Dave Arneson Talks About Helping Create D&D

Warrior-GS writes "GameSpy has an interview with Dave Arneson, the lesser known co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons with Gary Gygax. He is at Gen Con in Milwaukee. Also on hand to talk was Sandy Petersen, the creator of Call of Cthulhu. He is working at Ensemble Studios on Age of Mythology. Both interviews are very informative."

Comments

Beating the Slashdot Effect

[roadkill999]

Here is my great idea for beating the Slashdot Effect. It is guaranteed to be effective - just follow these easy steps:

1. Don't assume that just because a site appears on slashdot that it is going to be:
[a] even remotely interesting
[b] within the realms of your tiny brains to understand
[c] in any way related to anything that will ever improve your life, health, career, sex-appeal etc

2. Don't complain about the "poor little site" that got slashdotted. In order to know the site has gone down, you must have clicked the link numbnuts. And NO, pressing F5 doesn't improve your chances.

3. If by chance you see a site that you really need to visit consider these options:
[a] check the google cache
[b] go read about it on The Register - the Brits are much more capable reporters than the Slashdot baboons.
[c] wait until tomorrow. contrary to james bond films, the world is not full of evil geniuses hell-bent on destroying the world and robbing you of your precious internet.

4. Finally if you are one the egotistical maniacs who think that posting a story to slashdot will help you make friends consider the followng:
[a] make a mirror of the poor site before you post
[b] stop. think. is it worth it? the slashdot baboons are NOT going to invite you round their house for tea.
[c] i know that this is hard to understand but kudos does not exist. its all in your head. geeks don't like each other - they are geeks for christ sake.
[d] i

Sandy Petersen...

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it the guy who made many of doom2's levels?

Re:Sandy Petersen...

[qurob]

Quake and Doom and Doom 2

Legends Speak!

[spongebob]

It's always cool to hear that these designers are still kicking. Game design seems to be like a disease in that you can't seem to stop making games even if you want to. It's cool to see Arneson working hard. I know that Gygax has some new stuff out as well...

Re:Legends Speak!

[Riskable]

It's always cool to hear that these designers are still kicking.

You crack me up! So I guess old game developers never die. At least, if they had the foresight to up up down down left right left right A B select start at the beginning of their careers.

Yes, it's nice to hear that they're still kicking, but I'd like to see that they can punch too. Maybe still be able to pull of that Hadu-Ken energy burst combo.

Re:Legends Speak!

[perlyking]

Yes its cool sometimes but like rock and movie stars you watch/read an interview with them and realise "OMG this guy is an idiot" and you remember that then instead of the image they try to portray.

I remember Sandy from a forum and he was a dick on it (just my opinion of course), a shame because the Age of... games are super.

Re:Legends Speak!

[SN74S181]

These are game designers.

Not electronic game designers. There's no cursor buttons nor an A or a B button.

I guess you can do whatever silly things you want with your dice though.

Re:Legends Speak!

[Riskable]

Oh! You're right! Damn, I guess old pen & paper RPG developers never die... They just whip out the 1D20 and reroll every once in a while.

Re:Legends Speak!

[C0LDFusion]

Maybe instead of a key combo, they've just got good armor saves and high constitution? Or am I mixing D&D with Warhammer?

Re:Legends Speak!

[dirtsurfer]

Dude, get it right.
It's, "Hadou-ken".

Re:Legends Speak!

[Kredal]

Who rolls a character with a D20? 3D6 is where it's at, baby! Sure, max you can roll is 18, but you never have to worry about a 1 or 2 int, either!

*grunt*

Yeehoghu hits!

[Bilestoad]

The thing about D&D that always bothered me was the Deities and Demigods manual. How do you go about assigning AC and HP to gods?

Can you imagine the arguments? Who's tougher out of Zeus and Odin? Heimdallr and Vulcan? No big problem in Nethack where you have just one pantheon but in a system where imagination sets the rules you could have them meeting.

(and there were plenty in that book who were neither Deities nor Demigods, like Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, but that probably doesn't matter)

Re:Yeehoghu hits!

[toriver]

Well, they didn't assign stats to the gods themselves as much as to their avatars, that is the physical representations they take (in the myth stories) when they visit Earth.

However, esp. the Norse mythology have gods which are actually quite mortal (and most end up dying in Ragnarok). So in those cases it's understandable. The problem with Deities and Demigods is that the avatars are overpowers for the sake of TSR's then-current Holy Grail of Balance.

Re:Yeehoghu hits!

[BJH]

I think the worst part was the artificial ceiling on HPs (400, IIRC). What a joke.

Re:Yeehoghu hits!

[grendelkhan]

But they never explained that they were Avatars until the 2nd Ed of Greyhawk, and it never made it into the Dieties and Demigod's rulebook. I always loved the "I'm stronger than Loki!" comments that would be made by some of our dumber players.

