# A semi-brief history of D&D and some other RPGs: 1967-1979



## Primal (Apr 14, 2010)

Nice work! TD, could you perhaps list your sources?


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## Doug McCrae (Apr 14, 2010)

TerraDave said:


> Braunstein is developed and refereed by David Wells.



I believe that should be David Wesely.

Chivalry & Sorcery, published in 1977, is probably worth mentioning. It went down the path of realism & detail, with a more solidly historical medieval milieu and more complex rules than OD&D.


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## darjr (Apr 14, 2010)

I really dig this kind of history.

One of the interesting bits I've recently heard is that Dave Hargrave was originally going to be the designer for Runequest.

I think it was the 50th episode of 2d6 feet podcast. Can anyone else second source it?


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## TerraDave (Apr 14, 2010)

Primal said:


> Nice work! TD, could you perhaps list your sources?




Thanks. Mostly wikipedia and own knowledge, but I will try to do so some footnotes. And suggest some other sources. There is a lot of great info out there. 



Doug McCrae said:


> I believe that should be David Wesely.




Thanks also. Will fix. 



darjr said:


> I really dig this kind of history.




Glad you like it. regarding the part of your post I just accidently deleted, was he in the bay area, where I am pretty sure that Chaosium crew got started.


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## weem (Apr 14, 2010)

Really cool stuff 



>




I have a bunch of these (well, these books from that time - I have all in this pic except for the reference sheets)... somewhere around 15 (2 are duplicates) - some of my favorites to browse from time to time.

Thanks for sharing!


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## darjr (Apr 14, 2010)

TerraDave said:


> was he in the bay area, where I am pretty sure that Chaosium crew got started.




Dave Hargrave? I don't know. After he died he was laid to rest there, I think.


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## Wombat (Apr 14, 2010)

Yeah, Hargrave had a gameplace out in Concord, CA, I believe, but it might have been Pleasant Hill -- that area at least, inland from San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, et alia.

I had a couple of friends who gamed with him early on.  They found his games to be very ... different...


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## TerraDave (Apr 14, 2010)

thanks for the feedback. 

Planning on adding the following:

1976

Fantasy Line miniatures by Mier produced by Ral Partha. Ral Partha would grow from a hobbyist to a professional operation by 1979 and produce vast numbers of fantasy miniatures over the coming years.  

1977

Chivalry and Sorcery by Simbalist and Backhaus published by Fantasy Games Unlimited. One of the first of many games created in response to D&Ds lack of realism, C&S was more complex and more closely tied to its medieval and Arthurian source material, while still retaining elements of Tolkien’s familiar fantasy (so much so that some had to be removed in latter printings for copy right reasons).

EDIT: Will also mention a little company called Games Workshop.


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## Ed_Laprade (Apr 15, 2010)

You might also consider mentioning Villians and Vigilantes. I understand that the first edition came about by houseruling OD&D until it got turned into a superhero game. Not sure about the year, sometime in the mid 70s I believe.


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## Glyfair (Apr 15, 2010)

Ed_Laprade said:


> You might also consider mentioning Villians and Vigilantes. I understand that the first edition came about by houseruling OD&D until it got turned into a superhero game. Not sure about the year, sometime in the mid 70s I believe.



1979 according to Shannon Appelcline's History of the Game columns.  He has a lot of dates and histories of the lot of the companies.


darjr said:


> One of the interesting bits I've recently heard is that Dave Hargrave was originally going to be the designer for Runequest.



According to Shannon's history, this isn't quite right.  Instead it was going to be Chaosium publishing the Arduin Grimoire, but they decided it was too derivative of D&D instead of its own system.  (And Shannon has had a very close relation with RQ, Glorantha and Chaosium).


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## Stormonu (Apr 15, 2010)

TerraDave said:


> thanks for the feedback.
> 
> Planning on adding the following:
> 
> ...




If you're going to mention 'Partha, I think you should also put in a notation for Grenadier Models, which did the first _official _D&D minis back in '79.


