Archived from groups: rec.games.frp.dnd (More info?)
I was just reading one of the articles in "Beyond Role and Play", a
collection of scholarly and semi-scholarly articles on RPGs, which can
be found for free at http://www.ropecon.fi/brap/ (it was "in search of
the self" by Paul Mason). Mason describes Gygax as being (only) the
"editor" of the original D&D game, and seems to claim Arneson wrote the
whole thing.
Has anyone ever heard *anything* that matches this? While there are
certainly those who think Arneson's contributions are underappreciated,
and some of his later treatment by Gygax and others does seem to have
been questionable, this is a new one, at least to me. I have never
before heard anyone claim Gygax didn't at least *co*-write OD&D [1] as
the credits say. Anyone know of anything, preferably from an unbiased
source, that backs Mason up?
**************
[1] I am well aware that Gygax is nowhere to be found in the credits for
Basic D&D, but contrary to popular belief (even among people who should
know better) that is a very different animal from the original D&D game,
and in fact the forms of it most of us know are more recent than AD&D.
If you cite anything from a BD&D book as supporting Mason's point, I
will almost certainly stop reading there on the grounds that you don't
know what you're talking about.
I was just reading one of the articles in "Beyond Role and Play", a
collection of scholarly and semi-scholarly articles on RPGs, which can
be found for free at http://www.ropecon.fi/brap/ (it was "in search of
the self" by Paul Mason). Mason describes Gygax as being (only) the
"editor" of the original D&D game, and seems to claim Arneson wrote the
whole thing.
Has anyone ever heard *anything* that matches this? While there are
certainly those who think Arneson's contributions are underappreciated,
and some of his later treatment by Gygax and others does seem to have
been questionable, this is a new one, at least to me. I have never
before heard anyone claim Gygax didn't at least *co*-write OD&D [1] as
the credits say. Anyone know of anything, preferably from an unbiased
source, that backs Mason up?
**************
[1] I am well aware that Gygax is nowhere to be found in the credits for
Basic D&D, but contrary to popular belief (even among people who should
know better) that is a very different animal from the original D&D game,
and in fact the forms of it most of us know are more recent than AD&D.
If you cite anything from a BD&D book as supporting Mason's point, I
will almost certainly stop reading there on the grounds that you don't
know what you're talking about.
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