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Post by aldarron on May 19, 2017 10:10:41 GMT -6
Just passing around the word on my 'Blogpost on original Blackmoor Player Dan Nicholson's Spanish Royals character sheet. This sheet was recently discovered by the Secrets of Blackmoor documentary folks and I did a short write up about it HERE |
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Post by Deleted on May 19, 2017 10:54:31 GMT -6
Just passing around the word on my 'Blogpost on original Blackmoor Player Dan Nicholson's Spanish Royals character sheet. This sheet was recently discovered by the Secrets of Blackmoor documentary folks and I did a short write up about it HEREI would give you an Exalt for this if I could. Excellent information, thank you for your continuing and ongoing service to our community. |
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Post by Stormcrow on May 19, 2017 10:59:29 GMT -6
The exact statistics may differ, but this looks like it's otherwise straight out of Bath's Ancient Wargaming. Neat to see, but not, I think, exactly what "the oldest character sheet" means to most people. I can imagine that other wargamers from that era wrote up similar sheets according to Bath's advice, and that they, or their estates, still have them.
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Post by derv on May 19, 2017 16:39:44 GMT -6
Hmm, I hear springs a winding, fly wheels spinning, and gears a ticking. I wonder if I see where this is going?
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Post by Stormcrow on May 19, 2017 18:27:06 GMT -6
I wonder if I see where this is going? "Tony Bath's True Genius." Oh, waitaminnit. |
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Post by Cedgewick on May 19, 2017 21:09:28 GMT -6
The exact statistics may differ, but this looks like it's otherwise straight out of Bath's Ancient Wargaming. Neat to see, but not, I think, exactly what "the oldest character sheet" means to most people. I can imagine that other wargamers from that era wrote up similar sheets according to Bath's advice, and that they, or their estates, still have them. Did you read his blog? He said |
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Post by Stormcrow on May 20, 2017 5:45:17 GMT -6
I did read his blog. I didn't say they got the advice of doing that from Bath's book; I said they got the advice from Bath. I recognize the advice from Bath's book in the form of the sheet. Bath had been doing that sort of thing and getting the idea in circulation for years before he published his book.
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Post by Cedgewick on May 20, 2017 10:47:29 GMT -6
I did read his blog. I didn't say they got the advice of doing that from Bath's book; I said they got the advice from Bath. I recognize the advice from Bath's book in the form of the sheet. Bath had been doing that sort of thing and getting the idea in circulation for years before he published his book. By your comment above and your "Tony Bath's True Genius" comment, you are implying that Arneson took his character sheet from Bath. How do you then explain the following? |
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Post by Stormcrow on May 20, 2017 13:13:25 GMT -6
You're one of TPD's sock puppets, aren't you?
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Post by Cedgewick on May 20, 2017 16:33:22 GMT -6
You're one of TPD's sock puppets, aren't you? You were partially correct about Bath, but it seems by luck? Bath published an article called Characterization in Hyboria in March of 1970 in Slingshot magazine where numerical values from 1 to 5 were assigned to several character attributes, such as "loyalty" and "ability". That was more than a year prior to Arnesons character sheet... |
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Post by aldarron on May 20, 2017 18:00:04 GMT -6
You're one of TPD's sock puppets, aren't you? What or who the heck is TBD? As far as I know, TBD is short for "to be determined". The exact statistics may differ, but this looks like it's otherwise straight out of Bath's Ancient Wargaming. Neat to see, but not, I think, exactly what "the oldest character sheet" means to most people. I can imagine that other wargamers from that era wrote up similar sheets according to Bath's advice, and that they, or their estates, still have them. As has been pointed out, Baths system was very different, and at the time, unpublished, so it is sheer nonsense to say it is "strait" from Ancient Wargaming.. In any case, I think I made it pretty clear that assigning character traits to figures in wargames was not new. The Twin cities gamers could have thought of it themselves, or picked up on the idea from anywhere, including somehow or other being inspired by something Bath wrote. However, more to the point, you are missing the point and throwing sand in the air to obscure it. Put simply, the 2d6 fixed trait scores of Spansih Royals sheet is a direct ancestor of the Blackmoor PC 2d6 fixed "personality" scores which are direct ancestors of the D&D 3d6 fixed ability scores. It's a direct line of related character sheets, of which the Spanish Royals is the oldest, so I think it was a fair enough headline for a forum post. |