Personally, I want the "Giants in the Earth" series to come back in Dragon. I loved getting ideas by looking at these cool mythic heros all done up nice and neat with the James Holloman or Roger Raupp art.

Re:Yeehoghu hits!

[Zerelli]

It wasn't limited to Deities and Demigods, but also listed epic heroes. That is why Fafhrd and Grey Mouser are listed. As for assigning values to the Deities, well many people had games that involved characters of such extreme levels and power that they themselves challenged the gods and became gods in their campaign world. I had a friend who ran a campaign where the original characters eventually attained power that elevated them to this status. Not everyone just whacked some orcs and goblins, though personally I preferred the low level adventures over the ridiculoously overpowered mega-characters. My own campaigns often trapped those types by setting them against opponents that were equally silly in power. The Dancing Hut of Babba Yagga (sp?) module from Dragon Magazine was excellent for taking people down a few notches when you threw in some of the nasty traps, from a third party book (I forget the name). Think your level 75 mage is tough? Let him put on a necklace of strangulation, ninth level spells aren't very tough when you can't speak....

Re:Yeehoghu hits!

[paganizer]

Umm, pardon me, but it CLEARLY states in the back of Deities & Demigods that any gods the characters encounter are "mere" avatars of the REAL deity.
That coupled with the "these are just guidelines, you are supposed to use your own imagination" statement in the back of the DMG pretty much covers any lapses.
Gary Gygax's new game system is called Lejendary Adventure, reminds me of the original pamphlet version of D&D.

Re:Yeehoghu hits!

[grendelkhan]

I don't remember that being in the 1st Ed. I vividly remember an article in Dragon that Gary wrote talking about the avatar issue and mentioning that this was going to be done like Greyhawk 2nd Ed. Something like "... readers of the new Greayhawk will know where I'm going with this." The plan was to break the book in two: first half for players and second half for DM's with the finer details about NPC priests, church structure, and avatar stats. This never got done, but I honestly don't remember avatars being mentioned at all in the 1st or 2nd Ed's (with and without the Chaosium stuff, but still the same cover).

If it was in the fine print rules at the back, we might have just missed it, or twenty plus years are catching up with me.

Re:Yeehoghu hits!

[bughunter]

I'm stronger than Loki!

I will never be able to forget the time I moved to Ventura Co. CA and joined a gaming group made up predominantly of sailors from Pt. Mugu NAS. They had all served together on a carrier and played a lot of D&D for R&R. That much seemed reasonable...

Until they explained that if, after you kill your foe, you eat his/her/its brain then you gain all of his/her/its hit points, experience points, spells, special abilities, exceptional stats, and whatnot.

Ooooh.... Kay.

Then I played a game in their campaign, which had basically degenerated into a series of raids on the seats of various pantheons to eat as many god brains as possible. Of course, all the regulars in the group were 100th level F/T/C/MUs with thousands of hitpoints and every special ability and spell and psionic talent in the books. The only thing that saved my character from being brain sucked by these PC mindflaying ghouls was that they made me roll up my character at first level with zero experience points.

I tell ya, it sure was a great education in munchkinism.

Re:Yeehoghu hits!

[Kierthos]

Well, if you'll recall, the first edition of Deities and Demigods also has Cthulhu and various other Lovecraftian beasties in it (although much flavour is lost when the sight of the Great Old Ones does not drive your character instantly insane) as well as various gods and characters from Moorcock's "Elric" saga. Those were, I believe, cut out in later editions due to potential copyright issues and the lack of certain royalty payments being forthcoming.

And quite frankly, gods have little place as active participants in most AD&D games. It sucks a lot of the fun of the game away to have a different god show up every adventure. (Come to think of it, that's why I stopped playing Forgotten Realms games and Living City...)

Kierthos

Re:Yeehoghu hits!

[paganizer]

My mistake.
I just got my old, yellowed 1st run, 1st ed of Deities & Demigods out.
On page 75, it says:
"probably the most difficult concept this mythos presents, at least in AD&D terms, is that of the "avatar". "
I was wrong. that is apparently the only mention of avatars in the book, and it's limited to the mythos of India. I think i must have either been thinking of a Dragon article, or maybe something Gary said.
Sorry about that.

Re:Yeehoghu hits!

[grendelkhan]

I'm guilty of the same stuff, we're trying to remember things through how many substances that have run through our brains since then?

Re:Yeehoghu hits!

[fudgefactor7]

Throne of Bloodstone. Only module that was listed as for levels 18+. Hell, I still ahve my halfling fighter from 1980! (Not too tough tho...)

Re:Yeehoghu hits!

[Requiem]

Holy shit.

That beats my grade nine D&D adventures hands down!

Dave Arneson

[Ass-Gas-Istan]

Though Gary Gygax did a lot of the setup for the D&D game, it was Dave Arneson that wrote many of the early adventure modules, particularly the B and X series.

