Secrets of Blackmoor: A D&D Documentary

context for tonisborg

3/15/2023

The Lost Dungeons of Tonisborg is published which is wonderful, yet, there seems to be some confusion regarding the purpose of the book.

Dan and I had assumed most users of the book would understand the underlying premise being this:

Although the book is about the old dungeon maps, the only way to understand the maps is via a tutorial on play methods and a set of rules specifically designed for the play style for the time the maps come from.

Very simply, if the maps had been published as the section on history along with the maps, and without any of the other sections, the maps would have lost what they need most, which is context.

The only way to fully achieve the context within which the maps can be understood is through play.

Today I came across this review which appears on Reddit with a link to a blog review.

The Reddit post:
https://www.reddit.com/r/osr/comments/11ipa1b/weekly_osr_vlogblogroll_round_up/

The Blog post:
https://mystical-trash-heap.blogspot.com/2023/03/review-lost-dungeons-of-tonsiborg.html?m=1

These days people tend to get angry when confronted with criticism. I work to avoid reacting emotionally and engage with what I see in a review such as this. After all, I may be wrong and the reviewer may have a point after all.

What I think I see is a simple misunderstanding.

What follows is my response to the reddit post, which I am duplicating here:

The big complaint seems to be about the extra junk.

A lot of thought went into producing that book. The analysis of play technique was extensive. There are even new items and examples I have not seen anywhere else.

The rules draw extensively from pre-publication drafts, OD&D, and Gygax and Arneson house rules. Dan spent years on his rules and I expect as with all RPGs he is still updating his work.

My greatest concern is play technique. It is a dying art. I've watched people play RPGs and it seems like everything is more of a video game on paper - Tonisborg preserves the old ways, which are a verbal tradition for play that has been handed down player to player.

My background with D&D:
I started with Holmes Basic in '77 although I had played D&D on computers as early as '75. I actually thought DnD was originally a computer game and was delighted to discover a paper version. How clever to take a computer program and turn it into a game you play at home when you are away from the PLATO mainframe at CERL.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdPrzb534TY&t=297s

You can still play it at cyber1.org

The real treat on that system is the first multi player StarTrek battle and take over the universe game, Empire.

Most RPG gamers shy away from the kind of game I like, which is Grip it and Rip it computer gaming and war games. Yet, if you are interested in Empire, we need players. Get a Sign On and I will personally teach you how to play.

We are the oldest Multi Player Computer Gamers in history and our player base is literally dying. We can only muster about 6-8 players for the Sunday "Griff War" anymore.

I digress.

Back to Holmes...

I bought a copy of the 5e start set. I was curious, What is this game?

I could not make heads or tails of it. It is so poorly written and organized. It is nothing like my Holmes edition which gives you everything you need to know on how to play D&D in only 45 pages!

Tonisborg is a very old artifact that is very incomplete without an explanation on play and a set of rules.

Thus, the entire Tonisborg book has to be the way it is. For anyone who was not playing RPGs in the first 10 years there is no context for what Tonisborg is. To most gamers today it is just another set of maps. To publish it without a way to revive it would be a travesty as people would entirely misunderstand it.

Most of what exists in an RPG is what I call Informal play. It is the exchange between player and referee that is not covered by the rules. This is what the entire book discusses through example. Idealy, anyone purchasing the book will attempt to breath life into an old dungeon and play it. This is when the maps become what they truly are, which is a living thing as a game environment.

Old Refs will read the How to Play section and know all of those tricks. Yet, it is likely they will come upon something they used to do and for some reason stopped doing. Thus even an old hand may treat the play section as a refresher course on how to referee a solid game.

Champions of Zed - Dungeoneering Edition provides a complete system for resurrecting Tonisborg. Yet, Tonisborg is easily played with pure 3 LBB with or without supplements, all the way up to BX. I am about to do a TFT:ITL adaptation.

I can see why the reviewer has so many issues with the book. As the authors we have worked to provide an entire Time Machine Gaming Experience back to 1973 between the covers of Tonisborg.

The 3 sections are inseparable, or Tonisborg has no historical meaning that can be carried into the future.

To the author of the review:
Consider that your experience and knowledge may seem like common information on how to play an RPG, yet, what you do in a game resides within an oral history and tradition that could be lost. If the second and third parts of the book seem redundant to you, then the book has succeeded in preserving even your game methods for posterity, and they will now continue to be passed down through generations of gamers because you are part of this living game as well.

Thanks for the review - Griff

That's all I have for now.

Please tell a friend about Secrets of Blackmoor and Tonisborg by sharing our links on your social media.

We can only keep producing game related items such as the movie and book through grass roots support from you.

Thanks!

Griff

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Time and Sand

1/27/2023

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I found this on the web and have no idea what it is from

Sample Chapter from, The Essential Blackmoor
by Griffith Mon Morgan III Copyright 2023

Time and Sand - how and why to streamline your game

As a referee you have to contend with the desire players have for more powerful weapons and spells, and even more so, for rules systems that give them abilities that border on magical super power.

In order to operate the Blackmoor World setting I always will advocate for games with simpler mechanics and faster abstract combat because it allows for more exploration in a smaller amount of game time. Yet, there are issues that arise which are endemic to the role play format which I want to discuss.

A dilemma that will confront you as a game referee is that you must avoid granular play. By granular, I mean that time has slowed down and hardly anything is getting accomplished.

It is easy to get players to explore your game world in more detail and this takes more time to play through. When you want to give your players something to focus on, all you need to do is slow the game down by giving players information such as this:

“The elf feels a draft coming through cracks in the wall…”

“You can see some kind of writing on the floor…”

“You find a wooden chest hidden under a flag stone…”

Yes, players should be examining their surroundings closely for clues. And these clues become keys to guide them into exploring objects and places in more detail. The problem is - it can backfire!

Time is a problem when running a game; both in-game passage of time and real world time for a play session. Game referees always want to embellish setting with details. Often what happens is that something a referee is putting into a description in order to add more flavor becomes too interesting for some of the players. What was meant to add mood and ambience becomes a focus element and the players become obsessed with exploring it.

It can be almost anything. A small container that is one of many food jars, or a random non combat encounter with a person. What you as game referee wanted to skim over is now going to become the major focus of play for the next half an hour. What is worse, it has nothing to do with advancing the players through the real story of exploring and discovery. It is a dead end and a time waster.

The granules of sand are slipping through the hour glass and not a lot is actually happening despite a great deal of player chit chat and referee improvisation.

Many will argue that a good game referee should be willing to take this small and innocuous story element and weave it into an actual in-game element. I agree, it is a tough call as to when to expand on something and begin to invent an unplanned situation, and when to minimize the attention to detail the players can fall into.

The greater question is that you must weigh is the enjoyment your players get from such an event vs. the rewards they will get from the event.

Searching for Gold

For players, all rewards are gold. Whether it’s locating a secret door, beating some monsters in a battle, or actually finding make believe gold. All of this gives them feelings of accomplishment.