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Post by Stormcrow on May 20, 2017 18:34:09 GMT -6
You're one of TPD's sock puppets, aren't you? What or who the heck is TBD? As far as I know, TBD is short for "to be determined". Look again. "The exact statistics may differ..." (A) I said "straight," not "strait." (B) I said it " looks like it's otherwise straight out of Bath's Ancient Wargaming," not that it did come from there. It, and Bath, share the same form. That, I claim, is because they originated from the same wargaming culture. I believe Bath claims in his book to have come up with the system of randomly generating statistics for a noble and randomly generating his family and putting it all in a chart. If true, the idea comes to the wargaming world through Bath. Unless he was taking credit for ideas others came up with. Congratulations. I never said otherwise. How wonderful. You are missing my point that whether you use 2d6 or 3d6 or card suits or Norse runes is irrelevant to whether something is a "character sheet"; wargamers like Bath were assigning statistics to individuals in the manner of this sheet long before this sheet was written. If you want to claim that assigning 2d6 scores on this sheet is a direct ancestor of the habit of assigning 2d6 scores on a Blackmoor sheet, go right ahead; I don't doubt you. |
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Post by flightcommander on May 20, 2017 23:46:59 GMT -6
Bath published an article called Characterization in Hyboria in March of 1970 in Slingshot magazine where numerical values from 1 to 5 were assigned to several character attributes, such as "loyalty" and "ability". That was more than a year prior to Arnesons character sheet. Thanks for that! I took a look at the Slingshot Index provided by SoA and found that article listed in Issue 29, but was unable to determine the date without making assumptions about the print schedule. I figured it was 69 or 70; do you know which month? It's not clear to me what the relationship is between that article, and Chapter 6 "Characterization" of "Setting up a Wargames Campaign", which I have in reprint from John Curry's History of Wargaming project. I had assumed they would be nearly identical but it sounds like no, they're not. The latter suggests the use of a deck of playing cards to (quite cleverly) determine salient aspects of notable personalities in a wargames campaign. Depending on the cards drawn for an individual character, one might end up with an ugly/loyal character, or an ambitious/attractive character, or a charming/cowardly character. In other words, each character is assembled from a few select parts of a larger set, instead of each character having the same set of characteristics with different scores for each. (I'd actually like to use this for hirelings!) Later in that chapter he describes an alternate system that defines several fixed character attributes, with scores ranging from 1-6. If you squint you can see Classic Traveller's UPP in vestigial form. In any case, at least in the "SuaWC" text, it's very clear that Tony Bath was relying on what I'd call "kitchen table" systems — ie, decide on what you want to model first, and then grab some simple randomizer within arms' reach (eg, deck of cards, 2d6) to quantize the things you want to model. It's very ad hoc, do it yourself, try something like this, and I imagine he was doing (and writing about) this in 65 if not earlier. |
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Post by aldarron on May 21, 2017 7:41:18 GMT -6
More sand. This however is specifically where you are overdrawing; ......wargamers like Bath were assigning statistics to individuals in the manner of this sheet long before this sheet was written... No they weren't. As can be readily seen, the manner statistics were assigned to the Spanish Royals characters was a specific protocol following a consistent list of characteristics with rule integral scores assigned to all characters. This is exactly the same "manner" as D&D to this day. (SIWDCnC) It is not the manner used by "wargamers like Bath" to "characterize" figures. Bath's characterisitcs were limited, random and individualized in design for the purpose of influencing the decisions of the gamer and not otherwise integral to the operation of the rules. What Bath was doing was nothing like ability scores in D&D. The Spanish Royals trait list however, is very like D&D. |
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Post by increment on May 21, 2017 10:01:41 GMT -6
