Lots to Learn

As stated in my last post, I've been reading a vintage book written by Dave Arneson, the co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons. The book is entitled The First Fantasy Campaign and was published by The Judges Guild in 1977 which was three years after original D&D was published by Tactical Studies Rules (TSR). Surprisingly, by the third page in, I had already begun to have some difficulty deciphering the information. As the pages rolled by I began asking myself if there could possibly have been an editor involved before publication and a quick glance at the title page confirmed my suspicions. There was not.

I don't want to imply that I'm not grateful for the efforts of everyone listed on that page but there have been moments in these past days where I was desperate for clarification and organization. With that in mind, let me now attempt to pull what RPG information I can from this work that exemplifies the creative genius of Mr. Arneson because I assure you, it is present.

In the brief introduction, Dave eludes to how I may already be in over my head. He makes reference to his days "running conventional Napoleonic wargames" which I know from the documentary that I've mentioned before, were sometimes epic battles involving dozens of players and stretching out over months or possibly longer. Then the author quickly follows up with references to a pre- Dungeons & Dragons publication called Chainmail by Gary Gygax and David Perren which I have never read and therefore have no context to understand the terminology he's using. Finally, Mr. Arneson stuns me with a revelation from actual play that "the locals decided some taxes should be collected to provide for the common defense". So, the players collected taxes on a regular basis from a large province or territory? These game sessions were evolving to encompass governance of territories or empires by the player characters.

The image above is of the page directly following the Introduction. The bottom half entitled The Great Invasion has columns labeled Army Pts. and Income for evil, good, and neutral forces. Never have I ever participated in a role playing game where the player characters raised armies and took those armies to battle on such a scale as is eluded to on this page. I was immediately in awe that Arneson and his friends were roleplaying medievil fantasy wars of 1000's of troops, civilians, and leaders. The author goes on in the following pages to provide price lists for all manner of armaments including troops, siege weapons, naval ships, and more. It was during these moments of reading that I realized I would need to read books and rules that influenced David Arneson prior to the creation of this Blackmoor campaign if I were to completely understand the game mechanics he was laying out.

Arneson and his friends got their start modifying and writing rules for strategic wargamming by reading Strategos: A Series of American Games of War Based Upon Military Principles and Designed for the Assistance of Both Beginners and Advanced In Prosecuting the Whole Study of Tactics, Grand Tactics, Strategy, Military History, and the Various Operations of War by Charles Totten. What a mouthful! I have a dead tree copy of this on order from Amazon and intend to read it but I wish I would have had the presence of mind to simply check for a free PDF somewhere because after all, the book was published in 1880. By this point the book should be in the public domain.

Reading straight, unfiltered, 1880 Totten may prove somewhat daunting so my next reading selection will be slightly more current and probably easier to pallet. It's a book of game rules called Don't Give Up the Ship! or DGUTS! by Arneson, Gygax and Carr. This particular game is supposed to be a naval distillation of David Wesley's Strategos N which is a Napoleonic era distillation of Tottens Strategos et al.

Speaking of David Wesley, according to the documentary The Secrets of Blackmoor by The Fellowship of the Thing LTD., Wesley is the grandfather of all role playing games. However, neither of his publications of Braunstein, the first RPG, or Strategos N can be found for purchase or download. So, I'm left with a free copy of Barons of Braunstein, a direct descendent of Braunstein, and of course DGUTS! which is already referenced above.

Last by not least on this quickly escalating reading list is Chainmail by Gary Gygax & Jeff Perren. This gem is the predecessor to the rule set for original Dungeons & Dragons. Arneson admits openly in several parts of this book to cannibalizing portions of Chainmail for his "first fantasy campaign". There are terms halfway through Arneson's instructions that must be taken from it or possibly the original D&D white box. I'm not sure but I'm going to find out one way or another.

Will you hang with me? I'm going to get answers. I'm going to evolve. I'm certain of it. Next time, I'll move deeper into the First Fantasy text and highlight Dave's skill of making game changes according to the passage of time. I also want to move into the map sections of the book because I'm eager to try an experiment with information contained there. Maybe you'll be down to read it.