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Post by aldarron on May 14, 2012 16:58:28 GMT -6
This is the series of blog posts, revised and put into one paper. Reformating courtesy of our host Finarvyn. |
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verhaden
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
Posts: 308
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Post by verhaden on May 14, 2012 17:09:05 GMT -6
Great work--I find things like this utterly fascinating.
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Post by Finarvyn on May 14, 2012 18:18:31 GMT -6
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.
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Post by TheLeadershipGeek (SMKSensei) on May 14, 2012 21:25:54 GMT -6
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. |
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Post by aldarron on May 15, 2012 9:49:19 GMT -6
Thanks!  |
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Post by tombowings on May 15, 2012 19:47:28 GMT -6
So how do we get a look at this manuscript?
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Post by Finarvyn on May 15, 2012 21:06:20 GMT -6
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.
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Post by chirinebakal on May 17, 2012 6:35:22 GMT -6
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... yours, Chirine |
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on May 17, 2012 7:31:31 GMT -6
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. |
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Post by aldarron on May 17, 2012 7:53:58 GMT -6
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. Well there is Champions of ZED.... 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> |
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on May 18, 2012 22:33:18 GMT -6
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? |
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Post by aldarron on May 26, 2012 13:32:43 GMT -6
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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Post by warrioroffrobozz on May 27, 2012 18:55:16 GMT -6
Would this be the manuscript mentioned on the 'Blackmoor Combat' thread?
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Post by aldarron on May 28, 2012 9:07:31 GMT -6
Would this be the manuscript mentioned on the 'Blackmoor Combat' thread? Yes, thats the one. |
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Post by aldarron on May 29, 2012 20:05:30 GMT -6
 Not sure I follow, but if you look to that thread you can see the combat tables used in BTPBD.
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Post by warrioroffrobozz on May 30, 2012 10:12:22 GMT -6
Sorry English isn't my native language, I'm probably using that phrase wrong  |
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cadriel
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
Posts: 207
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Post by cadriel on Jun 21, 2012 12:24:04 GMT -6
This is interesting, but I don't think authorship is definitively established. I have a lot of questions that would need solid answers before I would agree that this is an Arneson document. Here's a Flickr photostream of images: Photostream1. Why is it called "Beyond This Point Be Dragons"? Is there any record that this was a potential name for the D&D game, or that Arneson would have a substantial reason for putting this name on the manuscript? It had been called "Blackmoor" when Arneson ran it, and "Greyhawk" when Gygax ran it; is there any evidence that BTPBD was a candidate for a name? 2. Why is the manuscript illustrated? Was this common for typescripts for game publication? More directly, why is it so much better illustrated than the original D&D books up through at least Eldritch Wizardry, and really until after 1976? If Arneson could draw or had access to friends who would draw that well, why were illustrations like this not used in the LBBs? 3. A genuine question - doesn't this look mimeographed? I have a lot of photocopies of Alarums & Excursions issues, and the style of the stenciled drawings point, at least to me, to a mimeograph. This would be consistent with the idea that it's a house rule document. 4. There are clear keys indicating that the handwriting samples are not the same. Arneson's "E"s are very particular, and the document includes three very different "E"s: the capital in "OGRE", the lower-case in "SeCRET DOOR" and the cursive style "E" in "SeCRET DOOR" and "(CAVERN)". Its initial "S" has a short tail, where Arneson's have a long tail. Similarly the number "5" in BTPBD has its tail under the main letter, and Arneson's goes further out. 5. The writing style is simpler, but I don't think that it's definitively Arneson's. Did Arneson ever use "seeable" instead of "visible"? The term "player" is used in a particular fashion but a fairly common one in gaming circles. "Chop" is the most interesting stylistic tic, but without the other evidence I don't think it definitively determines authorship. There are a number of misspellings that I think are typical of someone copying from a book rather than writing a manuscript and thinking about it (such as "myrmiden" instead of "myrmidon"). Others reflect certain things already being established in gaming circles (such as "GP" for Gold Pieces). 6. The organization of the document points more clearly to it being a rule document organized by a player with a copy of the LBBs and FFC to hand. Again, you'd have a major step back from BTPBD to the LBBs, just as in the art. The tables would have been copied and modified directly from the source. 7. The lacunae do not point to an earlier date, but rather the space limitations - it's unfortunate that the analysis doesn't actually give a page count for the document. We can particularly tell this because other tables are added, meaning it's not in a relatively "primitive" state. 8. The one thing I think needs some explanation, is the content held in common with the First Fantasy Campaign. Given all of the above, I'd be much more comfortable saying this is an amateur house rules document, which was the reaction of most TSR insiders from the period. Nothing about it points, in my view, to it being a lost early draft of D&D. It'd date from, probably, the period shortly after the FFC was published, and was done without access to any of the supplements. I agree with Gygax's opinion on this one, as there were a number of falsified copies of D&D floating around in that period. |
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cadriel
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
Posts: 207
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Post by cadriel on Jun 21, 2012 15:04:01 GMT -6
To expand a bit further on point 1 above...
