Lost original D&D manuscript revealed

[ThirstyStirge]

Interesting, to be sure, but I'm still baffled as to why certain people in the RPG community are regarding this as the Arc of the Covenant.

[Falconer]

Two things of note from this. First, it sounds like we may finally get a PDF of this thing, and be able to judge it for ourselves. That might be kind of cool on some level, since it would be the closest we can get to the “Guidon D&D” manuscript. Second, it appears to be confirmed that the document was unfinished. Hence, its value as an “improved OD&D” is essentially now zero (especially since just about every OD&D fan has done his own OD&D reorganization, and some have actually finished); and every last possible anti-Gygax polemic that was ever associated with this research has now been totally and utterly debunked.

Don’t get me wrong. I love genuine Arnesoniana, and love to check it out whenever and however I can get my hands on it. While I may not geek out to it as much as some, I’m glad they’re out there dissecting this stuff and producing their research and, occasionally, editing and publishing actual gamable material. Also, it totally is cool to see the hobby in action, and to check out old timey OD&D-derived campaign designs and maps and logs (Ryth Chronicle, for example). I’d love to see this guy’s Tolkienesque stuff.

[T. Foster]

Around the 1987-88 school year I had copies of the Holmes-edit D&D Basic Set, the 1981 D&D Expert Set, Best of The Dragon vol. I, D&D Supplements 1-3, and Judges Guild's Ready Ref Sheets, but didn't have the OD&D boxed set and wasn't sure I'd ever be able to get it (TSR was no longer selling them, I didn't know anybody who had one, and the product lists from Crazy Egor's and Lou Zocchi priced used copies way outside of my allowance-money budget), so I decided to create my own copy - combining info from all of those sources into my own manuscript copy via my mom's electric typewriter. I knew how the rules were organized, I had all of the charts and tables, and I even had or was able to infer some snippets of the text. I got through volume I and at least part of volume II. My text was probably about 75% identical to the actual OD&D text and in some ways was probably superior in terms of clarity and consistency (e.g. I'm pretty sure my d6-based hit die tables were more regular than those in the actual rules - clerics got d6 per level, fighters got 1d6+1 per level, magic-users got 1d6 on odd levels and +1 on even levels).

As it turned out, I eventually did manage to obtain a copy of the OD&D boxed set (at GenCon in August of '88) which rendered my recreation obsolete so I never finished it, and never looked at or thought about it again, but for a few months it was my primary reference - I distinctly remember taking it along on a family vacation around June of '88. What I did isn't any different than what Mark Bufkin did, except that he did it a dozen or so years earlier and was working with an earlier draft. That last bit is the only thing that ever gave his manuscript any value or interest, because at the time the draft version he was working from wasn't otherwise available. But now that it is, Bufkin's c. 1974 typing exercise is literally no different than mine c. 1987.

[austinjimm]

Second, it appears to be confirmed that the document was unfinished. Hence, its value as an “improved OD&D” is essentially now zero (especially since just about every OD&D fan has done his own OD&D reorganization, and some have actually finished);

This is the reason I'm interested in it. OD&D just begs (to greater or lesser extent) to be "organized" by every DM that runs it. It's value to me is to see how someone else did it: is there anything they thought of that's better than how I (or the original) did it that I can steal and use?

I decided to create my own copy - combining info from all of those sources into my own manuscript copy via my mom's electric typewriter.

Scan that puppy. I want to see it for the reasons I just described.

[francisca]

This is the reason I'm interested in it. OD&D just begs (to greater or lesser extent) to be "organized" by every DM that runs it. It's value to me is to see how someone else did it: is there anything they thought of that's better than how I (or the original) did it that I can steal and use?

Just want to second that. I'm mooched from you, Jim, as well as others, for my own "Rich's Rules of Order" trimmed down OD&D-esque ruleset.

[T. Foster]

Scan that puppy. I want to see it for the reasons I just described.

I've got a box of 80s-vintage stuff from my mom's basement that I need to go through and organize (and see if there's anything fun worth scanning and sharing). If I still have this it'll be in there, otherwise I probably purged it back around the turn of the century

[austinjimm]

I've got a box of 80s-vintage stuff from my mom's basement that I need to go through

[Vile]

Everybody, this is the future calling. Just scan everything and get it on the web.

[Stormcrow]

I haven't been paying attention lately, and just noticed this news about finding the likely source of the document.

I'd just like to say...

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! Oh my, do we see now that we have taken ourselves just a weeeeeee bit too seriously here?

There's been exactly one actual historian involved in all this, and that is Jon Peterson. He's been EXTREMELY patient and kind to all the wannabes and attackers. I don't know how he does that.

As for the importance of the document itself, it is not completely insignificant. It may be an echo of an Arneson draft, even if it is not the draft itself. This is still interesting. It reminds me of ancient texts that are lost, but which other ancient texts refer to and tell us what was in them. These references are not useless to scholars. At the very least, if another document shows up purporting to be Arneson's actual draft, this document can be used as a check: could you have derived this document from the alleged draft?