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## Ariosto (Apr 15, 2010)

> Traveler by Miller published by Game Designers Workshop




That's _*Traveller*_, with two "L"s.


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## Doug McCrae (Apr 15, 2010)

John Kim has a good timeline of rpgs.


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## Tav_Behemoth (Apr 15, 2010)

I had a few cavils in the early part:
- in the Braunstein games, all players were not commanding troops (some were generals, but separated from their men); one of the things that made it a proto-RPG was the one player = one character focus

 - it's worth mentioning the Domesday Book, where Arneson likely saw the Chainmail miniatures rules prior to their publication elsewhere and published the first description of the Blackmoor campaign

- the Dungeoneer fanzine deserves mention as another source of published adventures (and surprisingly sophisticated ones!) in 1976

However, I didn't know that some Holmes sets were published without dice due to the oil shortage! My first set was one of these, but I don't think I bought it until '80; I could never figure out why it had some late-period things (like a copy of B2 instead of B1) but such a seemingly primitive randomizer. Now I know, thanks!


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## TerraDave (Apr 15, 2010)

Stormonu said:


> If you're going to mention 'Partha, I think you should also put in a notation for Grenadier Models, which did the first _official _D&D minis back in '79.




Do you have a source, I saw conflicting things on this, one saying 79 (when I think they incorporated) another saying 81.


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## TerraDave (Apr 15, 2010)

Tav, thanks for the details.

There were a lot of early fanzines, so while I welcome there mention here, not sure I will add to the list. But I'll think on it a little more.


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## TerraDave (Apr 15, 2010)

More things I will add. Thanks again to everyone for their feedback:

1975

Boothill by Blume and Gygax published by TSR games. Focused on gun fighting, the game did have rules for advancement and can be considered the first non-fantasy RPG. It would also be one of the first to use primarily d10s and percentile based skills. The 1979 2nd edition would include counters and an early battle mat. 






1977

White Dwarf magazine launched by Games Workshop. Games Workshop, founded by  John Peake, Ian Livingstone, and Steve Jackson (of the UK) in 75 also received the license to produce D&D in the UK this year and for many years White Dwarf would have articles for that and other role playing game. It would open its first retail shop the following year and receive licenses for Call of Cthulhu, Runequest, and other games.  

1979

Villains and Vigilantes by Herman and Dee published by Fantasy Games unlimited. The first supers RPG, the character was to be similar to the player, but with random super powers. A table was used in resolving combat and to show how the attackers super powers would work versus the defenders powers. Jeff Dee is also an artist who would do the illustrations for this  and other games, including D&D.


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## TerraDave (Apr 15, 2010)

Ok, here are some links. Most are pretty obvious to many you, I still hope they are usefull to some:

The Acaeum

Dungeons & Dragons - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

GROGNARDIA
(for the above, try the history and old school labels)

Pen & Paper RPG Database

Judges Guild - Product List

Early American Wargaming « On War and Words
(the above for Braunstein)


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## Glyfair (Apr 16, 2010)

TerraDave said:


> Villains and Vigilantes by Herman and Dee published by Fantasy Games unlimited. The first supers RPG....



No, that would be Superhero 2044.  I used to own it, but I never understood it.  I didn't start playing superhero RPGs until Champions.


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## Primal (Apr 16, 2010)

TerraDave said:


> Thanks. Mostly wikipedia and own knowledge, but I will try to do so some footnotes. And suggest some other sources. There is a lot of great info out there.




My thesis dealt -- in part -- with the history of RPGs. As I'm Finnish, I used a lot of sources published in my native language, but Gary Alan Fine's 'Shared Fantasy' was one of the books in English I used (despite being published in 1983, it's a very relevant source). Anyway, I just thought that if anyone else on this board wants to find reliable sources (printed or digital) they could use this thread to identify them.


