Supplement II

[Falconer]

admin said:

I suppose I could put in (1974) in honor of the Blackmoor supplement. The Temple of the Frog would be the first published account of Blackmoor, right?

Actually, it would be two pages (one of them a map) entitled “Facts about Blackmoor” from issue #13 of The Domesday Book, 1972. This was the official magazine of the Castles & Crusades Society, founded by Gary Gygax, edited by Rob Kuntz. Only two copies of this are known to still exist. So does it even count, if none of us can possibly have anything to say about it? I think most of our discussions here begin and end with FFC.

Supplement II is such an anomaly. I would regard large parts of it as a continuation of Greyhawk (the parts written by Gary Gygax and Steve Marsh), whereas the authentically Dave Arneson parts (“Hit Location During Melee” and “The Temple of the Frog”) must be seen as an addendum to The First Fantasy Campaign. For, even though FFC was published later, it clearly is not influenced by Greyhawk and seems to predate Hit Location as well. Thus (in terms of actual published products), we have:

                                        Chainmail
                                            |
                                   Dungeons & Dragons
       _____________________________________|_____________________________________
      |                     |                        |            |               |
  Greyhawk      The First Fantasy Campaign        Empire      Warriors      Metamorphosis
      |                      |                    of the         of             Alpha
  Blackmoor              Blackmoor             Petal Throne     Mars              |
 (excluding            (Hit Location                 |                 ___________|________
Hit Location                and                   Swords              |                    |
     and               Temple/Frog)                  &              Gamma            Metamorphosis
Temple/Frog)                 |                     Glory            World           Alpha to Omega
      |                 Adventures
  Eldritch                  in
  Wizardry                Fantasy
      |
    AD&D

...or something like that. All pretty straight-forward progressions except for Supplement II! That’s how I see it, anyway. In any case, it can not be seen as a starting point for understanding Blackmoor. Regards.

[gsvenson]

Tim Kask, over in the DF forums, said he threw out just about everything Dave submitted for the Blackmoor suppliment except for Temple of the Frog, which was probably much of the material that came out as FFC (I don't know that, I am just speculating) and replaced it with the other material from Gary and Steve Marsh.

[Finarvyn]

falconer said:

if none of us can possibly have anything to say about it? I think most of our discussions here begin and end with FFC..

While I think you have a great point, Falconer, keep in mind that we have at least 3 of the original Blackmoor campaign on these boards, and Bob Meyer seems to think that others will probably trickle over with time. It could be that ultimately we may have quite a few members who could talk about the 1970-71 campaign.

[Falconer]

Finarvyn: True, and most welcome and exciting, indeed!

The Great Svenny: Indeed, until we have more concrete info from Dave himself, we can only speculate as to the contents of the 50-page (per Tim Kask) manuscript that he submitted to be published as Blackmoor. Everyone agrees that TotF was part of it. Your speculation that most of the rest was probably made up of the same material that was later published in FFC is quite natural. Though simple math would tell us that the 96-page FFC contains far more material than could have been in the original 50-page Blackmoor manuscript (especially since TotF would have been a sizeable part of the latter).

So, really, it’s very, very lucky that we have FFC as we have it: little-edited, and chock-full of real campaigning goodness! Regards.

[darneson]

OK I tried to do the hit location again. Again it slowed things down too much. TSR added the under water parts.

Arneson