Belated Dave Arneson Day link, Dave Arneson Ludography

[Malchor]

For Dave Arneson Day, I created my first post on a new blog (Chance & Circumstance), a list of the games Dave worked on. I quickly realized this deserved to be more than simply a list of titles, roles and dates.

It is still a work in progress to add more details. In the meantime, here is a link to the live work in progress: chanceand.com/2021/10/01/dave-arneson-ludography/


Cross-posting from Links & Resources, hoping that is OK.

[Deleted]

Wow, I had no idea Arneson was involved in so much.

[tdenmark]

Very well put together. It is eye opening to see so much of Arneson's work compiled into one place. Those are excellent clearly written little descriptions of each too.

One line stood out "In fact, without Blackmoor, Dungeons & Dragons—along with fantasy role-playing, role-playing games in general, video games mechanics we take for granted, plus countless tropes now part of pop-culture—would not exist."

While I appreciate what you are saying, it is pretty clear by all the developments that were happening in the hobby game industry of the time someone or some group was bound to stumble onto roleplaying games. They would have had a different complexion to be sure, but the core ideas were floating about and coalescing.

[Deleted]

Yeah that's just hyperbolic. I think there's a temptation to over correct the way Arneson is often glossed over or excluded in these narratives. He's not nobody and he's not the be all, end all. He was an important collaborator on the version of these games we initially got in this timeline we inhabit.

The fact so many people immediately came out of the woodwork and identified with D&D shows me that something like it was imminent on some level. Right? Let's give all the contributors their due and not turn any if these people into weird Messiah figures.

[Starbeard]

I've only skimmed it so far, but I'm a little surprised that I only noticed a few videogame entries, all in the early & mid 80s. I was under the impression that he was teaching game design or somesuch at a computer college in his last years, so assumed that he was most active in that field at least by the 90s.

[Finarvyn]

I think that folks are surprised about Arneson's contributions to gaming because he was always overshadowed by Gygax. Gygax had the comppany, the magazine, and got his name out there. Arneson was always more reserved. No doubt that it took contributions from both to make D&D a thing, but Gygax was the one who went out and told everyone about it.

[tdenmark]

Oct 10, 2021 15:52:33 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

I think that folks are surprised about Arneson's contributions to gaming because he was always overshadowed by Gygax. Gygax had the comppany, the magazine, and got his name out there. Arneson was always more reserved. No doubt that it took contributions from both to make D&D a thing, but Gygax was the one who went out and told everyone about it.

That seems to be a common thing. You need the quiet genius toiling away making amazing things, and the loudmouth (who recognizes the genius work) to get on the bullhorn and tell everyone about it. Wozniak & Jobs. Arneson & Gygax. Kirby & Lee. In those cases the loudmouths took a lot more credit than they should have.

[captainjapan]

Just one post, but it's a doozy. nice.