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## Mark (Apr 16, 2010)

1976 - Swords & Spells - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


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## Stormonu (Apr 16, 2010)

TerraDave said:


> Do you have a source, I saw conflicting things on this, one saying 79 (when I think they incorporated) another saying 81.




This was what I found from Wikipedia on Grenadier Miniatures

Basically, founded in '72, and started producing official D&D minis in '79 until '82. From box backs I have seen on sites, they had boxed miniatures as early as 1980, if not before.  It looks like in '79 they started with a line of gamma world minis.[1]


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## grodog (Apr 17, 2010)

Dave---

A few corrections and other sources for you:

- Chainmail always had the fantasy supplement within it; see Chainmail vs. Tome of Treasures - D&D

- White Dwarf magazine was predated by the GW fanzine/newsletter Owl & Weasel (which was predated by Dungeoneer, which was predated by Alarums & Excursions; all of which were preceded by the Domesday Book and many other Dippy and wargames zines)

- Ral Partha was founded in 1974 per Tom Meier; Grenadier was founded in 1975 by Andrew Chernak and Ray Rubin, (per Terrence Gunn's Fantastic Worlds of Grenadier)

Other stuff to consider adding:

- 1976 the S4 module is titled Lost Caverns of Tsojconth (not Tsojcanth); for some additional background/comparisons, see my S4 page @ Greyhawk's "Lost" Dungeon Levels: S4 The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth
- 1975 I've also heard En Garde billed as the 2nd RPG, FWIW
- 1974 TSR publication of Warriors of Mars, unlicensed by the Burroughs estate
- 1973 TSR's first publication, Cavaliers & Roundheads

Some more sources:

- [ame="http://www.amazon.com/Heroic-Worlds-History-Guide-Playing/dp/0879756535/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1271477692&sr=8-1"]Heroic Worlds by Lawrence Schick[/ame]

- Tome of Treasures :: Index is a good source to supplement the Acaeum with (and it supercedes the Acaeum in several areas, notably non-TSR D&D, minis, non-D&D rpgs, wargames, and fanzines)

- www.afterglow2.com for non-TSR D&D stuff (has some stuff not in ToT above), as well as the original Afterglo, now only in the internet archive @ http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.stud.uni-hamburg.de/users/afterglo/rpg/nontsr.html

- all D&D licensed minis are detailed at Ernst Wilhelm's The Miniature Art of Dungeons and Dragons


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## Ariosto (Apr 17, 2010)

Ooh, yes, on _En Garde_! Definitely an RPG, but very different from the D&D model.

- 1976 *Bunnies & Burrows* (FGU) depicted rabbits like those in Richard Adams' besteller _Watership Down_.


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## Lanefan (Apr 17, 2010)

Tav_Behemoth said:


> I had a few cavils in the early part:
> - in the Braunstein games, all players were not commanding troops (some were generals, but separated from their men); one of the things that made it a proto-RPG was the one player = one character focus ...



I can vouch for this.

At last year's GenCon Col. Wesely ran a Braunstein session as an off-the-grid event; I was fortunate enough to participate, and it is very definitely one player ==> one character.

However, I came away thinking that while it might well have been the first RPG, it was without a doubt the first LARP. (assuming it was run in 2009 the way it was in 1967, we were certainly given the impression that it was)

Lanefan


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## Mircoles (Apr 17, 2010)

"(except in 79, when the oil shortage led chits to be used instead)"

So that's why I didn't get dice with my BD&D set. 

Stupid oil embargo.


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## darjr (Apr 17, 2010)

And as far as I know Alarums & Excursions is still available for subscription. It's a photocopied zine and you can only subscribe via snail mail.

Oops, scratch that, I guess you can get a word or pdf file. And they take paypal. OMG!

Son of a gun, pdf and paypal? Wow, the end is nigh.


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## TerraDave (Apr 17, 2010)

All, please keep the comments coming. 

Note that I will not mention everything, by design. This becomes more important as we move into the next bit, and the stuff out there just explodes. 




Glyfair said:


> No, that would be Superhero 2044.  I used to own it, but I never understood it.  I didn't start playing superhero RPGs until Champions.




