Post by Finarvyn on Jul 21, 2010 12:29:18 GMT -6
There are lots of tidbits in various parts of the other thread and I thought I'd put everything together into one huge chronology to see what it looks like. Huge thanks to those who have contributed to this….
1967 (Or early1968) to 1970[/b]
Dave Wesely creates and develops Braunstein RPG
July, 1970[/b]
“Troop Type” Chainmail rules published
September, 1970[/b]
Domesday Book #7 has pre-OD&D rules, most notably a combat matrix.
October, 1970[/b]
Wesely leaves for active Duty Leaving Dave Arneson to run any Braunstein games.
December, 1970[/b] (Christmas holiday)
Arneson creates medieval fantasy Braunstein called Blackmoor.
First Blackmoor Session, with Chainmail rules. Wandering Monsters are already there: “We could see Dave rolling before he would announce an encounter.” (GS/DB)
* Combat probably loosely based on Troop Type system.
* Tolkienesque and invented monsters.
* Magic component based and organized into Animal, Vegetable and Mineral categories.
* Hit points and combat saving throw invented to help character survival.
* Armor Class and Hit dice a likely feature and possibly some kind of level progression or promotion.
* The game is very popular and frequent, but Napoleonics player Gregg Scott objects and insults Blackmoor players. Arneson immortalizes him as the Egg of Coot.
1970-1971[/b]
Adventures in the Blackmoor Dungeon.
Beginning of 1971[/b]
“Using Chainmail rules on the first adventure, when you got hit the first time you were dead. We didn’t like that much, so the next time we played we had hit points. Within a month Dave introduced armor classes.” (GS/DB)
1971[/b]
Blackmoor Castle level 7+ (p. 33-35)
March 1971[/b]
Chainmail published.
* Arneson incorporates most of the fantasy content and characteristics of wizards, hero, etc. into the Blackmoor game.
* Three levels defined as Flunky, Hero, superhero.
* Armor Class probably assigned 1-8 types copied from CHAINMAIL Man to Man table.
* Arneson flirts with Chainmail Fantasy Table combat but decides to rework his own combat system, probably creating a percentile or possibly d6 based table similar to the well known "Alternate" (d20) level vs. AC table of D&D. but with a saving throw for no damage.
May 1971[/b]
First article about Blackmoor (GS/DB)
May 21, 1971[/b]
First documented Blackmoor game
Sometime in 1971[/b]
"David R. Megarry originally invented the classic TSR game Dungeon! in 1971. Remarkably, the board game is arguably an ancestor of Dungeons and Dragons, although he got his idea from Dungeons and Dragons co-creator Dave Arneson Blackmoor adventure map. His game idea was rejected by all of the established game publishers including Milton Bradley, Parker Brothers, Avalon Hill, and SPI until TSR bought it from him for 7.5% of their company stock after Dungeons and Dragons had already hit the market." NOTE: This date is somewhat in question, thanks to photographs of "the prototype" (a prototype?) of the Dungeon board game, which is dated at 1973.
1971-1973[/b]
* Richard Snider’s addition – possibly [if so, he may have provided the dragons rule first, but it seems Dave adapted it to the new rules in 1977.]
* The ‘differences in creatures” (p. 57) and the “loch Gloomen” (p. 59) are grounded in Chainmail and can’t be post-1974 – they could be older.
* The Dragon’s table (p. 61), with dragons having 4d6 hits, seems even older. Notes like “Swords 7+4 should be studied carefully, as well as the subduing dragons p. 61).
* Orcs and other monsters descriptions (p. 62-63)
Spring of 1972[/b]
Abilities are used in Blackmoor. (GS/DB)
1972[/b] (The Second Year)
* Campaign Expands. Coot Invasions. Battle of Glendover
* Use of the Outdoor survival map (p. 23). Probable inclusion of the OS rules.
* Encounter matrix (use of d20, but on the Judge side only, so it seems possible ; apart the various human types (bandits, nomads, pirates), it fits perfectly the Chainmail list of creatures (at least the 3d version one – to be verified).