Re:Dave Arneson

[grendelkhan]

Jim Ward wrote X1 (Isle of Dread). I had a B series that was a fill in the blanks module, but I don't remember who wrote it. Had a brown cover, very very lame.

Re:Dave Arneson

[finnatic]

B1 - In Search of the Unknown - Author: Mike Carr

That's according to the cover whose jpg I'm looking at.

Looking around the web, I can't find any proof for the claim that Dave wrote many of the B and X series:
http://www.acaeum.com/DDIndexes/ModPages/B.html has details on the B Series, http://www.acaeum.com/DDIndexes/ModPages/X.html has information on the X series - and I don't see Dave's name anywhere ...

Re:Dave Arneson

[DNS-and-BIND]

Oh, so HE'S the guy who had random collections of monsters living together next to each other for no particular reason?

I wish!

[coryboehne]

From the interview "Dave Arneson is the father of role-playing, no really; it says so on his business card."

Now that is a true honor, imagine how this guy feels, I mean he literally spawned a whole class of games and set the standard by which all other rpg's are judged (or at least the standard by which they were judged for quite some time) I want one of those business cards, it'd go into my collection of useless-but-neat-none-the-less stuff.

Snippet

[Alien54]

Sounds like my kind of guy:

Dave Arneson: Yeah. We created the Continental Congress and because I knew things the teacher didn't share with the students we ended up not having the Continental Congress, Delaware rejoined the Empire and New York and New Hampshire were at war. Anyway, (laughs) I was accused by my professor of perverting his exercises... and well, it was true I did, and he was mad at me. The same thing happened with the French Revolution, and he accused me of introducing these random events that were of no historical interest at all.

There is a certain puckish commonality that I see here with a number of creative types.

One thing that's always bothered me.

[Sabby]

The whole "origins of RPG" seems all misty to me. You can read interviews with Rob Kuntz, Dave Arneson, Gary Gygax, and others... You get the impression that its a group of relatively good friends, with the typical tensions. You know, typical gaming group.

They come up with a cool idea. You never really know WHO was the one who came up with it. All of them claim to have varying levels of importance in the creation, and all of them have counter stories to each others stories. Some of them are under legal obligation not to reveal their side of the story anymore.

You know that Arneson was very involved. You also know he signed a legal document saying he's not going to argue with Gygax anymore, basically.

But, you do know that Gygax is the one who quit his job and started fixing shoes in order to get the game off the ground. No matter who created it, Gygax was the one who believed in it.

So, I'm pretty sure that I'll never get the story. But, it's definitely intriguing. I love these interviews, though. Makes me all misty eyed that I was too young to see the origins of RPGs. But then again, I'm young enough that I'll see a few generations more. (And I'm glad that I'm not so crusty that I'm unwilling to play the most excellent 3rd edition.) Here's over 20 years of gaming under my belt, and hopefully many many more to come.

Re:One thing that's always bothered me.

[PainKilleR-CE]

So, I'm pretty sure that I'll never get the story. But, it's definitely intriguing. I love these interviews, though. Makes me all misty eyed that I was too young to see the origins of RPGs. But then again, I'm young enough that I'll see a few generations more. (And I'm glad that I'm not so crusty that I'm unwilling to play the most excellent 3rd edition.) Here's over 20 years of gaming under my belt, and hopefully many many more to come.


Personally, I'm just happy that I'm still interested in computer gaming and now have a chance at all of the excellent D&D PC games that have been coming out in the last few years. Over the years it got harder and harder to find a good group to sit down and do the pen & paper versions, but now I can sit down in front of the computer at any time and have a couple hours of good fun. Unfortunately, I have yet to see any plans for a DragonLance game, and I really wasn't into Forgotten Realms as much when I was playing the pen & paper stuff.

Re:One thing that's always bothered me.

[Anonymous Coward]

I played in one of his convention games many years ago. He did a great job running a game with twenty players - great coordination as a GM.

However, two people were kissing his butt, and pretty much ruined the experience for everyone else. The way he pandered to them for ego-petting was gross.

Re:One thing that's always bothered me.

[tmark]

Well, reading the article about Arneson it sounds like *he* was the one who invented *everything*. To my eyes, it was just a lot of "me, me, me". I would have been much more interested to hear about the interactions between Gygax and Arneson and how the game evolved from those interactions and the probably uncountable numerous game-playing sessions, because surely D&D was NOT D&D without Gygax's work. As it is, it sounds like he created the game and then showed the rules to Gygax who "liked it".

Re:One thing that's always bothered me.

[imr]

So, I'm pretty sure that I'll never get the story.
It seems obvious from the article: since he is the father of role playing, that makes Mr Gygax the mother.

Re:One thing that's always bothered me.