So you are the one. I will edit the entry...but am deeming SH2044 to "not be noteworthy"



Primal said:


> My thesis dealt -- in part -- with the history of RPGs. As I'm Finnish, I used a lot of sources published in my native language, but Gary Alan Fine's 'Shared Fantasy' was one of the books in English I used (despite being published in 1983, it's a very relevant source). Anyway, I just thought that if anyone else on this board wants to find reliable sources (printed or digital) they could use this thread to identify them.




Heroic Worlds by Lawrence Shick--also mentioned by Grodog--is probably the one go to book out there. It even covers Braunstein in some detail. My edition was from 91, so it does sort of stop in the middle. 

WotC included a history of TSR in the 25th aniversary boxed set (greatest most awesome RPG thingy of all time, but that is another story). This, or something close to it, may still be on their website. Their is also the 30th aniversary D&D book. I highly recomend both.   



Mark said:


> 1976 - Swords & Spells - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia




Its one I own, and I left it off on purpose. It was not touted as "Supplement V" and was a minis product, not an RPG, or ur-RPG. And it was sort of a flop. I am pretty sure Chainmail was in print after it.

Fun Question!: What other 70's D&D stuff from TSR is not included?



grodog said:


> Dave---
> 
> A few corrections and other sources for you:
> 
> - Chainmail always had the fantasy supplement within it; see Chainmail vs. Tome of Treasures - D&D



 I have multiple sources saying--including WotCs history--that 69 had man to man and 72 had the supplement.  Have you seen the 69 printing, and did it have lighting bolt and treants in it? 



> - 1975 I've also heard En Garde billed as the 2nd RPG, FWIW




There is a bunch of these, arguably including Boothill, of essentially man to man table top war games with a bare, bare minimum of additional material that might lead it to be construed to be an RPG. I am not including most of them. 

Fun Question: What other almost RPGs were left of the list? What about the two from Steve Jackson (of Texas)?



> - all D&D licensed minis are detailed at Ernst Wilhelm's The Miniature Art of Dungeons and Dragons




Grodog, thanks for this and everything else!


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## Mark (Apr 17, 2010)

TerraDave said:


> Its one I own, and I left it off on purpose. It was not touted as "Supplement V" and was a minis product, not an RPG, or ur-RPG. And it was sort of a flop. I am pretty sure Chainmail was in print after it.





It's a mistake, IMO, to leave it off a history of D&D precisely because it was not well received.  It signaled both an end to the (O)D&D supplements (of which it is indeed comsidered Supplement V) and its reception made it clear that Chainmail (active/in print until 1985, IIRC) was not going to be dethroned as the underlying Mass Combat rules for the game.  It may have been pivotal in the decision making process that led toward focusing on RPGs, away from wargames, and in moving forward with the dual lines of Basic D&D and AD&D.  Sometimes the failures can tell you more than the successes.  Anyway, that's my analysis as someone who was gaming (wargames and RPGs) since the early seventies and watched what was happening, though admittedly not as an industry person.  If you could get Tim Kask to comment on it, he might have keener insight on the matter, since he did the editing and layout.


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## Alzrius (Apr 17, 2010)

Mark, from what I can tell, despite how The Acaeum has grouped it, _Swords & Spells_ doesn't seem to ever have had "Supplement V" on its cover (maybe it was on an interior page?).

That said, I still think it should be included in this listing.


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## Mark (Apr 17, 2010)

Alzrius said:


> Mark, from what I can tell, despite how The Acaeum has grouped it, _Swords & Spells_ doesn't seem to ever have had "Supplement V" on its cover (maybe it was on an interior page?).





Yup, not on the cover, nor interior, though the introductions by Kask and Gygax make it clear that this is to be used with D&D and that it cannot be used without the D&D booklets that led up to it and that it is very much a D&D booklet in its own right.