It is not the manner used by "wargamers like Bath" to "characterize" figures. Bath's characterisitcs were limited, random and individualized in design for the purpose of influencing the decisions of the gamer and not otherwise integral to the operation of the rules. What Bath was doing was nothing like ability scores in D&D. The Spanish Royals trait list however, is very like D&D. So right off the bat, everyone reading this should realize this is an important find - probably the coolest thing I've seen come out of the Secrets of Blackmoor yet. There's no serious doubt that what we see on this sheet here directly informed the way characteristics were done in Blackmoor. This is something that I have previously feared was going underreported in the Secrets project: that is, the degree to which Blackmoor really cloned structures and practices of the Napoleonic Simulation Campaign. It doesn't stop here, by any means. This is a very neat document, I'm really not chiming in here to rain on anyone's deserved parade. But... I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the relationship of this document to the practices that Bath and Neville Dickinson developed for their campaign activities in the late 1960s. The main reason why I wouldn't is because it is indeed a sheet about a royal family and not about a person, that it shows spouses, issue, etc., which is not just a matter of how Dan directed a character, say, but perhaps models something else. Without invoking any fancy sources here, it is clear from the Slingshot #29 article that the characterization it documents is just an extension of Bath's earlier characterization system, adding new elements for military commanders. Read the first sentence: "Some considerable while ago I decided to extend the system by which I devise characteristics and family relationships for the Hyborian nobility to military and naval officers." So Bath had a still earlier system for devising characteristics specifically for noble families. That is... kind of a striking coincidence. And then on his extensions "apart from drawing up normal characters for those officers, I decided also give them a loyalty and/or efficiency rating" and so on. So the characteristics Bath devised for royal family aren't what we see in SL#29, but something else. Let's say there was one for intelligence. Would that portrait of a royal family then be nothing like what we see in the Napoleonic Simulation Campaign? I guess I am not sure what about the Spanish Royal Family sheet immediately tells us that it would be "integral to the operation of the rules" in some way different from how Bath used characteristics in his game. |
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Post by Stormcrow on May 21, 2017 10:35:28 GMT -6
More sand. This however is specifically where you are overdrawing; ......wargamers like Bath were assigning statistics to individuals in the manner of this sheet long before this sheet was written... No they weren't. As can be readily seen, the manner statistics were assigned to the Spanish Royals characters was a specific protocol following a consistent list of characteristics with rule integral scores assigned to all characters. This is exactly the same "manner" as D&D to this day. (SIWDCnC) It is not the manner used by "wargamers like Bath" to "characterize" figures. Bath's characterisitcs were limited, random and individualized in design for the purpose of influencing the decisions of the gamer and not otherwise integral to the operation of the rules. What Bath was doing was nothing like ability scores in D&D. The Spanish Royals trait list however, is very like D&D. I take from this that you define character sheet as a list of scores to be used directly in the operation of the game mechanics, and that a list of characteristics used to judge decisions taken by characters isn't a character sheet. If that is your definition, that is the source of our disagreement. "These characters will have a great bearing on any decisions which you have to make involving them, and this is particularly important for the controller of a mythical continent, whether he is running it by himself or whether he has a group of players involved. There will always be occasions when the attitudes of nobles and officers who are not being played by actual people - what we in Hyboria call cardboard characters - can be vital to an event, and by using these characters you can often solve the question." -- Tony Bath's Ancient Wargaming
That book not only gives Bath's own playing card–based system of personality characteristics; it also gives a "somewhat later" system (meaning Bath's was "somewhat earlier") by Richard Nelson in which each character had the following characteristics, all scaled from 1 to 6: General Disposition, Morals, Generosity, Loyalty, Appearance, Popularity, Intelligence, Activity, Martial Aptitude, Martial Experience, Political Aptitude, and Political Experience. These characteristics do interact directly with the game rules, though Bath doesn't tell much about how: "The effect of individual characteristics in a given case will obviously depend on individual campaign rules, but a character with Morals 3, Loyalty 1 and Appearance 5 should not be left to look after the castle and Queen while Hubby is away at the wars!" So even if you don't consider a list under Bath's system a character sheet, you really should under Nelson's system. |
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Post by aldarron on May 22, 2017 9:16:46 GMT -6