[Sabby]

Honestly, the way he presented it in that article seemed to be very close to what I've gathered to be PROBABLY true. He invented the concept of the dungeon-adventure, with medieval fighting man miniatures going into the dungeon.

Gygax made up the rules which said that you could have player class X, with Y hitpoints, etc. Arneson had the idea that the miniatures had hitpoints, etc. Gygax made the leap which said that the miniatures just represented the personalities. So, I would say Arneson is more correct to say he was the father of "adventure gaming" and not roleplaying.

Gygax and Arneson are both trumped for actual "father of roleplaying" however, by the inventor of the "Braunstein" adventures. (I think it was David Wesley.) These were wargames where players could assume the roles of "President of Local University" and "General of Allied Forces." You talked your way into and out of things. It was more of a "How to Host a Murder Mystery" style roleplaying game. Sort of a LARP with a wargame tossed in. That really smacks heavily of the "First roleplaying game."

Arneson is the first one to have a roleplaying campaign setting, but only the second or third to ever have a published campaign setting. (You get really fuzzy with what came first between "Greyhawk," "Blackmoor," and "Tekumel.") And when you come down to it, Tolkien's Middle Earth predated them all, was a richer background, and had all the information to set up a good RPG.

So, any amount of "me me me" is mostly unfounded. You can always trace back to someone who predated you. But, they're still forefathers. And if one of them wants to have enough of an ego to say, "I invented it all" then let them... As long as they said, "And all my buddies helped me a lot." Arneson usually credits Gygax pretty well. I've seen interviews where BOTH of them downplay each other's achievements, but they seem to be much more gracious nowadays.

I'm waiting to see a good interview by Steve Jackson about his involvement in the beginnings of RPGs. Steve Jackson sounds like a very interesting fellow. In fact, they all sound fascinating. But, SJ was the first of those old RPGers to realize what an impact that computers were going to have on RPGs. Some of the companies of today are just NOW realizing how important the computer is to the modern RPG. (Wizards can barely recognize it. For a company that big, their attention to their webpage is kind of a side gesture. If they put some serious moeny behind it, I would be very impressed by what those guys could do.)

Re:One thing that's always bothered me.

[OwnedByTwoCats]

I was a big fan of Metagaming (nee Metagaming Concepts), the company Steve Jackson was at while developing the precursors to GURPS. So I saw Melee and Wizard and the first The Fantasy Trip books as they were published in the late 1970s. I liked TFT much better than D&D, and I have a shelf full of GURPS books.

Tales of the Plush Cthulhu

[nucal]

There's also a version of Cthulhu for nursery schoolers.

Re:Tales of the Plush Cthulhu

[frankie]

Very cute. The guy who made that site has clearly played PokeThulhu . From the makers of Dork Tower...

Re:Tales of the Plush Cthulhu

[dillon_rinker]

The sad thing is that over ten thousand have started the tale but only seven thousand have finished. What has happened to the other three thousand, I wonder...

Re:Tales of the Plush Cthulhu

[Kierthos]

Er, you do realize that plush Cthulhu dolls have been out for about 15 years, don't you?

Kierthos

Re:Tales of the Plush Cthulhu

[Anonymous Coward]

Got bored and didn't finish, had their machines crash or the boss walk up, or just didn't go past the first page because it wasn't what they were looking for. God knows what they were...

Re:Tales of the Plush Cthulhu

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope. Never did.

CoC/DG

[BJH]

For those of you who like CoC, don't forget to check out Delta Green. Good stuff.

Re:CoC/DG

[yatest5]

For those of you who like CoC

Aren't those of us who like CoC at the old goatse.cx page?

Re:CoC/DG

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, that was an intelligent comment, wasn't it? Hell, I'm impressed!

My life

[Dexter77]

This is the guy who changed my life and many others. I wonder if I ever had become a nerd if I hadn't stumbled across D&D manual in a library..

Re:My life

[antisocial77]

As long as there is an electronics club at every highschool there will always be nerds, friend.

Re:My life

[mike77]

Yeah, I felt the same way years ago, and then I realized how little of MY life I was actually living. I think alot of people who really enjoy it and do it all the time, should step back and experience their own life as well.

- recovering D&D-aholic

Re:My life

[susano_otter]

What makes one experience more valuable than another? Where do you draw the line between experiences that are valuable, and those that are not? When you say I should experience my own life, do you mean that I should have more of the kinds of experience that you find valuable? Or are you simply suggesting that my current range of experience is not valuable?

I'm sorry you found yourself addicted to RPGs, but I think your "RPG-enthusiastic != life" perception is a little underinformed.

Re:My life

[DNS-and-BIND]

Yeah, much better to live in the real world, where kids at school spit on you, athletics is rewarded and clever problem-solving despised, and you are considered a waste of skin. Enduring these painful years with a good dose of fantasy until you leave to go to college should be forbidden. Freaking nerds...I think I'll go flush that idiot Melvin's head down the toilet again, I saw him with a smile on his face in the hall before second period.