* First evasion table (to be compared with the D&D one)
* Map movement (to compare with OS)
* Maybe the p. 24 price list, to be studied more carefully
Fall of 1972[/b]
“Dave Arneson gave me some of his notes and let me referee a couple of times when he was busy with other things” (GS/DB)
“During the Fall of 1972 (…) shortly after Dave Arneson had introduced Blackmoor to Gary Gygax and the group in Lake Geneva, leading to the creation of Greyhawk.” (OB)
"Dave Arneson tells me I was the third DM, after himself and Gary. I ran a adventure for Bill Heaton (the Blue Rider) and Mel Johnson (Mello) sometime during the fall of 1972 (nobody remembers exactly when) using Dave's notes. I built a city, called Tonisborg, complete with a dungeon and a network of catacombs, during 1973 and ran many adventures there and all around the Blackmoor area in 1973 and 1974 using the play test rules for the original three little books and then the published books." – Greg Svenson
November 1972[/b]
Dave Arneson and Dave Megarry take Blackmoor to Lake Geneva with Arneson running a game for Gary Gygax, Rob Kuntz, and Terry Kuntz. They explore the Blackmoor Dungeon and the Outdoors. Megarry assumes the role of leading PC as he is the most familiar with the setting.
“Back in 1972 I started doing dungeon explorations with the local gamers, building up a set of rules as we went along. I kept track of my rule decisions in a big black notebook as we went along so I didn’t contradict myself too often. We were in correspondence with the group from Lake Geneva through the Napoleonic Campaigns at that time, so we mentioned that we were doing fantasy stuff on the alternate weekends and they became very interested in it. After I made several trips down there so they could go down in my dungeon, they became excited about it. At that time, they had a lot more spare time than I did and they had a lot of ideas, so they came up with their own version of the rules. They sent theirs to us and we fooled around with them for a while.” – Dave Arneson, Pegasus #1
1973 [/b](The Third Year of Dave's Blackmoor Campaign)
* Blackmoor, the campaign (tables, including prices)
* Adventures in Lake Gloomy. (First Fantasy Campaign)
1973 [/b]
The copyright date of a prototype of the Dungeon board game by David R. Megarry. (From a photograph.) This leads one to the question of 1971 vs 1973; what is the actual creation date of the game?
1 November 1973[/b]
OD&D forward by Gary Gygax (GS/DB)
1973-1974[/b]
“I must have DMed more often than I remember from what Bob Meyer has told me about the days when we were roommates in 1973 & 1974” (GS/DB)
1974[/b] (“More Recent events”)
Peasant Revolt, Afridhi invasions (Nomads of Ten), Valley of the Ancients. (FFC)
1974[/b] (after release of OD&D)
“The individual levels and things like that were new, but the way we played we didn’t really notice the difference. Attributes were different, we had used two d6’s to get a number from 1 to 10, where we changed to three d6’s and a range from 3 to 18, but most were just changes in mechanics...” (GS/DB)
Blackmoor, the campaign:
* Internal investments subsection could have been modified (mention of a d4 and of silver pieces, p. 9)
* Hunting, Armories and Animal Breeding quotes D&D (p. 10)
* Farming (mention of a d4, p. 10) – probably the whole economical section.
* The Land and sea trade subsection provide no evidence about their datatation.
* Price list (p. 11), should be compared to the earlier one – the price for slaves no vary according to their strength (males) or charisma (females).
Magic sword matrix [use of funky dices – to be discussed, as it’s possible the table of swords, which link to the code numbers in the Blackmoor castle, could be more ancient than the tables].
Gypsy sayings and chances cards (unless some cards have been modified to fit with funky dices. Tarns appears apparently end in 1972).