The name of the game, from 1972 onward, was "Dungeons & Dragons." Dave's game was called "Blackmoor" internally, never "Beyond This Point Be Dragons," and Gary's was "Greyhawk." The working title had been "The Fantasy Game." There is not the slightest record of Dave Arneson wanting to call it BTPBD, which would have been a rather bold thing to put on a draft of the rules. I really think that this is a major problem in the argument for the document, which is never even addressed in passing.
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Post by aldarron on Jun 21, 2012 22:17:55 GMT -6
This is interesting, but I don't think authorship is definitively established. I have a lot of questions that would need solid answers before I would agree that this is an Arneson document. Here's a Flickr photostream of images: Photostream1. Why is it called "Beyond This Point Be Dragons"? Is there any record that this was a potential name for the D&D game, or that Arneson would have a substantial reason for putting this name on the manuscript? It had been called "Blackmoor" when Arneson ran it, and "Greyhawk" when Gygax ran it; is there any evidence that BTPBD was a candidate for a name? Will address more fully in your second post. 2. Why is the manuscript illustrated? Was this common for typescripts for game publication? More directly, why is it so much better illustrated than the original D&D books up through at least Eldritch Wizardry, and really until after 1976? If Arneson could draw or had access to friends who would draw that well, why were illustrations like this not used in the LBBs? It's illustrated for the same reason the FFC is illustrated with Dave's drawings ('77 print, exaple here: odd74.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=dragonsatdawn&action=display&thread=7153&page=1 ). Dave wanted to. It is not typical for anybody to illustrate working drafts, but it is for documents being prepared for typesetting. I'm not sure why you are asking some of these questions since they were addressed in my paper already. Arneson could draw. Here blackmoor.mystara.us/forums/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=638Also, some of Dave's illustrations are in the 3lbb's! Have a look at the art credits. As I argued in the article, the drawings are supportive of my contention that BTPBD was Arneson's last draft, abandoned upon publication of D&D. Hence the drawings were not available to Gygax when he published. I frankly don't think Gygax told Arneson he was publishing until it was fiat accompli, or nearly so. 3. A genuine question - doesn't this look mimeographed? I have a lot of photocopies of Alarums & Excursions issues, and the style of the stenciled drawings point, at least to me, to a mimeograph. This would be consistent with the idea that it's a house rule document. ? The owner says it is an old Xerox copy. (As it happens, Daves dad owned a Xerox machine), but it makes no difference if it is a mimeo. A mimeograph would not somehow make it more likely to be a houserule document one way or the other. The original EPT's are all mimeograph. Obvioulsly there was a typed original BTPBD either way. 4. There are clear keys indicating that the handwriting samples are not the same. Arneson's "E"s are very particular, and the document includes three very different "E"s: the capital in "OGRE", the lower-case in "SeCRET DOOR" and the cursive style "E" in "SeCRET DOOR" and "(CAVERN)". Its initial "S" has a short tail, where Arneson's have a long tail. Similarly the number "5" in BTPBD has its tail under the main letter, and Arneson's goes further out. There are stylistic differences in some of the lettering. But rather than look at the letters you see as different, try looking at the letters and numbers that are consistently identical. The R's in BTPBD are very characteristic of the way Arneson always drew them. Have a look at the writng on that Corner Table pic I linked to above. 