Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Mar 21, 2024 16:58:52 GMT -5
In the Introduction we run into the bias of this author right away. He immediately quotes the revisionist history that Gygax started putting out very early on in a letter to Alarums & Excursions published in July 1975.
This (the first two sentences) is, of course not true at all. The origins of D&D go back to the Braunstein games run by David Wesely. Also it fails to mention that a large portion of the fantasy rules of Chainmail were "borrowed" from rules by Leonard Patt.
From the Playing at the World Blog.
In that blog post from January 20th, 2016 we see the confession,
Patt's rules included Heroes and Anti-Heroes.
All of this is relevant when we look at Chainmail and when we look at the OD&D draft copies exposed in the court case between Arneson and Gygax/TSR.
Disclaimer: I am not dogging Gygax, a lot of this exaggeration of his influence on Blackmoor during this time period is just his personality, he truly can't help himself. As for his failure to credit Leonard Patt in the fantasy section of Chainmail, before the early 70s a lot of borrowing without credit was done in hobbies that were mostly fan based with little commercial involvement.
In another place, when I find it I will quote it here, Gygax says of himself that his real talent is to expand on what others have done. He expanded on what Patt did to create the fantasy section of Chainmail and he expanded on what Arneson did to create OD&D. Arneson was the original creative thinker, Gygax was good at expanding, promoting and getting things done, things such as publishing. The really sad thing is that Gygax and Arneson were not closer in age and friends from early childhood, had they had the type of relationship that Don Kaye and Gygax had it would have changed so much for the better.
In case you don’t know the history of D&D, it all began with the fantasy rules of Chainmail. Dave A took these rules and changed them into a prototype of what is now D&D. When I played in his “Blackmoor” campaign I fell in love with the new concept and expanded and changed his 20 or so pages of hand-written “rules” into about 100 ms. pages. Dave’s group and ours here in Lake Geneva then began eager and enthusiastic play-testing, and the result was the D&D game in January of 1974. [A&E:#2]
This (the first two sentences) is, of course not true at all. The origins of D&D go back to the Braunstein games run by David Wesely. Also it fails to mention that a large portion of the fantasy rules of Chainmail were "borrowed" from rules by Leonard Patt.
From the Playing at the World Blog.
Chainmail itself drew on a two-page set of rules developed for a late 1970 game run by the New England Wargamers Association (NEWA), which were designed by one Leonard Patt. Patt’s system shows us the first fantasy game with heroes, dragons, orcs, ents, and wizards who cast fireballs at enemies, though his contribution today goes entirely unacknowledged.
In that blog post from January 20th, 2016 we see the confession,
I was aware of the existence of Patt’s game when I wrote Playing at the World;
Patt's rules included Heroes and Anti-Heroes.
All of this is relevant when we look at Chainmail and when we look at the OD&D draft copies exposed in the court case between Arneson and Gygax/TSR.
Disclaimer: I am not dogging Gygax, a lot of this exaggeration of his influence on Blackmoor during this time period is just his personality, he truly can't help himself. As for his failure to credit Leonard Patt in the fantasy section of Chainmail, before the early 70s a lot of borrowing without credit was done in hobbies that were mostly fan based with little commercial involvement.
In another place, when I find it I will quote it here, Gygax says of himself that his real talent is to expand on what others have done. He expanded on what Patt did to create the fantasy section of Chainmail and he expanded on what Arneson did to create OD&D. Arneson was the original creative thinker, Gygax was good at expanding, promoting and getting things done, things such as publishing. The really sad thing is that Gygax and Arneson were not closer in age and friends from early childhood, had they had the type of relationship that Don Kaye and Gygax had it would have changed so much for the better.