1974 or early 1975[/b]
Stephen Rocheford creates Saint Stephen (a space alien in Blackmoor) prompting Arneson to create Temple of the Frog and introduce Star Trek/scifi technologies to Blackmoor. (Rocheford quote)
1974-1976[/b]
At some point (probably in 1975 give or take a year) Uther granted many of his loyal servants their own fiefs. Since the original Blackmoor area was already occupied, the new fiefs were created in the south. An area we called "province one". Dave simply placed the map from Avalon Hill's "Outdoor Survival" game next to the Blackmoor map and showed us which hex had our new fief in it. (OB)
1975[/b]
Blackmoor, the campaign:
* Religion, mentions paladins, clerics and patriarchs.
Blackmoor Castle levels 1-6 (p. 28 and 30-32) [but its keep tracks of an earlier material, as shows the wizards in armor and strange AC pattern].
Special interest (at least the table. The full text, with its criticism of D&D experience system, is at least post-1974.
1975[/b] – Experimentation
Great Svenny vs. Nazis and WWII Japanese. Sniders bring back Japanese Tank to Zvenzen’s Freehold. (Imagine Magazine)
1976[/b]
“New group”. Back to Blackmoor Dungeon. (FFC)
1976[/b]
Rob Kuntz and Gary Gygax journey to the City of the Gods. (OJ#6)
1977[/b]
* Bob Bledsaw’s Forward
* Dave Arneson’s Introduction
* Blackmoor, the campaign (introduction and editing notes)
* Campaign map notes (with references about dungeon-delving in 1975-1977)
* Blackmoor’s More infamous Characters (editing notes and final redaction – but the material seems coming from an older material)
* Blackmoor, facts about Blackmoor (maybe from earlier notes, but mostly remembering and anecdotes)
* Blackmoor town map (anecdotes)
* Original Blackmoor system (p. 50), but clearly refers to what was practiced.
* Interesting note about Constitution.
* How to become a bad guy? [but it explain earlier procedures, without date].
* Maybe the “proto-rules” manuscript, which includes part of FFC which seems to have been written as a rule set. Includes: Outdoor of Blackmoor (p. 25) ; Migration (p. 25); Drawing you own map (p. 26) [this part seems to use funky dices, as 1-4 and 1-8 scales appears, but this may be later chances – it seems to have been mainly wrote with ‘percentile dice’ and d6]
1967 (Or early1968) to 1970[/b]
Dave Wesely creates and develops Braunstein RPG
July, 1970[/b]
“Troop Type” Chainmail rules published
September, 1970[/b]
Domesday Book #7 has pre-OD&D rules, most notably a combat matrix.
October, 1970[/b]
Wesely leaves for active Duty Leaving Dave Arneson to run any Braunstein games.
December, 1970[/b] (Christmas holiday)
Arneson creates medieval fantasy Braunstein called Blackmoor.
First Blackmoor Session, with Chainmail rules. Wandering Monsters are already there: “We could see Dave rolling before he would announce an encounter.” (GS/DB)
* Combat probably loosely based on Troop Type system.
* Tolkienesque and invented monsters.
* Magic component based and organized into Animal, Vegetable and Mineral categories.
* Hit points and combat saving throw invented to help character survival.
* Armor Class and Hit dice a likely feature and possibly some kind of level progression or promotion.
* The game is very popular and frequent, but Napoleonics player Gregg Scott objects and insults Blackmoor players. Arneson immortalizes him as the Egg of Coot.
1970-1971[/b]
Adventures in the Blackmoor Dungeon.
Beginning of 1971[/b]
“Using Chainmail rules on the first adventure, when you got hit the first time you were dead. We didn’t like that much, so the next time we played we had hit points. Within a month Dave introduced armor classes.” (GS/DB)
1971[/b]
Blackmoor Castle level 7+ (p. 33-35)
March 1971[/b]
Chainmail published.
* Arneson incorporates most of the fantasy content and characteristics of wizards, hero, etc. into the Blackmoor game.
* Three levels defined as Flunky, Hero, superhero.
* Armor Class probably assigned 1-8 types copied from CHAINMAIL Man to Man table.