5. The writing style is simpler, but I don't think that it's definitively Arneson's. Did Arneson ever use "seeable" instead of "visible"? The term "player" is used in a particular fashion but a fairly common one in gaming circles. "Chop" is the most interesting stylistic tic, but without the other evidence I don't think it definitively determines authorship. There are a number of misspellings that I think are typical of someone copying from a book rather than writing a manuscript and thinking about it (such as "myrmiden" instead of "myrmidon"). Others reflect certain things already being established in gaming circles (such as "GP" for Gold Pieces). Again, as I've already pointed out, BTPBD reworks an earlier manuscript (Gygax manuscript B) so if in places you think you are seeing "someone copying from a book", you probably are. Arneson had a particular style. Use of player is one example. I can only suggest you seek out and read more of his interviews and writings if you are unconvinced BTPBD is consistent with his voice. However, I find it hard to fathom how anyone can so easily dismiss the near exact, yet unique, pairing of chops with 80% chance to hit a sleeping dragon, in FFC and BTPBD. It's simply not credible to say that's coincidence. 6. The organization of the document points more clearly to it being a rule document organized by a player with a copy of the LBBs and FFC to hand. Again, you'd have a major step back from BTPBD to the LBBs, just as in the art. The tables would have been copied and modified directly from the source. Then, again, you have to explain all the missing content. Why are there no 6th level spells? Why are there no "Player Characters" or "Non-Player Characters"? Why are none of the FFC character classes or post Greyhawk character classes included? I mean I could go on forwever about all the stuff that doesn't appear in BTPBD that should if it was written by somebody with the FFC (published in 1977) in hand, but the simple fact is BTPBD has nothing but 1973 era content - except 1973 era content that was also later published in the FFC, 7. The lacunae do not point to an earlier date, but rather the space limitations - it's unfortunate that the analysis doesn't actually give a page count for the document. We can particularly tell this because other tables are added, meaning it's not in a relatively "primitive" state. They do indeed point to an earlier date. I've given several direct examples of that - the curate spell count in the FFC magic sword creation rules, frex. I have no idea what you mean by "space limitations". It is a typed manuscript on standard 8.5 x 11 paper. There are 57 pages IIRC., numbered seperately as if forming two seperate books - one that contains all the tables, and one the rules. In my copy ther is one page of spell descriptions missing and 1 or more pages at the end. 8. The one thing I think needs some explanation, is the content held in common with the First Fantasy Campaign. Given all of the above, I'd be much more comfortable saying this is an amateur house rules document, which was the reaction of most TSR insiders from the period. Nothing about it points, in my view, to it being a lost early draft of D&D. It'd date from, probably, the period shortly after the FFC was published, and was done without access to any of the supplements. I agree with Gygax's opinion on this one, as there were a number of falsified copies of D&D floating around in that period. So, to be clear, you are suggesting that it is more likely, in your opinion that sometime - post 1977 - someone, somehow had the 3lbb's from TSR (and had a copy of CHAINMAIL - lets not forget the man to man kill list and jousting rules in BTPBD) and the fairly obscure FFC from Judges Guild and no influence from anything else!? Keep in mind you are talking about a time when Holmes D&D was available; AD&D was being published, and there were loads of mags and other games. Further, you are suggesting that this hypothetical person, in addition to ignoring everything else published at the time, somehow lasered in on a very few specific items found in the FFC, (a couple obscure lists, a dragon rule, and perhaps one or two other deeply buried references) while compleatly ignoring the many other rules, such as the famous Special Interest XP rules or the How to Become a Bad Guy rules or the multi HD dragons or the sage, merchant, thief, and paladin classes referenced in the FFC. Further still, you are claiming that this person added rules in some places but took an axe to spells, monsters and magic items and "lost" common gamer terminology like "d6" "Dexterity" and "Player Character." Forgive me, but I don't find that to be a credible point of view or best fit to the evidence. |
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Post by aldarron on Jun 21, 2012 22:55:59 GMT -6