Re:My life

[mike77]

Role playing doesn't reaaly equate to life. you're not living in this world. You're living in a dream world. I have alot of friends who play still and I see them barely living their lives, but instead living a life which they have created in their heads. How is this any different than certain psychoses (sp?)?

Re:My life

[mike77]

Maybe if one lived in teh real world, and became active in things like sports, etc... The school experience wouldn't be so bad. I gave up gaming and instead picked upa football and spent time in the gym. Became damn good at it too. Isn't it better to experience many different sides to life as opposed to a dream life you've made up? Besides, eventually I ended up in the same crowd as some of the "jocks" and I was able to exert some influence on them not to screw with the "geeks", when they asked why, I said, that's me, only difference is I play football. And besides, once you understand them, it's alot easier for co-existence.

all in the name

[Kraft]

I started out with D&D and I know two people were credited, but with a name like "Gary Gygax", how can anyone be expected to remember the other dude Arneson, ... something Arneson...?

Gary Gygax... it's all the way up there with Wolf Blitzer and Rocco Siegfredi.

Re:all in the name

[tmark]

it's all the way up there with Wolf Blitzer and Rocco Siegfredi

Not sure if I may be about to reveal my ignorance, or something more embarassnig, but are you referring to Italian porn star Rocco Siffredi ?

Re:all in the name

[Anonymous Coward]

or something more embarassnig

Such as your typing skills? ;-)

D&D software

[loz]

Hi,

Back in the good 'ol days I used to play multi-user D&D day and night via a VAX-VMS machine using IRC. Anyone know if this piece of software is available somewhere, possibly ported to i386 platform?

ta,
loz

Re:D&D software

[zoombat]

You might try a MUD, such as Coastal Legends

Re:D&D software

[Kredal]

IRC is available for just about anything nowadays...

For Windows, try mIRC
For *nix, try BitchX
For Mac, try IRCle

Good luck finding a server that promotes roleplaying! Undernet uesd to, but then it got torn down by DOS attacks, and it's never been the same.. *sniffle*

Shoplifting Those Little Brown Books...

[grendelkhan]

Takes me back to my childhood: shoplifting huge amounts of RPG's because I couldn't afford the $32 for a boxed set of Rolemaster. Nowadays, I try to remember that when my son is so jazzed up about a $40 PSX game, and I say "Okay, we'll save up your allowance for a few weeks, and you can pick up extra cash by edging the lawn". Trying to avoid the creation of another prolific teenage shoplifter in my family!

Anyhoo, those little brown books, followed by the billygoat on the front of the Monster Manual, and that HORRIBLE illustration on the cover of the DM's Guide (all courtesy of the same artist, whose name eludes me) occupied many lunches in Jr. High and High School for me, going over the endless variants of classes, the newest Dragon mag, the latest from Judge's Guild, the Thieves Guild series, and anything from Chaosium.

Speaking of which, it's really cool to see Sandy Peterson there, that man is simply a genius of the RPG world. CoC, the various supplements he made, plus his work on Runequest, made my bookshelf (legally, or illegally) every release. I'm about to have all my stuff out of storage for the first time in eight months, and I have space now for ALL of my RPG stuff, and I've kept it all from when I was younger: Traveller, Twilight 2000, RoleMaster, Battletech and Mechwarrior (1st ED), Gamma World, Harn, etc. And I have a feeling that after I spend a few hours setting up the network and entertainment totem again, that I will be unpacking these for days, since I'll be rereading them as I go! My wife will not be happy...

Re:Shoplifting Those Little Brown Books...

[Anonymous Coward]

Guys like you are the reason why so many bookstores, libraries, and hobby shops stopped carrying roleplaying stuff entirely during the late 80's.

I remember how we used to be able to gather at our local library and play games without spending a dime on new books, because the library had all we needed. Suddenly we had to drive all the way across town to find stores that specialized in gaming stuff, because not only were the books gone from the library, but none of the local merchants wanted to carry the books anymore. It was years before you could even find a Player Handbook at the local bookstore.

If I were you, I would keep quiet about being one of the ones who ruined it all for the rest of us.

Re:Shoplifting Those Little Brown Books...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow. I thought I was the only guy who got into shoplifting because into RPGs. Me, I was mostly shoplifting the D&D modules, starting from the G series (except G1, which I could never find). W.H. Smith (a bookstore in Canada) had a store in the nearby mall. I'd take the bus out there on my lunch hour in junior high and steal as many new modules as they had there. This was when TSR was releasing modules constantly so there was always something new to be had. I stole modules I never even played.