Motives for seeking rewards in a dungeon adventure are fairly straight forward. Players go to dungeons to find treasure and magic items. They may also be on a quest to solve some kind of problem. Wilderness and world exploration will likely have some purpose as well. Players need to travel to another town, or they want to get to the location of an old ruin. Yet, the reward, or goal, in either of these situations is a prize that has been placed in advance by you the referee, thus the purpose of the game is to reach an objective. This is true even if the players are merely exploring. The true objectives are the placed encounters in your adventure. These are the really shiny gold that may have all three elements of exploration and discovery, victory in battle, and magical treasure.

Of course, you also have to have time for unplanned random encounters and those must feel as ‘real’ as any of your placed encounters. Referee work can be hard.

It really comes down to whether there is more gold to be extracted from this mine, and I am being a bit prosaic here, yet the investment of time vs. returns has to be considered in every encounter. Players will want to dig deeper into a situation thinking they can get more proverbial gold out of it. They are having fun doing this, or at least that one player is having fun while the rest of the party is twiddling fingers. What if a situation is already mined for all the gold it can provide? What then?

The most painful aspect to these kinds of expansive non quests is that as the game referee you’ve spent hours preparing yourself to present a world to your players and they’ve somehow decided to do the equivalent of parking themselves somewhere in order to examine their own belly buttons.

As the game referee you know what is gold, and what isn’t, that’s the easy part. The hard part is how to guide players away from distraction so they can continue the quest.

This is true in my own game as well. A recent adventure to the Forest of Forgetfulness had the players entering a strange dimensional rift. They were literally exploring a soviet era secret military installation that they had gotten transported into. My players wanted to look in every nook and cranny in every place and thing they found. I had not planned for all of this and I was having to think fast about every little detail. Fortunately, I have explored many actual abandoned places and I could close my eyes and image what my players would be discovering.

The perfect memory for recall came from when Chris and I explored an entire derelict mining town in the mountains west of Denver and it didn't take much to see this in my mind for what I needed to describe to my players.

Some Tools You Can Use in Your Own Game Sessions

In a game, you really can’t break immersion with, “That’s not what I had planned for during this adventure, so you’re not going to get anything worthwhile out of doing that.”

We can all agree this is bad referee technique.

What referees need to do is develop tools for managing time granularity in their game.

Referees often use simple phrases such as “It looks harmless.” This is a short-cut when you want players to know they have to actually do something to find out what is going happen.

The same can be done to speed play. You can tell your players, “There doesn’t seem to be anything of value here.”

This only works some of the time.

Some of my players can be really tenacious and despite my signals stating that they are wasting time they will continue to persue worthless avenues of play. If you have a similar kind of player, it is at this point that you may need to teach them, or remind them, of how you run your game with, “I will let you know if you find anything that is relevant to your quest.”

Ok, this is not as bad as. “Stop doing that, I want you to go over here…” The experienced referees reading this may be squirming at this advice, because they feel that even random details are important to an adventure.

Allow me to add some context. My players are exploring a massive military research facility that takes up hundreds of square miles of land. They really can’t get granular with every single building they encounter. I will role play one building to get the feel of the place, but all the rest needs to be skimmed and time needs to dilate and move more quickly. In this situation, the players are examining the contents of old office desks that have already been broken and rifled through over decades of abandonment. They don’t need me to describe every address in an old rolodex they find lying on the floor. Time is going to go fast and in 15 minutes of real time 4 hours will have passed in the game world.

Step three in reducing granular play is to ask the players if they are looking for anything specific? Turn the game on the players and make them declare themselves!

Everyone twigged to what was going on as soon as I described the setting. The buildings weren’t medieval and certainly the garage full of work trucks was a good giveaway they weren’t in Blackmoor anymore. They were good about it and played along as if they had no idea what these things were. Even when they found the box full of live ammo they played along by saying, "These little metal sticks may be worth something."

Lots of knowing winks were also exchanged.

Obviously, they knew what kinds of things one might find there and they could avoid entirely ‘Metagaming’ by saying something like, “I am looking for anything I could use to do X thing”

To which I was able to respond, “Ok, if you see anything like that here, I will let you know.”

Lastly, you need a couple experienced players that are willing to help you out in keeping things on track.

It’s likely an experienced player has been a game referee themselves. And they can spot when players get too granular and detail focused as well as you can. They know exactly the kind of hell that players can put you into when all you want to do is get them to move to something more interesting to explore on a much larger scale.

Instead of talking to the player who is engaged in minutiae, you can turn to your helper player and say, “You don't sense there is more of interest to be found here.”

Your helper player will then interject and address the other players by suggesting to move along.

So far so good.

The other problem is when you are dealing with an encounter where players are speaking to a non player character. You really gotta cut these short sometimes. I will even go as far as suggesting that you need to railroad the encounter a little bit to keep things on track.

The encounter needs to let the players know whatever information they need for their adventure, but you must avoid chit chat.

Thus a NPC will provide this to players:

NAME: This is who I am (or who I want you to think I am.)
MOTIVE: This is why I am talking to you. (or what I want you to think my motive is.)
INFORMATION: This is what I can tell you. (Yes, I may be lying.)
OBJECTS: This is what I can give you in order to aid your quest. (Is this a gift or manipulation?)
CONCLUSION: I need to get going, I have to meet someone, are there any questions?

Don’t misunderstand me in wanting to speed play. This kind of encounter is generally meant to guide players forward, but they often get wrapped up in chit chat and wanting to know more than they need to know. So, yes, enjoy running the situation, and do not go too fast with it. Yet, the real goal is to advance the players along their way of seeing your world. If your players spend an hour here, then you may not have enough time left on game night to explore the places they are meant to find.

Referee skills are something that take time to develop. There are no hard rules for how to deal with every situation that will occur during a game. Over time one learns a greater ability to read players and know how to use what tools when.

I hope this sparks some new ideas for running your own games.

WE NEED YOUR HELP

If you enjoy this blog, or want to continue supporting Secrets of Blackmoor, consider renting the film on Vimeo and sending the code to a friend.

Or,

Share this link on your favorite gamer forum, or post it to your social media:
https://vimeo.com/ondemand/sobfinal

We do not have huge resources to market our projects. We rely on grass roots support by gamers like you.

Thank you so much, The Secret Team

(Chris, Griff, and everyone who helped make Secrets of Blackmoor possible.)

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ADD SALT FOR MORE FLAVOR

1/20/2023

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I’m no genius game referee. I am just a regular gamer like you who works to keep their game fresh for their players. In order to do this I try to expand on what is in the rules of my game. I do it in order to create more lore about what the people places and creatures that can be found in my world are like. I assume all referees do this with their game.

Often it is within the little details that one can expand their setting. Just take something seemingly ordinary and give it a little bit of a twist and you’ve added some flavor to your world setting that can be discovered by players.

Here is just one example for how to slightly alter what is written in the game rules in order to add flavor.

SALT

Salt is a very valuable commodity in early cultures. So much so that it has been attributed with both magical and economic value. Don’t believe me, here is a link proving that salt has the power to ward off evil spirits.

https://www.yourcentralvalley.com/news/u-s-world/man-pours-salt-on-feet-to-ward-off-evil-spirits-at-walmart/

Now that I have established the real world power of Salt Magic via Scientific Research and web sourced corroboration we can move on to applying this to our RPG games.

