Briefly, for any
who may not be familiar, the basic context is this: Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson began a
collaboration on Arneson’s ideas for a Napoleonic naval game. The modus operendi of this collaboration was
that Arneson wrote sections of rules and mailed it to Gygax, who edited and
retyped them, and added his own material.
Mike Carr was brought in for further edits and additions and the result
was published as Don’t Give up the Ship
in 1972.
In February of the next year (1973) Arneson demonstrated his fantasy adventure game
to Gygax by hosting a dungeon adventure in which Gygax was a player. A new collaboration began, and within a few
weeks, Arneson mailed to Gygax a packet variously reported as containing 16, 18
or 20 pages of notes (herein I’ll just go with the middle # of 18 for
convenience). Rob Kuntz, the only person
besides Gygax known to have read them, described the packet as notes “based off
of EGG’s Fantasy Supplement to the rules Chainmail (Gygax & Perren, Guidon
Games 1971) but with copious additions of formulas which I faintly (at least
then) equated to those from the miniatures game Strategos N (David Wesely,
1967)”. Lord of the Green Dragons weblog
MONDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2009. Elsewhere
he further explained “I came away with virtually no understanding of a
cohesiveness or structure to it at all, but it obviously made sense to Dave as
he was judging it.” ODD74 Proboard
forums, “Lake Geneva Gaming Group?” July 21st, 2010.
What was in
those 18 pages of Notes?
Precisely?, heck
if I know. Until or unless more comes to
light the exact content of the first packet of material Dave Arneson sent to
Gary Gygax must remain a mystery.
However I can identify with a high degree of confidence material Dave
Arneson sent to Gygax very early in the process of writing D&D. In other words, material that either was in
those 18 pages, or if not, must have followed shortly thereafter as Gygax
worked on the initial drafts of D&D.
How is this
possible? To date, there are two known
sets of D&D draft material. The Beyond This Point be Dragons (Dalluhn) manuscript and the Mornard
Fragments. There’s no precise way to
date either of these except to say that Mornard predates BTPbD, though both
are almost identical, and while neither of these documents is complete, BTPbD appears to be missing only some material regarding spell descriptions and
domain management. Terminus ante quem
for the Mornard fragments can be reasonable stated as late August 1973, as that
is when Michael’s freshman year began, taking him from Lake Geneva to
Minneapolis. Michael has indicated that
Gygax made the photocopies at his request so he could have them for running
games when he went to college. Roughly
speaking, they seem to represent the state of the game about 6 months in, give
or take a few months.
As a basic
premise, we can assert that if there is any material by Dave Arneson present in
either of these drafts it must obviously have been given to Gary before he
typed them.
How much of any
such Arneson material stems from those original 18 pages is a matter of sheer
conjecture, but it stands to reason that a large portion of it should come from
that first, perhaps largest, perhaps only, packet of rules.
Presently, I’m
aware of no original copies of Dave Arneson’s notes, but we are fortunate to
have The First Fantasy Campaign. Arneson
basically gathered a hodge podge of his campaign notes going back to 1971,
probably most of what he had extant, and handed it off to Judges Guild for
publication. The young editor, Bill
Owen, was somewhat starstruck by Arneson and treated the material with kid
gloves. Though many complain about the
jumbled layout and unexplained details, Owen’s minimalist approach thereby
preserves a valuable record, albeit one that is sometimes difficult to
follow. However, in that respect it is
not particularly worse than the 3lbb’s.
Now I realize
there is a longstanding narrative that the material Arneson sent to Gygax over
the course of the game’s development was “useless” and Arneson’s contribution
was one only of the general concept of the game. Readers familiar with the history of Gygax,
Arneson, and TSR will realize such a narrative might be taken with a grain of
salt. Plenty of salt follows below.
In theory, and
as we are about to discuss, in reality, if Arneson contributed any actual
material to D&D, that is to say, if Gygax actually used any of the so
called useless stuff, the FFC ought to contain at least some of it in a primal,
pre-edited form. Indeed, some, if not
all of those 18 pages could well have been right in front of our eyes since
1977.
So the next step
then is to go through the FFC and look for material that parallels the content
of the D&D draft material, most particularly material that is evidentially
pre 1974. Now I realize most readers
will not have either the Mornard fragments or the BTPbD manuscript to hand,
however, corresponding sections are also found in the 3lbbs so, where
appropriate, I will give the relevant pages for reference.