.... And then on his extensions "apart from drawing up normal characters for those officers, I decided also give them a loyalty and/or efficiency rating" and so on. So the characteristics Bath devised for royal family aren't what we see in SL#29, but something else. Let's say there was one for intelligence. Would that portrait of a royal family then be nothing like what we see in the Napoleonic Simulation Campaign? To me it's an interesting but open question whether Arneson was influenced directly or even indirectly through the gossip mill by Bath's Hyborian campaign. It would be kinda neat if that lineage could be firmly established and more satisfying than a narrative placing Bath as the Robert Goddard of RPG history. I'm unsure of the thought behind your question though, as it seems to me that Bath most likely did include stats for intelligence and so forth and there certainly must be a cosmetic resemblance between a given character of Baths and the Spanish Royals sheet. One would certainly expect so. The distinction occurs when comparing multiple characters. Any one of Bath's characters would have 2 or 3 universal traits and few randomly chosen characteristics, whereas Arneson's approach relied on a fixed set of traits shared by all adult characters - an approach carried all the way into the current iteration of D&D. I guess I am not sure what about the Spanish Royal Family sheet immediately tells us that it would be "integral to the operation of the rules" in some way different from how Bath used characteristics in his game. It's a distinction I don't wish to overdraw, but I would argue that Bath's characterizations were largely secondary adjuncts to his rules, and that he presented the idea as optional. I think the Spanish Royals sheet does show a more direct degree of game play integration in the consistency of all the characteristics, and because of the direct link to later Blackmoor Character sheets, appearing nearly on its heels. through both the characteristic list themselves and the 2d6 scores associated with each. I think this indicates the Spanish Royal characteristics functioned identically, or nearly so, as their counterparts on later sheets, as an indispensable game mechanic. I agree though that without an actual written set of rules detailing the use of the stats, other possibilities theoretically exist. |
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Post by Deleted on May 22, 2017 10:12:29 GMT -6
So right off the bat, everyone reading this should realize this is an important find - probably the coolest thing I've seen come out of the Secrets of Blackmoor yet. Let's just savor that for a moment and look forward to seeing the " Secrets of Blackmoor". |
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Post by Cedgewick on May 22, 2017 10:34:42 GMT -6
I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the relationship of this document to the practices that Bath and Neville Dickinson developed for their campaign activities in the late 1960s...Bath had a still earlier system for devising characteristics specifically for noble families. That is... kind of a striking coincidence. This runs counter to your book. Now I know over in Murkhill you referred to it in our previous debate rather derogatorily as "some book I wrote a while ago," but I think you should provide some evidence for changing your stance so dramatically from this bit at the bottom of page 432: Has my mention of Slingshot #29 really so reversed your stance on the sole basis that Arneson numerically characterized a royal family and Bath simply mentioned that he devised "family relationships for the Hyborian nobility"? Or are there some "fancy sources" that lend further credence to connecting Bath to the Twin Cities that you have not yet disclosed? In the "90 letters back and forth between Gary and Dave" you have teased me with over at Murkhill, is there a mention of Bath? And, on the topic of "fancy sources," I can tell you that I, and I'm sure aldarron and others as well, would absolutely LOVE it if you were to post the Blackmoor Gazette & Rumormonger you mentioned here just as you did with the other one: |
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Post by increment on May 22, 2017 10:52:45 GMT -6
The distinction occurs when comparing multiple characters. Any one of Bath's characters would have 2 or 3 universal traits and few randomly chosen characteristics, whereas Arneson's approach relied on a fixed set of traits shared by all adult characters - an approach carried all the way into the current iteration of D&D. It's tough, because it isn't easy to say what Hyboria was, but that's a familiar problem. Much like with Blackmoor, you have to look at the Hyborian campaign not as a system, but as an activity with a perpetually evolving system to which many people contributed ideas - except Hyboria started in 1957, and had a lot longer to evolve. Like Blackmoor, we know Hyboria through contemporary play reports, in-game magazines, a few articles detailing system, and then retrospectives on the state of the system. At some point, it had a set of fixed personality traits like intelligence, courage, and so on, and by at some point(s), they used dice to