Gold: Lifeblood of the Underworld

Why Adventurers seek it, Dragons hoard it and Goblins idolize it.

Gold is woven into the very fabric of the fantasy role-playing campaign, often being the catalyst for adventure. Characters pursue gold because it is a means to an end for their goals, providing experience and wealth in order to realize greater power within the framework of the campaign world. Gold is, after all, power.

Adventuring characters gain experience through the wealth they extract from the underworld. As detailed in The First Fantasy Campaign by Dave Arneson, adventurers in the initial version of what was to become D&D were required to spend their plundered gold pursuing certain motivations in order to gain experience from it.

Gold allows experienced adventurers to bring order to the wilderness on the surface through the construction of strongholds. The forces of Law desire the plundering of gold from the clutches of Chaos in the underworld that they might spread the will of man across the land.

To further their own cause and maintain their grasp in the fantasy campaign, Chaos must oppose these efforts. He who has the gold makes the rules in a manner of speaking.

The underworld itself relies on gold, its presence attracts and emboldens monsters while luring adventurers into the unexplored reaches below. The absence of gold can lead to a dungeon's dormancy or perhaps eventual abandonment. Gold is the lifeblood of the underworld.

With the assumption that gold is more then mere currency, allow certain monsters in the fantasy campaign to become more powerful based on the amount of gold they are able to amass or otherwise keep hidden within the underworld. The underworld will often reward their efforts much in the manner that adventurers are rewarded for capturing and spending gold.

Goblin Hordes: Keeping the Lifeblood flowing

At the far end of the gold/underworld spectrum are the lowly Goblins. Being an abomination of fae-blood and spawned from the very Chaos of the underworld, Goblins find themselves attuned to gold in a manner not shared by most beings. It is their duty to keep this lifeblood of the underworld flowing, and they do so in a number of ways. Goblins place gold above all other motivations because it is one of the surest means of survival in the dark pits they call home.

Nocturnal surface raids, kidnappings and general Goblin mayhem assure that gold is always entering their world from the surface, robbing the forces of Law even if in but a small manner. Following this flow of gold are adventurers who seek to reclaim that which the Goblins have absconded with from above. The forces below value the activities of the Goblins in luring over-dwellers to their demise, and appreciate the fealty often paid to them by these dungeon underlings.

Goblins garner the benefits of gold as a collective, not individually. A typical Goblin community, or tribe for lack of a better word, consists of 40-400 Goblins as well as a King with 5-30 Guards. The King and Guards form the unit which gains a rudimentary type of experience, while the standard Goblins enjoy greater numbers and more powerful leadership.

Goblins do not earn any benefits from simply hoarding gold; removing it from circulation is how they are able to benefit from gold. Here are some possible methods through which Goblins may gain experience from plundered gold:

Goblin Gold Disposal Methods
Bury/Hide: The intent was to use it later but it is forgotten. Map optional.
Sacrifice: In pagan worship, dropped into a mindless monstrosity's lair or deep hole.
Recast: Typically into pagan idols, sometimes into nose-cleaners and the like.
Distribute: As long as the gold goes deeper into the dungeon, either as fealty, payment or tribute, and falls into the clutches of something more capable of guarding it.

Goblin tribes do not begin to gain experience until they have established a lair, with King and Guards, and subsequently disposed of 8,000 gold. At that time the King and Guards will continue to accrue experience. Individual Goblin Kings and Guards will be replaced if they perish, with no penalty, but if the entire royal court is slain the tribe loses all of its accumulated experience.

Goblin Hordes increase in membership while the King and Guards become more powerful based upon an accumulation of experience earned through gold disposal. These scores are tracked in increments called Goblin Horde Ranks, detailed below.

Goblin Horde Ranks
I – 8K: +25 Goblins, +1 Guard, K&G: AC 5, HD 1+1, SA: Max hits.
II – 16K: +50 Goblins, +2 Guard, K&G: AC 5, HD 2, SA: RT Saves.
III – 32K: +75 Goblins, +3 Guards, K&G: AC 4, HD 2+1, SA: RT To Hit.
IV – 64K: +100 Goblins, +4 Guards, K&G: AC 4, HD 3, SA: RT Damage.
V – 128K: +125 Goblins, +5 Guards, K&G: AC 3, HD 3+1, SA: Lucky.
VI – 256K+: +150 Goblins, +6 Guards, K&G: AC 3, HD 4, SA: Two Lives.

K&G: Stats for the King and Guards. King and Guards all possess Move 9 and +1 Morale, regardless of Rank. The Special Ability (SA) is only learned by the King himself, and all six are cumulative.

King Special Abilities: RT (Roll Twice, using the higher result), Lucky (King can Save vs Death to avoid a killing blow), Two Lives (King will spring from the dead once, fully healed).

Gains in tribe members are cumulative across the periods of growth. For example, a tribe at Horde Size IV would have gained 250 Goblins and 10 Guards, its King and Guards would fight with an increased level of expertise (AC 4 and HD 3).

Keep in mind that the King and Guards will often make use of any magic items found or captured if at all possible. Optionally, if gold disposal is focused in the methods of Sacrifice and Recasting into pagan idols a tribe might also realize members with shamanistic or anti-cleric abilities. These Shamans can replace Guards, or complement them.

Dragon Hoards: Establishing Hearts of Adventure

While Goblins keep the Lifeblood flowing, Dragons and potentially other powerful underworld denizens benefit from the hoards of gold they are able to establish and protect. These hoards create hubs of power, or hearts of adventure. Fed by the flow of gold above and around them, these hearts increase in size through a steady influx of wealth.

Dragons long ago learned the importance of gold, the mythical element. By hoarding wealth Dragons were able to realize greater power while preventing the growth of Law. While Dragons may take a stance of Chaos or Neutrality, and even Law in the case of Gold Dragons, they are normally opposed to the spread of civilized man as his influence sweeps across their ancestral lands. Given the ferocity and cunning of many dragons it is only natural that they are often able to collect vast amounts of gold. This then is the motivation for Dragons, by hoarding gold they gain a limited form of experience which impacts their existence in the fantasy campaign.