Many traditional warding concoctions use common herbs mixed into salt such as Rosemary. The resulting mix is known as Black Salt. My encounter only has salt, but you may want do some some research of your own.

I have a tendency to riff off of tiny comments people make. The other day someone mentioned that one of the D&D books has a passage saying that zombies are somehow averse to salt. I can’t recall what book this comes from and I am too lazy to look it up right now. What matters is that I got to thinking and quickly added a zombie salt encounter to my next week's game session.

Salt vs. Zombies:

In AD&D Zombies are hurt by flasks of holy water. In OD&D this does not apply.

Let’s change zombies and make it so they will not approach salt. Why? Because salt has purifying magic in it.

Thus a solid line of salt on the ground, say an inch or more in width, is enough to keep zombies from advancing across it.

A line across the typical 10 foot wide passage would require several pounds of salt to create a barrier large enough to deter zombies.

Throwing salt on zombies might be another tactic, but I think most of it would fall off of them and it might cause them to be confused for 1-2 combat rounds is all.

Immersing a zombie in salt might paralyze them.

Salt does not harm zombies, it merely confuses them and keeps them at bay.

A Zombie Room

Our players arrive at a place where someone has placed a treasure in a chest.

What they see as they come down a hallway is what appears to be a sack leaning against the wall and a scattering of pure white powder across the floor. Foot steps can be seen that may have scattered the powder, yet the powder effectively covers a 10 x 10 foot area. An examination reveals this may be salt. A tasting 100% verifies this for the players.

The sack leaning against the wall is partly empty and still contains about 4 pounds of salt.

About 30 more feet farther and the players come upon a closed door at the dead end of the passage. It seems to open outward and there are wood wedges jammed into the door to keep it from opening.

The players can listen, but zombies do not make noise, so they will not detect anything.

If the players remove the wedges they can pull the door open. Roll for success and surprise as always.

What do you want to do?

Now it is up to the players to decide what they want to do.

The clues are there for them to deduce a non combat solution.

If they retreat back to the salt the Zombies will only chase them as far as the salt on the floor.

Arrows, pole weapons, even ten foot poles can then be used to beat them into submission. Yet, some may simply wander back away from the salt.

It really is up to you how you handle specifics. In my case a player opted to carry the salt bag. This was enough to keep the Zombies from outright attacking. I did do a 50% chance that a zombie would wander close and take a swipe at the PC. I rolled to hit and to do damage, if they did hit, another D20 roll equal or under Dexterity for the PC would be required to keep from dropping the salt bag which could spell disaster for a lone PC in a room full of zombies.

Once inside the zombie room the players found a half circle line of salt poured near the back wall that encircled a treasure chest. It makes sense that the treasure chest had to be guarded from having the zombies gnawing on it - they do get bored and chew on things.

In my game the players have entered a dimensional rift called the Zone. The treasure chest turned out to be an ammo box full of bullets. This is a group of adventurers who came from medieval Blackmoor and they have yet to discover guns.

Of course anyone they encounter who has a gun will know how to use it. An encounter with an armed NPC is sure to come in the near future much to my game group's dismay.

Now It's Your Turn

Ok, this is not the kind of encounter that will make or break an adventure. My main reason for sharing this is to hopefully re-inspire some of you about going a tiny bit farther when creating encounters.

Yes, you can make a combat and treasure situation into an easy puzzle for your players to solve.

You probably have similar ideas in the back of your mind already. See if you can create just three little situations for your players to resolve using their brains.

Keep Gaming and Having Fun with Friends!

SECRETS of BLACKMOOR part II

If you are reading this Blog you likely have already seen Secrets of Blackmoor.

The other day Chris and I had a long meeting where we reviewed projected costs for making the follow up film a.k.a. Part II: Imaginary Worlds.

We would love to use more of the footage we have and also get more interviews that talk specifically about Blackmoor and maybe even some other early RPG settings.

In order to raise funds for another film we will need to do a KickStarter project and its success will rely on how many people have already seen the first film. It will be an all or nothing 'make it or break it' KickStarter with a very high goal minimum to reach funding.

I urge everyone to keep telling gamer friends about the film and sharing the link to this website everywhere.

Where else can you think of that gamers may not have heard about Secrets of Blackmoor?

We really appreciate all the support you've already given us. We work hard to produce things that have value to you. Don't worry, we're still working on other games too!

Thanks so much, The Secret Team (Everyone involved in the making of Secrets of Blackmoor)

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The Lost Sci-Fi RPg's By the Snider Brothers

1/9/2023

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Image source: Wayne's Books

Photo of one of the boxes we found while making Secrets of Blackmoor

Today I just want to tease a couple of RPG games we are interested in publishing.

Mutant by Richard Snider

Star Master by John Snider

I was chatting on reddit and we got onto the subject of Gamma World and other variants.

I posted this:

Metamorphosis Alpha was published in 1976.

TSR had copies of Mutant, but due to conflicts with Dave Arneson they were rejecting any games produced in the Twin Cites.

It is suspected they reverse engineered Mutant to create MA. The author likely had no idea of the previous game, he was merely told concepts. I personally do not believe James Ward willfully copied the concept. He was merely told of a game idea by Gary Gygax in conversation and built from that.

The same is said about the third volume from the Star Probe + Star Empire series titled, Star Master. TSR was in possession of a draft which had been submitted and they never returned. It became Star Frontiers and the original was suppressed. It seems likely even if the mechanical aspects do not match, the idea was plagiarized from the drafts.

Both games are by the Snider brothers who it should be noted were original Blackmoor players before D&D is published.

Thus the sequence for those games is:

Richard Snider, Mutant in the early 70's > Ward with MA by TSR 1976 > Ward with Gamma World by TSR 1978 > full color boxes and drafts exist for a later attempt at publication of Mutant by Adventure Games in the mid 80's.

John Snider, Space Campaign which Arneson dubbed Stellar 7 in 1973 > Star Probe '75 > Star Empire '77 > Star Master draft never published > A print out draft and typed fragments exist of Star Master which was slated for publication by Adventure Games in the 80's > TSR Star Frontiers '82.

The Wikipedia entry states that the artwork for SP and SE was done by Paul Snider and that the layouts were done by MMSA members.

Perhaps a telling clue about the possible plagiarism is the absence of space ship rules in both the Star Master Draft as well as Star Frontiers. Snider's game was intended as an expansion on his rules for space exploration and empire scale space campaign rules which do cover space travel and space ships. Star Frontiers did not include space ships in the original game, adding them later in an expansion set. We likely will never have a concrete answer, yet, it does lead to conjecture.

The question is whether anyone would want a hard copy of either of these games.

Thanks, from The Secret Team

As always, tell a friend about Secrets of Blackmoor: The True History of Dungeons & Dragons

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MAKING LORE FOR YOUR CAMPAIGN

12/15/2022

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I am running a game tonight and I need some lore to help develop my arc story, and yes, I wait until the last minute to prep for game night - It’s how I roll.