And thank goodness, we can now stop pretending that Arneson always intended to name the game "Beyond This Point Be Dragons."

[Falconer]

There's been exactly one actual historian involved in all this, and that is Jon Peterson. He's been EXTREMELY patient and kind to all the wannabes and attackers. I don't know how he does that.

I guess. It probably helps that he has access to all the primary sources — Guidon manuscript, Dalluhn manuscript, Mornard fragments… — which, good for him, of course; as I said, I’m grateful someone is doing this. But it’s impossible to effectively argue against anything he says because all we have to go by is secondary sources; primarily Peterson himself.

[Stormcrow]

People argue against Peterson all the time. If they're not doing so from evidence, why WOULD their arguments be effective?

[Falconer]

[T. Foster]

People argue against Peterson all the time. If they're not doing so from evidence, why WOULD their arguments be effective?

Peterson's essays have a tendency to push a narrative that's contrary to received conventional wisdom and he says that it's based on his study of primary source documents, but he only provides selected, limited quotes from those documents that support his version of the narrative so those of us on the outside looking in have no way of knowing whether he's accurately representing what's in those documents or is cherry-picking details from them to support his narrative. This is frustrating, because on a few cases where those documents have become more widely available, it looks a lot like the latter.

The case that stands out most strongly in my mind was Peterson's bombshell expose that Gary Gygax had essentially plagiarized the Chainmail Fantasy Supplement from Leonard Patt, but when we saw the actual article by Patt that Peterson was referencing it was i) literally two pages long, and ii) all of the supposedly-damning similarities to Chainmail could be adequately explained by drawing from the same source material (e.g. different mutually hostile tribes of orcs - Mordor/Eye vs Isengard/Hand) or seemed pretty self-evident based on the table-scale (e.g. dragons having a 24" flying move rate). Maybe Gary read that article and lifted the idea of wizards shooting fireballs and lightning bolts that function like catapults and cannons (respectively) from it, because that doesn't come from Tolkien and isn't quite as self-evident as table-scale movement rates, but Peterson doesn't have any evidence that he did except speculation and Gary's supposed regular history of stealing things from others without attribution (i.e. that it fits Peterson's narrative). Admittedly, Peterson framed that article as a question: "could this have been the secret, unacknowledged source of the Fantasy Supplement?" and it was the other usual suspects who picked it up and ran with it and started claiming that the "true" inventors of D&D are Wesley, Patt, and Arneson, but they all pointed back to Peterson's article and used it as "proof" and intellectual cover, and it left a very bad taste in my mouth and colored my reaction to all of his articles where we aren't able to independently review his documents and evaluate his conclusions and narratives.

[Stormcrow]

Peterson's essays have a tendency to push a narrative that's contrary to received conventional wisdom and he says that it's based on his study of primary source documents, but he only provides selected, limited quotes from those documents that support his version of the narrative so those of us on the outside looking in have no way of knowing whether he's accurately representing what's in those documents or is cherry-picking details from them to support his narrative. This is frustrating, because on a few cases where those documents have become more widely available, it looks a lot like the latter.

This looks more like a complaint that you don't have a copy of the primary sources than with the scholarship with Peterson. I'm not saying that Peterson's work is necessarily correct or unbiased; I'm just saying he's doing actual research where others just try to combine a subjective analysis of authors' characteristics with long-after-the-fact memories. In the world of scholarly publication, there is a huge difference between these. I wasn't aware of the plagiarism incident you reference, but the problem there doesn't seem to me to be Peterson, it seems to be people who take Peterson's work as inviolable truth when it backs up their own agendas. When Peterson is speculating, he always says so, and usually goes to great pains to where his ideas come from. And he himself admits that parts of his book have already been proven incorrect by revelations subsequent to its publishing.

As for not owning copies of the sources yourselves, that's what libraries are for. That's what traveling to see the collections of collectors is for. Anyone can track down all the many sources that Peterson references if they're willing to put in the work to do so. The work that Peterson did himself. He's not going to email you a PDF with everything in it; no such thing exists, and even if it did he would not own the rights to distribute it.

So I'm not praising the truth of anything that Peterson has said or published, just the legwork and scholarship he puts into it, and the good grace with which he replies to detractors.

[T. Foster]

You're right that my frustration is more properly aimed at the holders of those documents who don't share them and (presumably) only allow Peterson to post small excerpts than at Peterson himself - evidenced by the fact that the reproduction of Leonard Patt's entire 2-page article that (at least IMO) undermines a lot of his claims was linked in his own article; so while he definitely makes some strong claims that I don't feel are really justified, he also, at least in this case, provided the very evidence that could be used to argue against his conclusions.

Not that his doing so stopped people from reposting his article with their own sensationalistic headlines like "Gygax stole everything from Leonard Patt, the true father of fantasy gaming" and "Gygax Swiped Fantasy Rules From a Forgotten 1970 Wargame".