To expand a bit further on point 1 above... The name of the game, from 1972 onward, was "Dungeons & Dragons." Dave's game was called "Blackmoor" internally, never "Beyond This Point Be Dragons," and Gary's was "Greyhawk." The working title had been "The Fantasy Game." There is not the slightest record of Dave Arneson wanting to call it BTPBD, which would have been a rather bold thing to put on a draft of the rules. I really think that this is a major problem in the argument for the document, which is never even addressed in passing. You're a little mixed up here. The name of the game in 1972 was Blackmoor. "Dungeons and Dragons" didn't come about until very late in '73 as Gygax was preparing to publish and asked his daughter Cindy to pick the name from a list. "The Fantasy Game" was a working title Gygax used on his second draft (manuscript C). It may or may not have been on his first draft (manucript B) but I bet it wasn't. It was not a title Arneson invented and there's no evidence he ever used it or even heard of it. Indeed, he not consulted on the D&D name either. BTPBD is not a title anyone ever mentioned either. So what? As discussed, BTPBD must derive from manuscript B. The Term D&D did not exist at that time. Its perfectly reasonable to expect that Arneson had his own ideas regarding a "working title" for the game that was niether Greyhawk, nor Blackmoor anymore. When Gygax wrote Manuscript C and later published D&D, BTPBD, name and all became moot, and Arneson may only have bothered to show it to a few people. |
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cadriel
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
Posts: 207
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Post by cadriel on Jun 22, 2012 4:27:13 GMT -6
Dan, I think your response comes off as a bit defensive. One of the things you've got to realize with this is that you're presenting a document as a "Lost Arneson manuscript" just as you're coming out with a game influenced by that document. It makes people naturally skeptical about the document you're describing, although it is in fact unseen. So I want to be as skeptical of it as possible, especially given what Gygax had said when he saw this document.
It's clear that this is a document out of the Minneapolis "scene" in Dungeons & Dragons, and clearly bears the mark of Arneson's play in large part. (There are things I think need more research, such as the "instant kill" rule - no Arneson player has ever reported that, and it should be confirmed.) However, given the presentation, I'm not sure it's a draft intended to be sent to TSR for publication. The other possibility is that it's a document emerging out of Arneson's large play group, possibly with a separate editor, that put forward his rules for play by other groups in 1973.
I think it's possible that this was edited by someone other than Arneson because as Tim Kask has related at some length, Arneson's original draft of Blackmoor was not a well-organized, thoroughly presented draft; Kask had considerable difficulty with it and wound up reworking large chunks of the draft. Beyond This Point Be Dragons would seem to indicate that Arneson was much better organized, and his drafts were much more clear and presented well enough that it could be an amateur publication in its own right.
And that's why I don't think it's a draft of D&D but rather a play document - the pictures, the presentation all point to that. It may be that the peculiars require it to have been done by Dave Arneson or someone with access to his notes and drafts, and possibly even with his collaboration, but given that he was out of the loop on the game's publication putting something like this together was not impossible. It'd also explain why M.A.R. Barker had it, if this was how Arneson was sharing his game before the LBBs came out.
Now you may say that this is nitpicking, but I don't. The question is whether Arneson intended this to be the final draft of Dungeons & Dragons. I think that this would have been what he and/or his group were letting people in the Minneapolis scene use as a test version of the rules until the official publication came out, or it's based on such a test version by someone with access to notes by Dave (and having re-edited it for presentation and such). I think this is more likely because of Gygax's reaction - this document is clearly not a draft being presented to a collaborator for publication, but an amateur rules document that is intended for actual use. Lacking provenance for the document and official confirmation, I think this is the most likely scenario.