Dragons establish a proper Hoard much in the way characters build a stronghold; by gaining experience and using wealth. In the case of the Dragon, experience of this sort is a measure of surviving to the very old age of 100 years. The Dragon may have been accumulating wealth in its younger days, but the proper establishment of a Hoard requires a suitable lair, boasting 70,000 gold or more, and the aforementioned age requirement. Once the proper Hoard is established and cultivated the Dragon will begin to acquire greater power while attracting followers.

Dragon Hoard Ranks use a total gold equivalent value which includes copper, silver, gold, gems and jewels. The collection and massing of this wealth is measured in the increments detailed below:

Dragon Hoard Ranks
I – 70K: Followers: 30 HD. Growth: Maximum HD if not already very large.
II - 140K: Followers: 60 HD. Toughness: 7 hp/HD.
III - 210K: Followers: 120 HD. Prowess: Bite deals double damage.
IV - 280K: Followers: 180 HD. Resilience: +2 on all saves.
V - 350K: Followers: 240 HD. Fearsome Breath: penalizes saves by 3.
VI - 420K+: Followers: 300 HD. Long-winded: able to breathe 4 times per day.

Dragons surviving the loss of their Hoard will not lose their special abilities immediately but may stand a chance to watch their followers abandon them. Hoard-less Dragons so pilfered of their wealth will do everything within their power to reclaim their gold and riches. Such Hoard-less Dragons will begin to watch their experience-earned power wane over time. Subdued Dragons on the other hand will lose their special abilities once their wealth is captured and they are removed from the underworld.

* * *

The above Horde and Hoard benefits are just basic ideas; there's certainly much more that can be dreamed up to flesh out this concept of the gold/underworld system and the advantages earned by the monsters propagating it.

Just a little something I've been bashing about and I thought I'd share for your enjoyment on a rainy Friday.

~Sham, Quixotic Referee

The Good Major Weighs In

David Wesely added to the comments section of the lengthy Q&A with Greg Svenson with insight into polyhedral dice, the co-founding of RPGs, and other tidbits which will be of interest to many readers. Thanks again, David!

~Sham, Quixotic Referee

Quotable Arneson

During my recent research into Blackmoor, I saved a number of tidbits which I found interesting along the way. Of particular note are quotes from a few different interviews with Blackmoor's creator, Dave Arneson, dating from 1981, 1999 and 2004.

Dave Arneson Quotes

On Blackmoor's origins:
We established in our historical campaigns the principal of having a Judge who everyone listened to and who set up the battle or campaign. That’s where we were coming from, traditional wargaming.

On Blackmoor's best feature:
To me, what made it unique and different was that a lot of what made up Blackmoor was input from the players and the way they were seeing the world, and what they were doing in it. I just kept notes. I built the framework, and would occasionally throw in a few storylines, but it was the players getting involved in filling in a lot of the gaps that made a difference.

On TSR:
I was doing a lot of work for them but they weren’t doing anything with it. I got tired of waiting a year and a half to get something published so we parted.

On Homebrew:
We ask people to use their imaginations and when you do that, they tend to have their own ideas of how things should be done. Any group that sets up a dungeon will eventually have their own rules.

On Role-Playing:
When I do my games, I give roleplaying points for people staying within their character. If they want to go out and kill things, that's easy to do, and a lot of referees that's all they do, but there's more to it. The richness is not in just rolling dice, the richness is in the characters and becoming part of this fantasy world.

On Player involvement:
...when a character gets killed, I let the player run the monsters that the party encounters. This way he or she stays involved, rather than becoming a spectator or leaving. When the party encounters intelligent monsters, I brief them on what that monster’s life goals are (usually "Guard this room, don’t let anyone in"). Then if the party wants to negotiate, they negotiate with him rather than me. That system also takes a little pressure off of me as a Judge.

On 25 years of RPGs:
Sitting down and reading boxed dialog, going through seven or eight volumes of rules, is a long way from the scribbled notes I started off with...It just got very, very complicated and, in the efforts to simplify things, they just lost whatever creativity was left...I think what you lost there was the spontaneity of the whole operation...Too many of them try to do everything, or they follow the official line of "You can't change anything or you'll destroy the rules."...That's not the way things started, that's not the way things should be. If something doesn't work, get rid of it. If something works in another set of rules and you want to put it in your game, go for it. The [rules'] job is to make the referee's life easier, so he can referee, not harder.

The above copyright Judges Guild, 1981 and 1999.

On Blackmoor Castle, the first Dungeon:
Well, dungeon crawls were, I think, the easiest things to set up because all you had to do was draw a grid map and didn't have to worry about the great outdoors and setting up trees and stuff. People also couldn't go wandering off where you didn't have a map because it was solid rock.

On Rules:
Most of the rules are only between my ears and they're constantly changing.

The above, including image, copyright IGN Entertainment, 2004.

~Sham, Quixotic Referee

ORIGINS of a HOBBY

A chronological study of some of the most important events leading to the first published modern RPG, TSR's Dungeons & Dragons, 1974.

ORIGINS of a HOBBY: from LONDON to LAKE GENEVA

1893: William Britain, Jr. invents hollow casting in lead.
Wm. Britain, Jr's new hollow casting technique uses less lead which revolutionizes the toy soldier market. The result is little lead men which are less expensive to both produce and ship, making the collectibles more affordable and available in large quantities. Competitors soon followed suit and toy soldiers were being mass produced for the first time in history. Amazingly enough it all started with little Billy who had just inherited the toy company and didn't know the difference between dry measure and liquid measure. Junior went on to sell his toy soldiers across the globe, often delivering them by hand to such remote regions as Paris, France and nearby French Indochina.

1910: The Great War Game, Hanks.
Possibly the first published wargame designed for use with toy soldiers. Date not verified. Marketed in the U.K. as a game for Boy Scouts, it apparently did not prepare them for Tanks, Machine Guns, Mustard Gas or Barbed Wire. Unfortunately the supplement, The Great Dig a Trench War Game, never made it to publication. Interestingly enough, the game predated The Great War itself by four years. That's World War I in case you haven't been paying attention...ever.

1913: Little Wars, H. G. Wells.

