A great DA Story

[Finarvyn]

Here's a great Dave Arneson story from Beyond the Black Gate Blog:

"Judge" would actually be a better description of how Dave ran his games than "Referee". The difference being one of rules vs. rulings. Dave was firmly in the rulings camp.

If you ever got a chance to sit in one of his convention games, he would pull out a pile of pregen characters - a hodgepodge of sheets from different editions and versions of editions. At one session, I received an 8th level D&D 3.0 Cleric, and the fellow next to me had what I am pretty sure was some sort of OD&D ranger. When one of the players, obviously confused, asked him what edition we were going to be playing, Dave grinned at him, held out his hand for a shake, and said "Hi, I'm Dave Arneson."

No wonder he's my RPG hero!

[bestialwarlust]

That was an awesome read glad you posted that. I'm not normally a blog reader I never would've found that.

[Finarvyn]

Reminds me a little of a story where Richard Feynman had his van custom painted with Feynman diagrams on the side. (Those are diagrams that help physicists explain elementary particle interactions.) When folks would ask why he had Feynman diagrams on his van, he would answer "Because I'm Richard Feynman."

Same thing with the story about Dave. As one of the early bigshots, he defined the game rather than the game defining him. Neat to think about someone trying to tell him how to play, then he tells them who he is. I can almost hear the exchange now. Made me smile.

[Deleted]

Yeah, Dave, Gary, and Rob Kuntz all used "judge". I think I'll bring back that term.

And yes, that sounds like solid vintage Dave.

[geoffrey]

Jul 30, 2011 7:45:49 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

If you ever got a chance to sit in one of his convention games, he would pull out a pile of pregen characters - a hodgepodge of sheets from different editions and versions of editions. At one session, I received an 8th level D&D 3.0 Cleric, and the fellow next to me had what I am pretty sure was some sort of OD&D ranger.

Awesome. Dave has been a great inspiration to me in allowing the players to run any PC they want. Any race, any class, any edition, any monster, etc.

[bestialwarlust]

I just wish I had gotten the chance to sit in on one of his games. It's too bad no one has a video of him running a game. I'd love to watch something like that.

[DungeonDevil]

Once, while the party was being attacked by some sort of flying machines over the swamps near the Temple, a player whinged a bit that, since he had been paralyzed, he had nothing to do while everyone else got to fight the machines, and how unfair that was. Dave regarded him quietly for a moment, then handed him a d6, and said "here, roll that every round." The player, confused, asked why. "That," Dave said, "is how much damage you take every round. That should keep you busy." I don't believe anyone else complained about anything for the rest of the session.

;D