[YouTube] Jon Peterson Interview: Gary Gygax vs Dave Arneson

[Havard]

David Barr Kirtley's YouTube channel did an interview with Jon Peterson.

In spite of the hyperbolic title, the video is pretty good. Peterson does a good job of presenting the history of D&D in a well balanced manner.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnISYCK2Igo


-Havard

[Havard]

Having listened to the whole thing, I think Jon Peterson manages to give a lot of credit to Dave Arneson in this interview without necessarily taking away from Gary Gygax. 

I also find it interesting that he suggests something that I have believed all along in that Dave Arneson may have done a lot more work when he was at TSR than he has been given credit for, it is just that much of this work may have been rejected as useless by Gary Gygax because they had such incompatible ideas for where they wanted to take D&D after it had been published.

Peterson talks about some of Dave Arneson's ideas as "one-offs". I am not sure what he means by that, but I could see it as things like the City of the Gods adventure and even Temple of the Frog, especially at a time when TSR didn't think adventures would be profitable (before companies like the Judges Guild and Wee Warriors proved them wrong). 

-Havard

[finarvyn]

Peterson talks about some of Dave Arneson's ideas as "one-offs". I am not sure what he means by that, but I could see it as things like the City of the Gods adventure and even Temple of the Frog, especially at a time when TSR didn't think adventures would be profitable (before companies like the Judges Guild and Wee Warriors proved them wrong). 

I think it's just the way it sounds. A "one-off" would probably be a product designed to be used once only, so a single scenario or adventure (probably a short module) which would be used and then moved on from. Compared to a campaign setting, I mean, where a sequence of adventures would all link together.

I think that the Braunstein concept was originally supposed to be a one-off and then players asked for a sequel. (Town in peril, banana republic, and so on. A bunch of individual games, unlike Blackmoor which was a campaign.)

At least, that's how I read it.

[Havard]

I think it's just the way it sounds. A "one-off" would probably be a product designed to be used once only, so a single scenario or adventure (probably a short module) which would be used and then moved on from. Compared to a campaign setting, I mean, where a sequence of adventures would all link together.

I think that the Braunstein concept was originally supposed to be a one-off and then players asked for a sequel. (Town in peril, banana republic, and so on. A bunch of individual games, unlike Blackmoor which was a campaign.)

At least, that's how I read it.

That makes a lot of sense, especially given the Twin City gaming tradition. I wonder if 1970s TSR would also have seen Temple of the Frog as a "one off"?.

I suspect they wanted new character classes, new spells, new magic items, new monsters etc, but when Arneson provided something else they might have been unhappy about that.

OTOH, if Dave wanted to pitch things like sci fi D&D or Spy D&D, that would have been pretty interesting to find out about too :o

-Havard