determine such characteristics. But it's hard to nail down. I think the main alternative possibility is that these statistics in the Napoleonic Simulation Campaign were used to determine the fate of the roster of "personalities" as they called them. At the risk of delving into fancy sources, CoTT does for example show us the following, in 1971:  I might propose that what we see in the Spanish royal family sheet is some of the system model that went into determining events like we see here. Things that depend on how healthy you are. How likely you are to be married. Note as well you might have some trouble with, say, horsemanship, or seamanship, and this could result in various bad things happening to you. While we don't happen to see those two aptitudes quantified on the Spanish royal family sheet, surely you see where I'm going with that. Bath used his characteristics to determine nation-altering events like this, to help decide the stories of how the royal families in Hyboria evolved and interacted with one another. Characteristics were inputs to a system model that would shake players up and create new conflicts and alliances. Is that "indispensable" to the rules? Tough to say. It is if your game is a strategic campaign, I think. I'd be cautious about representing the Spanish royal family sheet as clear evidence that players used these attributes in game in the Napoleonic Simulation Campaign in some immediate way that we'd usually associate only with much later role-playing games. I'd say the same about the way these characteristics went on to be used in Blackmoor. It could have been something more at the campaign level like what we see in the personality news here. In some cases, I think the connections between Blackmoor and Hyboria as campaigns are very stark - like in the Chance cards, say. I think there are good reasons to think that Bath's work was known in the Twin Cities.[/quote] |
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Post by increment on May 22, 2017 10:59:02 GMT -6
This runs counter to your book. In short, yes, my view of that has changed, I do now think that people in the Twin Cities had direct access to Slingshot and other Bath sources. This is largely from seeing the collections and correspondence of Arneson and other key people in the Twin Cities. I don't see much evidence that Gygax received Slingshot; however, Gygax played in the Napoleonic Simulation Campaign and was a party to its system in 1971. |
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Post by Cedgewick on May 23, 2017 12:13:31 GMT -6
And, on the topic of "fancy sources," I can tell you that I, and I'm sure aldarron and others as well, would absolutely LOVE it if you were to post the Blackmoor Gazette & Rumormonger you mentioned here just as you did with the other one: ...to which I reply with a quote from your very own book, Playing at the World: |
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Post by aldarron on May 25, 2017 12:33:08 GMT -6
...... I might propose that what we see in the Spanish royal family sheet is some of the system model that went into determining events like we see here. Things that depend on how healthy you are. How likely you are to be married. Note as well you might have some trouble with, say, horsemanship, or seamanship, and this could result in various bad things happening to you. While we don't happen to see those two aptitudes quantified on the Spanish royal family sheet, surely you see where I'm going with that. Bath used his characteristics to determine nation-altering events like this, to help decide the stories of how the royal families in Hyboria evolved and interacted with one another. Characteristics were inputs to a system model that would shake players up and create new conflicts and alliances. Is that "indispensable" to the rules? Tough to say. It is if your game is a strategic campaign, I think. I'd be cautious about representing the Spanish royal family sheet as clear evidence that players used these attributes in game in the Napoleonic Simulation Campaign in some immediate way that we'd usually associate only with much later role-playing games. I'd say the same about the way these characteristics went on to be used in Blackmoor. It could have been something more at the campaign level like what we see in the personality news here. In some cases, I think the connections between Blackmoor and Hyboria as campaigns are very stark - like in the Chance cards, say. I think there are good reasons to think that Bath's work was known in the Twin Cities. That sheet definitely appears to be a very nice tie in to the stats. I'd say it is only a short step to go from the referee rolling to see if some person got sick or had an accident at certain times at campaign level, to doing so whenever a "character" is directed to do some task by the player. As you say though, tough to know when these steps were taken. (Also interesting to note the diseases that show up on the sheet, given the lists in Supp II and Peg 1) |
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Post by ritt on May 25, 2017 17:04:37 GMT -6
Absolutely fascinating.
