The countdown to the 50th Anniversary of the Original Dungeons and Dragons in January 2024 continues. Give the drama with Wizards during January 2023, it remains to be seen if they can get their act together enough to have a proper celebration of the 50th Anniversary of OD&D.
To me it is a no-brainer. They desperately need to create some good will and this is low hanging fruit.
Will they grab it? That remains to be seen.
OD&D will have its 50th Anniversary in January 2024 and in February 2024 I will celebrate 50 years as an OD&D Referee!
Too many of the original gaming group have passed away, I am 85 myself and not sure I will make it to that 50th anniversary. But whether I am around to see it or not, all of you should be celebrating that day and that year. I am betting that WotC does nothing fan friendly to celebrate OD&D 50th Anniversary nor will they pay any homage to Arneson and Gygax and other people who were important in the creation of OD&D.
So I am going to attempt to blog between now and then and call out some of the people who helped bring OD&D to life.
I hope to do a lot of gaming in 2024, I hope that you do too!
)
History remembers Statesmen, Philosophers, Kings, and Conquerors. Dave Arneson was none of those. He merely figured out a cool way to have fun that wasn't seen before. Yet in the last quarter of the 20th century and continued into the 21st century his legacy has impacted millions and ignited fires of imagination that still burns today. And it started in a place that only existed in Dave's mind, a place called Blackmoor.All so very true.
Then we come across a hand sketch by Dave of countryside around Blackmoor. He also make a note that in redrawing this for the map in First Fantasy Campaign that he redrew it to line up with Wilderlands of High Fantasy. The southwest corner of Blackmoor lines up with the northern border of the Valley of the Ancients.The whole book is full of these kinds of gems and nuggets of gold.
Into the First Fantasy Campaign Part 3Also there two illustrations; one of the Comeback Inn, and the other of the Main Gate to Blackmoor Castle. The town maps is one of the better early maps I seen. The most unusual feature is that the town plan is drawn 45 degrees to the grid.Next we start reading about Blackmoor Castle, the Haunted Rooms, the Catacombs, the Tower, and then a more detailed list of the Haunted Rooms. The map shows the castle from the basement to the 5th floor. Again much of it drawn 45 degrees to the grid. This unusual mapping technique persists throughout many of the map shown in FFC.
We first start off with a little tidbit that they started using the Outdoor Survival Board after the first year but it wasn't until the third year of play they moved into it. He is goes on to describe the change to the game that resulted because of increasing wandering outdoors.Then this mysterious statement
Next comes a section called "Magic" Protection Point. Now for a long time this section and the sparseness of the following entries didn't make much sense. It wasn't until I was reading the various old school blogs that I finally had a good guess at what happening.Yes, you will have to go to his blog to find out what he surmised.
Yes, that is correct, it really is old school for a Magic-User to use a magic sword.The next section after the dungeons is Magic Swords & Matrix. Here Dave Arneson give a pair of tables to generate magic swords. The first 'Magic Swords Personality Matrix "Blackmoor" is a bit confusing. At the beginning there is are a list of entries.Then we get to the Matrix which generates Magic Swords through a series of tables using percentile dice. Interesting that we have Holy Swords, Fighter's Swords, AND Magician's Sword. I guess we know how Dave dealt with the issue of Gandalf wielding a sword.
Tomorrow concluding thoughts.That turned into three weeks later and then he posted this.
My appreciation of the First Fantasy Campaign (my review in Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4) didn't really strike until a decade after I bought it. While I like the "window" it opened on the early days, as practical product it left a lot to be desired. But then after a few years of GMing I found myself with same collection of jumbled notes for the Majestic Wilderlands. They meander through different topics, most incomplete and sadly holes from lost fragments. After that realization I appreciated the First Fantasy Campaign a lot more.The next paragraph is gold, you really do want to read it.
I wanted to highlight this series of blog posts and encourage Rob Conley to compile it into a pdf and distribute it. This review needs to be out in peoples hands.
Rules to the Game of Dungeon (1974)
Blackmoor what edition?
Arneson initiative
Does the new timeline downplay Arneson's contributions?
Theory Location the real Blackmoor in Greyhawk
Lost Tonisborg
Arnesoniana
An Overview of the First Fantasy Campaign
Family rules?
Should we call historians to account for distorting Arneson?
Did Gygax actually prefer Arneson's Spell Point system?
Have you used the FFC?
First Fantasy Campaign
Who is a Blackmoor Fan?
The original Campaign World!BlackmoorClick of the map to the side for a downloadable map for printing on a 8x11 sheet at 300 dpi.and you can download
The Original Campaign Books by once published by TSR, Copywrite by Dave Arneson, all rights reserved. Download is for personal use only and no rights given.Originally it was the campaign Dave created and had for all his role-playing games that evolved into what we know as D&D. This world then was ready to publish and was to help launch the new era. But the new president of TSR just finished creating his own world and in fashion the company published his works first. You can see the dates inside the cover point out Blackmoor was first even in the Copyrights. Greyhawk was produced later despite the label Supplement 1, and Blackmoor with its earlier date points out that it really is Supplement 1.More information coming on examples and proofs.Click on Blackmoor campaign book image to download the PDF version of the original books.
The Official Blog
One of several forums with Blackmoor Discussion
Visit the Facebook Group
Celebrate Dave Arneson Game Day on October 1st (many sites)
Always remember, as a first principle of all D&D: playing BtB is not now, never was and never will be old school.But that is not true, it is a quote of mine that I had in my signature for a long time preceding the linked posting with Tim Kask in the linked thread at Dragonsfoot.
I was a model of civility in my post, so the response I got was to be mocked by several posters, including sieg who now goes by DMMike. The last response in the thread I saw was dated Monday August 27, 2018 at 9:15PM. If anyone responded after that I am now unable to see the thread or the forum.Seeing as how @sieg has not logged in here in about 8 years, I don't suppose there is anyway to get his signature corrected, but it would be nice if it could be.
Thank you for your time, Crimhthan The Great
Sieg was also posting in that DF thread, but I am not sure why he misattributed the quote, but if anyone is currently a member of DF and/or Troll Lords and knows Sieg please bring it to his attention. Please note that I do not think it was deliberate.Given my treatment in the thread, I no longer believe that it was not deliberate.
Partially true, though I'd wanted to move beyond the sieg persona for a while.Uh-huh, he wants to move beyond the sieg persona so much that he still posts over at http://odd74.proboards.com and at https://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/ under the sieg persona having not bothered to create a second account under the dmmike name at either forum. They have still not corrected the misinformation, so at this point I must assume that all of it is deliberate and that there is no legitimate reason why he can not login to that account and change the signature.