Creating lore for your campaign is actually really easy. You see, most gamers aren’t that picky and what they like is a bit of cheese and campiness mixed with pseudo poetics.

Additionally, “perfection is the death of creativity” - Chris tells me this when I get pinned on some minor detail and feel paralyzed for a week. For your own campaign no one will read what you write but your gamer group. They won’t be very critical because you can write things that are easily better than anything being produced by WOTC in the past few years. Their writers are all hacks and you can and will do better!

Above all - this is supposed to be fun. It’a called gaming for a reason.

Let’s start!

The Fall of Ghebelin

And the Elfaren ever deceitful small minded and cultivators of jealousies did secretly conjure an abomination to unleash upon the land and all the decent citizens and a great cloud gathered and rolled slowly like boiling water a dark curtain over the warmth of the sun and the giving night sky of she of a thousand eyes as it grew and grew ever outward obfuscating of the everything it touched with choking dust and putrid festering spell linger

Ok, what am I doing here?

I’m name dropping. Some bad people are doing bad things.

Instead of saying exactly what things are I am using adjectives to describe things as being like other things. Yup, Similes!

Hmmm.. She of a thousand eyes?

Ok, here is more…

And the greatest queen of the Ghebelin who ever ruled in the blessed heavens on this earth could sense a presence of the unknown and gathered her advisors unto herself and summoned the seekers who cast the divination sticks at the ground and the wands revealed dark paths fraught aplenty with many doors which cannot be opened and sit silent and mute and a dark fate as hard as stone

Notice the lack of punctuation? Yep, ancient writing should be sans punctuation just to age-ify it.

More name dropping and describing who these people are. Easy peasy, you can do this too.

And then I use verbs to name who and what people are - seekers. Oh, they do some kind of divination, they’re soothsayers!

And I add in a bit of weirdness by hinting at fate being closed doors - oh oh , badness is coming.

In this last moment of her rule the queen gave unto her faithful Duaraven cohort the ancient scrolls of the Ghebelin the crowns of power which adorn the wisest of her nobles and the blood seed sapphire pulled from her own diadem and bid him go to and forth and with great effort conceal for near an eternity all these sacred gifts with cleverness and cunning in readiness for her return in ten thousand thousand flights of the three sisters

More names, Duaraven, hmmm wonder who they are, Ghebelin, err… huh? And we’ve already had Elfarren.

If you want it to seem like some old lost scroll make sure to use bad grammar too. Back in ye olden days no one had a copy of, The Elements of Style.

Gee, you’d think I was bopping my players on the nose with these names. Sure sounds like Dwarves, Goblins, and Elves. A tee and hee and another hee.

Don’t obscure it too much. It’s just a dumb Elf Game so put neon signs on things to point the way and speed things up. Also, the players who are either elves or dwarves are now wondering what is going on here. Things are about to get really crazy in the campaign.

What about these scrolls, crowns and blood seed sapphire - oooh, ancient relics!

And then the great queen leading her retinue of nobles lords and maids descended into her sacred underworld of the palace where they await in court stepped outside of the riverine time until the day of reckoning when the Ghebelin shall rise once again to assemble a great legion of faithful and avenge themselves upon the cruel Elfarren traitors

Ok, so some queen is now dead, or is she? She’s promising to come back?

This is really weird stuff here.

And the mountains and the great cities fell ever downward and dark waters charged in a flood washing away what had been once great and beautiful leaving a flattened world of rot and desolation and those who remained of the proud Ghebelin hunted like animals by the cruel Alfarren were bled and others of them fleeing to hide deep under earth and rock away from warmth and light and she of a thousand eyes are now downcast fallen and without consolation

And now greatest of Queens Arruanni watches and awaits and speaks in the dreaming of the gods to those who are willing to listen to her tale

This I write Stone Frothingel last of the Duaraven cohorts to shining Arruanni Queen of all Domains

Whao some dwarf dude wrote this a long time ago. He must be the same dude who was supposed to hide everything, maybe?

The elves killed the goblins but some got away?

What is this dreaming of the gods and is this queen going to talk to our players in their dreams?

Final Lesson of the day - Let’s do Cut Ups!

A long time ago I took a writing class. As part of it we learned how to make sort of fake poetry. Poetry uses language in ways that aren’t “normal”.

And you can do it yourself very easily by re-arranging other peoples words to make your own poetic phrases.

Cut the text from my little lore snippet and copy it into a text document. Then take that text and print it out.

Now comes the fun part. Take real scissors and cut it up into pieces of sentences. Pile them up and randomly pull out several and arrange them to your own liking to create a rambling sentence or two. Is it starting to feel like ancient lore yet?

If you need any extra words in there just steal some from your favorite fantasy novel and add them in. Maybe chop up your own sentences too. Just remember to use lots of descriptive words.

Use lots of simile and metaphor. Perhaps the sun in the sky can be the fiery charioteer who arrives at dawn. It’s really ok to be campy and cheesy when you make up lore for your game as it actually adds to the oldness and flavor of past times.

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I wrote this a few weeks back and have since used this lore sheet with my players.

Thus, after some small adventures in Vestfold and Chris being given gifts by the earl himself for the previous week's battle at the old gate where Chris earned the title of, "The Gate Crusher," (The gift was a mixed blessing, a hand painted shield and a land grant for his own domain - an overgrown patch of land in the swamps where he can go build a castle of sorts.) a mysterious woman in leather armor contacted the party and showed them these writings of ancient lore.

My house players hadn't met Lavender yet.

She features prominently in my game. In a sense she is me. I use my little assassin lady to drive my story. It's fun to get to play as a kick ass girl too.

It was at this point I left the room and my players began to read the handout which I gave to everyone. They went over every detail of it. I could hear them reading it aloud to each other from the other room. They even pondered what the different spellings of some words could mean. This taught me to make sure to keep misspellings of names of things in future lore handouts to confound my players even more!

Chris quizzed me after the game session about the Three Sisters. He is the one who rolled a 1 on the mountain pass and was transported to have an audience with the the Three Sisters. Thus he asked if the Three Sisters were also a constellation. He guessed that the passage of time since the queen must be 10 thousand years. I deviously commented something along the lines of: That is a good guess. What I didn't tell him is that the Three Sisters are both those same deities and a trio of comets which appear roughly every 100 years, thus making this lore more along the lines of 100,000 years old.

Now my players are off to the Forest of Forgetfulness where it is assumed the resting place of the Ghebelin queen may be located.

This is pretty awesome for me, because they are heading into a rift between the 999 realms of existence and may even step from one world to another and end up in The Dreaming City.

IF YOU SEEK MORE GAME REFEREE INFO:

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The One Hit Point Dilemma in D&D

11/20/2022

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It’s been cold and snowy here in Denver. To be honest this kind of weather makes my spirits get low. The only cure is to think happy thoughts, make yourself smile, and talk gaming - It really does work.

Perhaps one of the greatest issues with OD&D and perhaps even AD&D is the problem of a bad roll for hit points.

i.e. Your 18 strength fighter just rolled a one for their hit points.

So what do you do now?