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## grodog (Apr 18, 2010)

TerraDave said:


> So you are the one. I will edit the entry...but am deeming SH2044 to "not be noteworthy"




I'm not sure I'd go quite that far, but I do agree that it remains pretty obscure.  It did have some supplements and adventures published for it, so it's not like it was a '90s one-book wonder 



TerraDave said:


> Heroic Worlds by Lawrence Shick--also mentioned by Grodog--is probably the one go to book out there. It even covers Braunstein in some detail. My edition was from 91, so it does sort of stop in the middle.




Yeah, and unfortunately it seems like we won't see an updated HW in the future.  



TerraDave said:


> WotC included a history of TSR in the 25th aniversary boxed set (greatest most awesome RPG thingy of all time, but that is another story). This, or something close to it, may still be on their website. Their is also the 30th aniversary D&D book. I highly recomend both.




There are numerous errors in the 30th anniversary book, so I'd be very cautious about relying on it it too heavily; the 25th anniversary book was based on an in-house-only 20th anniversary book, and is a better source.

Another good source:  Robin Laws' and Michelle Nephew's [ame="http://www.amazon.com/Years-Gen-Con-Robin-Laws/dp/1589780973/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1271559241&sr=1-11"]40 Years of Gencon[/ame] retrospective.



TerraDave said:


> Its one I own, and I left it off on purpose. It was not touted as "Supplement V" and was a minis product, not an RPG, or ur-RPG. And it was sort of a flop. I am pretty sure Chainmail was in print after it.




Chainmail and OD&D were printed through the early '80s, so I'm pretty sure they outlasted Swords & Spells, at least in terms of sales/popularity.



TerraDave said:


> Fun Question!: What other 70's D&D stuff from TSR is not included?




Quite a bit, actually.  TSR published many boardgames and wargames through ~1980, among them:

- 1974: BioOne (a booklet of hit location charts)
- 1975: Dungeon! boardgame, Fight in the Skies (aka, Dawn Patrol)
- 1976: Lankhmar boardgame, Battle of the Five Armies (another unlicensed Tolkien game...)
- 1978: Tom Wham's short-box versions of Awful Green Things from Outer Space and Snits Revenge
- 1979: Divine Right, one of TSR's best non-D&D titles ever published

A good source for more info here is ToT @ Tome of Treasures :: View Forum - TSR Games as well as the Acaeum wiki @ Main Page - Acaeum (in particular the TSR entry)



TerraDave said:


> I have multiple sources saying--including WotCs history--that 69 had man to man and 72 had the supplement.  Have you seen the 69 printing, and did it have lighting bolt and treants in it?




I own a contemporary photocopy of a Guidon Chainmail's Fantasy Supplement (from a 2nd printing in 1972), but I don't own a 1st edition Guidon Chainmail, which as far as I know dates from 1971, not 1969:  where's the '69 coming from Dave?---is that based on the rules appearing in The Domesday Book at some point??  All that said, Paul "The_Collectors_Trove" Stormberg has done extensive (and expensive!) research on the printings of Chainmail, so I'll double-check these facts with him too.



TerraDave said:


> There is a bunch of these, arguably including Boothill, of essentially man to man table top war games with a bare, bare minimum of additional material that might lead it to be construed to be an RPG. I am not including most of them.




Very reasonable 



TerraDave said:


> Grodog, thanks for this and everything else!




Happy to help!


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## Ariosto (Apr 18, 2010)

> There is a bunch of these, arguably including Boothill, of essentially man to man table top war games with a bare, bare minimum of additional material that might lead it to be construed to be an RPG. I am not including most of them.



If even BH is only "arguably" included in that category, then I don't see how EG should be.

Heck, if a rules set for "miniatures wargames campaigns" such as _Dungeons & Dragons_ has more than "a bare, bare minimum of additional material that might lead it to be construed to be an RPG", then certainly _En Garde_ -- which is *not at all* a "table top wargame" -- should qualify!

