Over at The Ruins of Murkhill we are celebrating Blackmoor Week and we starting our celebration today September the 24th and running it through Dave Arneson's birthday on October 1st. This is a great time for gaming all because on October 1st 1947 Dave Arneson the creator of Blackmoor and ultimately the creator and co-author of Dungeons & Dragons was born. (yes we know that the 24th through the 1st is eight days)
If you are lucky enough to have a copy of the First Fantasy Campaign you know what an awesome world Dave Arneson created. He and his friends in the Twin Cities in Minnesota were ground zero for the birth of tabletop roleplaying. Yes, David Wesely was involved too with the Braunsteins, but you can't have credit for creating something IMO if you didn't recognize that it was a good thing and thought that seminal moment was a failure. Even more, the fact that the Braunstein event was roleplaying is, according to the tales that are told, solely because Dave Arneson recognized the opportunity and went off the rails of the planned script for the evening and turned it from a "story" into a "roleplaying game." So while David Wesely may have created the conditions for a roleplaying game to occur, it occurred because of Dave Arneson and his "shenanigans" at that event. Dave Arneson started wheeling and dealing with the other players and hijacked the "story" (the script) and something special and unique occurred instead. I say all of this without any disrespect for David Wesely, he was there and he played an important part in things. There was a synergy between David and Dave and magic happened. (Dave Hargrave took Dave Arneson's concepts and more magic happened.)
So that is why we celebrate Blackmoor Week. If you play roleplaying games, thank Dave Arneson!
If you are lucky enough to have a copy of the First Fantasy Campaign you know what an awesome world Dave Arneson created. He and his friends in the Twin Cities in Minnesota were ground zero for the birth of tabletop roleplaying. Yes, David Wesely was involved too with the Braunsteins, but you can't have credit for creating something IMO if you didn't recognize that it was a good thing and thought that seminal moment was a failure. Even more, the fact that the Braunstein event was roleplaying is, according to the tales that are told, solely because Dave Arneson recognized the opportunity and went off the rails of the planned script for the evening and turned it from a "story" into a "roleplaying game." So while David Wesely may have created the conditions for a roleplaying game to occur, it occurred because of Dave Arneson and his "shenanigans" at that event. Dave Arneson started wheeling and dealing with the other players and hijacked the "story" (the script) and something special and unique occurred instead. I say all of this without any disrespect for David Wesely, he was there and he played an important part in things. There was a synergy between David and Dave and magic happened. (Dave Hargrave took Dave Arneson's concepts and more magic happened.)
So that is why we celebrate Blackmoor Week. If you play roleplaying games, thank Dave Arneson!
I find Braunsteins to be interesting, and they can be used within a role-playing game, but I wouldn't go so far as to actually call them a role-playing game as your choices in how you interacted within the context of the setting was rather limited. Arneson's open systems is what allowed the game to actually define itself as a new thing.
ReplyDeleteVery good post!
People are claiming that the Braunsteins are roleplaying games in an attempt to retcon all the credit to David Wesely so they can avoid giving the any credit to Dave Arneson. They are doing this because giving sole credit to Gary Gygax is nonsense and the people pushing that idea are now starting to become objects of ridicule as it becomes more obvious that Gygax got behind an existing thing and pushed it to publication as the writer and promoter not the creator.
ReplyDeleteSo I am merely saying, "OK if you want to call the Braunsteins a role-playing be aware that is only possible (if true) because Arneson took it there, to (at the time) the dismay of David Wesely. No disrespect to Mr. Wesely, but the record shows he was not happy with what happened and had to have his arm twisted to run it again, viewing it as a failed experiment. Any role-playing credit belongs to Arneson. Yes, I know that Arneson was willing to give credit to Wesely, kudos for Arneson for being modest, but the credit still belongs to Arneson.