Jon Peterson's Book and Scans

[Havard]

I didn't make recordings of interviews, as really I only used them for background - actually, virtually all of my interview questions related to ways I could identify or find more primary sources. I'm sure I could remember some colorful anecdotes, but there are plenty of people who could recall them better than me (Major Wesely comes to mind).

I am continuing my quest for learning about the stories of Blackmoor as much as the rules, but if you do recall any such anecdotes, feel free to share them. I am also in touch with many of the original players, but I havent talked to Wesely yet, so that could be interesting. I originally assumed his gaming in Blackmoor was more limited than what has later been revealed.

There is a whole section of my book which covers the concept of progression (experience) - section 3.2.3.1. Of course, progression has been with us ever since a chess pawn could become a queen by reaching the eight rank. There were a variety of morale systems for miniature wargames, common in the late 1950s, that allowed successful troops to gain advantages in later combats. These kinds of systems were prevalent enough that we don't need any special explanation for how they ended up in the NapSim game.

I will have to reread that section. Thanks!

The Braunstein games were one-shots, so they didn't have progression as such. You didn't play the same character twice. The fact that Blackmoor became a campaign, a series of continuous games with persistent characters, naturally encouraged various forms of progression. Chainmail had various different strata of fighters, and famously five hierarchical ranks of wizards, but no specified way to move between the ranks. It seems pretty straightforward, again, that the experience mechanisms that had been in play in NapSim would migrate over to Blackmoor.

I am wondering about that. Many things that seem obvious in retrospect turned out as having a huge impact on the nature of the game. Although many similarities can befound between RPGs and their predecessors, RPGs in my opinion add a new dimension to gaming that had never truly been explored before. While many of the different elements of an RPG had perviously existed, it is the sum of those elements that make RPGs such a unique hobby. This is where IMO the genious of Arneson and Gygax lay.

-Havard