It has a _purely_ paper-and-pencil method for resolving duels, which is a very small (if very significant) part of a game taken up mainly with rules for:

status and social level (the object of the game!)
disgrace
carousing, gambling and toadying
courting or visiting a mistress
proposing to and marrying a mistress
conducting a liaison with another's mistress or wife
indiscretion
pregnancies
wives
bribery
assassination
being a cad
adultery
births
support
debt
joining a club
going to a bawdy house, club or party
holding a party
attending church or theater
renting, purchasing or moving residence
joining a regiment
going on campaign (abstracted, concern being mainly with mention in dispatches, promotion in rank, etc.)
investments
lackeys
applying for a position
titles
trials
using influence

(I don't have my old GDW book any more, so I may have included some bits from house rules -- but the majority are certainly representative of the tenor of the game as I encountered it in its "little brown book" in the '70s.)

It's your own judgment call, but that characterization struck me as so bizarre that I could only wonder whether you had any actual acquaintance with the game.


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## TerraDave (Apr 19, 2010)

Ariosto said:


> If even BH is only "arguably" included in that category, then I don't see how EG should be.
> 
> Heck, if a rules set for "miniatures wargames campaigns" such as _Dungeons & Dragons_ has more than "a bare, bare minimum of additional material that might lead it to be construed to be an RPG", then certainly _En Garde_ -- which is *not at all* a "table top wargame" -- should qualify!
> 
> ...




Acquaintance, of course not! There are so many of these (we are just getting started in Part I here). Just rellying on second hand accounts, and the old adds I saw in Dragon. 

Your list goes beyond what I have seen recounted elsewhere, but you feel confident on it?  In any case, over the weekend, I was leaning towards putting it in. There are a few of these marginal cases (including some that haven't come up yet in the thread) that I am still waffling on.


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## TerraDave (Apr 19, 2010)

grodog said:


> There are numerous errors in the 30th anniversary book, so I'd be very cautious about relying on it it too heavily;




Its a great book to look at, but it has very annoying slanty writting and is pretty week on this era. As it moves into the late 80's, and rellies more on first hand accounts, it gets better. 





> Chainmail and OD&D were printed through the early '80s, so I'm pretty sure they outlasted Swords & Spells, at least in terms of sales/popularity.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Ya, the 3 editions at once thing is something I will point out in part II. 

As for the missing stuff, what other D&D _specific_ items did I leave off? There is at least one more. 



> I own a contemporary photocopy of a Guidon Chainmail's Fantasy Supplement (from a 2nd printing in 1972), but I don't own a 1st edition Guidon Chainmail, which as far as I know dates from 1971, not 1969:  where's the '69 coming from Dave?---is that based on the rules appearing in The Domesday Book at some point??  All that said, Paul "The_Collectors_Trove" Stormberg has done extensive (and expensive!) research on the printings of Chainmail, so I'll double-check these facts with him too.




Ok, Heroic Worlds has 71 for first edition, 72 for a revised edition with the fantasy supplement. WotCs TSR history has 1969 for the first edition, 72 with the fantasy supplement. Wikipedia mentions the doomsday book, then implies one edition printed in 71. 

This is a problem. Anything more you can tell me would be appreciated.


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## TerraDave (Apr 19, 2010)

And 69 is mentioned a few places on the net, but does not quite fit with other dates. 

The acaeum says 71, and says there was a partial fantasy supplement, so I may have to go with that. 

Chainmail


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## The Shaman (Apr 19, 2010)

I'm going to second *Ariosto*: both _En Garde!_ and _Boot Hill_ are roleplaying games. _EN!_ skews toward the strategic side of gaming, but _Boot Hill_'s rules provide the same kinds of opportunities for roleplaying and character development as _OD&D_, _Metamorphosis Alpha_, and other games of the period.

Then there's _Dawn Patrol_, which is billed as a roleplaying game but is a real marginal case. Characters (pilots) advance in skill as they survive missions and make kills, and they receive medals for conduct and valor, and that's it for character definition. Roleplaying is very personal and informal, and given that the players are expected to avoid talking to each other about tactics during the game (no radios in the cockpits of a Fokker DVII or SPAD XIII), what passes for roleplaying takes place really before and after the game.