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Post by Scott Anderson on Jun 19, 2017 0:34:35 GMT -6
I think it's nice that historians can have it out here without going nuclear flame war on each other.
Since I'm mostly interested in 1974 to about 2008, I have not become intimately acquainted with the early material. I can't speak to the accuracy of one or the other opinion. You all seem like you could be right.
I like the narrative that DH develops in his blog post. It seems to fit the evidence.
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Post by captainjapan on Sept 29, 2019 15:30:02 GMT -6
Through watching the movie, I'm beginning to understand the different scopes of gameplay being played in other campaigns(?) concurrent with the start of Blackmoor. This question has probably been asked, in some form, dozens of times across the forums: What makes a player character?
Dave Arneson held on to the PC record sheets, but I guess the players rolled the dice? It appears as though some attribute scores on the character records were not, historically speaking, under the player's control. The referee rolled them up. The referee kept the sheets between games. They were, for all modern intents and purposes, the stats of a non-player character.
The outcomes of personality-based saves, if they existed before Arneson, might have changed the course of a battle or a peace treaty or the royal progression to the throne. They had direct impacts for the campaign narrative( a campaign, btw, meaning the full course of a war, not just a player character's adventuring career) It was so much more impactful than a modern player character's attribute check.
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Post by aldarron on Oct 2, 2019 14:55:46 GMT -6
.... Dave Arneson held on to the PC record sheets, but I guess the players rolled the dice? It appears as though some attribute scores on the character records were not, historically speaking, under the player's control. The referee rolled them up. The referee kept the sheets between games. They were, for all modern intents and purposes, the stats of a non-player character... Best not to make broad assumptions on any of these points. Arneson apparently did keep the sheets of some of his players, but not all of them. It just depended on the player - heck, I do the same thing for certain of my players just so they don't get lost. Sure, Arneson probably rolled dice for some things we might let the players roll for now, but not for everything. I can pull up lots of quotes from the Blackmoor players talking about rolling dice for things. The players rolled their own stats on every pre and post D&D Blackmoor character sheet I have ever seen, so I'm at a loss why you would say otherwise. However, even if Arneson had rolled them, wouldn't that be the same as a pre-gen? I'm not sure why that would make their characters like NPCs. |
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Post by captainjapan on Oct 3, 2019 4:00:31 GMT -6
LOL - Obviously, you're right. And, here is Dan Nicholson's Spanish Royals sheet to prove it.Do you think Dan Nicholson would have been expected to roll a save vs King Kurt of Spain's wife's Health score, every time she popped out another kid, to see if she would have died in childbirth? He would have to have rolled in front of Arneson, as he was the referee. But, I think it was more likely that Arneson had his own master record of all the actors in his campaign; and rolled random to determine life events at his convenience. Then he could have Nicholson update his copy the next time he called his orders in.
This sheet was written up by Dave Arneson(I'll presume) and given to Dan Nicholson on May 22, 1971. This marks the beginning of the Napoleonic Campaign. Can you say how long it actually lasted? Maj. Wesely says in the film that game turns were 10-15 weeks long! I wonder what else there was to that campaign supplement he was handing out at the meeting? BTW, Why is the (D)eaths Column whited-out on the scan you posted?
You may as well know that I haven't let go of my issues with the Intelligence score. How would you think it(Brains) might be used by members of the Spanish royal family in the Napoleonic Campaign? Do you still think that individualized ability scores derive from the Napoleonic campaign? Or, could it be that a "medieval braunstein" character record is the model for the Spanish royals personality attributes? So far, I've only seen the player rosters from a few of those late Braunsteins. They list player names, troop types, starting money(Brownstone), and victory conditions. Have you seen Braunstein ability scores?
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