[Blog] The "Blackmoor is Just a Chainmail Variant" Fallacy

[Havard]

I think it can be very interesting to discuss the various influences that Dave Arneson and his group borrowed from.

Gary told us repeatedly his influences (the Appendix-N list, etc.), but Dave seems to have been a lot more vague on the issue. Makes it harder to have a good discussion when we're guessing half the time.

I think it should be possible to reconstruct something. I think there is a list of books and films Dave read collected somewhere here on the forums. Tolkien, deCamp's Conan, John Norman, Poul Anderson, Lord Dunsany, Star Trek, classic horror shows etc would be on the list.

I also think it should be possible to get an idea of the games Dave played. I think alot of his ideas came from Napoleonics, Braunstein, Chainmail, Strategos-N and several other games he played.

In both cases I think it would also be useful to consider what the players were influenced by. Players would have had a big influence on how the game evolved. This would also be true for Gary's campaign I would think.


-Havard