Widely considered the first published wargame for miniature figures. By renaming the toy soldiers “miniature figures” and adding serious rules for shooting a toy cannon at them, adults could continue behaving like children in dignity. According to observers, Mr. Wells was notorious for making up house rules on the spot while playing Little Wars. Herbert would later use some of these personal house rules as inspiration for his most famous novels: The Time Machine (take an extra turn), The Invisible Man (add new troops mid game), War of the Worlds (bring random objects such as colanders to the field), and The Sleeper Awakes (enemy soldiers knocked over by Kipper the family Corgi were “dead”).

1929: ShamBattle, Dowdall & Gleason.

First U.S. Wargame for miniature figures. The major advantage on this side of the pond was access to Lincoln Logs, another toy which adults need a good reason to play with. The game's subtitle, Quixotic Reenactment, is one of gaming's strange, ironic twists. Not really. Entertainment trivia buffs will note that one of the coauthors is better known for his ongoing role as the lovable town drunk Otis in the long running television series The Andy Griffith Show.

1936: Real War threatens.

Hints of the struggle soon to come in Europe and across the globe are evident when Germany declares that the first true wargame was the Kriegsspiel, produced by Prussian army lieutenant von Reisswitz in 1824. Seeking to prove to the rest of Europe that England's Little Wars claims were hollow, Germany was gearing up for war. Then a rift in the Kriegsspiel methodology and doctrine divides the military minds into two distinct camps; those insisting on the 1824 von Reisswitz version, and those backing the more modern 1862 von Tschischwitz game. War is averted as die Alte Schule and die Neue Schule create an impasse in the German military machine. That and the imposing Maginot Line had German Officers wringing their hands in frustration for years.

1943: Fletcher Pratt's Naval War Game, Fletcher Pratt.
Perhaps if his pal L. Sprague had been involved the title for Fletcher Pratt's widely famous game would've been more clever, but Mr. de Camp was busy revealing the sordid truth behind the H. G. Wells Little Wars myth. Outrageous claims leveled against H.G. included de Camp insisting that the Little Wars subtitle, “a game for boys from twelve years of age to one hundred and fifty and for the more intelligent sort of girl who likes boy's games and books” was clear evidence that Mr. Wells was an unrepentant male chauvinist. Wellsians to this day have not forgiven the misguided de Camp.

1958: Gettysburg, Avalon Hill.

Gettysburg, along with other Avalon Hill Adult Games series titles, takes the battle away from miniatures and to the military boardgame. Gettysburg took the miniature figures world head on, redefining wargaming forever. Modern versions of this classic game feature Architecture Buffs defending the Cyclorama Visitor's Center and Gift Shop from History Buffs on a headlong Picket's Charge maneuver.

1959: Diplomacy, Allan B. Calhamer.

A military boardgame of strategy, negotiation and psychology with no dice and an optional GM/Judge. Optional as in if anyone wants to go home alive after the game you'd better make sure you have one. One of the first games to encourage lying and backstabbing, Diplomacy has established itself as a true classic. The more realistic house ruled version encourages cheating; eavesdropping and hiding, altering or peeking at notes. The game was a popular pastime behind the scenes during the Nixon administration. CAD (Citizens Against Diplomacy) blame the evil game for Richard's inexplicable activities during Watergate, and have been seeking to ban it ever since.

1966: Modern War in Miniature, Michael F. Korns.

First wargame with individual player-controlled Characters and a GM/Judge. And now we arrive at the first true RPG. Or is it a wargame? Well, it's both, and Modern War in Miniature includes a GM who sets everything up and can explain exactly why the Panzerkampfwagen VI was actually a better fit for the Wehrmacht than the SdKfz 182 Konigstiger. The original manuscripts for the game were tragically lost when the author used too much lighter fluid while melting plastic soldiers in a miniature flame-thrower encounter and set off a brick of fire-crackers. In perhaps history's first display of GM ad-lib aplomb, Michael declared that the battle was postponed on account of the Brits celebrating Guy Fawkes Night.

1966: Fight in the Skies, Mike Carr.

First RPG/wargame with persistent Characters and Experience. Still going strong, this game's newer version is called Dawn Patrol. It is the only game that has been played at every single GENCON since the first, in 1968. Of note is the fact that 2004 was the first GENCON where Mike Carr wasn't the only participant to sign-up for and play the game. Coincidentally, the 2004 convention also marked the end of Mr. Carr's record-setting 35 year run as Top Ace of GENCON. Rumors are that Mike Carr will unveil his “Snoopy Sopwith Gambit” at GENCON 41 this year in one last ditch effort to win back his hard earned title.

1969: Braunstein I, David Wesely.

Considered the first Open-Ended RPG/wargame sessions (not published). If it hadn't been for the players clamoring for another, that would have been the last Braunstein, as Wesely considered the whole thing a failure. Truth be told, Wesely had planned to come up with the worst possible game night ever for the club in hopes that they wouldn't ask him to run anything again. Wesely arrived for the game with no preparations, and figured if he just "winged it" all night his goal would be accomplished. When that backfired David was finally able to escape the constant "More Braunstein!" demands by joining the US Army. Wesely is credited with introducing polyhedral dice to gaming, laying the groundwork for the modern RPG, and inventing Thumb Wrestling.

1971: Chainmail, Gygax & Perren.

First published fantasy wargame for miniature figures. Regardless of which story you believe, Gygax's or Arneson's, it seems quite clear that Chainmail was a vital part of the concept that Dave Arneson formulated the same year with his Blackmoor campaign. Chainmail is an important piece of the puzzle detailing how modern RPGs came to be. Prior to the Fantasy Supplement section, Chainmail was published in two parts in The Domesday Book, the newsletter of the Castles & Crusades Society. Other articles included alongside Chainmail were Fabricating your first Beer Bong, Electric Jello: a How To, Hamms versus Pabst: the Debate Continues, and A Guide to Satisfying the Munchies.

1971: Tractics, Reese & Tucker.

The first wargame to use 20-sided dice. A game of modern tank battles, it required a d20 in order to establish the base 30% (15 or higher) chance to hit another tank. This was before the advent of the 10-sided die. The game borrowed from Michael Korns' Modern War in Miniature in that a GM/Judge was required to adjudicate the fog of war. The rules served to display the greater numeric range and higher level of detail possible with the d20. The game's major drawback was the sheer amount of set-up time involved. The rules were written on a scale of 1:1, meaning real-life tanks had to be employed. Reese and Tucker were last seen trying to secure a refurbished British Comet tank in 2001, near Brighton, Sussex, England. The very first Tractics game should be underway by the end of 2012.

