Finarvyn Administrator Dungeon Master member is offline
Joined: Jun 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 4,674 Location: Near Chicago Karma: 178
Re: BTPBD Analysis Paper « Reply #2 on May 14, 2012, 7:18pm »
What I like best is that it has been researched well with citations, etc. When I read the first blog entry I was a skeptic, but as Dan added more and more I could see that his wasn't some knee-jerk reaction and was actually based on a lot of background information.
Marv / Finarvyn DCC playtester (2011) C&C playtester (2003) I'm partly responsible for the S&W WhiteBox Builder of the TrollBridge Master of Mutants; MA since 1976 OD&D Player since 1975
"Don't ask me what you need to hit. Just roll the die and I will let you know!" - Dave Arneson
This is the series of blog posts, revised and put into one paper. Reformating courtesy of our host Finarvyn.
Coming from a former theological/philosophical background with an interest in Greek paleography and Greek New testament textual criticism, this document is a redecoration of old stomping grounds! Well done and extremely interesting.
Check out Magician's Manse, my old school Dungeons and Dragons blog.
Finarvyn Administrator Dungeon Master member is offline
Joined: Jun 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 4,674 Location: Near Chicago Karma: 178
Re: BTPBD Analysis Paper « Reply #6 on May 15, 2012, 10:06pm »
Well, the owner has to give approval for it to be made public. As I understand it, the owner of the manuscript was interested in Dan's verification as to its authenticity and at the moment isn't interested in sharing the manuscript to the public.
Marv / Finarvyn DCC playtester (2011) C&C playtester (2003) I'm partly responsible for the S&W WhiteBox Builder of the TrollBridge Master of Mutants; MA since 1976 OD&D Player since 1975
"Don't ask me what you need to hit. Just roll the die and I will let you know!" - Dave Arneson
This is the series of blog posts, revised and put into one paper. Reformating courtesy of our host Finarvyn.
Gad! I'm an epilogue!
Seriously, this is a great bit of detective work. I agree with all of your conclusions; the manuscript is very typical of the kind of 'house publication' that was very common here in the Twin Cities at that time. Prof. Barker's green-cover 'proto-EPT' play-test manuscript is another example of the genre. Amazing, really...
Well, the owner has to give approval for it to be made public. As I understand it, the owner of the manuscript was interested in Dan's verification as to its authenticity and at the moment isn't interested in sharing the manuscript to the public.
Unfortunately, that most likely means it will eventually end up with a collector who will never share it.
Right now if you had this document and selected documents from the Arneson auction that is going on you could come pretty close to really recreating a complete Arnesonian OD&D as it could have been in January 1974.
It is a shame that Arneson did not have the cash to go in as the full partner instead of Don Kaye. Maybe each of the 3LBBs would have been slightly longer or the Blackmoor supplement would have been a pure DA treasure of alternate rules as thick as the Greyhawk supplement was.
Well, the owner has to give approval for it to be made public. As I understand it, the owner of the manuscript was interested in Dan's verification as to its authenticity and at the moment isn't interested in sharing the manuscript to the public.
Unfortunately, that most likely means it will eventually end up with a collector who will never share it.
Never happen. At the very least it will end up in an archive where it will be accesible by everybody, probably as a read only document. The owner would dearly love to share BTPBD but hasn't shared it around because that would be illegal distribution of a copyrighted work and thre are other toes to avoid stepping on. Its also important to note the the "original" is actually a xerox photocopy. I'm hopefull that Paul Stormberg has a more complete copy, but he's a little busy at the moment...
Right now if you had this document and selected documents from the Arneson auction that is going on you could come pretty close to really recreating a complete Arnesonian OD&D as it could have been in January 1974.
It is a shame that Arneson did not have the cash to go in as the full partner instead of Don Kaye. Maybe each of the 3LBBs would have been slightly longer or the Blackmoor supplement would have been a pure DA treasure of alternate rules as thick as the Greyhawk supplement was.
Hard to say, but Gygax statements from interviews indicate that he wasn't interested in having Arneson as a business partner, money or not. Indeed, he later turned down an offer from Dave Wesely. <shrug>
Unfortunately, that most likely means it will eventually end up with a collector who will never share it.
Never happen. At the very least it will end up in an archive where it will be accesible by everybody, probably as a read only document. The owner would dearly love to share BTPBD but hasn't shared it around because that would be illegal distribution of a copyrighted work and thre are other toes to avoid stepping on. Its also important to note the the "original" is actually a xerox photocopy. I'm hopefull that Paul Stormberg has a more complete copy, but he's a little busy at the moment...
Well there is Champions of ZED....
I don't really have much of a feel for what Champions of ZED is or will be. What does the ZED stand for BTW?
It is a shame that Arneson did not have the cash to go in as the full partner instead of Don Kaye. Maybe each of the 3LBBs would have been slightly longer or the Blackmoor supplement would have been a pure DA treasure of alternate rules as thick as the Greyhawk supplement was.
Hard to say, but Gygax statements from interviews indicate that he wasn't interested in having Arneson as a business partner, money or not. Indeed, he later turned down an offer from Dave Wesely. <shrug>
I agree that Gygax wasn't interested in that. However, if Arneson had had the ready cash, it would have been tough to have prevented it. They would have needed a referee that they both had to listen to most likely.
If you posit a referee that they had to listen to, someone who kept every one pointed in the right direction in producing fun stuff but didn't break anything, it could have been awesome to have them both creating and adding things. I also think it is a shame that Dave Hargrave was not brought in from the cold (ego's can sometimes really get in the way of good things). Can you imagine the Arduin Trilogy with great editing as official D&D supplements?
I don't really have much of a feel for what Champions of ZED is or will be. What does the ZED stand for BTW?
.... If you posit a referee that they had to listen to, someone who kept every one pointed in the right direction in producing fun stuff but didn't break anything, it could have been awesome to have them both creating and adding things.
Heh, that is what Champions of ZED is. - Me being the "referee".
ZED is Zero Edition Dungeoneering. Basically, I took the 3lbb's and said "okay, this was Gygax's last draft" (as he himself characterized it more than once) and I took BTPBD and said "okay, this is Arneson's last draft". Then I looked at the various house rules each had brought up over the years, Arnesons rules related notes in the FFC, Gygax's spell clarifications in Swords and Spells, Gygax's material in CHAINMAIL, thier combined material in Supplement II, magazine articles, etc. etc. Then I sat down as "editor", much the same as Mike Carr had done for Gygax and Arneson on Don't give up the Ship, and wove that material together (as close as I could legally)as it might have been if they had hired an editor in 1974 instead of Gygax going ahead with publishing the 3lbb's on his own.
Because the combat systems derive from CHAINMAIL there are some adaptations and liberties taken to make them work, but, even so CoZ is extremely faithful to the source material and re-presents the original game in with a kind of wholeness it has never had. Also, as a Zero Edition game, it is entirely sandbox focused, just as the 3lbb's are, but with a much greater emphasis on how to integrate all the random charts and tables into gaming fun.
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Not sure I follow, but if you look to that thread you can see the combat tables used in BTPBD.