I know both kinds of referees, the by the rules what you roll is what you get ref, as well as the lets fudge that a little bit so you stand a better chance of not dying type. Neither is really doing the players a favor on HP and to be honest the 1 HP PC is still something worth having players run just so they can experience being very cautious at first level. Yet, it can be a a real hassle in the long run.

Also, here is an odd thought about the rules from the early days.

I recall my first read through on D&D and wondering if hit points were a fixed quantity once rolled, or if players would re-roll hit points before every adventure. It was not very clear how to handle them!

Hit points aren’t meant to represent an actual physical property related to how hearty you are. They are an abstraction. Gary Gygax wrote a bit on that in this image I saved from an online post I spotted. Thus even Gygax is saying they are more like a combo of skill and luck in avoiding dying through adversity.

I really like what Gary said about his perspective on RPGs and how D&D handled mechanics when it was first created. Although this blog post relates to the part on hit points, so much of this page is pure gold that I have to show the entire image.

Having players re-roll bad rolls is the age old cure and yet it feels a bit arbitrary thus I propose a more systematic approach. I feel that any modification to the early editions has to stay within the scope of how the original rules were written. This variant is designed so it remains within the format of simple rules that enhance play without over burdening the game with too many details.

The entire design of D&D is predicated on die roll averages. I go into that really in depth in some of my older posts on understanding how D&D works.

Ok, let’s get ‘Average’ but leave in a little bit of player NERF and BUFF for the sake of having players be more likely to survive.

What if hit die rolls are modified based on attributes? That seems reasonable, yet which attribute should it be and no matter what attribute we use there is the chance of a player having a 3 in that column, so that is still not so great.

I propose using the character’s prime ability score, or scores, for classes with more than one. And then I suggest we modify this by the character's constitution score.

When I say modify, I really mean one should use averages.

Thus a fighter would get Str + Con and this would be divided by 2 to get a modified roll.

OD&D breaks things down into Low, Average, and High for ability scores. This really points to other considerations about the design, but that is a whole other can of worms I won’t go into right now.

The tally of the Prime Ability and Constitution gives a nice number one can use to modify the hit points die roll with. Now we can use this low, medium, high to modify the rolls for HP like so:

-If the Average of Prime and Constitution is 8 or less, the die roll is un-modified.

-If the Average is medium or rather 9 to 14, then any hit point die roll of 1 or 2 is treated as 3 and all others rolls are read as they fall. (If you are doing Greyhawk style d8 hit dice anything 3 and lower is treated as 4.)

-If the Average of Prime and Constitution is 15 or greater, anything rolled less than 4 is treated as four. (Greyhawk and later versions with d8 it is a 5)

Doing this kind of hit die roll modification will shift hit points up, but will not create an incidence of a higher quantity of high rolls. It just means the lows are more likely to be shifted toward a mid range. Also, some PCs will tend to get higher hit point Tallies based on their attributes.

That's all I have for today. Make sure to pop by the Kickstarter, if you haven't purchased a book already, as it is rapidly coming to the final deadline.

Order a Copy of Tonisborg Here:
www.kickstarter.com/projects/secretsofblackmoor/the-lost-dungeons-of-tonisborg

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BLACKMOOR ORDERS

11/16/2022

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Something to consider in your Blackmoor world setting are the different orders which exert influence and force, whether as an alliance or loyalty to a greater power, be it a religion or a realm, or simply some kind of deeply held belief.

Of course the most known factions are The Red Wizard Coven who worship the nameless deity and are known for their underground temples that are covered in meander chalk drawings and their ally, the being known simply as, The Egg of Coot.

On the side of good there are two prominent organizations also. The Order of the Dragon in Blackmoor and The Hunters in the Deep of Vestfold, known as Fastness Fold in my own campaign. These are forces that work for the Baron and the Earl. The two organizations are like the CIA and MI6. Each works for their own ruler, yet, they are also known to work together in their endless fight against the various other enemy states of Blackmoor.

The Order of the Dragon is an elite military unit. They will not break under pressure as they are battle hardened troops of the greatest ranks. They are also known to have some assassins as spies that work for them. And they have paid watchers who gather information for them from all over the world of Blackmoor.

The Hunters in the Deep are a secretive society of assassin spies. They do the behind the scenes dirty work for the Earl. Yet, a lot of what they do is to simply gather information on the goings on around the world of Blackmoor.

Neither will spy in the other’s realm or on the other group. They do sometimes send agents on missions in each other’s realms as a collaborative venture.

The Order of the Dragon is a known group as they can be seen around Blackmoor in their white tunics with red dragon heraldry. Yet, what is not known is their other mission of protecting the realm through either force, or intrigue. Perhaps a modern comparison is the Special Forces which most nations have and are called on to perform clandestine military missions. The leader of the Order of the Dragon is known as the Great Svenni. He is an old experienced warrior, loyal to the barony.

The Hunters in the Deep are only known via whispered rumors. They do not parade around in uniform. They are everywhere and nowhere. It is rumored their leader is a person who goes by the name of Lavender.

These two groups are very useful for creating interesting scenarios for your own campaign, be it Blackmoor, or your own creation.

In many cases they work indirectly, and those who work with them will be operating as agents of agents in vast networks. Indoctrination to either group is a long process of gradually being accepted within the group through challenges and the accomplishment of difficult tasks that require the building of deep trust. Both groups also have secret hand gestures and symbols that are used as codes to recognize other agents. The Order of the Dragon uses imagery having to do with dragons and the Deep Hunters use images of octopus.

The two groups are in a constant struggle against incursions by agents of The Red Wizard Coven and The Egg of Coot. Often the goal is merely to place counter spies within the other organizations in order to keep tabs on what their nefarious plans are. Just recently, the Egg's agents managed to create an alliance with the Thieves Guild of Fastness Fold. This led to the siege of the city with an uncursion out of Tonisborg Dungeon through the old gate in order to break the city defenses. Luckily the Deep Hunters had agents in place and were able to find out about the plans for the raid out of the dungeon.

The house group of players took part in the defense of the old gate. Chris was having a fiery night with the dice and every turn he was cleaving multiple orcs in half and pressing the attack. Eventually the attackers broke morale and Chris led the counter-charge across the bridge to the island, with the city guard following his lead while chanting 'Gate Crusher.'

Chris has earned a reputation and a title as a fearsome champion of the realm. It can only be expected The Deep Hunters will be knocking on the Gate Crusher's door some time soon as brave adventurers are hard to come by and of great use to the organization.

New players will always enjoy a good romp through a dungeon and it is hard to get them to want to do much more than that. Yet, if you consider that the forces for evil are always colluding to undermine the order and balance of good, then there are a lot of small missions that a party of adventurers can be hired to go on by either of these organizations. In many cases these adventures can begin in a town or city and go to the wilderness or even back to the dungeon.

Thank you again to everyone who supported our recent Kicktstarter project.

Please let your friends know that it isn't too late to purchase their own copy of, The Lost Dungeons of Tonisborg.

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WIZARD FUNK

9/24/2022

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Unpacking the entire experience one has at a Gary Con takes time - so much happens there. You meet so many awesome people and play in so many games. By the end of it, the memory becomes a blur. What I find is that over time the most important memories float to the top.

