The Gaming Den

And their playtester pals and freelancers too, lets just gather all the info online here


This article:
https://kotaku.com/dungeons-deceptions- ... 1837516834

-Mentions playing Afrika Korps
-Mentions Dave Arneson had Rules Referees to handle rules lawyering
- "Braunstein" a game I hadn't heard of before, 60's RPG https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braunstei ... ying_games

"Wesely's Braunstein drew inspiration from Diplomacy, a game requiring players to negotiate in between turns.[citation needed] The idea of a referee was derived from Strategos: The American Game of War (1880), by Charles Totten.[1] Totten's book also inspired Wesely with the idea of having a game master who invented the scenario for the evening's battle.[1] Wesely discovered the idea of "n-player" strategy games from The Compleat Strategist (1954) by J.D. Williams.[1] Wesely also read and cited as influential, Conflict and Defense: A General Theory (1962), by Kenneth E. Boulding."

That's cool, sounds like it began as a person scale 'Model UN' kind of game
You know, I never hear "Model UN" brought up as a role playing game, but it's possibly the first one I played in elementary or middle school.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_Uni ... ns#History

Various threads on Ultraman monsters as early D&D, it's confirmed by the artist but not sure which monster is which
https://www.enworld.org/threads/the-ult ... rs.672346/

Tim Kask of Dragon magazine says he was given the miniature that became the Bullete by Gary:
https://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/view ... st#p774183


This page has Ultraman monsters including the bulette inspiration:
https://www.enworld.org/threads/the-ult ... rs.672346/

I found the ultraman kaiju name before but forgot it, it's a quadraped and the back opens into a fin for something.


Someone mentions "slimes were based on a Japanese monster movie", I think they mean The Green Slime" (?????3? ????? (Ganm? Daisan G?: Uch? Daisakusen, 1969) which was a Toho Hollywood joint production with space slime that turns into... pretty much a D&D roper!
https://twitter.com/HokutoAndy/status/1 ... 7915507713



I'll add to this when I find other articles.

Q&A with Gary Gygax thread where he mentions Lawful Good means exterminating Inherently Evil races mother and babies too. Lots to go through.

https://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/view ... 2&start=77

I didn't see it referenced before, but I was aware that the concept of Hit Points was incorporated from a naval combat game called Ironclads.

Here's a 2004 interview with Dave Arneson. The bit about hit points is on page 3. Be warned the formatting and text colors are wonky, but if you highlight the text you can read everything.

Edit -
Tangential, but potentially interesting is the connection of wargaming and fiction. Tom Clancy wrote a number of novels many of which were turned into movies, including The Hunt for Red October starring Sean Connery as a Russian submarine captain. Tom Clancy was an insurance salesman, and he played some wargames and talked to the writers. Larry Bond was the submarine expert/military wargamer - many of the novels are based on the results of the wargames they played. Anyways, Larry Bond has a connection to Dave Arneson. Here's an Interview with Larry Bond where he mentions playing D&D with Dave Arneson before it was published. Harpoon was released by Arneson's Adventure Games, but it closed down within a few years.

Additional Edit - Here's a post by DM David that incorporates the interview and notes on the Blackmoor campaign into a narrative about developing hit points and hit dice.