Secrets of Blackmoor Documentary

[Deleted]

I'm one of those Millennials (although that's a murky term, and as someone born in the early eighties a case could be made for lumping me with Generation X) who prefers old music, old movies, old books etc. so that's probably why I'm on the OD&D boards to begin with. I've actually done a little bit of writing, a little bit of contributing to some horrible student films that I sincerely would never subject any of my friends to, including you fine people, and for the betterment of everyone's ears my musical career never took off. I sincerely hope my earlier comment was not construed as negative against this film or these film-makers. It is indeed a gutsy and risky maneuver to produce and put out a movie. Movies are art that speak for themselves, and if you subscribe to the Death of the Author theory, they can be analyzed in a vacuum in some instances, divorced from any baggage the creators may bring to the discussion. I tend to give the same benefit of the doubt to the personalities still with us who contributed to early D&D itself. I've been around various message boards over the years I've been researching the origins of the hobby and getting into playing OD&D, and have had the opportunity to speak to a handful of these personalities, and found that in many instances they were not as interested in constructive or friendly conversation as I was. That seems to have been the case on these boards as well, though those incidents were before my time here.

SO! In defense of the younger generations, though I am a bit long in the tooth to qualify as being among the youngest any more, I would like to say in our defense that some of us have tried very earnestly to respect and learn from our elders in this hobby, but have often found this a thoroughly unpleasant experience and have subsequently preferred to simply learn through trial and error or from sources a little farther away from the earliest groups. Climate's better there. More pleasant for the constitution and mental health. You can only be told you're a dumb, ignorant kid who is too stupid to play the game properly so many times before you begin to develop a philosophy of earned respect that has less to do with age and more to do with how you choose to carry yourself and interact with others. Thankfully, it seems most of the good folks left over on this specific board are the types of folks who deserve plenty of respect and admiration. So, none of this is aimed at anyone present, or really "aimed" at anyone at all. Just a neutral observation based on my personal experiences with attempting to respect my elders and being berated for it.

[oakesspalding]

I saw it last night. Thoughts:

1. It was an interesting film and I assume it adds to the historical record. Despite what I will say, below, I liked it very much.

2. I was disappointed that less than 25% of it was about Blackmoor itself. Rather, most of it was about the developments in miniatures wargaming - Napoleonics and other forms - that led up to it. This was despite the fact that the little labels on people - "first thief" or "first wizard" or whatever kept teasing the viewer. I would have liked to have heard more about those "firsts".

3. I've heard it said that the film dissed Gygax. I didn't see that. Gygax wasn't really a player in it because most of it took place before Gygax was involved. And Arneson's rift with Gygax was treated very generally without (it seemed to me) blaming Gygax for it. Weirdly (again, so it seemed to me) the movie seemed to lower Arneson himself in importance, as many of the novel ideas, insights and rules changes that moved wargaming and miniatures gaming towards roleplaying seemed to have been invented by others such as David Wesley or were collaborative efforts.

4. I assume this question has been answered but I didn't see why audio or video of Arneson himself only appeared at the end credits. The movie basically claims that Arneson was a very charismatic character in his way. I don't doubt this but I didn't really understand that before. I would have liked to have seen and heard more of him.

5. I didn't know Arneson's father was still alive at that time. I hope he still is. Even though he was the least familiar with gaming of the whole bunch, I found his memories of his son and his son's gaming sessions to be neat.

6. And like others have mentioned, I ended up liking those people (most of whom I had never heard of) and that general era, a lot. Most of them are seniors, now (as some of us are, or will be, shortly.) . I wish them all well.

Again, overall I thought it was nifty. Does anyone know if The Great Kingdom is moving along?

[captainjapan]

oakesspalding, you could check out this interview with Secrets' director Griff Morgan for more info. He says they have the Arneson footage shot for Dragons in the Basement, the D&D doc that went bust. A second movie is planned.

[thegreyelf]

Aug 23, 2020 15:49:59 GMT -6 oakesspalding said:

I saw it last night. Thoughts:

3. I've heard it said that the film dissed Gygax. I didn't see that. Gygax wasn't really a player in it because most of it took place before Gygax was involved. And Arneson's rift with Gygax was treated very generally without (it seemed to me) blaming Gygax for it. Weirdly (again, so it seemed to me) the movie seemed to lower Arneson himself in importance, as many of the novel ideas, insights and rules changes that moved wargaming and miniatures gaming towards roleplaying seemed to have been invented by others such as David Wesley or were collaborative efforts.

It's not so much that it directly disses Gygax as it is that the filmmakers are REALLY married to this idea that there's some sort of dark conspiracy to bury Dave's involvement in the game and pretend he had little input, if not actually hide the fact that he was instrumental in its development. This (rather obsessive) stance definitely shows in the film. They keep saying over and over and over about how underappreciated and unknown Dave is, and make more than a few veiled swipes at Gygax (it even starts and ends with Dave making statements he says are "backed up by court documents.")