* Arneson flirts with Chainmail Fantasy Table combat but decides to rework his own combat system, probably creating a percentile or possibly d6 based table similar to the well known "Alternate" (d20) level vs. AC table of D&D. but with a saving throw for no damage.
May 1971[/b]
First article about Blackmoor (GS/DB)
May 21, 1971[/b]
First documented Blackmoor game
Sometime in 1971[/b]
"David R. Megarry originally invented the classic TSR game Dungeon! in 1971. Remarkably, the board game is arguably an ancestor of Dungeons and Dragons, although he got his idea from Dungeons and Dragons co-creator Dave Arneson Blackmoor adventure map. His game idea was rejected by all of the established game publishers including Milton Bradley, Parker Brothers, Avalon Hill, and SPI until TSR bought it from him for 7.5% of their company stock after Dungeons and Dragons had already hit the market." NOTE: This date is somewhat in question, thanks to photographs of "the prototype" (a prototype?) of the Dungeon board game, which is dated at 1973.
1971-1973[/b]
* Richard Snider’s addition – possibly [if so, he may have provided the dragons rule first, but it seems Dave adapted it to the new rules in 1977.]
* The ‘differences in creatures” (p. 57) and the “loch Gloomen” (p. 59) are grounded in Chainmail and can’t be post-1974 – they could be older.
* The Dragon’s table (p. 61), with dragons having 4d6 hits, seems even older. Notes like “Swords 7+4 should be studied carefully, as well as the subduing dragons p. 61).
* Orcs and other monsters descriptions (p. 62-63)
Spring of 1972[/b]
Abilities are used in Blackmoor. (GS/DB)
1972[/b] (The Second Year)
* Campaign Expands. Coot Invasions. Battle of Glendover
* Use of the Outdoor survival map (p. 23). Probable inclusion of the OS rules.
* Encounter matrix (use of d20, but on the Judge side only, so it seems possible ; apart the various human types (bandits, nomads, pirates), it fits perfectly the Chainmail list of creatures (at least the 3d version one – to be verified).
* First evasion table (to be compared with the D&D one)
* Map movement (to compare with OS)
* Maybe the p. 24 price list, to be studied more carefully
Fall of 1972[/b]
“Dave Arneson gave me some of his notes and let me referee a couple of times when he was busy with other things” (GS/DB)
“During the Fall of 1972 (…) shortly after Dave Arneson had introduced Blackmoor to Gary Gygax and the group in Lake Geneva, leading to the creation of Greyhawk.” (OB)
"Dave Arneson tells me I was the third DM, after himself and Gary. I ran a adventure for Bill Heaton (the Blue Rider) and Mel Johnson (Mello) sometime during the fall of 1972 (nobody remembers exactly when) using Dave's notes. I built a city, called Tonisborg, complete with a dungeon and a network of catacombs, during 1973 and ran many adventures there and all around the Blackmoor area in 1973 and 1974 using the play test rules for the original three little books and then the published books." – Greg Svenson
November 1972[/b]
Dave Arneson and Dave Megarry take Blackmoor to Lake Geneva with Arneson running a game for Gary Gygax, Rob Kuntz, and Terry Kuntz. They explore the Blackmoor Dungeon and the Outdoors. Megarry assumes the role of leading PC as he is the most familiar with the setting.
“Back in 1972 I started doing dungeon explorations with the local gamers, building up a set of rules as we went along. I kept track of my rule decisions in a big black notebook as we went along so I didn’t contradict myself too often. We were in correspondence with the group from Lake Geneva through the Napoleonic Campaigns at that time, so we mentioned that we were doing fantasy stuff on the alternate weekends and they became very interested in it. After I made several trips down there so they could go down in my dungeon, they became excited about it. At that time, they had a lot more spare time than I did and they had a lot of ideas, so they came up with their own version of the rules. They sent theirs to us and we fooled around with them for a while.” – Dave Arneson, Pegasus #1
1973 [/b](The Third Year of Dave's Blackmoor Campaign)
* Blackmoor, the campaign (tables, including prices)
* Adventures in Lake Gloomy. (First Fantasy Campaign)
1973 [/b]
The copyright date of a prototype of the Dungeon board game by David R. Megarry. (From a photograph.) This leads one to the question of 1971 vs 1973; what is the actual creation date of the game?