Weapon and Armor Prices
FFC 1977/1980
|
BTPbD
|
3lbb
|
AiF
|
4/5
|
BK1:4
|
Vl 1:14,15
|
Bk1:16
|
See this webpost
for a few direct comparisons http://boggswood.blogspot.com/2014/08/svennys-notes-and-equipment-costs.html
Some of the
equipment falls into this category also.
Construction and Prices
FFC 1977/1980
|
BTPbD
|
3lbb
|
AiF
|
5/5
|
Bk 1:11,12
|
Vl 3:21
|
BK 1:17,18
|
Admittedly,
there are no special clues in the construction costs list in the FFC to permit
dating. Some of the items are identical
in price to BTPbD, some not, and some items not shared between the two. There can be little doubt that the concept
and detail of construction costs originate with Arneson, dating back to some
extent to his Napoleonics campaign.
Personnel Costs
FFC 1977/1980
|
BTPbD
|
3lbb
|
AiF
|
5/5
|
Bk I:11.12
|
Vl 3:22,23
|
Bk 1:15
|
As with
construction costs, so with personnel. In
fact it is very interesting that the Pesonnel (specialists) and construction
costs are found together in both BTPbD (where they are called special agents)
and the FFC. The FFC list is clearly
antecedent to BTPbD as the FFC list contains things like “eagle rider” and
“red silk” slave, whereas BTPbD generalizes these to “Flying animal rider”
and “Female slave”.
Wilderness Encounter Matrix
FFC 1977/1980
|
BTPbD
|
3lbb
|
AiF
|
34/23
|
BK 1:7,8
|
Vl 3:18
|
BK 1:32
|
See this post
for discussion http://boggswood.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-howling-wilderness.html Note that the FFC table also includes notes on
the range of possible numbers of monsters appearing.
Evasion
FFC 1977/1980
|
BTPbD
|
3lbb
|
AiF
|
34/23
|
BK 1:10
|
Vl 3:20
|
BK 1:38
|
In addition to
the Encounter Matrix for wilderness play, Arneson also devised the first
wilderness evasion table with the familiar decreasing chance to escape with
increasing numbers in the party. The
table in the FFC is a simple d6 roll, and though we have no record of it, it
wouldn’t surprise me if Arneson developed a somewhat more complicated % based
one now lost. Certainly the Evasion
tables in the draft material and published game are much more developed, as is
the similar table in AiF, but these all clearly stem from the initial idea
found in the FFC.
Map Movement
FFC 1977/1980
|
BTPbD
|
3lbb
|
AiF
|
34/24
|
BK 1:10,11
|
Vl 3:16
|
N/A
|
This is a fun
one I haven’t discussed before. There’s
lots to suss out here and a lot could be written, but I’ll stick to basics and
try to keep it brief. The categories are
mostly the same in all lists, except D&D drops Tarns and adds a few
creatures in BTPbD like balrogs, efreets and jinn and lastly brooms get added
to the published game. . The FFC gives a full table of individual
rates of hexes traveled for the categories of Mountains, Woods, Deserts, Swamp
and Normal/Max. The D&D (drafts and
published) simplifies movement to a single rate with a penalty modifier for
terrain. In the published game (not in BTPbD) the penalty is specified by number for Mountains, Swamps, Fords, Woods,
Deserts, and Tracks Through Mountains.
Only “Tracks Through Mountains” adds to the FFC categories. For watercraft, all the lists have a normal
and swamp rate. Roughly speaking, the
D&D numbers are adjusted lower than the FFC figures by either 1 or 2 hexes for
most things, except men on foot, which is half the FFC number.
On the surface
then the D&D movement table is the Blackmoor table, simplified to one
column, expanded to cover a few more creatures and with the numbers tweaked a
little bit. Deeper in however, it is
more convoluted. First, both the BTPbD draft and the FFC movement rates are given in 10 mile hexes, but in published
D&D, though it has the same numbers as the draft, they now represent travel
through 5 mile hexes. So despite having
the same numbers, the distance traveled in published D&D is only half as
far as in the BTPbD draft. Second, the
D&D drafts and published D&D indicate the rates of hexes traveled are
for one day of travel. Startlingly,
however, the FFC table represents hexes traveled per WEEK. Heh. I
imagine that little word was possibly scribbled in later, and not present on
the notes Arneson sent to Gygax, who assumed perhaps the rates were per day.
