Dave Arneson Interview in Space Gamer 1979

[Havard]

I copied the below text from my "Strategos N" rules:

INTRODUCTION by David Wesely

These rules represent a simplified and shortened version of the rules our group has used for Napoleonic Wargames during the past three years. The primary source for our rules has been “Strategos, the American Game of War” by Charles A. L. Totten, (published in 1870). Much of the game as now played strongly resembles the original, however as “Totten” was intended to train military cadets in “contemporary” warfare, a good deal of modification was necessary to account for changes in weapons, organization and tactics between 1800 and 1870.

Thanks for posting this Greg! I never really knew much about these rules.

My impression is that Wesely also used these rules with his Brownstein Games. I was surprised when Jon Peterson dismissed the idea that Dave Arneson might have been using Strategos N for his first few sessions of Blackmoor, especially since Brownstein used a number of various settings and Blackmoor in many ways started out as a Brownstein Fantasy Game.

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