The Pygmalion

[aldarron]

Yeah, I think (and I've got a reason for thinking so) that the material Arneson submitted was probably not so disorganized and scattered. I think Blume's "editing" was largely responsible for the disorganized "basketfull of papers" (who else would have put them there in the first place?). The character classes, NPC and some of the monsters were definetely reworked and re "crunched", but I personally think there probably wasn't a whole lot of mystery material left out. I don't think TSR purposfully cut out any of Arnesons fluff. Might be an interesting question for Kask. I suspect they would have kept it to pad the page count if they had it. But Arneson was asked to submit certain kinds of material for the supplement to match the style of Greyhawk, so that's what we got. RJK's Khalibrun looks like it was meant to be much the same - new classes, combat rules, etc. rather than setting info per se.

That is a pretty interesting theory of what happened. My assumption was that Arneson was given just a very general request on what to submit and that TSR were then disappointed that it was so different from GH. I had not taken Blumes role into account however.

It is also possible that some of the things Arneson submitted were picked up by Ritchie from a Blackmoor archive folder Kask or Blumes may have left behind.

-Havard

I very much doubt any such folder of lost material existed, but who knows. Supplement II mimics the kind of content in Supplement one, and I'm sure that's deliberate. Arneson also made the comment in one of his interviews ( I think the mortality radio one, but I'm not sure) that he wrote the hit location system for supplement II because he was asked to. That tells me that he was asked for certain kinds of material for the supplement and that's what he provided. Of course, I notice these things because I've theorized that Gygax decided to publish the D&D rules "early" because he wanted to present rules as he preferred them without compromising with Dave anymore, so he developed the Greyhawk rules to that end and meant to let Dave have a chance for his rules in the Blackmoor supplement. But that's just me guessing.