Incidentally, this
does make better sense of the once per day wandering monster roll. One issue that crops up with this roll in
D&D is location of the encounter. If
a group travels 3 hexes a day in normal movement and they have an encounter, in
what hex does it take place and what about those other “adventures” skipped
over in the other hexes? The travel rate
on foot in Blackmoor however is 6 hexes per week with one day of rest – that is
one hex per day, and one roll per hex, typically.
Magic Items Table
FFC 1977/1980
|
BTPbD
|
3lbb
|
AiF
|
88/61
|
BK I:13
|
Vl 2:23
|
Bk 3:36
|
Below is a one
for one comparison of the Items tables from the FFC and BTPbD.
Order
Appearing in
Table
|
FFC – Magical
Items Summary table
|
Order
Appearing in
Table
|
BTPbD Table
26 – Special Items Determination
|
1
|
Weaponry – swords
|
1
|
Weapons (swords)
|
2
|
Weaponry – Armor
|
2
|
Armor
|
3
|
Weaponry – bow
and others
|
3
|
Miscellaneous
Weapons
|
5
|
Formulas &
potions
|
4
|
Potions
|
6
|
Books etc, -
Technical manuals and Formula scrolls
|
5
|
Scrolls
|
7
|
Books etc, - Maps: Treasure
|
9
|
Maps –treasure
|
8
|
Books etc, - Maps: Equipment (misc magic)
|
10
|
Maps – Miscellaneous Magic
|
9
|
Books etc, - Maps: magic
|
11
|
Maps – Magic and Treasure
|
-
|
6
|
Rings
|
|
-
|
7
|
Wands
|
|
4
|
Equipment
(various magical/techiical things)
|
8
|
Miscellaneous
Magic
|
Without even
considering the percentages involved, one can easily see how the BTPbD table
is derived from the FFC table. The
topics line up quite nicely, except in BTPbD what amounts to miscellaneous
magic is moved from 4th position to the bottom of the table and
rings and wands inserted along with it.
Maps remains the last topic on both tables however. Incidentally, wands show up elsewhere in
early Blackmoor material such as the Lake Gloomin stocking lists. Rings however do not, and appear to be a
genuine Gygax addition to the game.
Monster Details
FFC 1977/1980
|
BTPbD
|
3lbb
|
AiF
|
89-92/61-63
|
Bk 1:24-30
|
Vl 2:5-21
|
BK 3
|
(Dragons, Orcs,
Bandits, Nomads, Trolls, Ogres, Wights, Ghouls, True Troll, Rocs, Basilisk,
Balrog, Giants) (See Jon Peterson appendix to PatW for an excellent cladistic
analysis)
Monster stats: % lair, number appearing, lair
and/or carried treasure, variable
damage and Hit Points
FFC 1977/1980
|
BTPbD
|
3lbb
|
AiF
|
89-92/61-63
|
BK 1:9
|
Vl 2:3,4
|
BK 3:31
|
The pre D&D FFC
monster list referenced--+ above, mentions % lair, the variable range of number
appearing, and the content of lair treasures and walking around treasure in
several places. Most of these appear in
other pre D&D material in the FFC also.
Some monsters have them and some
don’t. These stats, of course are
formalized for all monsters as column headings in the Monsters Table of the
drafts and printed D&D, along with Movement, Hit Dice, and Armor Class.
There’s a few
posts where I talk about Hit Points, but this one discusses the history aspect
best: http://boggswood.blogspot.com/2014/08/on-creation-and-evolution-of-hit-points.html
Variable Damage
– the damage mechanic of Blackmoor is Not
the method adopted by D&D. In
Blackmoor, damage was a matter of the level or power of a being such that
higher level beings rolled more dice, called “hit dice”, to determine damage,
and judging from certain player accounts, damage seems to have been shared – at
least on low level foes. While D&D does
allow some instances of multiple dice of damage, it is mostly just 1 die rolled. The point where both agree is the idea of
using a random die to determine damage in the first place.
