Michael Mornard

[Deleted]

Jul 11, 2011 3:40:21 GMT -6 havard said:

Michael,
thanks for taking time to post in this thread. As you may know, I have a bit of an obsession about Dave Arneson's original campaign. I have learned alot from some of the others who played in his early games, but I would also be interested in hearing more about your experiences.

A couple of questions:

1) Did you have a specific character that you remember playing? Or if not, did you have a class or race that you would frequently use?

I played Gronan for a while, I also played a couple of Blackmoor-specific characters I no longer remember much about.

Jul 11, 2011 3:40:21 GMT -6 havard said:

2) Arneson ran multiple parallell games in Blackmoor. Who were the other players in the group you played with?

As with Greyhawk, it varied from time to time, but included Greg Swenson, the Schnieder brothers, Bob Meyer, Marty Nazel, and quite a few others. That's all I remember right now.

Jul 11, 2011 3:40:21 GMT -6 havard said:

3) Do you remember playing in any specific locations in the game, like the Temple of the Frog, the Blackmoor Dungeon, or even some other areas?

Blackmoor Dungeon, yes, but again I remember very little.

Jul 11, 2011 3:40:21 GMT -6 havard said:

4) Did you experience any of the truly weird ideas that Dave has become known for?

Heh. He used miniatures and a battlemap and made us write out orders. As he said, "Who needs a CONFUSION spell?"

Jul 11, 2011 3:40:21 GMT -6 havard said:

Much appreciated if you have time to answer these, or any other memories you might want to share

-Havard

[Falconer]

Hey, Gronan—

Gary mentioned in that Europa article that referees should pick a literary and/or mythological world as the basis of their game (but try not to reveal it to the players). I can’t think of a single dominant influence on Greyhawk (the home campaign), unless it’s possibly 3H&3L. Any comment?

[havard]

Thanks for answering my questions Michael!

Where can I find out more about Gronan (the character)?

Would love to use him as an NPC in my campaign...

-Havard

[badger2305]

Regarding the recent release of the original manuscript of EPT:

The Spring 1974 date goes back to when Prof. Barker prepared the game. Michael Mornard enrolled as a freshman at the University of Minnesota in Fall term 1973; shortly thereafter he began playing in Dave Arneson's Blackmoor campaign and was introduced to Prof. Barker. Our current estimate, based on what Prof. Barker has told us, was that the original manuscript for EPT was produced in early 1974, and the initial game session was sometime during the Spring or possibly early summer. There is a copy that's dated to August 1974, but that does NOT mean that that was when the first game took place. (There is apparently some disagreement amongst Phil's first EPT players as to when it happened.)

[Deleted]

Some disagreement, and some "Bugger if I remember, that was almost forty years ago!"

[verhaden]

Do you have any plans to write a book or maybe a compilation of stories about those early days of D&D?

[Stormcrow]

I feel grateful that nothing I did as a teenager turned out to be so important that fan boys would be bugging me about every last detail four decades later...

[amalric]

LOL! Still, I'm not, I - like many many others - would have loved to have been there!

[Deleted]

Old geezer has been posting again on rpgnet forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?633165-So/page12

[grodog]

Thanks for the pointer

[Deleted]

I just started posting here, so I didn't realize that he has been posting in this forum all along.

[Deleted]

Mike said this over there and I just have to quote him because it's a nice way of summarizing my feelings, too.

But in this old fart's opinion, things took a turn for the worse when the zeitgeist of the game went from "Anything not forbidden is permitted" to "Anything not permitted is forbidden." ---Mike "Old Geezer" Mornard, RPGNet, 25-JUN-12