The filmmakers have even gotten belligerent when people try to suggest that there's no such conspiracy and most people who are interested in the history of the game know that Arneson AND Gygax were the authors. I've been insulted by one of them over on Twitter. I think a few posters here have had similar run-ins with them. It's a shame because it really is a good documentary but it could've been SO much more if it wasn't so tied to that particular soapbox platform and just tried to be a documentary that traced history, rather than argue what amounts to a propaganda (or counter-propaganda, from their standpoint) stance.

Again, I loved the film. I'll buy into the next chapter if they make one. I just think it could've been much more without the agenda or the idea that it was presenting hidden knowledge. It didn't tell me much I didn't know, for example, from posting here for well over a decade. Of course, it probably doesn't hurt that Dave was a regular poster here once upon a time, but still...

[oakesspalding]

Yeah, it sounds like maybe I'm fortunate to have not witnessed any of that social media kerfuffle. But I didn't get that much of that from the movie itself, again, mainly because most of the events took place before Arneson and Gygax met or started working together.

I think there's a general impression that Gygax was the senior partner in the relationship, an impression which, in my opinion, the movie doesn't really get into or dispute. Indeed, the movie claims that Arneson was a terrible typist and hints that he didn't really have a talent for putting together coherent rules for other people to read. It's clear to me that D&D would never have happened without Gygax. On the other hand, I think the film does make a solid case for Arneson and his group inventing the concept of fantasy roleplaying.

And of course there always was an effort to downplay Arneson's contributions - an effort started by Gygax himself, as we all know. (Whether one wants to call it a conspiracy is another question - the effort seemed pretty blatant to me.) That's not a criticism of Gygax per se. If Arneson was a genius, he was a scattered one. Gygax was the person organizing it all, putting it down on paper, and obviously adding huge amounts of his own material. Once Arneson's original idea had been discovered and promoted by Gygax, there wasn't really a lot more that Arneson could do or add. Sorry to say it, but it just doesn't seem like he had the talent for that.

But obviously I'm sorry about the split and the acrimony that continued almost up to the end.

[Finarvyn]

I agree with oakesspalding that there wasn't really a "conspiracy." I think it comes down to the simple fact that Gary was the mouthpiece for TSR and the Dragon and GenCon, while Dave basically stayed with his home group and played. Gary talked about creating D&D while Dave did not. Gary wrote editorials and AD&D but Dave didn't. That is bound to create a natural viewpoint among players that Gary's contribution was greater than Dave's.

[Deleted]

I watched this again the other weekend and enjoyed it more the third time around. Still enjoyed the longform interviews the most. Looking forward to seeing what the next chapter is like. Also looking forward to seeing "The Dreams In Gary's Basement" if Kilbane ever finishes that. I'm glad there's enough interest in the origins of the hobby for films like these to be made.

[dicebro]

Aug 26, 2020 4:30:19 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

I agree with oakesspalding that there wasn't really a "conspiracy." I think it comes down to the simple fact that Gary was the mouthpiece for TSR and the Dragon and GenCon, while Dave basically stayed with his home group and played. Gary talked about creating D&D while Dave did not. Gary wrote editorials and AD&D but Dave didn't. That is bound to create a natural viewpoint among players that Gary's contribution was greater than Dave's.

Some say that if you don’t take your place at the table, then you will likely be on the menu.

[Deleted]

As I've often said in this context, we should not attribute to malice what may be explained through stupidity.

Everything we've seen from the early TSR crowd suggests they were collective out of their depth by day one of their business operations: That they were successful and made profitable business for a while doesn't mean they were competent at what they were doing; it just means their products were in demand. This continued narrative that these were highly able people forced to "take arms against a sea of troubles", it goes against everything that is actually known of what really went on back then:

If your company goes bankrupt over too many business cars while your lead designer lies coked out in the jacuzzi of the Hollywood mansion your company also has decided to pay for, all the while the co-inventor of your core product is successfully suing you over several instances of outrageous business malpractice... Then you are your own worst problem.

Now, this kind of assessment has always angered the Gygax "stans", and they point out that TSR's pioneer status in the industry surely required "pioneer decisionmaking", but that's just. Such. A. Load. Of. Crap. - Because we know what sunk TSR. And it sure wasn't "flying too close to the sun".

There was no "conspiracy". There were a couple of tragic people who mistook their own ability to act for having a plan, and who, because they would notoriously refuse to own the errors they made, would become ostracized within the industry they had helped create. If you strip away the drama, and focus on the facts, it's really not that complex a matter. Sad and mildly infuriating, sure. But not complex.

