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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."
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.
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...
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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!
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.
I can see the fnords!