I also stole - and I feel awful to remember it - Deities and Demigods from my school library and the Player's Handbook from one of my friends. Yes, I feel like shit, and yes, I knew it was wrong, but that was how covetous these things made me.

From there I graduated to stealing models from the mall hobby store. Modules were easy - slim and you could slide a couple of them inside your jacket and as many as ten of them in your bookbag in a split-second. Model tanks - those were challenging - store only 3 aisles wide, big bulky box that is almost too big to fit in your book bag, geeky cashiers and store clerks who know that kids are shoplifters and who pay attention to what happens in the store.... I remember this one girl cashier who kept following me around and asking if she could put things like the store catalog in my bag for me. She must have found some reason to open my bag at *least* 3 times. I *knew* she thought I was shoplifting and just wanted to look in my bag - but each time she looked there was never anything there. At that I became determined to beat her in this little game and after about an hour and a half came away with either a Tamiya model tank or a model gun. I became a great shoplifter and I think I actually enjoyed the challenge of outsmarting the people who were there to protect their stuff. I viewed it almost as a victimless crime.

Anyways, my shoplifting career ended for several years when I was busted by the owner of a little convenience (Becker's) store from whom I had been stealing popsicles for about a month. Actually, he didn't catch me with anything in my hands - I knew he was on to me - so he just forbid me from ever going in there again.

My career finally ended when I was arrested in a pharmacy for stealing stuff. I kept spotting this woman looking at me, and I knew she was a store detective, but for some reason I ignored my instincts. Sure enough, she caught me outside the store and I got arrested and went to court. I was put on probation for a few years and never shoplifted again.

Re:Shoplifting Those Little Brown Books...

[Kraft]

I dont know which books you are referring to, but as far as the artist goes, I just remembered Larry Elmore, the guy who did the covers for the D&D boxsets and lots of other TSR stuff. How about buying THE ORIGINAL cover painting for the forth boxset? Price: $2,500

A couple of years ago I bought four of his original drawings (for something like 50 bux a piece!) and gave two to my first rpg buddies. For me it was the ultimate gift to give.

Re:Shoplifting Those Little Brown Books...

[Anonymous Coward]

Takes me back to my childhood: shoplifting huge amounts of RPG's because I couldn't afford the $32 for a boxed set of Rolemaster..

Thanks to the internet, you don't have to steal books you can't afford. You can often find people sharing pdf versions of their books online. It's a win-win situation for you (the person who gets new books) and the gaming industry (who doesn't lose money to theft and, instead, gains money from real book sales due to increased popularity from file-sharing)!

Re:Shoplifting Those Little Brown Books...

[_ph1ux_]

I remember a lot of art done by one "Eisley" (spelling is most likely wrong though)

Re:Shoplifting Those Little Brown Books...

[Quintin Stone]

Easley (Jeff, I believe)

One of the more prolific artists, though I found the quality of his work to be inconsistent. :/

Elmore is one of my favorites, though I wish he hadn't redone the Dragonlance series book covers. I didn't care for the new versions. I've noticed that Elmore's more recent works in general don't seem to be as good as his old ones.

Clyde Caldwell is another very popular fantasy artist. In general very nice paintings, though he may be overdoing the scantily-clad well-endowed female a bit (not as bad as Boris, though).

Keith(?) Parkinson does excellent work. There are few Parkinson painting's I've found fault with. Another common book cover artist.

Brom is most linked in my mind to the Dark Sun D&D campaign world. He has a very unique style and look to his work that I've always enjoyed.

Re:Shoplifting Those Little Brown Books...

[geekoid]

but do you know who drew the art on the inside? I mean the little sketches of adventures doing goofy stuff?

Re:Shoplifting Those Little Brown Books...

[plugger]

Did you try ordering the books? Any good bookshop will order a book for you, just takes a couple of weeks to arrive.

Nothing was 'ruined', you should have just ordered the books.

Re:Shoplifting Those Little Brown Books...

[Anonymous Coward]

And then you moved on to become a Lunix advocate. The story's the same the world over!

Re:Shoplifting Those Little Brown Books...

[Anonymous Coward]

True enough. There's a noisy group of minor industry people in alt.binaries.e-books.rpg who say differently, but they aren't seeing the forest from the trees.

How exactly do they expect to engage the kids of today with $40 books? Pokemon? That used to be the story, but I don't see it happening. Certainly not when that same $40 can get a PlayStation game.

Re:Shoplifting Those Little Brown Books...

[Perky_Goth]

[...] knew it was wrong, but that was how covetous these things made me.

Bilbo, just let go of the ring already... i know it's in your pocket... Can you see it's power now?

The Greatness of Petersen

[Torgo's Pizza]

It's too bad that the reporter didn't really get in depth with any of the designers. I had the wonderful pleasure of working with Sandy at Ensemble Studios for just over a year. The guy is just pure genius. I could talk with him for hours because he had always something interesting to say on just about any subject.

