Beyond This Point Be Dragons

[aldarron]

Hey Guys, started a series on the "lost" Arneson D&D manuscript on me blog.

http://boggswood.blogspot.com/

Lots to talk about!

[Havard]

Hey Guys, started a series on the "lost" Arneson D&D manuscript on me blog.

http://boggswood.blogspot.com/

Lots to talk about!

Whoah! Very interesting! Alot to take in though, so give me a few hours here...

-Havard

[finarvyn]

I posted some comments on the OD&D boards and don't want to give the impression that I'm just wandering from board to board and sayin' the same old stuff.

1. Dan, your historical blog post was most excellent. You continue to bring scholarship into an area where few delve and you have done another outstanding job.

2. However, the more I see of this manuscript I start to question its authenticity as a pre-OD&D creaton. The artwork seems too updated and professional compared to the OD&D LBB. It just doesn't "smell right" to me somehow.

Clearly you have gotten a better look at it than I have, and so I will try to reserve judgement until we get more blog posts. I look forward to your continued analysis of this manuscript.

[finarvyn]

2. However, the more I see of this manuscript I start to question its authenticity as a pre-OD&D creaton.

Just shows what happens if you post too soon. Since my earlier post, Dan has put up blog entries #2, 3 and 4. His continued analysis of the doccument in question is stellar and I am rapidly becoming a believer.

If anywone hasn't read all four installments I highly urge you to do so.

[Havard]

The pictures on this flickr account have been mentioned elsewhere: http://www.flickr.com/photos/53171413@N06/

-Havard

[Havard]

Some more thoughts:

Gygax also claimed Manuscript C was written with virtually no “solid rules” input from Arneson

I think that Gygax made a serious mistake when evaluating Arneson's input. IMO Gygax may have been thinking too much in terms of traditional miniatures/Wargaming. Arneson's real input was more about new places to take gaming. Arneson was in 1974 compared to Gygax an amateur gamer, yet Gygax did recognize that Arneson's group were doing unique things up in Minnesota. I think that in the end, Gygax and other TSR employees let their estimation of Arneson as an amateur get in the way of realizing how innovative his gaming really was.

BEYOND THIS POINT BE DRAGONS contains several unique spells. Tranquilize and Blade Barrier

Could Tranquilize be the same spell as Sleep?


More later

-Havard

[chirine ba kal]

Some more thoughts:

Gygax also claimed Manuscript C was written with virtually no “solid rules” input from Arneson

I think that Gygax made a serious mistake when evaluating Arneson's input. IMO Gygax may have been thinking too much in terms of traditional miniatures/Wargaming. Arneson's real input was more about new places to take gaming. Arneson was in 1974 compared to Gygax an amateur gamer, yet Gygax did recognize that Arneson's group were doing unique things up in Minnesota. I think that in the end, Gygax and other TSR employees let their estimation of Arneson as an amateur get in the way of realizing how innovative his gaming really was.

-Havard

Sorry if I'm barging in here, but I've looked at the pictures and read the posts. I think it's an authentic manuscript, based on the artwork and style; very few people ever saw Dave's artwork. I'm also basing this on materials in the Professor's materials (which I'm the archivist of) which has revealed that there was a LOT more collaboration between Dave and Phil then had been known.

More later - unpacking the van after the memorial event for Phil...

yours, Chirine

[Havard]

Much appreciated Chirine! Thanks for stopping by.

Eagerly awaiting more info if you can find it

-Havard

[chirine ba kal]

Much appreciated Chirine! Thanks for stopping by.

Eagerly awaiting more info if you can find it

-Havard

I will do my best; we have something like 11,000 pages of material in 146 boxes amounting to over 525 cubic feet of material to work our way through in the Professor's archive. We did a major sort just the papers into categories back in November, and that material alone weighed over 1,800 pounds worth of documents going back to the late 1940's.

Professor Barker refers quite a bit to Dave and his work on D & D in the 1970s; from what we're uncovering, they met very early on and collaborated to a much higher degree then we'd known about. Phil also kept detailed 'log sheets' of his games, for play-testing purposes, and we can now follow the creation of EPT from the original manuscript notes through the 'mimeo' green-cover play-test edition through the notes for the TSR edition and finally to the TSR edition itself.

All of this material has a direct bearing on the BTPBD manuscript; that style and level of publication quality was, from what we've seen in the Professor's archives, a hallmark of both Dave and Phil's style of rules publications current at that time. Phil's own 'house rules', as seen in the 'mimeo' edition, display this and so do the other Arneson items of that time in the archive.

I had the great fortune of knowing the both of them; they were incredible guys.

yours, Chirine

[rredmond]

Real interesting though. Thanks!