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## Mark (Apr 19, 2010)

Revisionist histories always seem less valuable than more complete versions.


Geomorphs, two kinds, Dungeon and Outdoor, are both missing, and they are both for use with Dungeons & Dragons.


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## TerraDave (Apr 19, 2010)

Mark, no idea what that means. (the first bit). All "histories" (if this can even be called that) includes some things and not others, by design. In any case, there is no way I can inlude all publications for TSR in the following parts, and why would I?

But you are right on the Geomorphs. The closely related Monster and Treasure Assortment is another one I cut.

Edit: of course, now the time-line is expanded. But I still need to reject "completism" as it will be impossible for the next part.


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## thalmin (Apr 20, 2010)

Stormonu said:


> If you're going to mention 'Partha, I think you should also put in a notation for Grenadier Models, which did the first _official _D&D minis back in '79.



 Although there was a line of Greyhawk minis from Minifiigs that predates the Grenadier official line. I believe the Grenadier line was the first official AD&D line.


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## thalmin (Apr 20, 2010)

TerraDave said:


> And 69 is mentioned a few places on the net, but does not quite fit with other dates.
> 
> The acaeum says 71, and says there was a partial fantasy supplement, so I may have to go with that.
> 
> Chainmail



I am looking at the second page of the 2nd Edition Chainmail. It lists 







> 1st Edition, Copyright 1971, Donald S. Lowry
> 2nd Edition, Copyright 1972, Donald S. Lowry



And it does, indeed, include the Fantasy Supplement. Sorry, I don't own a 1st ed.

edit Title page credits Gygax & Perrin, illustrated by Don Lowry


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## Ariosto (Apr 20, 2010)

> Your list goes beyond what I have seen recounted elsewhere, but you feel confident on it?



Extremely confident on:

social level, titles, influence (including influence of mistress)
courting
clubs, gambling, toadying
dueling
status points
regiments, campaign, battles
(death, mention in dispatches, promotion, plunder)
income
military and government appointments
embezzlement and civil unrest
trials

The dueling rules (basically an elaboration on "Scissors, Paper, Rock") are mostly right in the tables, and those take up about 1/8 the total space devoted to tables in a handout for a later (UK) edition that I think has just the same scope as the original.

If you have the first _The Best of The Dragon_, "Monkish Combat in The Arena of Promotion" is a kung fu adaptation of the EG dueling system.

I think what really trips up people is a tendency to think of RPGs as treating darned near everything at the scale at which EG treats only dueling. It's easy to forget that even in combat, OD&D was at a higher level (one-minute rounds) than the blow-by-blow. The next step up was the 10-minute turn (dungeon moves), then the day (wilderness moves). Weeks were the usual unit of campaign play. (Per Vol. 3, a week's dungeon adventure "considers only preparations and a typical, one day descent into the pits.")

Most popular RPGs _are_ primarily tactical games, concerned with combat and booby-traps and the like. What they are "about" beyond that is more nebulous, so rules for other things tend to one of:
(A) Rules? We don't need no stinking rules!
(B) Our rules include a list of skills that reads like a college course catalog.
(C) Ha! Our rules are all that _and_ a physics textbook.
(D) We have a universal resolution mechanic for anything and everything conceivable.

In _En Garde_, careers of social climbing rakes in 17th century Paris are what the game is about, and it has pretty tight rules for central issues in that. It is not about the % chance of climbing a garden wall, or such fine points of athletics. That's basically the opposite of the ranking of priorities in the most influential early reaction to D&D, which sought to do much the same tactical stuff with more "realism".

So, I think part of its significance lies in its having blazed a trail that, a couple of decades later, might be recognized as heading in at least one of the "new" directions of the "indy RPG" scene.