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Post by Finarvyn on Jun 22, 2012 6:09:27 GMT -6
Dan, I think your response comes off as a bit defensive. I suspect it is because he spent a lot of time discussing many of these same points a few months ago, and then they rise up again. I don't think any disrespect is intended, but he probably is tired of rehashing some of the same issues again. One frustration I have is that I swear I remember the phrase "Beyond this point be dragons" on an Arneson map for Blackmoor somewhere. I looked in the FFC and it's not where I thought it was, but this still bugs me.  We'll probably never have 100% proof either way, unless someone comes forth and says "well, I remember Dave was working on this thing...." |
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Post by aldarron on Jun 22, 2012 14:12:01 GMT -6
Dan, I think your response comes off as a bit defensive. One of the things you've got to realize with this is that you're presenting a document as a "Lost Arneson manuscript" just as you're coming out with a game influenced by that document. It makes people naturally skeptical about the document you're describing, although it is in fact unseen. So I want to be as skeptical of it as possible, especially given what Gygax had said when he saw this document.. I'm 100% for skepticism, and glad of it. I'd encourage skepticism about everything however, and not just Arneson related concepts. "Especially given what Gygax said", being an example. Keep in mind that Gygax quite possibly never saw BTPBD back in the day if I'm right about it being Arneson's last Mss, and further that Gygax had a deeply vested interest in encouraging and at times actively promoting a particular narrative with himself at the center. I'm not saying anything surprising here I hope. In other words, his opinion cannot be trusted to be neutral and should not influence the investigation one way or another. I'm going to take the liberty of rearrangeing your paragraphs a little to address some seperate thoughts. I hope you don't find it objectionable: ......I think it's possible that this was edited by someone other than Arneson because as Tim Kask has related at some length, Arneson's original draft of Blackmoor was not a well-organized, thoroughly presented draft; Kask had considerable difficulty with it and wound up reworking large chunks of the draft. Beyond This Point Be Dragons would seem to indicate that Arneson was much better organized, and his drafts were much more clear and presented well enough that it could be an amateur publication in its own right. ..... Most of the friction I've recieved in regards to the analysis of BTPBD is analogous to a kind of culture shock in relation to some core beliefs regarding Dave Arneson and RPG history. Let's be blunt, we, and I definetly include myself here, have at one time or another, drunk the cool aid. I'm reffering to swallowing a narrative that runs something like this: "Arneson was a likeable fellow and a creative Referee with some interesting ideas, but he was a sloppy goof and not very reliable or serious and Gary was kind to give him as much slack as he did." Therefore, BTPBD could not possibly be his because it is too well done, and it is doubly unthinkable that Arneson could have out organized Gygax. Right? First, let's examine the bases for this narrative. I believe there are 4; these are: comments by Steve Marsh on DF, comments by Tim Kask, Comments by Gygax, and the FFC. First, Marsh never knew Arneson or much about his work. Steve is definetly not an Arneson basher, he has merely repeated what he heard from Kask. Tim Kask, god love him, doesn't know much about Arneson either. I've discussed this at length on my 'blog but Tim Kask was the second editor of Supplement II. He was handed a work basket (SOP at TSR at the time) of the collected notes gathered and worked over by the original editor, Brian Blume, containing typewritten pages by Blume, Arneson, and Marsh in no special order, and asked to edit that together, and he freely admits that he didn't always know what came from who. He also made considerable changes to some of the material because he didn't like "non-standard" Arnesonian D&D. The state of the notes he was handed and the fact that it was a jumble from 3 different authors is clearly Blumes fault, not Arnesons. Kask was also a close friend of Gary's, worked closely on AD&D, and developed a hostile view of Arneson when Dave filed his lawsuit. I respect Tim and value his work, but I don't consider him to be an authority on Arneson or an especially neutral witness. Comments by Gygax - I think the reader can guess regarding the motivation here. Last the FFC - The FFC is not a book. It is a collection of notes, articles, player handouts, maps, rules addenda and so forth. Some of those sections are quite polished - the player handouts forex, others quite raw. Dave left it to JG to decide