The relationship between Gygax Arneson is yesterday's news, but what about Gygax' thoughts on Blackmoor? My impression is that Gary was always fascinated with Blackmoor and greatly enjoyed playing there. Has anyone collected Gary's statements about Blackmoor anywhere?

-Havard

It's dangerous out there.

Take this:

http://www.thekyngdoms.com/interviews/garygygax.php

I posted the above interview mainly because it illustrates one very important thing that seems to be usually overlooked:

Judging from all I've read, it seems to be true that, until the final demise of TSR in 1999, Gygax and Arneson had the relationship Gygax describes.

A working relationship, but not necessarily a strained one. They were not friends, but then, not to be friends doesn't mean to be at odds with each other.
It was only after WotC brought Arneson in to promote 3e that Gygax, or, rather, the Gygax camp, started these nonsensical hostilities towards Arneson.

This might not be as controversial as one may think, though:
In the last decade of his life, Gygax had bad relationships with almost all of his former collaborators.
The beef with Arneson was ertainly the most publicised fallout, but apparently by far not the only one.

Some very interesting points there Rafe. You know far more about Gary than I do. I am also reminded of a discussion the two of us had with a former WotC freelancer (who will not be named) about how the WotC staff had made it very clear that they wanted Gary nowhere near any future WotC D&D publications.

Dave and Gary were in contact for many years before the publication of D&D. The first time they worked together professionally was on Dont Give Up The Ship (1971). I would say that they were probably never friends, even back then.

My original point though, is that I think that even from early on they recognized eachothers qualities as inventors of game concepts. Up untill the publication of D&D, Dave was always interested in working with Gary. Gary also seemed very fascinated with the kinds of gaming Dave was doing. While the C&C Society had many members, it was clear from Dave's first letter to the Domesday Book Newsletter that Arneson's group were doing something uniquely different from any of the other campaigns out there.

I think that the quotes from Gary that I referred to earlier in this thread shows this. Gary was extremely fascinated with Blackmoor, both from the perspective of commercial potential, but also as a gamer. When he says he prefers Dave as a DM for his D&D games to any other, what does that say about Rob Kuntz, Jeff Perren and all the others?



-Havard