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## pemerton (Apr 20, 2010)

Ariosto said:


> In _En Garde_, careers of social climbing rakes in 17th century Paris are what the game is about, and it has pretty tight rules for central issues in that. It is not about the % chance of climbing a garden wall, or such fine points of athletics. That's basically the opposite of the ranking of priorities in the most influential early reaction to D&D, which sought to do much the same tactical stuff with more "realism".
> 
> So, I think part of its significance lies in its having blazed a trail that, a couple of decades later, might be recognized as heading in at least one of the "new" directions of the "indy RPG" scene.



This is a very interesting point about En Garde.


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## TerraDave (Apr 20, 2010)

All, thanks again for all this. 

I am on the verge of a big revision were I will add things I said I would, some things I said I wouldn't, and some other exciting bits.


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## Primal (Apr 20, 2010)

TerraDave said:


> Heroic Worlds by Lawrence Shick--also mentioned by Grodog--is probably the one go to book out there. It even covers Braunstein in some detail. My edition was from 91, so it does sort of stop in the middle.




Hmmm, now that you mentioned it, I *did* use some parts from that book. Note that my perspective was on RPGs as library material, so the history part only concentrated on major developments and RPG titles (hence I did not even mention Braunstein).


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## TerraDave (Apr 20, 2010)

Revision complete. 

Still open to comments. Starting the long slow work on the next part.


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## Doug McCrae (Apr 20, 2010)

You might find this interesting. It's an excerpt from an article by Gary Gygax, Origins of the Game, in Dragon #7



> When the International Federation of Wargaming was at its peak,
> it contained many special interest groups. I founded one of these, the
> “Castle & Crusade Society”. All members of this sub-group were
> interested in things medieval and I began publishing a magazine for
> ...


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## TerraDave (Apr 21, 2010)

Thats a great summary. 

I have read a _few_ of these lately, including from Gygax and Arneson at various points in time, and that is one of the best. 

I did try to touch on the various bits in the revised timeline. Though this makes clear the extent of cross fertilization in that key period.


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## grodog (Apr 27, 2010)

Sorry Dave, I haven't forgotten you, was just working in CA last week, and the timezone difference didn't let me catch up with Paul on the Chainmail versions/dates.  Or, is that a non-issue now??


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## TerraDave (Apr 27, 2010)

From what I could tell, you were right. 

The dates, or specifically 1969, in the TSR history just did not make sense given other information, so I changed it to 71 with a smaller fantasy supplement, with second edition in 72 with expanded supplement.


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## grodog (Apr 2, 2011)

Dave:  this thread over on the Acaeum list out a lot of nice info and photos about Megarry's Dungeon! boardgame:  http://www.acaeum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6126


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## Erik Mona (Apr 4, 2011)

Great thread.

I wote a lot about the early origins of D&D in an article for a book called Second Person, published by the MIT Press. It's available on Amazon [ame="http://www.amazon.com/Second-Person-Role-Playing-Story-Playable/dp/0262514184/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1301878014&sr=8-1"]HERE[/ame]. Folks interested in the topic might find some useful nuggets there, as I crawled through a lot of the period magazines and recollections and such. I seem to remember Arneson had a retrospective on his side of the Blackmoor/Greyhawk/D&D origin story in Heroic Worlds that shed a bit more light on things.

I love how this list pulls in stuff from other games at the time, too. That's very fascinating stuff.

--Erik


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## TerraDave (Apr 4, 2011)

Erik, thanks again.

Arneson's blurb in Heroic Worlds is pretty short. I think my favorite part is "contrary to rumor, the players and I were all quite in control of our mental processes when D&D was desinged". He does note that Chainmail wasn't _that_ important...


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## Ferghis (Apr 5, 2011)

I haven't read the whole thread, so someone might have already mentioned this, but a Dragonsfoot poster did an extensive job tracing the history of those D&D editions that came before the third one. Link.


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## TerraDave (Apr 6, 2011)

Its a nice thread, though I pretty much have all that, and a bit more.


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