what to publish or how to edit and they chose to give us the raw material. I'm glad they did, but won't judge Arneson's ability to commuicate clearly by an eclectic collection of 5 years of mostly unedited campaign notes. Now lets compare that to some facts: By 1974 Dave Arneson earned a Bachelors in American History with a minor in Political Science. He successfully organized and ran a complex Napoleonic diplomacy campaign with literally scores of players. He wrote and published his own "Corner of the Table" newsletter. He wrote articles, and edited for The Domesday newsletter. He designed and cowrote "Don't give up the Ship" Post 1974 Arneson: (by himself) wrote several magazine articles and adventures, a setting for Thieves World, the Trapmann RPG and other game supplements. He also had works with a number of co-authors, including the work with Snider on AiF. He ran his own company for nearly a decade. After moving to California to pursue missionary work, he worked as an editor on Different Worlds magazine. At the end of his life he was a university instructor. He also wrote for and supervised the d20 Blackmoor line. Draw your own conclusion. Mine is that, contrary to popular opinion, Arneson was not such an incompetent boob that he couldn't possibly organize a simple manuscript of tables and rules on his own. Probably, he was not Mr uber organized neat and tidy, but I don't think he was anything near the train wreck he's been painted as. It's clear that this is a document out of the Minneapolis "scene" in Dungeons & Dragons, and clearly bears the mark of Arneson's play in large part. (There are things I think need more research, such as the "instant kill" rule - no Arneson player has ever reported that, and it should be confirmed.) However, given the presentation, I'm not sure it's a draft intended to be sent to TSR for publication. The other possibility is that it's a document emerging out of Arneson's large play group, possibly with a separate editor, that put forward his rules for play by other groups in 1973. And that's why I don't think it's a draft of D&D but rather a play document - the pictures, the presentation all point to that. It may be that the peculiars require it to have been done by Dave Arneson or someone with access to his notes and drafts, and possibly even with his collaboration, but given that he was out of the loop on the game's publication putting something like this together was not impossible. It'd also explain why M.A.R. Barker had it, if this was how Arneson was sharing his game before the LBBs came out. Now you may say that this is nitpicking, but I don't. The question is whether Arneson intended this to be the final draft of Dungeons & Dragons. I think that this would have been what he and/or his group were letting people in the Minneapolis scene use as a test version of the rules until the official publication came out, or it's based on such a test version by someone with access to notes by Dave (and having re-edited it for presentation and such). I think this is more likely because of Gygax's reaction - this document is clearly not a draft being presented to a collaborator for publication, but an amateur rules document that is intended for actual use. Lacking provenance for the document and official confirmation, I think this is the most likely scenario. Now your talking! The idea that BTPBD might somehow have been produced by someone in Arneson's gaming circle is the hardest to rule out. Unlike the other ideas, there's no direct contrary evidence in the text, particularly if you assume Arneson or notes from Arneson were involved. We have to wonder who that might have been though and why they would have bothered. Those whom I have been in touch with (J snider, G Svenson, S. Rocheford, M. Mornard) know nothing about BTPBD, and that's a big problem for your theory. There's also the fact that Arneson only shared notes with a very few of his players (mostly the ones I just mentioned along with Ross Maker) - he didn't want rules arguments. However, once the Minnesota group recieved Manuscript B from Gygax, they did begin playtesting it, so one of them could theoretically have created BTPBD. Maker or maybe some other alternate DM in one of the splinter groups, such as that Ken Fletcher played in, could possibly have found Mss B inadequate and tried to expand it, but, as I mentioned, none of the other Blackmoor folks know of anyone working on D&D Mss. except Dave, and its hard to see what a splinter group not associated with Dave would be doing with some of his material and, apparently not much of their own. So if you conclude BTPBD is a Minnesota group pre-publication Mss. and you know of only one person in that group who wrote pre-D&D Mss., is it logical to conclude, based on "evidence" that amounts to little more than character assasination, that there must have been a second, secret mystery writer? Or (leaving aside for the