saying that it is wrong to use modules, I am not saying that at all] What I am saying is that millions of people were told, let us design the adventure for you - buy this. That was accomplished by making the rules closed and heavier so that it was too much work for beginners to create from scratch and so the knowledge of how to do that was largely lost. For all of those who moved on to each successive newer version or even those who stayed with AD&D or other early versions, even if they once knew how to design from scratch, many stopped doing that and bought into the module. Few are like the original old schoolers who began the hobby and still create the campaign from the whole cloth. That is the measure of how sucessful closing the game has been. |
|
|
|
Post by robkuntz on May 3, 2017 18:18:29 GMT -5
Seriously. That's the one which had surgery. And you may say that it surge me right, if the pun is EARresistible. Ah I lured you in! I actually meant that whatever the instance there's nothing ever "Right" with you... |
|
|
|
Post by Cedgewick on May 3, 2017 18:24:50 GMT -5
So not to just hit rewind, but is the quote from "Chainmail Additions" about the rules just being guidelines part of the "game of Chainmail" or not? And who gets to decide if it is? This is really a question about whether or not "the published design" is actually something so easy to isolate. You're getting hung up on calling them the same thing. They are two different sets of rules: 1)Chainmail 1st edition from March 1971, and 2)Chainmail 1st edition from March 1971 incorporating the additional rules found in the IW "Chainmail Additions" article from January 1972. Either one of them can be compared separately to OD&D using Kuntz's method. Part of where I think we're misaligned here is that I believe Blackmoor was a campaign, not a "game" in the sense of something that had a design, even a tacit one. A campaign is an activity: in retrospect we might review it as a collection of incidents. In the case of the Blackmoor campaign, those incidents were kind of a grab bag of miscellaneous game sessions and pieces of correspondence - some days it was a "medieval Braunstein", some days a tactical slugfest, some days it starts as one and turns into a wilderness adventure. To clarify your point, you are saying: -the incidents described that relate to "a Medieval Braunstein" were in fact game(s) of Braunstein -the incidents described that relate to "a tactical slugfest" were in fact game(s) of Chainmail -the incidents described that relate to "a wilderness adventure" were in fact game(s) of Outdoor Survival I disagree, because many of the incidents that are described as occurring in Dave's original Blackmoor game could not have been played out with any of those games. Lets start with the "Medieval Braunstein" reference. Your argument suggests that Dave referred to his game as a "medieval Braunstein" in his Corner of the Table #4 in April of 1971 because it was a Braunstein set in medieval times (but otherwise, a Braunstein). However, put his reference into context: Arneson created something not even he or his players, neither Gary or I and our players, could type. It took nearly two years after its publication to even type it as an "RPG" So, I think Dave calling his new Blackmoor game a "medieval Braunstein" in an April 1971 newsletter to his players, who were familiar with the concept of a Braunstein, was really the best name he could give it to approximately describe what it was to prospective players, given terms such as "RPG" didn't exist. Regarding the "tactical slugfest" incidents, I assume you are returning to your earlier point: Maybe the most useful single thing I can point to is the Loch Gloomen battle report that appeared in COTT late in 1972...If you want to read about the kinds of things that were going on in the Blackmoor campaign at this stage, it's a pretty rich source of data. It is describing an attack on the town of Loch Gloomen involving hundreds of orcs and soldiers, and it contains a number of references to the characters involved. The terms "Hero" and "Super-hero" are used to designate the types of those characters in a way that has an obvious debt to Chainmail. In fact, I think Blackmoor at that time still had a concept of class and level that was closer to Chainmail than what we see in OD&D. But moreover, reading that description, you might be hard pressed to explain how what you are reading is not a description of a Chainmail game. Is there anything you see happening here that does not seem resolvable with the baseline Chainmail rules? Here is the Loch Gloomen battle report Increment is referring to. It seems to me that these items would not be resolvable with the baseline Chainmail rules: "Notable exploits by The Barons Jenkins and Fant helped them gain (regain) favour with the Earl of Vestfold." "Little in the way of treasures or magical items were reported