1971: Blackmoor Castle, Dave Arneson.

Dave Arneson introduces Teamwork, Dungeons and other essential fantasy RPG concepts to his Twin Cities Club. Grows into the first fantasy Campaign, eventually defining the modern RPG (not published). Dave Arneson blended, borrowed, meshed and tested anything and everything while running his early, experimental games. It was the concept that continues, to this day, to shine through, no matter what form it has taken. This was the beginning of the modern RPG. Certain details of Blackmoor found their way into published form in The First Fantasy Campaign from Judges Guild. Notable players in those first Blackmoor sessions included Greg “Svenny” Svenson, Stephen “Rocky” Rocheford, Mike “von Ricthofen” Carr and future professional golfer “Fairway” Freddy Funk. The earliest participants in Blackmoor actually took on the role of their real life personae, except for role-playing pioneer Bill “Three-Dollar” Hastings, who insisted on playing as Annette Funicello's Dee Dee from the uproarious 1965 film, Beach Blanket Bingo.

1972: Castle Greyhawk, Gygax & Kuntz.

After seeing how Arneson ran a Blackmoor session, Gary Gygax and Rob Kuntz collaborate to create their own version of Blackmoor Castle for their Lake Geneva Club, naming it Castle Greyhawk (not published). Given an outlet for his writing skills, Gary Gygax never looked back. The World of Greyhawk which was born of these early days remains a strong, viable fantasy campaign setting. What really stands out is the passion and verve with which Gary undertook the labor of bringing life to his imaginary world. A world which has seen countless fans and players of Dungeons & Dragons through the decades. It is said the very first expedition into Castle Greyhawk, consisting of Gary as Referee, and his son Ernie, Don Kaye, and the Kuntz brothers Rob and Terry as players, was almost a complete disaster due to Gary's insistence that all participants speak entirely in anagrams. Eventually the session was saved when it turned into an evening of experience point rewards for clever puns and one-liners. Although the dungeon entrance was not discovered on that initial adventure, the characters did happen upon the now infamous Concession Stand of Endless Hot Dogs in the castle ruins.

1972: Don't Give Up the Ship! Arneson, Gygax & Carr.
The first in a long line of collaborations from the creative team of Dave and Gary. Mike Carr contributed research and quite a bit of the writing and design here as well. In fact, he impressed the TSR guys so much that he went on to write the now famous module B1: In Search of the Unknown, and edited the first three AD&D books: Monster Manual, Player's Handbook, and the Dungeon Master's Guide. Now he writes about snowmobiles and pursues his first love, World War I Ace Pilots from his secluded Wisconsin mansion, Quasqueton. Sources say there is indeed a room within full of mysterious pools. You guessed it, I don't have anything to say about Don't Give Up the Ship! at all. I'm sure it's a fine wargame, as Naval wargames go. I only wish that Arneson and Gygax had followed the theme of the game's title and continued working together.

1974: Dungeons & Dragons, Gygax & Arneson.

The first published modern RPG. And thus, here we are at the end of the time line. Sure, some things have changed out there in RPG land, but truly the modern RPG is, at it's core, still the same product we were given in 1974 by Gygax and Arneson. The concept is the thing, the rules are secondary. Whether you prefer rolling dice to role-playing, that's fine. Whether you prefer open-ended sand-box play to story-telling narrative games, that's fine. Don't like dice? They're not needed. This rule or that rule makes no sense? Change it. The critics can lay whatever claims they care to at the feet of 1974's Dungeons & Dragons game, but it's the concept that was conveyed within those three volumes that matters. Whether or not Gygax changed every single mechanic that Arneson had devised is likewise irrelevant. 1974 saw the introduction of a new concept in gaming, and the world stood up and took notice. In one form or another, D&D and the concept it unleashed upon mankind will always be with us...until Domesday that is.

Special thanks to Bob Beattie for his Wargaming Time-Line. I make no claims of ownership of the above titles or affiliation with the parties involved. As to my historical facts, parties wishing to dispute my findings may do so over a cold beer at an undisclosed local watering hole.

~Sham, Quixotic Referee

Q&A with Greg Svenson

With Dave Arneson's recent passing, our hobby lost one of the most important links to its earliest, formative days. Arneson & Gygax will be forever remembered as the coauthors and founders of Dungeons & Dragons, but there is so much more to Mr. Arneson that we were never truly allowed to learn while growing up in the 70s, 80s and beyond while playing the game that his Blackmoor campaign spawned. I've read with wonder the stories that Greg “Svenny” Svenson shared with readers at his website before it was taken down*. As a player in the original Blackmoor campaign, Greg is one of only a handful of gamers who were present to witness the fledgling game sessions which eventually gave rise to the entire table top role-playing genre (and beyond).

I believe that remembering the magnitude of Dave Arneson's concept, and his Blackmoor campaign, is perhaps more timely now than ever before. As someone who is interested in the influences and inspirations that went into Mr. Arneson's Blackmoor campaign, I felt that being able to pose some questions to the Great Svenny himself might be an opportunity I couldn't pass up. I wasn't sure that my random email to his site's address would even be answered, let alone read considering that it was sent not long after Dave Arneson's passing. I had no idea that Greg had attended Dave's funeral, nor that he had delivered the eulogy. I was wary about pursuing this Q&A considering the nature of its less than appropriate timing, but Greg assured me that he would be happy to take a look at what I had drafted up and let me know what he thought of the idea.

During our various correspondences I learned that at the funeral Greg had seen another Blackmoor player from the early days, Stephen “Rocky” Rocheford**. Greg was able to later email Stephen and have him look over the answers below. Stephen was kind enough to confirm Greg's recollections of those events from the early 70s in the Twin Cities, before Dave Arneson had taken a position with TSR in Lake Geneva, WI in 1975.

My reasons for this Q&A were multiple, and I will let the answers speak for themselves. I think that Greg did an outstanding job in answering these questions considering that nearly four decades have transpired since that very first Blackmoor game in 1971.

