The following is my opinion which I personally view as a statement of fact.
Another question that comes up is should we hold so-called "historians" to account for distorting the record concerning Blackmoor and Dave Arneson's creation of Blackmoor and of Dungeons & Dragons.
It is a fact that Arneson is the creator of these. Gygax was shown Blackmoor about a year and a half to two years after it began and he immediately saw the publication potential. For that we can give Gygax credit, he was the impetus behind the publication, whereas Arneson was content to share it face to face. What did Gygax do, he wrote it down and changed a lot of Arneson's mechanics (but not the underlying game engine which was solely Arneson's creation), added back in a lot of Chainmail that Arneson had discarded, replaced Arneson's mechanics with the d20 roles. Then playtesting began and both the Twin Cities Arneson group and the Lake Geneva group added things to the written rules as playtesting proceeded. Things that Arneson liked were in a number of cases dropped from the written down game.
So the game engine itself, the concepts, a lot of the monsters, the dungeon crawl, the so-called "end game"/"domain game" (which in Blackmoor was present at all levels, not just high level) and many other things were the creation of Arneson. Gygax wrote it down and swapped out a lot of mechanics for his own and went to great lengths to promote Chainmail and the fiction that Blackmoor/D&D was derived from Chainmail.
Which brings us down to the present day where some so-called "historians" distort the record and will share selected and sometimes partial/censored images of documents to promote the Gygax narrative that developed that falsely claims that Gygax was the prime creative person in the picture when it was really Arneson that is the prime creative person in the creation of D&D.
We have today whole forums, blogs and so-called "historians" who are dedicated to promoting the false narrative about who created what. Should they be held accountable for fabricating a false distorted picture of Blackmoor, Arneson and the creation of Dungeons & Dragons?
It has become a custom to censor and ban anyone who disputes the false narrative and someone should ask the question, what do all these people have to gain from silencing the truth about the real creator of Dungeons & Dragons, namely Dave Arneson? Maybe they think that "Saint Gygax" is going to grant them a boon for their support of distortions that he himself started? I don't blame Gygax for any of that, he was after all human and a self promotor, he was acting in his own self interest. I can forgive that. But all these people who are furthering the falsehoods and the misinformation campaign, should we not call them to account when they are not even acting in their own self-interest, but are acting to the detriment of the hobby and to the detriment of the man who created the hobby, Dave Arneson?
Another question that comes up is should we hold so-called "historians" to account for distorting the record concerning Blackmoor and Dave Arneson's creation of Blackmoor and of Dungeons & Dragons.
It is a fact that Arneson is the creator of these. Gygax was shown Blackmoor about a year and a half to two years after it began and he immediately saw the publication potential. For that we can give Gygax credit, he was the impetus behind the publication, whereas Arneson was content to share it face to face. What did Gygax do, he wrote it down and changed a lot of Arneson's mechanics (but not the underlying game engine which was solely Arneson's creation), added back in a lot of Chainmail that Arneson had discarded, replaced Arneson's mechanics with the d20 roles. Then playtesting began and both the Twin Cities Arneson group and the Lake Geneva group added things to the written rules as playtesting proceeded. Things that Arneson liked were in a number of cases dropped from the written down game.
So the game engine itself, the concepts, a lot of the monsters, the dungeon crawl, the so-called "end game"/"domain game" (which in Blackmoor was present at all levels, not just high level) and many other things were the creation of Arneson. Gygax wrote it down and swapped out a lot of mechanics for his own and went to great lengths to promote Chainmail and the fiction that Blackmoor/D&D was derived from Chainmail.
Which brings us down to the present day where some so-called "historians" distort the record and will share selected and sometimes partial/censored images of documents to promote the Gygax narrative that developed that falsely claims that Gygax was the prime creative person in the picture when it was really Arneson that is the prime creative person in the creation of D&D.
We have today whole forums, blogs and so-called "historians" who are dedicated to promoting the false narrative about who created what. Should they be held accountable for fabricating a false distorted picture of Blackmoor, Arneson and the creation of Dungeons & Dragons?
It has become a custom to censor and ban anyone who disputes the false narrative and someone should ask the question, what do all these people have to gain from silencing the truth about the real creator of Dungeons & Dragons, namely Dave Arneson? Maybe they think that "Saint Gygax" is going to grant them a boon for their support of distortions that he himself started? I don't blame Gygax for any of that, he was after all human and a self promotor, he was acting in his own self interest. I can forgive that. But all these people who are furthering the falsehoods and the misinformation campaign, should we not call them to account when they are not even acting in their own self-interest, but are acting to the detriment of the hobby and to the detriment of the man who created the hobby, Dave Arneson?
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