One thing that isn't covered is his voracious knowledge of history. I remember taking my dad up to work (he has a degree in Ancient History) and just watching he and Sandy just go back and forth on the effects that the chariot had on ancient civilations. In fact, he and Tim Deen basically were the Rise of Rome expansion pack.

But not only that, Sandy would get into all sorts of things. Every day at lunch he would drag out either a new board game or card game to play. I blame him for my Lunch Money addiction. He was always patient and took time to explain game design or a decision he had made about game balance. He was truly a designer in every sense of the word.

He's one of the people I miss most at Ensemble. (No, he *doesn't* wear sunglasses all the time. Suspenders and shorts is another story.) He's a great guy, has a wonderful family and takes time for his kids. In fact, one urban legend about Sandy is that when every one at iD was buying their fast cars after Doom came out, Sandy went out and bought a mini-van.

I hope I get to work with you again Sandy!

Re:The Greatness of Petersen

[xixax]

I had the great pleasure of meeting SP at Gloranthacon Downunder a few years back, and was blown away by the breadth and depth of SP's knowledge, from Zombie movies to ancient history. I also got him to sign the inside cover of my 3rd ed. Call of Cthulhu rulebook. :o)

Xix.

Arduin Grimoire

[oggodog]

Just need to mention David A. Hargrave's works, all the cool DMs at the time were using them.

google says here and here.

Deities and Demigods was great

[tmark]

The Deities and Demigos manual was one of the coolest books they put out, for sheer enjoyment's sake. I remember being a kid and browsing that book and the Monster Manual OVER AND OVER again, even though I had read every entry probably hundreds of time. It was also great because it probably had the largest number of Jeff Dee illustrations, who was by far my favorite D & D illustrator. I sthink I might have even had a crush on some of the goddesses he drew in that book...

Re:Deities and Demigods was great

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup, that books had the most half-naked chicks of all.

Re:Deities and Demigods was great

[pgrote]

They are fantastic reading! Have them in the bathroom and never tire of flipping through them. The Dungeon Master's Guide was well done as well.

Re:Deities and Demigods was great

[Anonymous Coward]

Deities and Demigods + puberty = messy book

New CoC computer game?

[mbourgon]

Aside from Flying Lab's DG conversion (www.deltagreen.com for a modern-day Conspiracy-based CoC), Sandy said this:
Sandy Petersen: Now I'm on a super-secret project that has nothing to do with RTS games.

GameSpy: Ah, so Ensemble's next game isn't an RTS? It's a new Call of Cthulhu game, right?!!

Sandy Petersen: (laughs) Yeah, sure, you could say that.

GameSpy: Will you get in trouble with Microsoft if I do?

Sandy Petersen: No, because it's not true! (laughs) I've wanted to do one for a while now; I'm trying to drum up support for it.

RPG Economics

[pgrote]

A good article about today's RPG Economics inside the fantasy worlds.

It's amazing to think that a few people designed a system so well working that it's served as the basis for countless types in the genre.

Re:Shoplifting Those Books - yes I regret it.

[grendelkhan]

Yes I do feel bad about it now, and I'm determined not to give my son the excuse of being too poor to afford it, and show him that through work on his part he can earn what he wants. Would I go back and smack myself if I could? You bet. Can I fix what I did twenty some years ago? No. Can I make sure my son doesn't follow in my footsteps? Hell yeah.

The Arneson Experience

[Anonymous Coward]

haha...I can only laugh.

I met him one year (the only) at CoastCon. One of our gaming/drinking buddy's friends had bought a ticket to play in a game DMed by the man like, lost, stamped it out on the ground, then someone withdrew and another number was called. It was his! So he went to play the Thief.

We were shocked beyond belief.

And he was the only member of the party to live! So he can say he was the only one to live out of an Arneson game...

He said the game was "okay"...

David C. Sutherland III SUCKED!

[grendelkhan]

David C. Sutherland III!!!!

It just finally hit me!

The red and blue basic sets that I bought, had covers by Erol Otis IIRC

Re:Shoplifting Those Books - yes I regret it.

[corwinss]

The world needs more parents like you. We have all made mistakes, and I see too many parents in this world who say "I just don't want my child to make the same mistakes I did" and then either:
A. control them so much they don't get to do anything until that fateful day when they gain their freedom and run amok for the next 10 years before they either calm down, die, or go to jail,
B. don't give them any way to do the things they want except by following these same footsteps, or
C. say this repeatedly while hypocritically teaching them by example to make the same mistakes. There is no effective way of teaching when you have to say "do as I say, and not as I do."

I think that it is respectable and refreshing that you have brought yourself above the mistakes you made when you were younger, and that you are teaching your son the proper way to live his life. [/sermon]

web page

[Analog Squirrel]

In case anyone is intersted, Arneson's web page is at www.castleblackmoor.com.

