Hidden in Shadows

However and again, these are notes based on one persons recollection.  Major Wesely's recollection may be perfectly accurate, partially accurate, or not at all accurate.  With that said, I felt the information was interesting enough and significant enough to warrant sharing and taking seriously.  Lastly, ellipses ... indicate places where I skipped over digressionary or redundant verbiage for the sake of clarity.

1958 "I got into wargaming in 1958... Avalon Hill Gettysburgh"

TFC59, 2:30

1964 "Our Wargaming group, which was very small in the 1964 timefame, by '65 this happened; we had maybe 5 of us playing wargames"

BC16, 5:50

April 1965* "...I was contacted by... this 55 year old guy who was trying to organize a group, and so 7 of us,... got together at his house... from April of '65 to '68"

TFC59, 12:50

1965* Dan Nicholson contacts Wesley from Strategos library card.

BC16, 9:00

1967 "Arneson and I traded off... We began to understand that there were a lot of psychological satisfactions to being the referee, putting together this clever scenario... We are doing that up through, well we're doing that a lot, when I go off to graduate school in 1967.  I graduated from Hamlin University, Bachelors degree, Spring '67, and Fall of '67 I go off to graduate school."

BC16, TC36:00

1967/8 (first Braunstein) "...By that point I had started in graduate school and I was just home on holidays... I went back to college and I had months before the next holiday and I thought about it and came back and had planned it all up... and it was a dud." (second Braunstein)

TFC59, 50:50

Fall 1968  "So I came back on Christmas of '68; came back home with months of thinking about this, and designed this game that's going to be run in a little town in Germany called Braunstein."

BC16, TC46:46

Spring Semester 1969 "The next time I came home, which would have been, you know, spring break, they came back and they said "When you gonna do another Braunstein?"  So the next time I put together a new revised version of Braunstien...  I did it with only 4 people... so I wouldn't have too many people to run, and it was worthless.... So I tinkered with it and at the next weekend I tried it again - that would be Braunstein 3 - and it was still a disaster.  Absolutely no fun for anybody, so I was just glad nobody else had seen that beyond the people I had just tried it on, and (I) went back to college."

BC16, TC54:05

Summer 1969 (June+) "And all the time I'm down in Kansas, from then until spring - June when I get to come back to Minnesota, I'm saying, why did it work the first time and not work the second time?...  and so I came back and set up a new scenario and this one was in Latin America."

BC16, TC55:05

Summer 1969 "And then, over the course of the summer of '69, Arneson and I, well first I and then Arneson, who had been after me to do it again, he would start refereeing the thing so I would get to play sometimes.  And we did that all the way through, and in the fall I went back to college.  And I came back on the usual vacations and we played Braunstein games then."

BC16, TC56:50

Spring 1969 - Oct 1970  (running Braunsteins with Arneson) "He and I were taking turns for about a year and a half"

MC369, TC 12:00

Fall 1969+

"Fall of '69, went through '69, '70 and on up into the summer of 1970, and in October of '70... It's time for me to go off to the Army.  And Arneson said to me, "Is it okay if I keep running these games if you're not here?"  And I said "Dave, it's set up in your father's basement.  Of course you can run it."...  I came back to the gaming community and I find people are playing this Blackmoor thing that Arneson has created.  Which, as he says in his Corner of the Tabletop magazine "a fantasy Braunstein set in the Black Moors."    

BC16, TC57:16

Fall 1970+ (following after Weseley leaves for service in October) "They continued to do Braunstien games, then Duane Jenkins introduced BrownStone, which is an Old West setting.." MC369, TC 13:00

1971 (early, following Xmass 1970)  "After I went off to the Army, Arnesons' running the Braunstien games...  I'd been, you know, home on leave at Christmas once during that time.  Then in the spring of '71 I'm still off in the army again, and Arneson and Jenkins had been doing all these games together.  Jenkins was one of the brighter guys... into joking alot...  He came up with a variant which was set in the old west."    

BC16, TC104:45

1971 

"(Jenkins) also made a very important step as well, in that, whereas I would run a Braunstien game and its' results were that evening, and the next time I ran that scenario you'd all be starting over again... Last time you were a tavern owner and this time you're the banker...  He came up with the very good idea of having what you did last week carry over into when you played again the next time...  So... El Pauncho was just some stray Mexican who had a few buddies who rode into town last time, but now there's wanted posters for him plastered all over town.  And that was good.  The other thing that he did was the notion that when Dave Arneson played El Pauncho in the last game, he kept on playing El Pauncho. And his character therefore carried on and on and on, the way you are used to seeing your player characters do in Dungeons and Dragons  Big big watershed."

BC16, TC107:43

1971 (apparently March or later) "about 2 months after (Jenkins' Brownstone), Dave Arneson comes out with Blackmoor..."

MC369, TC 15:00

Simplifying the above yields the following sequence

1958  Wesely begins wargaming

1964 Small Wargaming group

April 1965 group expands to 7

1965* Dan Nicholson joins - use of Strategos

1967 Arneson and Wesely referee

Spring 1967  Wesely graduates from Hamlin University

Fall of '67 Wesely at graduate school.

Christmas of 1968 First Braunstein

Spring Break 1969 Braunstein 2 and 3

June/summer 1969 ) Bannana republic Braunstein

Summer 1969 Arneson and Wesely run Braunstein games  

October of 1970 Wesely leaves for the Army - Arneson continues to do Braunstien games

Christmas of 1970 Wesely home on leave for first time

1971 (circa Jan-March)  Duane Jenkins introduced BrownStone, which is an Old West setting

1971 (circa March-May) about 2 months after Jenkins' Brownstone, Dave Arneson comes out with Blackmoor

As you might imagine, listening to long interviews and transcribing parts of them is quite time consuming, but I may well add to the above in the future if I come across more information in other interviews.  So it is appropriate to think of this as a work in progress. 

*Having come across some old letters, it's my understanding that Wesely now dates this about a year earlier.

Sources:

TC (Time Code - Minutes:Seconds)

MC369

MattChatt 369, David Wesely on the True Origins of D&D, Matt Barton, Published on Mar 5, 2017

TFC59

BC16

BrigadeCon 2016: An interview with David A. Wesely, Earl Tea Grey TV

Streamed live on Oct 29, 2016