[Deleted]

- By the way, I wasn't trying to be an not a very nice person with the above comment. Rather than that, I was making a reference to this book, page 165, and onward: www.goodreads.com/book/show/23848482-empire-of-imagination

Quotes and info from that book have made it to Gygax' Wikipedia page, as well, namely the aforementioned apparent taste for coke and younger women.

This is the problem with Hollywood types becoming a factor in the hobby: Witwer's book isn't bad, by itself, but it's written like a screenplay. The same way that, whatever, the "Halt and Catch Fire" TV series is a (fictional) biography, but really has nothing to do with computers. While it apparently didn't get picked up for the usual TV treatment, Witwer's book might give us an idea how a series about the origins of D&D could look like, one day, within the conventions of modern television: Short version is, the coke and the hookers are probably going to play a bigger narrative than the earth-shattering question who was the first to use twenty-sided dice.

[thegreyelf]

Sept 1, 2020 15:28:03 GMT -6 @rafael said:

As I've often said in this context, we should not attribute to malice what may be explained through stupidity.

Everything we've seen from the early TSR crowd suggests they were collective out of their depth by day one of their business operations: That they were successful and made profitable business for a while doesn't mean they were competent at what they were doing; it just means their products were in demand. This continued narrative that these were highly able people forced to "take arms against a sea of troubles", it goes against everything that is actually known of what really went on back then:

If your company goes bankrupt over too many business cars while your lead designer lies coked out in the jacuzzi of the Hollywood mansion your company also has decided to pay for, all the while the co-inventor of your core product is successfully suing you over several instances of outrageous business malpractice... Then you are your own worst problem.

Now, this kind of assessment has always angered the Gygax "stans", and they point out that TSR's pioneer status in the industry surely required "pioneer decisionmaking", but that's just. Such. A. Load. Of. Crap. - Because we know what sunk TSR. And it sure wasn't "flying too close to the sun".

There was no "conspiracy". There were a couple of tragic people who mistook their own ability to act for having a plan, and who, because they would notoriously refuse to own the errors they made, would become ostracized within the industry they had helped create. If you strip away the drama, and focus on the facts, it's really not that complex a matter. Sad and mildly infuriating, sure. But not complex.

This. SO MUCH THIS.

Sept 2, 2020 9:06:16 GMT -6 @rafael said:

- By the way, I wasn't trying to be an not a very nice person with the above comment. Rather than that, I was making a reference to this book, page 165, and onward: www.goodreads.com/book/show/23848482-empire-of-imagination

Quotes and info from that book have made it to Gygax' Wikipedia page, as well, namely the aforementioned apparent taste for coke and younger women.

This is the problem with Hollywood types becoming a factor in the hobby: Witwer's book isn't bad, by itself, but it's written like a screenplay. The same way that, whatever, the "Halt and Catch Fire" TV series is a (fictional) biography, but really has nothing to do with computers. While it apparently didn't get picked up for the usual TV treatment, Witwer's book might give us an idea how a series about the origins of D&D could look like, one day, within the conventions of modern television: Short version is, the coke and the hookers are probably going to play a bigger narrative than the earth-shattering question who was the first to use twenty-sided dice.

Empire of Imagination should be required reading for anyone interested in the history of our hobby. Period. But it shouldn't be the be-all, end-all source. There were a number of insightful books released around that time that looked at the early days of the hobby and what happened to TSR. Most of the story is also out there to be found, in the words of the men and women who were there, if one takes the time to do a little online digging.

[rsdean]

Please take this in an appropriate spirit. After reading this discussion, I watched this last weekend. I enjoyed hearing the (other) old guys telling tales of memorable games past, so that my first inclination was to gather some friends and find a basement (but, pandemic...). I was interested to see how many of them are basically still involved in the hobby.

However, as far as the history of the origins goes, I didn’t feel like I learned anything new that I didn’t already know from Playing at the World. Did I miss anything that should have been an “Aha!”?

[Deleted]

That's the point: This is an introduction, not so much an attempt to reinvent the wheel. I think the "Strategos N" angle was what the movie crew considered "their big reveal" or "unique selling point", but it really wasn't, and, if anything, proved to be somewhat of a distraction from the main narrative. That said, I like that they decided to give David Wesely some air time; the decision to make this at least as much a movie about Wesely as it ended up being about Arneson is certainly justifiable.

[dicebro]

Playing at the World is one big aha after another.

[rsdean]

I’m a little startled to see that Playing at the World is copyright 2012...seems like just yesterday. . I’ve got a hardcopy in my Amazon basket today; I originally read it in e-book form.

I was interested by the David Wesely interview material, but even that is stuff I’ve know about for quite a while. Lawrence Schick had a write-up on Braunstein in Heroic Worlds (~1990).