One of these was being able to spend about an hour one on one with Lou Zocchi and quiz him about all the games he made.

Something that had been on my mind for a long time is how I felt that his Alien Space and Star Fleet Battle Manual seem to be a huge influence on the Star Fleet Battles games. It is hard not to want to compare the ship damage logs between all three games as an obvious connection.

“… They contacted me about it. I told them to go ahead and make their game and I was fine with it. I had already printed 5000 of copies my game.” - Lou Zocchi
Personal Conversation
GaryCon 2022

Ok, so a game designer just lets their IP go out and be used in someone else’s game?

It seems Lou is just a very magnanimous guy. He allowed another company to piggyback onto his original design and produce a game that became a huge success. I can’t think of any game club or group of gamers back in the 80’s where a copy of Star Fleet Battles wasn’t floating around in someone’s backpack, or actually being played at game night.

That story alone was an interesting peek into how the indy game community operated back in the day. Everyone knew everyone else and you could just ask someone if they minded you using their ideas in your game.

Meanwhile, also BITD, the big companies were busy unleashing their attack dog lawyers on each other over such things as Orcs and Balrogs. Maybe nothing changes after all?

An Old School Gem that is Worth Owning

Something else happened at Gary Con. Well it happened there, but I had no idea about it until I got home!

When I go to Gary Con I always bring a Banker’s Box with me. This is where I keep every game that I will be running at the Convention. This time it had a bunch of lead ship models and the various other implements for running Fletcher Pratt’s Naval War Game, A print out of Dave Arneson’s Draft Rules for D&D Areal Combat along with counters and dice, And Also everything I would need to run a game of Tonisborg Dungeon.

After the con my box of games just sat there in a corner untouched. I don’t need to unpack it as I leave it alone until a week or two before the next Gary Con when I go to work on creating new scenarios for my convention demo games.

I can’t recall why, but a few weeks ago I popped the lid off the box and sitting right on top was something I had no recollection of having seen before. Maybe it was handed to me and I forgot about it, or maybe someone was a little devious and snuck it into my box when I wasn’t looking.

Hmmm… some kind of booklet. I peered through it and realized it was a fanzine for D&D.

It floated around the house; meaning it would be on one of my To Read Piles located at various locations as I tend to read several books at once.

Thus I would pop it open and read a little bit of it then set It down unfinished.

I will tell you, the more I read, the more I wanted to read. It just seemed to get better and better the deeper I dug into it.

You see, this little fan booklet is a time machine. It has the physical dimensions of the original, Little Brown Books of Original D&D fame. It also is the same dimensions of another fanzine I was very fond of in the 70’s, The Dungeoneer.

If you want to know more about The Dungeoneer my advice is to do your own web search, as my fanboy passion for The Dungeoneer runs really deep and I would end up doing an entire article about it. Trust me, you’ll find a ton of info on it as others have already covered the subject extensively and most likely in a better manner than I could.

I have a thing for small books that can stack neatly with my LBBs. In the old days my white box had the 3 LBBs, 3 supplements. Chainmail (2 copies), and swords and spells inside it at all times, along with my favorite small form fanzines.

At first I couldn’t even tell what the title means. Is it, the Wizard Funk as an homage to Fred Funk of the Blackmoor Bunch, or is it just Wizard Funk as a commentary on smelly gamers?

What got me to keep looking through the book is the art. Cover art by Craig Brasco. Interior pieces by Colton Rosws and Josh Ross. There are other very interesting pieces which are un-attributed. There is a small gallery of art by Thaddeus Moore. Every bit of art is black and white and just screams old school.

To be honest the layout sort of turned me off at first. It looks like it was laid out in word, complete with Xcel sheet style grids. But now I’ve really warmed up to it. The fanzines of the 70’s reflected the technology available in their time, well then, a contemporary fanzine will reflect current technology. It should be made with ink jet printers and the all too familiar fonts and layouts of common word processors.

When it comes to books I am a bit of an ADD freak. I pick up a book and find a page and read for a bit. Then it gets tossed aside. Thus it has taken me a couple weeks to get through this book. Yet, the feeling I have from it is that I want more. And that this belongs in every traditional RPG players tote bag.

The Issue I found, which is issue three, contains:
3 interviews with old school luminaries
2 complete dungeons
5 Rule Variants and additions

Everything in this mag is the kind of stuff all of us would read back in the day. The interviews were eye opening for me. Granted the one with Stephen Rocheford was all stuff I already knew since I have 2 interviews with him and often call him on the phone to catch up on things.

But the other two were surprising and now because of these short interviews I have other games I may need to find copies of and study.

The same can be said for the pre-gen dungeons. I never run other people’s dungeons modules, but I love reading through them for ideas. Both dungeons are prepared in the time honored fashion of being very scant on details. Each room description has just enough info to guide a DM without railroading every little detail. A new DM could easily draw their own map and then place the encounters from both dungeons into it and create their own game.

The game variants are something that will inspire any referee. Eric Hoffman’s D100 Humanoid Traits is a random chart for designing unique properties for the standard Orc, Kobold, or Goblin clan. I may not like every idea on here, but you can be sure I will be ‘lifting’ some of these encounter ideas into my own Blackmoor Campaign.

Thaddeus Moore writes about uses for mundane items. Everything from Chalk to Wool Blankets has at least one way to use it creatively on an adventure. I love this article because again, it is a jumping off point for creative play both for players and DMs.

Other articles include a guide to using M.u. spells that are not combat oriented. A random dungeon generator and even a list of words one could use to describe weather conditions in the wilderness.

The beauty of this booklet is that it truly is fan material. You aren’t going to find it very easily. There isn’t any contact info in the booklet.

It does have attributions, thus I was able to determine that the most likely creator is Robin Irwin who played in my Tonisborg session at Gary Con. I expect that is when he slipped it into my bankers box.

I like it so much that you should not be surprised if an old blog post of mine appears in a future issue. I want to make sure this mag keeps on being published and I will gladly donate white box D&D content to it in order to make sure they have enough articles to publish into the future.

Last of all I would like to point you to our website. If you scroll down on the front page you can get on the mailing list.

https://www.secretsofblackmoor.com

Being on our mailing list gets you updates, but only the critical info. We won't hit you with a SPAM email every day.

Please get on the mailing list. It is the only way to find out when the Kick Starter for The Lost Dungeons of Tonisbrg will launch.

If you have a copy of TLDOT already please post some photos to your social media or on a forum and help us get the word out about this wonderful and unique book.

If you have seen the documentary make sure to tell a friend about it.

Thanks, Chris and Griff

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How To Play Braunstein

5/13/2022

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David Wesely, referee-ing a game of Braunstein at Gary Con 2022. Photo Credit: Glenn Holmer

For those who have never played the game. It is the first RPG with real interaction between players. It is also the first in a lineage of games. Over time it gets morphed into other games which are finally published as the Fantasy Adventure Game, Dungeons & Dragons.

Anyone who plays any RPG today is likely playing a descendant of David Wesely’s Braunstein games.

