Only a brief post this morning but I just wanted to comment on a few things that Dave Arneson created and was using in Blackmoor before he traveled to Lake Geneva to introduce the game to Gygax, Kuntz and a few others.
The dungeon crawl and the whole dungeon trope.
The sandbox style of play (old school play) where the decisions and actions of the players interacting with the campaign world define and shape the campaign.
Dave's pre-Gygax games included all the basics, things like experience, levels, hit points, dice and tables and many other things.
A unique way of running magic was used and a spell point system was used (yeah spell points can be old school, who knew)
Magic swords got a very complete treatment back in those pre-Gygax days.
Briefly used Chainmail and then abandoned it to create his own combat system based on an unpublished American Civil War Naval game, because Chainmail was inadequate and inappropriate to the task, all in the pre-Gygax days.
Invented and used the character attributes (Str, Dex, Con, etc.)
Unique dragons that were significant in the campaign.
Players also played things like balrogs and vampires.
Interaction and travel between different worlds and time periods.
Aliens and the presence of some high tech.
The Egg of Coot and other iconic highly unique BBEG;s.
The Temple of the Frog, the first written adventure, and no the idea was not to sell an endless series of modules, it was written as one an example and two to show some of the flavor of Blackmoor.
That is just barely scratching the surface with a little very fast stream of consciousness post.
The dungeon crawl and the whole dungeon trope.
The sandbox style of play (old school play) where the decisions and actions of the players interacting with the campaign world define and shape the campaign.
Dave's pre-Gygax games included all the basics, things like experience, levels, hit points, dice and tables and many other things.
A unique way of running magic was used and a spell point system was used (yeah spell points can be old school, who knew)
Magic swords got a very complete treatment back in those pre-Gygax days.
Briefly used Chainmail and then abandoned it to create his own combat system based on an unpublished American Civil War Naval game, because Chainmail was inadequate and inappropriate to the task, all in the pre-Gygax days.
Invented and used the character attributes (Str, Dex, Con, etc.)
Unique dragons that were significant in the campaign.
Players also played things like balrogs and vampires.
Interaction and travel between different worlds and time periods.
Aliens and the presence of some high tech.
The Egg of Coot and other iconic highly unique BBEG;s.
The Temple of the Frog, the first written adventure, and no the idea was not to sell an endless series of modules, it was written as one an example and two to show some of the flavor of Blackmoor.
That is just barely scratching the surface with a little very fast stream of consciousness post.
Very very well done!
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