---Start Q&A---

Greg: I haven't really been interviewed like this before, so I shared my answers with one of the other guys who was one of the players on that original dungeon adventure in Dave Arneson's basement back in 1971, Stephen Rocheford (later known as St. Stephen from the Temple of the Frog adventure). He was probably just as active as a player as I was though the early years of the Blackmoor campaign and D&D. I saw him for the first time in over 25 years at Dave Arneson's funeral. He agreed with my answers to all of your questions except for the date when Dave Wesely got home from the Army which I have corrected in my answer.

Sham: First of all I’d like to thank Greg for taking the time to read and consider these questions, and allow me to share his responses for the readers of my web log. Greg, when did Dave Arneson actually begin his Blackmoor games, to the best of your knowledge? When and how were you introduced to Blackmoor?

Greg: You are welcome; hopefully I will be able to answer your questions. Nobody is really sure when we started playing Blackmoor. My recollection was that we played the first adventure over the Christmas holidays during the winter of 1970-1971; but, I am not really sure. The first documented Blackmoor game was on May 21, 1971. Dave Arneson found that in an old “Corner of the Table” newsletter article a few months ago. The “Corner of the Table” was Dave’s newsletter for our Napoleonics campaign. Dave recently came across a complete set of them.

Sham: Were you around for Dave Wesely’s Braunsteins that helped introduce the concept of role-playing and a referee? Was Dave Wesely a player in any of the Blackmoor sessions you were a part of?

Greg: No, I was not part of that. Wesely was in the Army Reserves and was activated and sent to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas and later to Alaska during the early years of the Blackmoor campaign. He came home in the October/November 1973 timeframe. We did play together at least a few times when he was on leave as well as after he came home.

Sham: I’ve theorized that the concept which Dave Arneson formulated was based on a combination of wargame combat simulation, the ongoing wargame style campaign, the role-play/referee idea that Wesely introduced, and fantasy/medieval inspiration. In other words, wargaming meets role-play meets fantasy. Do you have any thoughts to offer on this assessment?

Greg: Well, that’s basically true, but it really isn’t that simple. The fantasy/medieval elements of Blackmoor were totally new to me at the time (although, I had read Tolkien and some other fantasy literature). However, in the Napoleonic campaign that we had been playing before that first adventure was a combination of miniatures and diplomacy. Dave Arneson was the referee and each of the players represented the sovereign, a political faction, a general and/or an admiral in their respective countries. So, for the campaign we would try to correspond player to player and write battle reports “in character”. We were responsible for our nation’s diplomacy and even the national budget down to buying food, forage, powder and shot, as well as running the military campaigns and fighting the battles that came about as a result of our actions...We had also been playing “Fight in the Skies” where each player was a WWI fighter pilot tracking his missions and kills and getting better with experience. Before I joined Dave Arneson’s gaming group my home gaming group in Excelsior, Minnesota had been playing Korns*** for several years. Korns was a set of WWII rules where each player was a single soldier and we had a referee keeping track of both sides and resolving actions as the game progressed, at least that was the way we played it. I am sure that others in the group had similar gaming background experiences to mine.

Sham: Your character rose to great prominence in Dave’s Blackmoor campaign. Your character, The Great Svenny, is now a full fledged legendary NPC in published Blackmoor games. What would be the Great Svenny’s proudest moment during those many Blackmoor sessions? Aside from the Great Svenny’s accomplishments, what are some of your favorite memories from Dave’s Blackmoor games?

Greg: Yes, I have been startled to surf the internet and find web sites where they described how the Great Svenny was involved with that gaming groups adventures. That was a really weird experience for me...The two greatest moments that stick out in my memory are the two adventures I described on my website; surviving the first dungeon adventure and the raid on the lair of Fred Funk’s Orc tribe on the 10th level of Blackmoor dungeon. I participated in literally hundreds of adventures between early 1971 and 1975, but those are the two I have the clearest memories of. I hardly even remember the famous “Temple of the Frog” and “Valley of the Ancients” adventures. I know I was there, but they were not as memorable for me.

Sham: For how many years did you play as The Great Svenny in Blackmoor, and what exactly is the Great Svenny up to at this very moment?

Greg: I was actively playing Svenny from the beginning up until when Dave Arneson moved to Lake Geneva to work for TSR in 1975. I played with him again at GenCon in 1976 and at a reunion game in 1991. When I started gaming with Dave again in Orlando in 1999, I played Svenny’s son, Sol, although I called him Svenny Junior at first, until I put together Svenny's family history. I am currently playing Sol in an online play by post game (the Tomb of Rahotep in honor of Gary Gygax on the Wayfarer's Inn website). I have also been playing one of his grandchildren, Sven, in another play by post game (the Grim Winter campaign on the Zeitgeist Games MMRPG website)...Svenny is currently the Lord High Regent of the Regency Council of the Kingdom of Blackmoor in the D&D 3.5 Edition version of the Blackmoor campaign. I am currently working out what Svenny’s family would look like for the D&D 4th Edition Blackmoor campaign which is set some 270 years later.

Sham: In reading your stories of those early Blackmoor days, I learned that certain important monsters or villains were often controlled by other players. Was there ever a point in Dave’s Blackmoor games where the emphasis became the adventuring group, or was it usually adversarial between the players who mostly pursued their own individual goals?

Greg: We switched from the good guys versus the bad guys sessions to just one adventuring group fairly quickly. We realized that it was more fun if everyone was on one team working together. There were still people playing the bad guys, but that was usually in their own gaming sessions separate from the ones I was in; although, sometimes Dave would still ask for a volunteer to play the monster during a battle.

Sham: I’m aware that Blackmoor was much more than simply a dungeon crawl, but I enjoyed your telling of the First Dungeon Adventure and how your character survived it. After that adventure did the dungeon setting become a major focus of the campaign?

Greg: Well, we stopped making dungeon maps when the group realized that I had much of the dungeon memorized. Of course, that led to problems when Svenny was incapacitated and unable to tell everyone how to get back out of the dungeon. It was the major emphasis for a while, but we quickly moved out into the wilderness. We also had a period of several months, after some of us read the “Tarnsman of Gor” books, where we were traveling around on tarns (think of Rocs in the “Lord of the Rings”). That was after Gary Gygax had started his campaign because one of our adventures was to travel to Grayhawk on tarnback to rescue Gary’s players who had gotten into trouble.