moment all the numerous points of congruence with Arneson I've pointed to) is it more logical to conclude, the the one person we know of who did write pre D&D drafts in the Twin cities group of gamers, Dave Arneson, is the most likely author of the only pre D&D draft mss we have from that group? So I would argue that your alternative explanation of a second writer is possible, but quite unnecesarily elaborate, and is casually dismissive of Jeff Berry, who verified the art and handwriting as Dave's, and should certainly know better than any of us. On the other hand, I'm not sure it would matter. If the argument is that some Minesota gamer other than Arneson (cause he's incabable/incompetent?) created the document with Arneson's help/notes/input/influence/art, then it is still an Arnesonian/twin cities pre publication draft of D&D and that doesn't lessen it's importance or relevance, all it does is insult Dave. Now, to the core of your argument - that BTPBD is a "for play" not "for publication" document, you're right, I don't frankly see that as a meaningful distinction regarding the importance or place of the document, nor do I think it the most likely purpose for which it was made. Throughout 1973, the minnesota gamers had Gygax's playtest rules (Mss B) so there wasn't a rules vacuum that needed to be filled. Further the text itself is clearly aimed at a general audience, not a known group of players. There are none of the sort of self references you see in Fred's World or Ryth Chronicles or what have you. Also, I don't get how "better art and organization" means it must not have been a pre-publication draft. We know that Arneson prepared a draft which he intended to be the final draft of the game. I see no logical reason to exclude BTPBD from being that draft simply because it is more user friendly than the 3lbb's. |
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Post by Cameron DuBeers on Jun 22, 2012 14:14:35 GMT -6
I'd encourage skepticism about everything ... Why should I do that?  |
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Chainsaw
Level 4 Theurgist
Kiss the Rings, Mofos
Posts: 146
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Post by Chainsaw on Jun 24, 2012 18:51:07 GMT -6
aldarron - is the entire original doc available? I apologize if I've missed an obvious link to it.
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Post by aldarron on Jun 24, 2012 20:14:34 GMT -6
aldarron - is the entire original doc available? I apologize if I've missed an obvious link to it. Not yet. Some discussion with certain archives have been taking place, exploring ways to make BTPBD publicaly available, but I don't think that will happen for months at least. |
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Post by geoffrey on Jun 24, 2012 21:06:38 GMT -6
This is all incredibly interesting. |
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Post by Falconer on Jun 25, 2012 0:12:43 GMT -6
Yes, everyone knows Gygax was a liar and a hustler — and if you disagree, you’re drinking the Kool-Aid!
Aldarron, I feel sure you can adequately defend your hypothesis without resorting to such nauseating polemics.
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Post by Finarvyn on Jun 25, 2012 5:35:33 GMT -6
ADMIN COMMENT: I don't want a "Gary versus Dave" argument here. We have sections of the boards for discussions of each author's works and support the ideas of both. I don't want this board to "take sides" as some boards do.Yes, everyone knows Gygax was a liar and a hustler — and if you disagree, you’re drinking the Kool-Aid! I don't think he said it quite this way.  I only met Gary a few times so I won't pretend to "know" the man, but I've followed his work and read many of his articles over the years. Gary does seem to be a self-promoter, as many of us can be, and often was very much a "my way or the highway" kind of person. He also had some sort of falling out with Dave and ended up having to endure lawsuits over ownership of OD&D. None of this makes him a liar and a hustler, but it might bias the way he discussed Dave's contributions to the game. I think that the point was that Gary's comments about Dave's total lack of organization in submitted manuscript may have been exaggerated over the years. Certainly the two of them had issues at some times of their careers, and any comments that one made about the other might have been biased by personal feellings at the moment. On the other hand, they did collaborate on some projects (DGUTS, for example) and clearly were willing to share ideas (they playtested each other's rules, both were contributing members of the C&C Society, etc) and in general got along pretty well.
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Post by Falconer on Jun 25, 2012 7:50:31 GMT -6
Marv, I agree 100% with your admin comment. That’s all I’m going to say.
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