This year at Gary Con I once again managed to get invited to play as The Man from Imperialist Industries.

This means I get to play the American in the fictitious South American country of Banania.

The game is interesting since everyone is given a persona to play as well as an objective they must achieve. This is complemented by a variety of assets; be they a group of people who support you, weapons and vehicles, cash money, or dirty secrets about another player’s persona.

Since the game models the power struggle between people of varying levels in status in a fictitious banana republic in the 1950’s, one’s goals are based on improving one’s position in the social hierarchy during game play. It is non zero sum in that several people can win the same game. This is either because one’s objectives do not overlap with someone else’s, or due to an alliance of players with similar objectives.

As the game began we were all informed that today is the national holiday celebrating Banania’s liberation from the European Colonial Oppressors. There will be some kind of procession and carnival. But all is not perfect in Banania. Our great leader, El Jefe is on a diplomatic trip to the United States thus control of the great nation is in the hands of his capable, and equally corrupt, underlings who run the various military branches. El Jefe’s son is on hand as well, though many question his ability to lead anything more than a drinking party.

The banana picking and packing company has been exploiting the workers and the fruit pickers union, as well as the banana packers union, are both agitating for reforms and higher pay. It is even whispered in some places that they will demand the shockingly radical concept of the 12 hour work day!

Most games of Banania end with half the town on fire and tanks rolling around while helicopters hover overhead, while the populace is streaming into the jungles for safety. Words such as Byzantine, or the name Machiavelli, come to mind. The game is all about good wholesome back stabbing political fun.

For the record, this is my kind of game. It models human behavior really effectively. It also allows a creative schemer like myself to really stretch their creative ability.

Right from the beginning of the game the heads of the secret police, the marines, the army, and the air force all identified each other and left the main room to go outside in the hallway and collude.

This left me, as the American, with tons of cash, to go about stirring the pot of dissent and having meetings with the rebel forces whom I ask to create a bit of havoc in the city. Nothing really fuels the need for American made goods than a good old civilian insurrection. By goods, I mean arms shipment orders.

It’s the 1950’s and US interventions to promote democracy are ramping up around the world. Most of all, the military industrial complex has sidled up to the trough and demands its share.

I also met up with the fruit packing company owner and asked what I could do to alleviate the schism between the workers and the company. Oh, did I mention that I was already waving a big stack of dollars around and handing out tokens of my appreciation to everyone I met with? I don't really care if he talks to the unions, I am just spreading cash around to make friends as a form of insurance.

Yup - Cash is King in Banania!

I honestly cannot remember every detail of what transpired in the game. What I do recall is that the game seemed too imbalanced. Every turn, the heads of military would gather outside to discuss their plans for dominance, then return to the room we were playing in for the next set of moves with big smug grins on their faces. There seemed to be nothing to stop them from openly displaying this feeling of impending victory.

Having played games of Banania before, I knew that the workers would likely head en masse to the main city square in order to hold a political rally and that all branches of the military would then descend on this rally and start breaking skulls.

As the game progressed I also realized I had not achieved any of my own objectives of leaving Banania and heading back to the good old USA with a briefcase full of cash.

I was stumped. I wasn’t losing and yet I wasn’t winning. I was just sitting in my hotel on the south eastern edge of the map spinning my wheels. Of course this was my game persona sitting in the hotel. In reality I was sitting in a conference chair staring at the smug hubris of the military leader players and wondering what I should do to up end their glee.

Something needed to happen and soon.

As I sat there feeling a bit dejected, it came to me that what I needed was a way to pry them apart and make them feel less confident. Thus I hatched a plan to redirect their energy and cause a bit of chaos of my own. All I needed was the right kind of lever!

The next turn I took each one of them aside, one by one, for a private meeting. We would discuss their needs (This is where bribes would be mentioned as well.) and my need of a visa so that I can leave the country in a plane. Then as the meeting was coming to an end I would casually let drop a comment like this, “I suppose you already know about the assassination plot against all the heads of military?”

You’ve seen the old credit card commercial that ends with the statement that some things are priceless. Well, with every meeting I held, the revelation of the assassination plot was truly priceless. Every single player I met with briefly lost control of their facial expression. I could see their smug smiles contorted into looks of shock and even fear. Of course, I was inwardly giggling to myself.

“Oh, you had no idea that there is a plot to decapitate the entire military and secret police via assassinations and replace you with new blood?”

Somehow it had never occurred to any them that they themselves as individuals could be the targets of violence. Or, that they could be easily removed from the game entirely.

After a few seconds each would ask me where I had heard of this scheme, to which I would respond, “Oh, you know, rumors like this just float around in Banania. My advice is that you avoid public places and keep your defenses close.”

I would end with a plea for that visa I wanted along with a down payment in cash and a promise that I would send a large cash gift from America once I was home safe and sound.

Every meeting I held followed a nearly identical script. Talk about Banania business, ask for visa, reveal plot for assassinations, ask for visa again, offer some cash. All followed by a hand shake.

By the next turn, the military heads were once again gathering to confer on their master plan. I wasn’t privy to their scheming, yet I suspect that on this turn the mood was different. Most of the scheming was about how not to get rubbed out by assassins. They probably talked about little else thus their other schemes were delayed by this, shall we say, distraction?

On the next turn our game ended.

David Wesely conducted the epilogue stage of the game where he reveals all the secret story lines and what everyone had been scheming about during the game. We were low on time, thus he hurried through everyone else’s activities and did not cover what my persona did during the game.

I stayed to help David pick up the game and pack up to leave. As we did this he asked me what I had done on the last turns of the game. I explained that I had gotten a visa to leave the country, thus I had effectively won my game. Then I went on to explain how I had managed it and I had the pleasure of seeing David Wesely get an impish sparkle in his eye along with a look of admiration as we both laughed heartily over my end-game.

The game had ended strangely. By the last turn of the game we played everything was different from every other game of Banania I had ever seen played. Sure, the workers all gathered for their anti government rally in the city square. Yet, the military was nowhere to be seen. Unlike the other games, the military wasn’t running around cracking people’s heads in order to create peace.

Instead, what happened is that each branch of the military was hunkered down in their own area, safely away from everyone else, protecting their leader and doing nothing to stop the insurrection.

It was, dare I say, un-Bananian in every way I can think of.

Banania is just a game. You don’t get an award or certificate of participation for playing. All you have are the good memories of having played the oldest individual role playing game in the lineage of games that lead to Dungeons & Dragons being published. On top of that, the only person on the planet who runs these games in this exact manner is the creator of the game, David Wesely.

In my case, I got the respect and approval of the game designer himself for my medieval conniving. You see, I really needed that lever to pry apart the powerful alliance a little bit and to help me get what I needed to win - my lever was simply useful information.

I am proud to say that via my revelation of secret information, none of the generals got assassinated, and there was no bloodshed in the city square - just this once.

I even got my visa and left Banania, presumably while flying first class and sipping champagne.

Since this was the last game session of Gary Con on Sunday, we had to pack up quickly and my own plans were never fully revealed to the other players, which is a pity, since they never got to find out that the assassination attempt was just a story I made up to trick them all into helping me achieve my goals.