You too can graduate college...

[corwinss]

Dave Arneson: Oh sure. I play a lot of computer games. In fact, you can get an A in my course if you can beat me in Age of Empires 2.

Wouldn't it be great if all college classes were like this? I would have my phd by now!
Seriously though - Maybe there should be some classes in playtesting. I also think that basic game design should be offered at more schools than it is now. The industry is constantly pushed by the games. They have higher system requirements than anything else, and probably more and more varied users than any software besides OS software and maybe office suites. I think that it's important for programmers and hardware designers to understand how they work in some form or fashion.

Re:You too can graduate college...

[greymond]

Yeah it would be great to see classes such as

"Advanced Dungeon Siege Editor"

"Game Design III: Aurora NwN Toolset"

"Basic Mapping II: World Ed"

Even I would go back to school for that!

DM's Guide cover art

[samf]

[...]followed by the billygoat on the front of the Monster Manual, and that HORRIBLE illustration on the cover of the DM's Guide[...]

<sarcasm>

What? Are you kidding? That cover art of which you speak (especially the DM's Guide) gave the television media some of the images they needed to show the viewers how utterly satanic those games were!

I still remember the sound bites on the Oklahoma City TV stations; the voice-overs, and the camera slowly zooming on Mr. Giant Devil on the cover...

</sarcasm>

Re:DM's Guide cover art

[nosferatu-man]

Love that ruby the diameter of a trash can lid. The genius of the 1st Ed.

'j

DragonLance Games

[argel]

FYI, Sovereign Press (Margaret Weiss' and Don Perrin's company) has aquired the rights to publish DrangonLance pencil and paper gaming material. My understanding is that SP will write the DL core rule book and WoTC will publish it. Then SP will release supplemental material. This is according to the folks at the SP booth up at GENCON.

If it does well maybe we'll see a DL computer game. Until then, you could look for the old goldbox and silverbox games from SSI.

Re:DragonLance Games

[PainKilleR-CE]

Thanks for the info, guess Ill keep my eye out for the release of the rule books and then wait and see if someone picks up on the need for a PC game ;) I've considered picking up some of the old SSI games, it's just a matter of finding them and having the money and the interest at the same time ;)

Re:DragonLance Games

[imr]

well, there is also the old dragonlance #1 scenario that is available for download, ready to be adapted.
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/article.asp?x =dnd/dx200 20121x
Along with some other fine works.
I hope they continue to release old material like this, it certainly helps for campaign settings or background for new adventure.
For example, I would like to read the old "temple of elemental evil" scenario before I buy the new version.
Same for dragonlance. I had the five first ones and would like to read them again before going into any remake they can do.

Hello Cthulhu

[intermodal]

anyone clicking this has probably already seen it, but...Hello Cthulhu!

Re:Shoplifting Those Books - yes I regret it.

[Anonymous Coward]

...I'm determined not to give my son the excuse of being too poor to afford it...

Being too poor to afford a game is no excuse. If you keep on buying things for your son; your son will always find more expensive toys to buy.

Game Design Addiction

[wuHoncho]

Game design seems to be like a disease in that you can't seem to stop making games even if you want to.

Surgeon General's Warning: Developing games has been found to be more addictive than playing Tetris, Grand Theft Auto, and Civilization combined. May cause insomnia, unstoppable craving for junk food, and irritability towards marketing people. Pregnant women who develop games may cause birth defects in their child including, but not limited to: indecipherable "Mario" voice, polygonal physique, pixelated skin tones, and an uncontrollable terror at the mere thought of the existance of marketing people.

Re:Shoplifting Those Books - yes I regret it.

[plugger]

Quote the rest of the sentence:

"...I'm determined not to give my son the excuse of being too poor to afford it, and show him that through work on his part he can earn what he wants. (italics added)

Wheres the Mountain Dew?

[Cyno01]

to anyone who knows anything about dungeons and dragons, find the two dungeons and dragons audio clips by the dead ailwives, they're hilarious

Re:Wheres the Mountain Dew?

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, but if there's any girls there, I want to do them.

Ogres?

Man, I've got an ogre slaying knife. It's got a +5 against ogres!

My plush Cthulhu

[xixax]

Do all RPG households now have a plush Cthulhu? I have a plush Cthulhu that Emma made for me at a Necronomicon some years ago, cute and teddybear like. But if you read the notes, such a shape is a totally legit avatar for Cthulhu. :o)

Xix.

Are you sure Re:Dave Arneson?

[finnatic]

Maybe if I make this a reply to the original message it'll get noticed.

"it was Dave Arneson that wrote many of the early adventure modules, particularly the B and X series."

Based on the authors on the covers of those "early adventure" modules - this isn't true.

There's plenty of sites online - such as www.acaeum.com with listings which detail the authors - Dave's name is not amongst them.