Sham: I understand that as you gained knowledge and experience playing in Dave’s game you also took some turns behind the referee’s screen, running Blackmoor adventures for other players. What was that like? And do you ever have the opportunity to play or run Blackmoor these days?

Greg: In the fall of 1972 Dave Arneson gave me some of his notes and let me referee a couple of times when he was busy with other things. Dave tells me that I was the third DM ever. Later I developed a town called Tonisborg, complete with two dungeons. I didn’t think that I was very good at it. I guess I was comparing myself to Dave. At any rate, I didn’t DM very often; although, I must have DMed more often than I remember from what Bob Meyer has told me about the days when we were roommates in 1973 & 1974. Unfortunately, I loaned my Tonisborg materials to a friend to use for a game day and he never returned them, which was around 1980 or so when I lived in Boston. I have not run any Blackmoor (or other D&D) games since the early 1980's when I ran games for my church's youth group.

Sham: Would you say that Blackmoor evolved, in both rules content and as a campaign world, as a result of the player/character courses of action?

Greg: Of course, it evolved and very quickly. Using Chainmail rules on the first adventure, when you got hit the first time you were dead. We didn’t like that much, so the next time we played we had hit points. Within a month Dave introduced armor classes. There were many changes over time. One time when we were off adventuring the bad guys attacked and captured the then defenseless town of Blackmoor, leveling Zvenzen’s Freehold among other things. We all got banished to the swamps of Loc Gloomin for that one…

Sham: While refereeing Blackmoor for other players, how did you handle actions by the characters which were not covered by the rules? Was referee ad-libbing a vital aspect of the Blackmoor games?

Greg: I quickly came up with what the possibilities might be and either had the players roll dice against a related character attribute for success or on a table I made up in my head on the fly. This was an area that I felt I was not very good at, however, because Dave would just tell us to roll the dice and he then told us what happened.

Sham: You were playing in Blackmoor before D&D was published, and again afterwards. What impact did the release of that version of the rules have upon Dave’s personal campaign?

Greg: As soon as a draft was available we started play testing with them, but I don’t think it really changed how the game went when Dave was the DM. That’s just my opinion. The big difference was that others (like me) were more easily able to DM. All of the sessions I DMed were part of the same Blackmoor campaign that Dave was running. Often I was helping players get to a higher level so they could survive with the other higher level players.

Sham: What was Dave’s early opinion of TSR’s 1974 D&D game? For that matter, what was the general opinion of you and the other players in Blackmoor when you finally saw the original D&D game?

Greg: Dave was excited about it, but I am not sure what he actually thought about it, I don’t remember him ever talking to me about it in that way. I thought it was one and the same thing with what we had already been doing for several years. So, I didn’t really see much of a difference.

Sham: I’ve developed great respect for Dave’s impact to the gaming world. In my opinion he is often unfairly discredited in certain quarters for his lack of actual input to D&D. If you can recall, what were the major differences between Dave’s Blackmoor, and D&D in 1974?

Greg: Like I just said, I thought they were one and the same. They had just been organized, to make it easier for other people to use to run games. The individual levels and things like that were new, but the way we played we didn’t really notice the difference. Attributes were different, we had used two d6’s to get a number from 1 to 10, where we changed to three d6’s and a range from 3 to 18, but most were just changes in mechanics...We were not keeping our own records or character sheets as they are called now. Dave had an index card on each of the players (and NPCs) with their attributes, HP, possessions and other useful notes. I only remember seeing Svenny’s character card a couple of times. Unfortunately, it never occurred to me to copy the information off of it for my own records. Dave told me a few months ago that he had been going though one of his boxes and discovered what he thought were all of our original character cards. I don’t know what happened to them after that, however.

Sham: From what I gather Dave’s major accomplishment was combining the essential elements of what was to become fantasy role-playing with Blackmoor, the same elements that were subsequently found in D&D. Would you agree that each of the essential elements was present in pre-D&D Blackmoor?

1. Characters

Greg: Yes, of course.

2. Ability Scores

Greg: Yes. I am not sure when Dave added them since he kept our character cards, but we were definitely using them during the spring of 1972, because I have definite memories involving ability scores that happened before I went away for the summer of 1972.

3. Hit Points

Greg: Yes, within the first month.

4. Experience/Levels

Greg: Yes, although handled differently. Fighters went from flunky to hero to superhero. We didn’t track our experience points as is done now. Dave simply told us when we had transitioned from one level to another. I do not know if wizards and clerics had different levels of ability or not.

5. Mechanics/Randomization

Greg: Yes, but again handled differently. Sometimes, we would roll against our related ability to resolve a task. Other times Dave would just say we were successful or not after we had described what we intended to do (he might have made a roll at the time, it may or may not have had any bearing in what happened).

6. Adventuring Groups

Greg: Yes, the first adventure involved two groups.

7. Exploration

Greg: Yes, we didn’t have maps of the area. Anytime we traveled we had to find our way, even just leaving the town of Blackmoor itself and going into the nearby countryside was a major adventure. Part of the adventure was getting lost. Sometimes that was the adventure.

8. Hazards/Challenges

Greg: Yes, problem solving was a big part of our gaming sessions, really the major part.

9. Treasure

Greg: Yes, we found money, stuff and magic items in the lairs of the monsters we killed.

10. Fantasy Setting

Greg: Yes

Sham: I’d also like to specifically ask about certain D&D features and whether or not they were present in the early Blackmoor games, to the best of your recollection.

1. Saving Throws

Greg: Yes, maybe with different mechanics. Dave just told us to roll and he would tell us what happened…

2. Clerics vs. Undead (Turning Undead)

Greg: Mike Carr**** played the Bishop of Blackmoor pretty much from the beginning. I think of him as being able to heal and on one or two occasions resurrect the dead. I do not recall when turning the undead came into it, but it was not a concept that was unfamiliar to me, either. I have to say that I am not sure.

3. Wandering Monsters

Greg: They were there from the first adventure on. We could see Dave rolling before he would announce an encounter.

