Gunpowder in Blackmoor

[havard]

I have been looking at the Equipment lists in Dave Arneson's First Fantasy Campaign lately and one of the interesting things I found there was the inclusion of various Blackpowder Weapons:

Bombard
Heavy Cannon
Light Cannon
Arquebus
Pistol
Musket
Shot (ammo)
Silver Shot (ammo)

Pretty interesting. Most of these items were at least available during the first year of Arneson's campaign, though it is hard to say how common they were. Ofcourse even more advanced weaponry was added later...

Havard

[Finarvyn]

I suspect that this is an offshoot of the fact that Dave ran Naponeonics games prior to Blackmoor, so BM may have been a slow evolution from more modern into fantasy rather than an abrupt new game.

[snorri]

It seems me a side-effect of Chainmail. As far as can understand it in FFC, Dave did three things at the same time :

- Turn Chainmail to a "One player - One Figure" game, and makes these figure explore dungeons.

- Link Chainmail sessions in a campaign, where the main issue was he domination of the land - and have the players protect the Blackmoor aera against invaders.

- Link these two levels of games, alterning both, as the figures had to get money and power in the dungeons to buy and support armies in the war campaign.

So, that's why Chainmail provides the frame for the Blackmoor first years, even if Dave had to tinker the system to make it more effective (the "Arneson manuscript", as a layer of OD&D archeology).

So, gunpowder existed in Blackmoor, as it existed in Chainmail. Anyway, pulp heroes using Guns & Swords are not uncommon. This fact vanished in later products, probably for publishing reasons, but a "back to the early days of Blackmoor" should include them.

[aldarron]

I don't usually find reason to disagree with you Nic, but I think here, and in a couple other instances you are overestimating the influence of Chainmail on Blackmoor. Chainmail was a new game in 1971 and although Arnesons group did play it a time or two, apparently, it was only one of several side games to their normal Napoleonics campaign. Nor was it a case of taking Chainmail armies and turning them into individuals as play involving individual characters was already familiar to Arnesons group through squad based wargames and moreso through Wesley's Braunstein wherein Arneson was a star player. In many ways, Black Moore has deeper roots in Brown Stone (Braunstein) than it does in Chainmail. I think Fin is probably right in that artillary was familiar to the group from Napoleonics and other wargames they played and so was thrown in for fun, as were laser guns and a tank at one point. Chainmail, it seems to me, is just one of many sources Arneson drew from when putting the game together and that was primarily for the initial combat system (abandoned within a few weeks)and monster lists, I don't think Arneson was in any way trying to expand, evolve, or build on Chainmail per se, because it wasn't an important or longstanding game for his group, but rather to rob it for ideas here and there. The real connection to Chainmail is to be found in Greyhawk, where Gygax, naturally incoporated and built on his earlier work. Such is my sense of it anyway.

[havard]

Isn't it the case that Arneson had been talking to Gygax prior to the release of Chainmail? Could it be that ideas in Chainmail still reflected elements used in the Blackmoor games, since both were inspired by many of the same sources?

Also, who made miniatures and stuff for all of these games? To what extent did the range of available miniatures determine what was allowed in the game?

In any case, it does seem clear that gunpowder weapons were available during the first few years of the original Blackmoor campaign...

Havard

[snorri]

There is an interesting interview where Arneson explains, too quickly alas, how he started from Chainmail, how he had to tinker the combat rules (adding hit points end armor classs) from the second session, and how MAR Barkerwrote cultural details for Blackmoor :

uk.pc.gamespy.com/articles/540/540395p3.html

At the time where D&D was first published, allready a lot of rules and methods had been tinkered. My idea is that, when Gary wrote the final layer, he copied earlier notes (including from the "Arneson manuscript") and some survived by this way.

In FFC, Dave also explain, in the introduction, he used the Fanstay supplement from Chainmail to start the first level of Castle Blackmoor, then expanded the list and stats.

When you read FFC, it's clear the two level (campaign with battles / dungeeonering) where played alltogether. That's why the FFC develop so much the yearly economical stats and units prices. Maybe Chainmail rules where tinkered to the point it became another game, but it provided a first frame.

Note also than the weapons listed in FFC fits better the Renaissance frame of Chainmail than Napoleonic wars gunnery. But for sure, Braunstein played a major role in the shaping of early rpg.

[aldarron]

Nov 16, 2009 7:22:48 GMT -6 snorri said:

My idea is that, when Gary wrote the final layer, he copied earlier notes (including from the "Arneson manuscript") and some survived by this way.

I'm with you there.

Nov 16, 2009 7:22:48 GMT -6 snorri said:

When you read FFC, it's clear the two level (campaign with battles / dungeeonering) where played alltogether. That's why the FFC develop so much the yearly economical stats and units prices. Maybe Chainmail rules where tinkered to the point it became another game, but it provided a first frame.

Two "levels" is typical of Napoleonic campaigns. Check out Bruce Quarries' (he is one of the co authors of Fantasy Warfare) book "Napoleons Campaigns in Miniature", for example. The macro level of the seasonal campaign involves national statistics, such as troop types, equipment types, manufacturing base, costs, tax revenues, etc. that a player will have to work with in a given campaign season for a given country, and then the micro level involves individual battles, in a particular scenario with particular commanders. Arnesons elaborate national and economic stats in FFC don't really owe anything to Chainmail specifically, since such statistics was typical of ongoing campaign based wargames. Another thing to consider is that the FFC is misleading regarding the importance of all the national/military costs it list, in that this infomation seems to have been little used except by Dave himself. Over in the Q and A with Greg Svenson thread I asked about this and he replied that large scale battles with miniatures were almost never fought as part of the game. Most of the time they were adventuring in dungeons as players normally do. It seems all the economic stats in FFC was largely put together by Arneson as notes for determining the grand political machinations of Blackmoor from year to year and not used for players to build armies and wage battles.