Silver, Gold, Jewels, and Miscellaneous, Treasure
categories & percentages
FFC 1977/1980
|
BTPbD
|
3lbb
|
AiF
|
89/61
|
BK 1:12
|
Vl 2:22
|
BK 3:33
|
In
Arneson’s dragon tables, the amount of treasure (if any) is tied to the age/strength
of the dragons via how many “hits” it has, and a formula. D&D divorces this specific strength of
creature formula from treasure amount, devising instead differing treasure
“types” of greater and lesser values and varying content which then can be
matched to stronger or weaker monsters. So, as in the FFC, the D&D Treasure Type
tables do parse out the kinds of things present in a treasure and how common
they are, but unlike the FFC the amount is not tied to a creature’s combat
strength, but rather to random chance within a given treasure type.
The “Treasure
Types” themselves have no equivalent in the FFC, but the use of a lettered
system may perhaps stem from Arnesons lettered magic swords list, which he used
to randomly stock treasures in Blackmoor dungeon.
Dragon Subdual and
Sleeping Dragons
FFC 1977/1980
|
BTPbD
|
3lbb
|
AiF
|
89/61
|
Bk 1:29
|
Vl 2:12
|
n/a
|
The dragon
section in the FFC monster list yields even more evidence of direct input,
through the idea of subdual and the free attack.
The FFC rule for
a free attack on a sleeping dragon reads “If in lair, 80% chance its asleep
(free Chop)” and
that is almost identical to this quote from the BTPbD draft “If a Dragon is
encountered in
its lair there is a chance it will be asleep. Use a 100% reckoning, base 80%
for White and decreasing in probability to 55% for Golden. If the Dragon(s) is
(are) asleep, they can be surprised, and a free chop is gained.”
Aside from the
use of the word chop, the real clincher, is the nearly identical use of the
statement regarding 80% probability of a free attack on a sleeping dragon. This 80% rule in the FFC and the Dalluhn
draft is completely different from that given in 1st print D&D. In D&D the rule is that there is a 60%
chance for white dragons to be asleep descending to only 10% for Golden.
Magic
potions and scrolls
As can be
readily seen in the pre D&D sections of the FFC, the existence of both
magical potions and magic bearing scrolls was an important part of the early
Blackmoor milleau, readily adopted into D&D. Though the exact type of potions and spells
was greatly expanded and changed, a few of the Blackmoor originals survive in
the game to this day. This post about Loch
Gloomen shows some examples: http://boggswood.blogspot.com/2014/08/stocking-blackmoor-wilds-in-1972.html
Character
Levels and Experience Points
Okay, this one
I’m not going to reference because it is a basic idea in all the works. Secondly there’s no direct definition of
either of these things in Arneson’s material, and no way to guess what
reference may have been in the material Arneson sent to Gygax. It is entirely probable that the concept of
character growth, levels, and experience points were among the things Arneson
and Gygax conversed about verbally, though some references to each of these
were presumably in the material packets Arneson mailed in for the game
manuscript. For more on levels see this
post: http://boggswood.blogspot.com/2012/02/infamous-characters-and-history-of.html
Arneson’s
development of experience points is discussed here: http://boggswood.blogspot.com/2014/08/on-creation-and-evolution-of-hit-points.html
Character Ability Scores
No real need to
reference this one either since all the appropriate information can be found in
the post: http://boggswood.blogspot.com/2012/12/character-sheet-clues-part-ii.html
Post BTPbD Material?
There’s one
more, very important section of the FFC I’ve talked about before, but for the
sake of completeness will revisit here.
The magic swords matrix section. 77:67 The Magic Swords Matrix section is clearly
Arneson’s draft, used and reworked by Gygax for the magic swords section of the
1st print D&D. Perhaps the most
obvious example is this paragraph:
“Minions that are directed to take
up the Sword whose origins are different than that of the directing party and are not acting as free agents
(i.e. they are under the player's power),
will suffer damage at half the normal rates. In special cases (see Special
Table), players may not suffer
damage, may be forced to change sides, may be freed from any spells they are under, may lose or gain
powers." (FFC 77:68)
In D&D 1st
print this becomes:
“If a non-player character is
directed to take up a sword the damage will be only one- half that stated above, for the party is not acting as a free
agent. Additionally, the sword might
cause the one who took it up to be freed from a spell, change alignment, or otherwise gain powers which would remove them
from the service.” (M&T 74:27)
Interestingly,
we can see approximately when the FFC text was written. We know it was not in the original 18 pages
of notes for certain, but had to have been sent in by Arneson some time later. The swords section is not found in the BTPbD draft or Mornard fragments, and that’s very suggestive, but more
telling is a reference in the Matrix text to the “magic section” of the “rules”
(77:69). The clearest evidence however
is the instruction given to roll randomly for the cleric spell a holy sword has
on the cleric spell tables – amended by “If the roll indicates no spell (i.e.