4. Alignment

Greg: Absolutely, we had good and evil characters in the very first dungeon adventure; if fact, Dave’s perception of our alignment, as it is called now, affected whether we were able to hold the magic sword we found during that first adventure. Several of the players were injured when they picked it up. In fact, I was the only player who didn’t try to pick it up. I was afraid to try after seeing what happened to the other unsuccessful players. When I was the last one standing and the battle was over, I picked it up and wrapped it using a piece of leather, so that I would not come in contact with it and then carried it out of the dungeon and immediately sold it to the baron of Blackmoor for a whopping 150 GP.

5. Spell Levels

Greg: I was never a magic user in the original campaign, so I don’t really know the mechanics of how spells were handled. Pete Gaylord, Kurt Krey or Richard Snider would have a much better idea of how that worked.

6. Henchmen/Hirelings

Greg: Yes, after Svenny became a “super hero” I was able to hire soldiers and servants. That was how we were able to staff Zvenzen’s Freehold, for example. Slavery was also an option, at least initially. Svenny bought a slave once.

Sham: What was it about D&D that made it such a smashing success, in your opinion?

Greg: The limitless options for the players made it so much fun that it was hard not to enjoy yourself even when your character died in the adventure.

Sham: What other role-playing games have you had the chance to run or play in? Do you have a favorite role-playing game besides Blackmoor?

Greg: Blackmoor is the only D&D setting I have ever run a game in. I have especially enjoyed “Space: 1889” and “Traveller” (CT, MT and T4). I have played many others, including “Powers and Perils”, “Adventures in Fantasy”, “Shadowrun”, “Star Wars”, “GURPS” (fantasy, Traveller & WW2) and “Twilight: 2000”.

Sham: What do you feel Dave Arneson’s legacy to the hobby will be? Furthermore, what do you feel Dave Arneson’s legacy to the hobby should be?

Greg: To me, Dave Arneson is the father of modern role-playing games. They didn’t really exist before we played Blackmoor. They were a new concept at the time and he is the person who put it all together.

Sham: Have you ever worked in the role-playing field, or has it always been simply an entertaining diversion? What details can you tell the readers about yourself since those days playing in Blackmoor with Dave Arneson?

Greg: Not really, I made an attempt to edit John Snider’s “Star Empires” RPG rules back in 1983 for Adventure Games while I was working for 4D Interactive Systems (both companies were primarily owned by Dave Arneson) as a video game programmer, but it never got published. John had written it back in the mid-1970s and it had languished at TSR for years. By the time I looked at it, it was really out dated, although, in my opinion, if it had come out before or at the same time as “Traveller” it would have taken the Sci-Fi RPG market hands down...As for me, I am a computer geek. I have been in Information Systems/Technology for over thirty-two years. I spent a year and a half writing video games for 4D Interactive Systems back in ‘83 and ‘84. The rest of the time I have been with large companies, mostly in the aerospace industry. I am a Christian. The Lord has been very good to me. I am married to a wonderful woman, Paula. We have five children and two grandchildren.

Sham: Greg, thank you for taking the time to answer my questions, including the many D&D related inquiries. My goal has been to not only learn more about the early Blackmoor games, and your role in helping shape that famous campaign, but to also further the legacy of Dave Arneson and remind readers of his impact on our hobby. Are there any details about Dave Arneson that you would like to share with the readers?

Greg: You are welcome. I am glad that I was able to answer most of your questions. With Dave’s passing, I have had lots of chances to think about him. His daughter asked me to do the eulogy at his funeral service, so I have thought a lot about his life. Dave was a humble man. I never saw him push his agenda at someone else’s expense or put himself ahead of others. He was always concerned about other peoples well being. He wanted everyone to be happy and have fun. He was generous and thoughtful, both with me and my family. My wife thought of him as a kind and gallant gentleman. He wanted to live at peace with everyone. I know that in the last few years he attempted to reconcile with those who had issues with him, including Gary Gygax and Tim Kask.

I hope you and your readers are edified by reading this.

---End Q&A---

I'd like to thank Greg, as well as Stephen, for taking the time to answer these questions about not only Blackmoor, but also about their good friend Dave Arneson who sadly left us far too early. It was very touching to read Greg's heartfelt answer to my last question, and I hope that readers can come away from this Q&A with a better appreciation of not only Dave Arneson's legacy, but also of the man himself.

* - Per an email from Greg, his early Blackmoor stories will once again be available as they are to be hosted at Havard's Blackmoor site in the near future. Stephen and Greg have just started collaborating on the First Dungeon Adventure story in order to bring back even more of the details. In the meantime you can read Greg Svenson's First Dungeon Adventure in Fight On! Issue 2.

** - Stephen Rocheford had the perhaps singular honor of actually reviewing Dave Arneson's original manuscript, detailing Blackmoor, before it was sent off to TSR and transformed into Dungeons & Dragons.

*** - Michael F. Korns Modern War in Miniature, 1966.

**** - Mike Carr, designer of Fight in the Skies, author of B1: In Search of the Unknown, Editor of AD&D Monster Manual, Player's Handbook, and Dungeon Master's Guide.

~Sham, Quixotic Referee

Conceptually Speaking

I spent many hours this past weekend reading Tim Kask’s thread at Dragonsfoot. First of all let me say that in my Essentials & Concepts post last month I shortchanged Mr. Kask’s efforts in compiling Supplement II, Blackmoor. I have no doubt that assembling those random, disorganized notes that he received from Arneson was a Herculean effort. It’s just that aside from the Temple of the Frog, which Kask claims was the only section of Blackmoor actually written by Arneson, I find little use with the book. I’ve never been a big fan of the Monk, the Assassin, Hit Location or of marine adventures. There’s little to get excited about. The book surely reads well, but I’m in it for the options and suggestions, and aside from the aforementioned TotF adventure, I don’t much care for that supplement.

It’s quite clear that Tim Kask and Dave Arneson didn’t work well together. In reading Tim’s posts, one finds it obvious that he had an axe to grind in regard to Arneson. That’s some serious long standing ill will, over thirty years after the fact. I cannot question or dispute his assertions in regard to Arneson, and I have no reason to do so. I do however feel compelled to recognize the yeoman’s work that Mr. Kask apparently performed in taking a jumbled hodge-podge basketful of handwritten notes and transforming them into a published book.