1 November 1973[/b]
OD&D forward by Gary Gygax (GS/DB)
1973-1974[/b]
“I must have DMed more often than I remember from what Bob Meyer has told me about the days when we were roommates in 1973 & 1974” (GS/DB)
1974[/b] (“More Recent events”)
Peasant Revolt, Afridhi invasions (Nomads of Ten), Valley of the Ancients. (FFC)
1974[/b] (after release of OD&D)
“The individual levels and things like that were new, but the way we played we didn’t really notice the difference. Attributes were different, we had used two d6’s to get a number from 1 to 10, where we changed to three d6’s and a range from 3 to 18, but most were just changes in mechanics...” (GS/DB)
Blackmoor, the campaign:
* Internal investments subsection could have been modified (mention of a d4 and of silver pieces, p. 9)
* Hunting, Armories and Animal Breeding quotes D&D (p. 10)
* Farming (mention of a d4, p. 10) – probably the whole economical section.
* The Land and sea trade subsection provide no evidence about their datatation.
* Price list (p. 11), should be compared to the earlier one – the price for slaves no vary according to their strength (males) or charisma (females).
Magic sword matrix [use of funky dices – to be discussed, as it’s possible the table of swords, which link to the code numbers in the Blackmoor castle, could be more ancient than the tables].
Gypsy sayings and chances cards (unless some cards have been modified to fit with funky dices. Tarns appears apparently end in 1972).
1974 or early 1975[/b]
Stephen Rocheford creates Saint Stephen (a space alien in Blackmoor) prompting Arneson to create Temple of the Frog and introduce Star Trek/scifi technologies to Blackmoor. (Rocheford quote)
1974-1976[/b]
At some point (probably in 1975 give or take a year) Uther granted many of his loyal servants their own fiefs. Since the original Blackmoor area was already occupied, the new fiefs were created in the south. An area we called "province one". Dave simply placed the map from Avalon Hill's "Outdoor Survival" game next to the Blackmoor map and showed us which hex had our new fief in it. (OB)
1975[/b]
Blackmoor, the campaign:
* Religion, mentions paladins, clerics and patriarchs.
Blackmoor Castle levels 1-6 (p. 28 and 30-32) [but its keep tracks of an earlier material, as shows the wizards in armor and strange AC pattern].
Special interest (at least the table. The full text, with its criticism of D&D experience system, is at least post-1974.
1975[/b] – Experimentation
Great Svenny vs. Nazis and WWII Japanese. Sniders bring back Japanese Tank to Zvenzen’s Freehold. (Imagine Magazine)
1976[/b]
“New group”. Back to Blackmoor Dungeon. (FFC)
1976[/b]
Rob Kuntz and Gary Gygax journey to the City of the Gods. (OJ#6)
1977[/b]
* Bob Bledsaw’s Forward
* Dave Arneson’s Introduction
* Blackmoor, the campaign (introduction and editing notes)
* Campaign map notes (with references about dungeon-delving in 1975-1977)
* Blackmoor’s More infamous Characters (editing notes and final redaction – but the material seems coming from an older material)
* Blackmoor, facts about Blackmoor (maybe from earlier notes, but mostly remembering and anecdotes)
* Blackmoor town map (anecdotes)
* Original Blackmoor system (p. 50), but clearly refers to what was practiced.
* Interesting note about Constitution.
* How to become a bad guy? [but it explain earlier procedures, without date].
* Maybe the “proto-rules” manuscript, which includes part of FFC which seems to have been written as a rule set. Includes: Outdoor of Blackmoor (p. 25) ; Migration (p. 25); Drawing you own map (p. 26) [this part seems to use funky dices, as 1-4 and 1-8 scales appears, but this may be later chances – it seems to have been mainly wrote with ‘percentile dice’ and d6]
;D