such as a 5 on a level 4 curate) you get two more rolls..” (77:70, 80:44) Intriguingly, the Magic swords text consistently
refers to “curates” where cleric is intended, possibly indicating a fluctuation
in the name of the class, but the important thing to note is that here the FFC
tells us there were less than 5, 4th level spells. However, 1st print D&D actually has 6,
4th level spells listed. The BTPbD draft, on the other hand, has only 4, 4th
level cleric spells. So we can be sure
that the Magic sword matrix section of the FFC refers to a draft of the “rules”
at a similarly early level of development.
Now I should also
mention a few other things which appear in D&D that have very strong
connections to Arneson but are not found in the FFC:
1) The Turn Undead table – look to the
discussion posted in September on this one, but let me just say I’d bet dollars
to donuts that this table was in those 18 pages.
2) The naval warfare section – naval warfare
was certainly Arneson’s forte and certain details, particularly regarding
monsters are repeated and expanded on in Arneson’s Supplement II. It is very likely Dave wrote the draft of
this material.
3) Monsters – Black Pudding, Ochre jelly
. These two classic baddies were staples
of early Blackmoor. Ochre Jelly, btw
owes much to the silicon monster of Star Trek.
4) Investment Areas - One of the more curious things in OD&D,
investment areas appears in the drafts and printed work as an unexplained list
of things, like, roads, tourism, and trade.
We can be sure this list came from Arneson, as making these sort of
investments is a well attested activity of the early Blackmoor players, and to
even earlier campaigns in the Twin Cities.
The lack of explanation in OD&D seems a puzzling gap in the rules,
and possibly may indicate that Gygax had only a similarly bare list from
Arneson to work from. Arneson does
attempt to fix the situation in the FFC, where we find a post D&D essay on
the given investment areas and how they are to function.
Of the material discussed above,
only the magic swords rules and the naval warfare section are absent from the BTPbD draft. Certainly that does not establish
anything conclusive, but it does suggest most if not all the other material was
present in those 18 pages and that the naval warfare and magic swords sections –
both of which are a few pages long – were sent in later, after BTPbD was
prepared.
Conclusion:
Regardless of
how things may later have been portrayed, I think in 1973 Gary Gygax had a
great respect for Dave Arneson’s ideas and creativity and made a genuine effort
to include them in the D&D game, true to Dave’s vision, to the degree that
he thought he could make them workable and consistent with the rules framework
he developed. In other words, I believe
he deliberately meant to be inclusive of Dave as a co-author. I’m reminded in this respect of something Tim
Kask reported as occurring in 1975 as he edited Arneson’s Blackmoor Supplement
II. When young Tim complained that the
Monk was a bad idea and should be dropped from Arneson’s Supplement II, “Gary
told me to go ahead and put it in as it was part of Dave's milieu…” Dragonsfoot forum, Q&A with Tim Kask Friday October 16, 2009. I think the Gary Gygax of 1973 held a similar
view toward Dave’s rules material, which he did his best to rework and edit
into D&D. To draw a movie analogy,
it is as if Gygax took Arneson’s script, rewrote much of the dialog and added a
host of new scenes, but kept the story and plot largely intact.
6 comments:
Fascinating stuff Aldarron! A very good analysis of the material availble. Your conclusions sound very reasonable to me.
Wonderful once again !
I use an unscientific method to determine whether or not a rule came from Gary or Dave. Basically, if Gary ever wrote an article defending a rule (as he did for vancian magic in Dragon or escalating hit points in the DMG) then the rule came from Gary. Everything else is Dave.
A fascinating and insightful read!
A little late, but the terminus post quem date for the Mornard fragments is actually mid-September 1973, not August. The University of Minnesota (I'm a grad) was on a quarters system at the time, and thus started late in September until about 1998 or so, when it switched to semesters and started the day after Labor Day. The reason for all of this is because the Minnesota State Fair runs through Labor Day, and uses part of the Saint Paul campus (the ag campus; the U owns the State Fair land), so there was always a conflict with the State Fair and starting earlier.
Thanks Charles! appreciated info.
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