While catching up on Tim’s posts I learned quite a bit about the history of D&D and TSR. Tim Kask has probably forgotten more on the two subjects than many of us will ever learn. Assuming everything within is true, I came away from the often scathing comments with what I feel is essentially confirmation of how I envisioned the Gygax & Arneson co authorship of D&D. I’ll not mince words here. Arneson was not gifted with the written word. Gygax, as everyone already knows, was not merely gifted, but was a master of the language. Furthermore, Gygax was uniquely talented at putting together gaming rules. Arneson, not so much, if at all. Dave’s Blackmoor games used many outside rules which were bolted on to the ongoing campaign, such as Chainmail, naval wargame tables, and Avalon Hill’s Outdoor Survival.

Arneson is quoted as saying that he didn’t write a single word for the original D&D. I don’t doubt this one bit, but I think this fact can be taken out of context. Arneson blended the essential elements that became D&D. I believe this is why Gygax felt obliged to include him as co author. Whether or not Dave actually “wrote” anything in the first three volumes is besides the point. Gygax developed and wrote D&D. You’ll notice I say developed. This, for me, is one of the key points to the entire Gygax & Arneson team, such as it was. Gary did not come up with this concept, Dave did. Gary took Dave’s ideas and formed them into a coherent, comprehensive format that was playable by the masses. Dave couldn’t do that, and was infamous for his disorganized notes and random ideas.

I don’t mean to diminish Gary’s role here. There are certainly major rules differences between D&D’s progenitor Blackmoor, and D&D itself. It was more than a simple compilation and light edit effort. Ideas were nailed down and fleshed out, and made into streamlined playable game features. Grey areas were defined and turned into actual tables and guides. Additional rules from Gary’s Greyhawk were meshed into the system. For example, the concept of Experience, that being the reward for surviving through ongoing game sessions, went from Arneson’s Flunky-Hero-Superhero cycle to Gygax’s actual Class Levels. The idea is the same, but it has been improved immeasurably with Gary’s input. The fact that so much of the Blackmoor game used Chainmail as a basis cannot be dismissed either. Many of Gary’s own conventions introduced therein were a large part of the Blackmoor game.

It seems Arneson was good at coming up with ideas but needed someone else to translate them into a readable and playable format. It strikes me that when Gygax handed that basketful of Arneson’s notes for Blackmoor over to Kask, he knew it was a path he had already traveled. Gygax was confident that Kask could turn them into a Supplement. The components had been there for both D&D and Supplement II, someone just needed to bring them out and make them shine. I’m glad that Mr Kask was able to plunder the Temple of the Frog from those notes, polish it up, and transform it into the first example of a D&D adventure. It was never my intention to belittle his efforts in compiling Supplement II. Considering what Tim apparently had to work with he deserves co authorship on Blackmoor in the same way that Gary did on Dungeons & Dragons.

~Sham, Quixotic Referee

D&D Essentials and Concepts

As a follow up to yesterday’s post discussing Truths and Expectations, I wanted to discuss briefly that other list I threw together during my exploration of D&D concepts and categories.

Sham’s Essentials of D&D

1. Characters (Race/Class)
2. Ability Scores
3. Hit Points
4. Experience/Levels
5. Mechanics/Randomization
6. Adventuring Groups
7. Exploration
8. Hazards/Challenges (Monsters/Traps/Tricks, etc)
9. Treasure (Monetary/Magic)
10. Fantasy Setting (Dungeons/Wilderness)

I began thinking about the concept of D&D in earnest when I learned of Dave Arneson’s passing. I hate to admit it, but I suppose it is human nature to react this way. I did the same with Gary’s passing, reflecting upon his body of work and appreciating it more once he was dead than before. Surely there is a term for this state of mind. The sudden realization that there will be no more. It’s rather pathetic, honestly.

As I mentioned before, the above Essentials were all present in Dave Arneson’s formative Blackmoor games (not to be confused with Supplement II, Blackmoor). From what I gather, much of what is considered D&D was defined by Gary Gygax into the form we recognize today. For that matter, Blackmoor was influenced by Gygax’s own Chainmail game. But as far as the nuts and bolts of D&D, I am under the impression that Gygax applied his vast war gaming know-how to Arneson’s Blackmoor features. Not to say that Arneson was not an accomplished war gamer. The fact of the matter is that Gygax was simply better at explaining things with the written word. And he owned a typewriter, as Dave put it.

Gygax’s Greyhawk campaign, which preceded OD&D, was born of Blackmoor. Gary heard about Dave’s Blackmoor game, and that it used some bits of Chainmail, and he witnessed the game for himself. Gygax returned home and began his own Blackmoor inspired game named Greyhawk. Thus Blackmoor and Greyhawk became OD&D when the two agreed to publish some rules. Perhaps it is best that the events transpired this way. Accomplished game writer meets visionary gamer, and the two agree to turn the idea into a reality.

Unfortunately, Arneson’s planned D&D add-on, Supplement II, Blackmoor ended up being something not quite expected. I cannot remember the exact details, but if I have it right Arneson submitted reams of handwritten notes for the Supplement. The story I hear is that it would’ve taken many man hours to make heads or tails out of the disorganized pages. Someone else extracted some bits and threw a book together, but in my opinion really screwed the pooch. Get your hands on Arneson’s First Fantasy Campaign to see what Supplement II probably should have looked like.

Dave later took a position with TSR in what would turn out to be a very short-lived period of employ. It ended rather abruptly, and then the lawsuits began over the future use of the D&D name in other TSR publications. Sadly, history threatens to forget that Dave Arneson created the Essentials of D&D, the concept itself.

The above list must be credited where credit is due. Thank you Dave Arneson for creating and sharing this concept with us. Your presence in the gaming world will be missed, but your impact will never be forgotten. I hope that the next time you log into World of Warcraft, dear reader, you will realize that the concept is all Dave Arneson’s. WoW is an MMO that in fact blends all ten Essentials of D&D together. There would be no such game were it not for that creative college kid from Minnesota who dreamt up the perfect, heady concoction for endless entertainment.

~Sham, Quixotic Referee