Dave Arneson Interview in Space Gamer 1979

[Havard]

I just got my hand on an issue of a magazine called Space Gamer from 1979 which features an interview with Dave Arneson. Various wikipedia articles on Dave Arneson, Blackmoor and Minnesota gaming refer to this article.

Here Dave Arneson describes his first attempt at refreeing a pre-RPG fantasy game. He talks about an "Ancients Game" where an elephant was killed with a phaser. He describes the game session as fairly silly and perhaps not to the liking of all participants.

What is Ancients game? Does it simply refer to a category of war games set in pre-medieval times? If so, does anyone have an idea of which ruleset this could have been?

Also, I find it interesting that Arneson very early on was interested in incorporating sci fi elements into his historical games. Although he was a student of history, one of the reason why he and his group broke away from the older Miniature Game groups because they felt these became too focused on historical debates and less about actual gaming. Blackmoor became a way for Arneson to free himself from the limitations historical gaming put on his games. Could this ancients game have been his first attempt at breaking away from these felt restraints?

-Havard

[gsvenson]

Wargames Research Group had a set of ancient miniatures rules that we were using in the late 60's. In 1989 when I started playing ancient miniatures again that was still the rule set of choice for the new group here in Florida, although a much later revision. I still have it in the attic along with my Castilian army. By we I mean the group I belonged to in Excelsior, MN not the group that Dave was part of in St. Paul. I joined the St. Paul group in 1970 and we never did any ancient miniatures when I was there before we played Blackmoor.

I do not know what rules the Castle and Crusades Society was using at the time. That would probably be what Dave would have been using at the time. Chainmail was probably developed for that gaming club, but they must have been using something else before that came out.

[Havard]

Thanks for commenting here Greg

At first I thought Ancients could refer to a specific ruleset, but I guess he was referring to the type of miniatures used.

What about the Strategos N rules referred to in this thread? Could they have been used for Ancients type games as well, or were they more suited for Napoleon Era war games?

-Havard

[gsvenson]

I copied the below text from my "Strategos N" rules:

INTRODUCTION by David Wesely

These rules represent a simplified and shortened version of the rules our group has used for Napoleonic Wargames during the past three years. The primary source for our rules has been “Strategos, the American Game of War” by Charles A. L. Totten, (published in 1870). Much of the game as now played strongly resembles the original, however as “Totten” was intended to train military cadets in “contemporary” warfare, a good deal of modification was necessary to account for changes in weapons, organization and tactics between 1800 and 1870.

[Havard]

I copied the below text from my "Strategos N" rules:

INTRODUCTION by David Wesely

These rules represent a simplified and shortened version of the rules our group has used for Napoleonic Wargames during the past three years. The primary source for our rules has been “Strategos, the American Game of War” by Charles A. L. Totten, (published in 1870). Much of the game as now played strongly resembles the original, however as “Totten” was intended to train military cadets in “contemporary” warfare, a good deal of modification was necessary to account for changes in weapons, organization and tactics between 1800 and 1870.

Thanks for posting this Greg! I never really knew much about these rules.

My impression is that Wesely also used these rules with his Brownstein Games. I was surprised when Jon Peterson dismissed the idea that Dave Arneson might have been using Strategos N for his first few sessions of Blackmoor, especially since Brownstein used a number of various settings and Blackmoor in many ways started out as a Brownstein Fantasy Game.

It would be interesting if the Ancients Game Arneson is talking about would use Strategos N, because that would mean that the system could be used for fantasy. OTOH, Wesely's introduction from the quoted text in your post does suggest that other era technological weapons would require changes in the game.

In any case, it is worth noting that Arneson quite early on experimented with combining historical era settings with elements from Star Trek-like sci fi, predating even Blackmoor itself. The fact that Arneson refers to this game as "Fantasy" illustrates something you were saying before Greg, about the term fantasy back then meaning something else than it has come to mean in decades since, with sci fi now being seen as a separate genre.



-Havard

[Havard]

Found some more information about the Strategos variant games here:
http://playingattheworld.blogspot.no/20 ... .html#more

-Havard

[gsvenson]

I still have my copy of Strategos N from 1970, along with my own attempts to convert it to 15mm from 25mm and copies of Scott and Dave Belfry's attempt to convert it for use for Seven Years War battles.

[Havard]

I still have my copy of Strategos N from 1970, along with my own attempts to convert it to 15mm from 25mm and copies of Scott and Dave Belfry's attempt to convert it for use for Seven Years War battles.

How much work is required to convert the system to various eras of weaponry?

-Havard

[gsvenson]

My effort to convert it from 25mm to 15 mm was just a matter of scale so there was no conversion for weaponry. Scott & David Belfry did the SYW conversion I don't really know how much effort or knowledge it took to put together the revised rules.

[Havard]

This magazine is now available as a PDF download through the Internet Archive.

-Havard