Dave Arneson Interview in Space Gamer 1979

[aldarron]

My impression is that Wesely also used these rules with his Brownstein Games. ....
-Havard

Wesely told me that individual combat in Braunstien was merely a matter of opposing dice rolls. If you had a better weapon you got more dice - high roll wins.

[Havard]

My impression is that Wesely also used these rules with his Brownstein Games. ....
-Havard

Wesely told me that individual combat in Braunstien was merely a matter of opposing dice rolls. If you had a better weapon you got more dice - high roll wins.

Thanks for sharing!

-Havard

[Havard]

Found some more details on the Romans vs Gauls Ancients Game:

In 1969, while refereeing a Romans v Gauls contest, Dave allowed a player who had painted up a Gaul shaman to call upon the gods to destroy a Roman elephant. As the Roman player laughed, Dave described a lightning bolt destroying the elephant. In that instant, role-playing was born.

We know from Chirine that the Gauls were run by David Megarry:

may I suggest Tony Bath's book "How To Run A Wargames Campaign", which gives examples from his Hyborean campaign.

We all used this book; normally, the game host would announce a game or somebody would start a campaign, and people would build the forces needed to run the thing. I got into the habit of supplying all of the sides in a particular game myself, which made it easier on people as I tended to like the more obscure historical periods (Pike and Shot, for example) or Tekumel. We'd all devise fun games that challenged the players, and this is also where Dave Wesley's 'Braunsteins' come from. And Dave Arneson slipping Dave Megarry's Druid a phaser to liven up a Romans vs. Britons game - "How about barbequed elephant tonight, Emperor Claudius?"

Source: viewtopic.php?p=27970#p27970

-Havard

[aldarron]

.....

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

Oh just had a reason to revisit this thread and realized I now know the answer to Havard's question. The rules used for this game were Strategos A, which is a 5 or so page appendix to the Strategos N rules written by Dave Arneson and Randy Hoffa. I talk a little bit about it in my "was Blackmoor a CHAINMAIL Campaign" blog essay.

[Thondor]

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

-Havard

Facinating. Thanks for sharing.