notes on Dave Arneson's True Genius by Robert J. Kuntz
Sept 14, 2021 10:43:59 GMT -5
ripx187 and The Perilous Dreamer like this
Post by hengest on Sept 14, 2021 10:43:59 GMT -5
For Dave Arneson Day 2021
Dave Arneson’s True Genius, Robert J. Kuntz (available for purchase here: www.tlbgames.com/collections/dave-arnesons-true-genius/products/dave-arnesons-true-genius )
This is not so much a review as a set of remarks on the essays in the book. Each essay will have its own section below.
"The obvious is the hardest thing of all to point out to anyone who has genuinely lost sight of it." -Owen Barfield
From Vision to Viccissitude: The Rise and Reversal of Arneson’s RPG concept (several sections noted below with Roman numerals)
I want to say up front that I don’t know that much about this time. I have posted on this board looking for sources. Overall, this essay has been really helpful to me. It makes a lot of things clear, especially in a historical sense (what happened, and why). Not at the level of “this person misbehaved or was nice” but in the sense that it describes the forces that were at play. Some of this essay is a little difficult for me, but overall, I think Kuntz has a decent balance between his theory and the history that we bought the book to learn about. The history helps you to understand the theory, the theory illuminates what (for me) was pretty confusing about the history.
I. Kuntz here begins his description of just WHAT Dave Arnseon’s RPG concept is. I think I was able to follow most of the thoughts here, although it begins to brush up against topics of which I have passive or no knowledge. However, one part that is extremely clear and helpful to me personally, is the page and a half of bullet points that describe DA’s “leaps” in various fields. Almost each one of these is useful to my thinking either in a target or diffuse way. I’m glad I read this list and expect many will make more of it than I did.
V. To my mind, this section of the book alone is worth the price of admission. Kuntz shows quite clearly, with published quotes from Gary Gygax from 1974 to 1980, just how GG’s attitude towards rules changed, at least in print. The central idea is that there is a sea change in GG’s published remarks. Kuntz makes a distinction between several “faces” of GG over the years and distinguishes them clearly, showing the difference between the first two with solid quotes from GG himself that were published in the 1970s in game materials and in publications such as Alarums and Excursions. This section ALONE helped me to see this period much more clearly and made me feel grateful that a thoughtful eyewitness is publishing essays like this. A must-read.
Dimensionality in Design: An Examination of Dave Arneson’s System of Systems Thinking
I am not going to say too much about this, save that it’s unfortunate that not too many people outside the gaming world will ever read this essay. To me, the second section is the most striking here, and Kuntz does a solid job making some very abstract thoughts from a field I don’t know anything about at least somewhat accessible to me. At the same time, he shows how DA’s RPG concept can be furthered (a couple ways) and then leads into the next section where he shows how it was in fact throttled for reasons that had little to do with gaming. It is difficult to put into words, but I have a feeling that I will be digesting these 2.5 pages for some time and will be returning to them in my mind again and again. What Kuntz says here is certainly relevant to education and child-rearing in all forms.
Debunking the Chainmail / Braunstein Derivation Claims
While less “magical” than the sections that preceded it, here Kuntz sets the record straight and shows, in his own terms but with clear references to reality, that it is not correct to say that DA’s RPG concept was derived from Chainmail or the Braunstein play-style. Kuntz says more about this and makes a subtler point that I will not try to steal or reproduce here. Required reading for those who are interested in the origins of the hobby and what factors went into it. Honestly, I find this essay quite convincing, especially in the context of what has come before it in this volume.
Addenda: Select Preview / Samples from A New Ethos in Game Design
This gives section and chapter headings for a forthcoming work by Kuntz. Given what is in this slim volume, I would buy this other book sight unseen if it went on sale tomorrow.
Then, there is a selection of “Select Ungrouped Commentaries” from one of the appendices to this forthcoming work.
This selection of commentaries may be my favorite section in the book. Here, you get a more intimate voice from the author. You get also a more detailed picture of his thoughts. In the earlier essays, Kuntz is teaching. Here, he is thinking aloud.
I wouldn’t recommend going straight to this section. I would read the rest of the book first.
About that. As I said, I really want (for personal reasons) to see A New Ethos in Game Design either as a PDF or as a printed book. I get the impression that this work would put Kuntz on the map outside the gaming world as a kind of prophet of the imagination and true learning and growth. The names that come to mind are Owen Barfield (philosopher of consciousness, I guess), John Holt (homeschooling / unschooling advocate), George MacDonald (imaginative writer extraordinaire), and Wanda Gag (DIY illustrator if there ever was one).
I want to note that RJK is doing something that (to me) seems extremely difficult. The essays in this book are an attempt to systematize something that is beyond system. It is almost as if these essays are like the LBBs, and they point to something that they do not circumscribe.
My thanks to Dave Arneson for his gift to the world and to Robert J. Kuntz for this book, an important step in intellectual understanding of and furtherance of that gift.
"True understanding is unattainable without both love and detachment..." -Owen Barfield
