D&D General Evidence from the Arneson vs Gygax court case, including early draft of D&D with notes

[Yaarel]

What page of this is that on? I'm only a few dozen pages in, and this PDF isn't searchable.

It is in An Interview with Dave Arneson, in The Space Gamer.

"
TSG: What do you hope to do in gaming over the next five or ten years?

Arneson: Computer and videogames are where the game industry is going, with a vengeance!! I hope to increase the emphasis on role playing adventure games, and get away from the purely fantasy type games. I especially want to get players away from the emphasis on booty and high body counts.

"

Keep in mind, Arneson says all this in 1978. Roleplaying games are going to shift to computers! He wants to see scifi adventures, etcetera, not just medieval fantasy. He "especially" wants to emphasize storytelling: "adventure", "roleplaying", "away from booty and high body counts".

 

[Irlo]

• "Fighter" is used interchangeably with "Fighting Men," (possibly?) disproving the idea that the class was ever supposed to be male-specific.

Based on the illustration of the mostly-naked warrior, I would guess that the class was not meant to be male-specific.

 

[Yaarel]

For Arneson, the Elf is pure Magic User to the highest levels.

For Gygax, the Elf is gish, but less competent at either Magic User or Fighter.

Both make the Dwarf a Fighter only, but it seems Gygax adds an antimagic theme.

 

[overgeeked]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that those are Gygax's notes, not Arneson's. Notice how, in the bottom left, they're all tagged as "DEFT'S EXH" and a number? That looks a lot like "defendant's exhibit." And the date for each is 7-18-79, which means they're part of the infamous Arneson v. Gygax case, where Gygax was the defendant.

Now, strictly speaking, that just establishes that these are exhibits put forward by Gygax in the case...but I find it hard to believe that he'd be putting forward exhibits that establish Arneson as having been the creative mind behind various aspects of the game. Hence my presumption that these are Gygax's notes.

No. We know from the court documents that’s a Gygax draft with Arneson’s notes.

We also know from other documents and histories that Arneson was the idea guy while Gygax was pushing to get it done. Dave gave Gary a bunch of loose, hand-written Blackmoor notes. Gary edited them and had them typed up. So it would go against everything we know about how they worked together for Dave to suddenly be the one providing Gary with typed drafts for notation.

Remember the case wasn’t about the authorship of OD&D, rather AD&D. Gary could have thought providing that document could show the kinds of contributions Dave made and by comparing those to where AD&D ended up, show that AD&D was Gary’s own “original” work.

 

[overgeeked]

Basically, Arneson invented D&D. However, the form in which it was published is mainly Gygaxs version of it.

And that’s what the court found.

 

[overgeeked]

What page of this is that on? I'm only a few dozen pages in, and this PDF isn't searchable.

Parts of the larger one are. Some of it’s OCR’ed.

 

[bedir than]

So the terrain around the dungeon will "always" be different? Random gates to far-flung worlds in the middle of the countryside? Man alive, talk about the "wild and woolly" days of gaming!

I was told that making D&D a multiverse was a 2024 WotC invention, and yet...

 

[Alzrius]

No. We know from the court documents that’s a Gygax draft with Arneson’s notes.

That's what I said (if I'm understanding you correctly). By "notes" I meant that the listings for the demons on pages 11 and 12 are "defendant's exhibits," and so seem (emphasis on "seem") to be Gary's.

 

[Alzrius]

Seems it was a way for players to bring their characters to any game despite what world it's set in. "All worlds are D&D and in flux." sort of thing

To be fair, the "flux" thing is mentioned elsewhere in the draft, in a notation that ultimately made it into the version of OD&D that saw commercial release, where (I think in the introduction) Gygax mentions that changes to the rules (e.g. if the DM decides to change how something works) are "fluxes in reality" or something to that effect.

Of course, that's not quite the same as having random tears in reality across the countryside, or the wilderness around the dungeon randomly changing all the time.

 

[Yaarel]

I've heard people talk about the dungeon as a "mythic underworld" in Original D&D, with doors that shut themselves and subdued monsters spontaneously losing their ability to see in the dark, but some of the stuff in this draft makes that sound tame compared to how crazy the rest of the world can be! Gary writes:

"Fluxes in the reality of the world will make many things uncertain. Riding over the terrain of the world surrounding the underground labyrinth will always be different. For example, there can be "gates" through which players will enter the primordial past, the world of Barsoom, Lankhmar, or a fantastical moon peopled by whatever creatures you desire. How about Pelucidar? Again, once in such places, how are the players to return? There must be a way somehow, but that is up to the referee to determine and the players to discover. (And who says space is airless in this world?)"

So the terrain around the dungeon will "always" be different? Random gates to far-flung worlds in the middle of the countryside? Man alive, talk about the "wild and woolly" days of gaming!

The part that caught my eye is Gygax describing his world for the city of "Greyhawk". (Draft for Dungeons & Dragons, PDF page 69).

Greyhawk is a fantasy version of the real world. Where there is an "India" in reallife, there is also a fantasy version of India in the Greyhawk setting.

"
In the Greyhawk game, the world is somewhat like the real one. Players who are incautious can get transported thousands of miles away, ... adventuring across a parallel worlds India. ... The mythology of each land can supply the referee [Dungeon Master] with a basis for their surroundings.

"

Greyhawk is intentionally a fantasy version of reallife human cultures.