found during these adventures. Naturally, such items may have been found and not reported to avoid taxes, but of course NONE of our boys would do that !!" "Among the missing (but presumed captured) was Dale Nelson (Hero-Magic Weapon) who was seen to be carried off by Kurt Krey (Anti-Super-Hero-Level IV Wizard-Tame Dragon)" "They were able to kill an Anti-Hero as well as drive off Kurt Krey when Wesely's horse kicked the Dragon Kurt was riding" Are there rules for gaining, losing, and regaining favor with a monarch in Chainmail? Are there rules for levying taxes in Chainmail? Are there rules for one character mounted on a dragon carrying off another character? Are there rules for a horse to kick a dragon to put the character riding the dragon at a disadvantage? You said on your site those events occurred in "late 1972." We also know that around the same time (November 1972) Dave ran the famous introductory Blackmoor game for Gygax, Kuntz, and some others in November of 1972. As related by Kuntz in 1977: Are there rules in Chainmail for all these incidents? What are Chainmail's rules for a Wish spell? Wouldn't a Wish spell be several orders of magnitude more powerful than any spell in Chainmail (which consist of Phantasmal Forces, Darkness, Wizard Light, Detection, Concealment, Fireball, Lightening Bolt, and Conjuration of an Elemental)? How would a Wish spell be adjudicated in Chainmail? So, any idea that there was a "game" of Blackmoor during the interesting period is I believe something more artificial that we are imposing on the past at great hazard... Trying to shoehorn some of those incidents I just listed into Chainmail seems more unrealistic than the idea that a fundamentally new game was presented that night at the Gygax residence. Would anything less have "caught on deeply with Gary" such that "Gary immediately created his own castle, Greyhawk"? To spur a veteran wargamer and the co-author of Chainmail to immediate action suggests something a lot bigger than a Chainmail variant. |
|
|
|
Post by robkuntz on May 3, 2017 19:43:11 GMT -5
This extract is from the preface to my unpublished Castle El Raja Key and describes events between Gary and myself very early the very next day after our adventure into Blackmoor Castle NOV 1972. Note that Gary was so excited by the new concept that he thought to use it as a way of creating stories. The two maps that I drew while judging him (that's right, I was ostensibly the first "DM" before Greyhawk Castle was ever rendered and drew the first RPG maps in LG) were auctioned years ago but scans of them were included on the ERK Archive. I don't know how to post them here. PD has my permission to do so along with the accompanying text on the DVD, but they should include the watermark "Copyright Robert J. Kuntz/TLS 1972-2017" across each when and if posted. Text copyright Robert J. Kuntz 2008. The Advent of the Original Fantasy RPG Campaign in Lake Geneva
What you have in your hands is not just a piece of history, but indeed a whole lot of fun as experienced by the likes of Gary Gygax, Don Kaye, Terry Kuntz, Ernest Gygax, Michael Mornard and countless other LGTSA members. ! In late Winter of 1972 EGG and I sat down to share what we had experienced when David L. Arneson and David Meggary visited us in Lake Geneva. The day after our very first adventure into Blackmoor Castle and its nearby outdoor by Gary, myself, Ernie Gygax and my brother Terry--all of us newbies who were guided by David Megarry of the Blackmoor “Campaign”--EGG phoned me at my home and summoned me to his house three blocks away. There, he brought forth pens, color pencils and hex paper and we sat down at his dining room table. So positioned, we talked. Gary was exuberant about that very first adventure and of course wanted my insights. While we talked he was feeling out the possibility of using this new form of expression (later to be called “role-playing”) to craft stories therefrom. We proceeded with a tentative plan. I was to “judge” him as a wandering character. The hex paper would be the growing map. As he moved about it I was to describe the terrain he saw (and the imagined inhabitants that I created and he encountered) and with color pencils I was to render the terrain features. We completed two sessions of this (see the map partials at the end of this essay that I drew during these sessions) over as many hours. Gary seemed dissatisfied with his initial plan so we never continued with the matter. This, in effect, was the start of the first “campaign” in Lake Geneva as played and judged by he and I; and of course we were to become not only more involved as players and judges in the future, but we would eventually craft parts of the OD&D rules together (as noted in Greyhawk: Supplement #1 to D&D) as he developed these from David Arnesonʼs notes and while play-testing them during 1973. PS--Upon rereading this it needs a good edit!  |
|