I will leave you with this quote from Ross Maker in Secrets of Blackmoor, “…He’s the American. You can’t trust anyone else in Banania, but the American has gotta be straight - right?”

Don't Forget to Tell Your Friends to go WATCH - SECRETS of BLACKMOOR:
LINK HERE TO SEE THE MOVIE

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John Arneson - The Greatest Person Who Ever Lived

4/29/2022

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John (right) with his son David

I speak for both Chris, myself, and the entire Blackmoor family in conveying sad news.

I’ve been struggling to come to terms with the loss of a great person from the Blackmoor Bunch. He is perhaps the least celebrated of all of them. He wasn’t a young guy in the Arneson basement and he wasn’t even a gamer. He was Dave Arneson’s father, John Arneson.

His grand daughter, Malia nicknamed him ‘Grumpy.’

Chris and I met Grumpy while making, Secrets of Blackmoor. He was a complete surprise to us because we were expecting a fairly calm and normal interview, after all, John was already in his 90’s when he sat with us for his interview.

In one of my first comments to John, I said, “You look like your son.”

And he responded with, “I feel sorry for the guy.”

John set the tone for the entire interview. No matter what we wanted to get from it, he was there to have fun.

I was with my own family when I got the news. Malia’s husband, Luke phoned and quickly told me the bad news that John Arneson was no longer with us. I sat at my dining table and cried while trying to explain to my own family what John means to me. All I could say is that the people I have met while making the Blackmoor movie are very close to me. They are my extended family. I care about all of them and I feel a duty to all of them. And that my feeling over John’s passing away shatters my heart.

He was the fly on the wall when Dungeons & Dragons was being invented in his basement on Hartford Avenue.

It is his retelling of those days when his son would gather with his friends in the basement that is most revealing about that time because his experience comes from outside the group of gamers. He was an adult who saw glimpses of what transpired. His voice can take us back to the time before role playing games were a household activity. When he tells us, “I had no idea what was going on down there… It was way over my head,” as well as,” It evolved - slowly,” he gives a look into a past where RPGs would be completely alien and not easily understood.

He infuses his retelling with his own perspective of the activities and people in that time. There is no glorification of events with an epic and grandiose tale about the invention of this new RPG game. In his voice It becomes almost banal. It was just a bunch of goofy teenagers wasting their lives playing games in his basement when they could have been out doing something more useful.

No one else could describe it like he does.

I suppose one would want to know more about John.

One can read obituaries where selected facts are reviewed.

These sorts of things: John married his high school sweetheart Maxine. Not long after, his wife gave birth to their only child a son they named David. He worked for the telephone company all his life. He is part of the greatest generation, which fought nazism and imperialism around the world. A decorated veteran, John was a marine and was at the battle of Pelellu. He could tell you stories about what it is like to land on a beach while being shelled by the enemy. He also served in Korea.

Within the inner circle of the Blackmoor Bunch we’re all just trying to make sense of losing John. As you get older, you experience these losses more, and perhaps too often. We try to get a little tougher about it. Yet, in moments of private reflection it can feel like one is alone in grief, or that no one else has ever had to deal with this kind of feeling. Everyone deals with these times in their own way.

I am trying to give you a feeling of who John is, yet, I am also trying to express what he means to the Blackmoor Bunch. His place within the group is singular.

Most of you only know John through having seen him in the documentary, Secrets of Blackmoor. You may not know just how significant John is to everyone who walked down the stairs to game in the Arneson basement.

Every one of those older people who we interviewed for the film was just a kid when they met John Arneson. Going to someone’s house to game also meant greeting their parents and making sure to say those please and thank you’s for all the free soda that was being provided at the game session. As the adult, along with his wife, John commanded respect.

When we interviewed John we invited David Wesely to sit with John during the interview. At one point John looked at David and you could tell by the way he addressed him, that for John, and despite his being ‘all grown up’, David was still one of those kids who used to come over to game in the Arneson basement.

I can also tell you that the one story I heard from nearly everyone in the group regards the bottles of booze sitting in the basement bar. It is a note of pride for all of them that not one of them tried to steal a nip of something from one of those bottles.

They were all guests in John’s house and no one was going to be breaking any rules if they wanted to keep coming back to game there.

John Arneson is the de facto patriarch of the Blackmoor Bunch thus he symbolizes many things which may be hard to put into words for those former kids.

I do feel that a sense of continuity is broken and it can never be repaired.

When a dear one is lost to us it can feel as if I we are the only one who truly acknowledges this loss. The only one to know. As if the entire planet is moving along in its daily routine and the greatest person who had ever lived has just left the planet. How can no one else seem to know. Yet, for us, nothing can ever be the same. No one else will ever get to experience what it is like spending time with the greatest person who ever lived.

The Blackmoor Bunch are never public about personal events past and present. Perhaps it’s a Minnesota thing, they just are not bombastic. Yet privately, we talk to each other, especially at times like this when our world is changed. I was pondering this, when I got a message from Malia this morning.

“He was such a pillar in my life. I welcome the distraction of planning the funeral because I can not fathom the massive hole/gap that I will have to face and feel when the dust settles.”

It’s good to be sharing our heartbreak. It is part of how we honor our loved ones.

I love how Malia splits the word cannot into two words. I feel I am with her in losing John. Time has slowed down and long words become longer until they split into two words. I wonder if she was even aware she was doing that. Yet, it is in times like this when anything more complicated than the most basic thought or action becomes as simple as possible. Everything is smaller. Loss is always a reduction.

Those of us who know John will tell the stories and remember the little things.

My favorite recent story about John happened during the Covid lock down. His great grand daughters missed him and were worried that John was all alone. They would color pictures and mail them to John. John liked receiving these letters so much that he joined a coloring group at his assisted living facility and sent back his own pictures to the girls through the mail.

Up to his last days, John was fully in his own mind and brimming with the can-do attitude of his generation. He decided to start working out. We’re talking about a 97-year-old man deciding to work out. He even told his trainer that twice during each work out he wanted to be timed and that he would go as fast and hard as he could for 30 seconds.

That is what I like about John the most. It is his toughness, mixed with humor and caring. He is the kind of person who takes up a lot of space when he enters a room.

The Blackmoor Bunch are a big family and it is hard for all of us to see our family grow smaller.

We want you to know that the greatest person who ever lived just left the planet.

He will be remembered.

I’ll leave you with a short message Stephen Rocheford wrote to his fellow military man - “Time to rest, Marine.”

Love and prayer to all, Chris, Griff, and the Blackmoor Bunch

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​Sample Chapter from, The Essential Blackmoorby Griffith Mon Morgan III Copyright 2023

Searching for Gold

Some Tools You Can Use in Your Own Game Sessions

WE NEED YOUR HELP

SALT

Salt vs. Zombies:

A Zombie Room

What do you want to do?

Now It's Your Turn

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IF YOU SEEK MORE GAME REFEREE INFO:

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Archives

Categories

Sample Chapter from, The Essential Blackmoor
by Griffith Mon Morgan III Copyright 2023