Interesting topic. I knew a little bit, but this is just... wow. I know this is old news for some people, but not for me. :lol:

I saw this article referenced on FB yesterday and read it. I agree that it's well researched. Much of this is stuff that I think we knew or surmised, but it's nice to see confirmation by Rob Kuntz. For folks who frequent this board (and OD&D Discussion) I think that this tells Dave's side pretty well.

No doubt that Gary was a salesman. He certainly knew how to take a product and make it better. Also, he is the one with the company and the magazine where he got to give his story every month, so no surprise that Gary gave himself a lot of credit.

Don't get me wrong -- I admire both gentlemen and am grateful for their contribution to the game we all love. I am just frustrated that the Arneson part has gotten lost over the decades, because to me it's the most interesting part of the story.

Frankly, it's nice to see Arneson being favored in the press. A good change from the usual Shout Down you get for even mentioning Arneson's name somewhere online.

I see Luke Gygax even visited the Secrets of Blackmoor FB page to criticize the article and say he will not be watching Secrets of Blackmoor - Bad press is good press.

Should I go for some drama and respond by calling him a poopie head on Face Book? No. I have zero interest in the drama.

I am impressed by Cecilia and her willingness to take all the heat from the article. When we made the movie, we took a much more distanced tone, Despite efforts to be fair and not disparage Gary, people are still saying the film is biased. I suppose you can't please Gary Gygax cultists no matter how hard you try.

At first I did not want to wander into the fray, but the old grog voices of Ex TSR employees who never truly knew Dave were posting the usual Gary gygax was a Genius/Dave Arneson is a bum crap which forced me to go on the defense over all this.

As usual they throw down false arguments, like saying Gary was the one who made it into an empire. Ok, fine. Is this reason to deny Arneson his legacy as creator of Role Playing? Which is how these arguments always go.

They tend to ignore that genius businessman lost his empire. hmmm... how'd dat happen?

Or, what if Gygax had never met Arneson? uh, no D&D empire for Gygax.

Cecilia got some details wrong in her article, but she did get the story right!

Her logic is infallible: Did Gary Gygax create it all as urban myth would state, mostly created by Gygax's own writings in the dragon, or is the story of RPG's more complex and involves many hands to craft it?

Despite the solid assertion of a much more organic process and no god figure who created the game on a weekend, the blow-back and gamer butt-hurt is strong in them.

I expect that one of these mornings Cecilia will wake from a restful sleep and discover that Dave Arneson has left a 20 sider under her pillow as thanks. ;)

RHAR!

My blog response to the Kotaku Article:

Was Kotaku Wrong to Rehash Arneson vs. Gygax Debate?

Two days ago Cecilia D'Anastasio published an article called Dungeons & Deceptions: The First D&D Players Push Back On The Legend Of Gary Gygax at a website called Kotaku . While I found the article to be well researched and making some very interesting points, some of Gary's family members and fans have reacted strongly against the article while others feel like this is stirring up old bygones that should have been left alone. Others again point to the fact that D'Anastasio wrote an article on Gary's Widow Gail Gygax earlier this year which many saw as rather one-sided.

Gary Gygax passed away in 2008 at 69 and Dave Arneson passed in 2009 at 61. While the two had a falling out early in their careers, both men apparently moved on long before they died. Is the "who did more, Dave or Gary" discussion really worth dragging up or is it just something D&D fans who love drama use to entertain themselves while getting in pointless fights over it on forums and social media platforms?

I have tended to stay away from this debate myself. Although my work has always focused on Blackmoor and Dave Arneson, I have always seen myself as a fan of both D&D creators. I have never had any interest in the drama beyond learning the basic facts of what happened.

The problem, however, is that by leaving this discussion alone, we risk forgetting half of the story. The story that is most often forgotten is the story about Dave Arneson and the Minnesota Gamers. The Kotaku article is correct in saying that some misconceptions about the history of the hobby are being perpetuated by books and articles that have been published on the subject over the years. Several documentaries are in the works and with only one notable exception, these appear to focus on the importance of Gary Gygax.

The topic that even the best works on D&D History get wrong is on the importance of Chainmail in the development of D&D. The Kotaku article correctly identifies how by describing Dave Arneson's Blackmoor campaign as simply a Chainmail Game, the real significance of Arneson's contributions to D&D are lost. I have talked about this problem back in 2016 on this blog.

I think the best part of the Kotaku article is where it describes Dave and Gary's contributions to the creation of D&D this way:

To be sure, there would be no Dungeons & Dragons without Gary Gygax. Chainmail is a clear influence for D&D’s famous combat rules, and Gygax’s particular tastes in literature and voracious reading habit helped populate D&D’s world with monsters, gods, and legendary beasts. Gygax saw the potential in Blackmoor, or the aspects of Chainmail it happened to bring out, and moved quickly and purposefully enough to put the idea into a publishable format. But what gets lost is that neither would there be D&D without Dave Arneson. And indeed, the things that D&D fans love the most about the game—the things that distinguish “role-playing” from “fantasy wargaming”—were Arneson’s vision.

By simply choosing to avoid these discussions, I think we risk overlooking the importance of powerful ideas and concepts that are still found at the core of the hobby today. Some of these ideas are the very things Dave passed onto the hobby, in part drawn from his friend David Wesely's Braunstein games and other ideas brought in by their fellow gamers in Minnesota.

More importantly to new generations of D&D fans, I think there is much more to learn from David Arneson and his friends. Because Arneson left TSR (or was forced to leave) so early, many of the ideas and concepts that Dave Arneson's Gaming Group experimented with in the late 60s and onwards never made it into D&D. Perhaps learning more about Dave Arneson and his friends and what they did in gaming can inspire young gamers today to take the hobby to new places in the future!

In the last decades I have been researching the story of Dave Arneson and his friends, not because I love to dig up dirt or because I want to hurt the legacy of Gary Gygax. I don't like hurting anyone's feelings. I have been doing this because I am interested in truth. There are many people out there telling Gary's story, so it is only fair that some are telling Dave's as well. Perhaps the Kotaku article could have been written in a more moderate fashion and avoided some characteristics, a few quotes and its provocative heading. But at least it is another voice telling Dave's story. Its not like our corner is that crowded.

See full version here: https://blackmoormystara.blogspot.com/2 ... on-vs.html





-Havard

Nice post, Havard. 8)

I don't think that giving Dave credit really diminishes anything that Gary did, but that seems to be the feeling of a lot of posters on certain boards. We've clearly seen what Gary liked, and I agree that there is a lot to learn from the guys in Dave's group since their voice has been so quiet over the decades. I object to the notion that Dave must have been some confused guy who couldn't articulate rules. It's clear that Dave and Gary had some differing views on how to codify rules, but both brought something to the collaboration.

It wasn't the best article in the world, and the tone was perhaps confrontational, but aside from a few minor points (like Terry Kuntz was actually not at the November 1972 game), it is pretty hard to fault her facts. She clearly put in a lot of research. It would have been better however if she had included example counterstatements.

It is unfortunate that Luke is now associating that article with SoB and saying he won't watch it. I don't get that - it is like a see no evil, hear no evil mentality, but Luke certainly has nothing to fear.

I chatted with Luke,

He's pretty chill about it all. I think he just has a lot of antipathy toward Cecilia and her tone. It's hard to be famous and then deal with your whole family being dragged through the mud on both sides of all of this.

And people wonder why the Arneson family is laying low -- Nothing to gain by being public.

G