Falconer wrote: Dan—
Thanks for taking the time to respond to all our questions!
One thing that is never explained is on what basis you decided to refer to the item in question as Beyond This Point Be Dragons. Is there an unambiguous title page? Or is the phrase repeated throughout the manuscript? FWIW, I don’t have a “point” with this question; I am simply curious.
Huh, my bad, I should have made that clearer. The name is present only on the title page/first page of the document - the one with the wizard facing the two mountains. the next page after that is the listing of the tables that I analyzed in the paper.
The basic breakdown is:
Tables pp 1-17
Glossary of Terms pp 18-33
Before Setting out for Fame and Fortune PP 1-8
The Underworld pp9=25
The Rewards of Success pp26-29+ (There was at least one more page but my copy ends here)
Excluding the tables, each of these chapters is broken in to sections so for example the Glossary has a spell section, a monster section, and a magic item section. Judging from the page numbering it looks like the intention was for two books - a reference book and a rule book.
Falconer wrote:
I’ll be honest: The part about your theory that really throws me for a loop is the idea that Arneson’s writing style is so much clearer than Gygax’s. My impression has always been the complete opposite. FFC is
notoriously cryptic. You provide a single one-on-one comparison between known Arneson (FFC) and Gygax (OD&D) versions of the same passage, which reads, in part:
FFC wrote:Minions that are directed to take up the Sword whose origins are different than that of the directing party and are not acting as free agents (i.e. they are under the player's power), will suffer damage at half the normal rates.
OD&D wrote:If a non-player character is directed to take up a sword the damage will be only one-half that stated above, for the party is not acting as a free agent.
Is there any doubt which is simpler, clearer, and has the more logical sentence structure?
Hence, if BTPBD is even clearer than OD&D, then that surely suggests that some serious editorial work was done by someone other than Arneson himself. (Cf. Snider retaining Arnesonian terminology in AiF.)
Couple thoughts. First, my bad again if I left the impression that clarity was a distinguishing factor of Arneson's writing. Clarity of understanding is a result of many things and I shouldn't claim to guess what others find easy to understand vs. hard to understand. The point I was trying to make regarding Arneson's style is its colloquialness, it's style of taking the reader into the writers confidence and so on. Whereas Gygax has a very different approach. I absolutely agree that the OD&D magic swords section is a much better arrangement and improvement over the FFC version. Things generally do improve when edited and reworked.
As for the FFC being notoriously cryptic, I don't quite follow the logic. The FFC is an eclectic set of notes from the formative period of the game. The "cryptic" parts result from the unexplained rules that have no D&D analogs, some of which Arneson couldn't remember the meaning of himself. Of course, there are also large portions of the FFC that aren't obscure or difficult to follow. Since by its very nature it was never a single document, it is not surprising that there should not be any particular rhyme or reason to the way Judges guild choose to organize the various portions.
BTPBD is indeed much better organized than 3lbb's and many of the amibiguities we talk about in the 3lbb's are clarified - such as how long "upkeep" cost apply to or what it costs to hire a 3rd level fighter. To suggest that Arneson couldn't have done such a thing because he allowed JG to publish a random collection of campaign notes, would only make sense if we had nothing else to go on about the man. But of course we do have lots. We know he worked as an editor on the domesday books, we know he produced his own newsletter, we know he worked as an editor on Different Worlds magazine, we know at the end of his life he was a university instructor. We have copies of his other games, adventures, and 2 RPG's he penned (one with co-author Snider). So I don't see a logical basis for the claim that BTPBD could not possibly have been organized by Arneson as if he were somehow mentally incapable.
Falconer wrote:
And let me just add that I don’t see how “It might be useful to point out that Gygax…had dropped out of high school…”. That entire passage seems neither useful nor likely to warm your audience — all of whom play Gygaxian D&D — to your theory.
I thought it was important to point out because of the natural tendency people have to assume language style automatically indicates superior/inferior inteligence or education. Specifically in this case a biased reader might assume Arneson was an ignorant chump and Gygax a learned scholar and thus be dissmissive of Arneson from the start. So the info was presented in the spirit of "rething what you think you might know". I'm a scientist, and as such not especially concerned with what emotional reaction fans of either Gary Gygax or Dave Arneson may have to these simple facts regarding their education or thier style of writing and speaking. It is what it is.
