Dave Arneson

David L. Arneson is an American game designer who co-created with Gary Gygax Dungeons & Dragons, a popular role-playing game. He has kept a relatively low profile and has been called an "unsung legend" in the early development of RPGs.

Wargaming roots
Arneson's RPG design work evolved from his interest in wargames. His parents bought him Gettysburg by Avalon Hill in the early 1960s and he soon taught his friends how to play. Since Avalon Hill only released a couple games per year, he and his gaming group began to design their own games. Exposure to role-playing as a tool also influenced his later designs. In college history classes, he role-played historical events and preferred deviating from the recorded history in a manner similar to "what if" scenarios recreated in wargames.

In the late 1960s, Arneson began playing with military miniatures with a gamer group in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. It was with these players that he first developed the inklings of modern role-playing games. When they played they would set non-combat objectives for each player, a step away from wargaming towards the more individual play and varied challenges of later RPGs.

Arneson attended the Gen Con gaming convention for the first time in 1970, which was only its second annual meeting. It was at this Gen Con that he met Gary Gygax who had founded the Castle & Crusade Society in the International Federation of Wargamers in 1960s at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, not far from Arneson's home in Minnesota. They also shared an interest in sailing ship games that would bear fruit when they collaborated on Don't Give Up The Ship!, published in 1971 by Guidon Games.

Blackmoor
Arneson's gaming group began playing medieval battles and tried Chainmail, written by Gygax and Jeff Perren. Arneson went about making changes to the rules for their own purposes, focusing on small-scale scenarios and the fantasy aspects. These changes became very popular because they took every opportunity to make the game more fun, easier to manage, and faster. The number of units on the table dropped from thousands to just 20-30. The fantasy setting enabled them to create the game and then explain it using their freed imaginations rather than being leashed to historical accuracy.

The game that evolved was Blackmoor. Arneson tracked the myriad of rules notes in three-ring binders to maintain consistency. The gameplay would now be recognizable to players of Dungeons & Dragons, featuring the use of hit points and armor class, character development (levels and experience points), and dungeon crawls. The setting was also fleshed out over time. In the early 1970s, Arneson's gaming group in Minnesota began the Blackmoor campaign and has continued to play to the present, making it the longest continuously played RPG campaign.

The rules compiled by Arneson that worked off Chainmail provided the essential mechanics of Dungeons & Dragons. Arneson demonstrated Blackmoor to the Lake Geneva Tactical Studies Association where Gygax was inspired to create a brand new game &mdash; Dungeons & Dragons. After phone and mail design collaboration, Gygax and Arneson wanted to publish the game, but as a security guard, Dave could not afford to invest in the venture. Don Kaye provided funding to publish D&D in 1974, which became a sold out success. Blackmoor became one of the two major settings for the game.

In 1979, Arneson filed the first lawsuit (of five) against Gygax and TSR Hobbies (D&D's publisher) over crediting and royalties on later adapted versions of Dungeons & Dragons. Dave left D&D/TSR and they resolved the suits out of court in 1981, but this did not end the lingering tensions between them. The court documents are confidential and he cannot talk about the issues involved. Just how much Arneson contributed to D&D remains a mystery that gamers continue to debate.

After TSR
In the early 1980s Arneson established his own game company, Adventure Games, which produced the miniature games Johnny Reb and Harpoon. He wrote the Adventures in Fantasy RPG(with co-author Richard L. Snider), which can be seen as D&D as he envisioned it. Adventure Games published several games and made money, but Arneson handed it over to Flying Buffalo as the workload became unbearable.

Arneson briefly returned to Blackmoor and D&D in the mid 1980s when Gygax became president of TSR. This production yielded the "DA" (Dave Arneson) series of Blackmoor modules. When a new president took control of TSR, Arneson was removed from the company before the fifth module was published. Gygax and Arneson went their separate ways.

Arneson stepped into the computer industry. He founded 4D Interactive Systems, Inc., a computer company in Minnesota that is still in business today. He also did some programming and worked on several games, but found it not to his liking. He eventually found himself consulting with computer companies.

Then his life steered towards education. Living in California in the late 1980s, he had a chance to work with special education children. Upon returning to Minnesota, he pursued teaching and began speaking at schools about educational uses of role-playing. In the 1990s, he began working at Full Sail, a private university that teaches multimedia subjects, and continues there as a professor of computer game design.

Around 2000, Arneson was working with videographer John Kentner on Dragons in the Basement, a video documentary on the early history of role-playing games, but little is known what has become of that production. He also made a cameo appearance in the Dungeons & Dragons movie as one of many mages throwing fireballs at a dragon.

Arneson suffered a stroke in early 2002. He has recovered and continues his work.

Present
Arneson and Dustin Clingman founded Zeitgeist Games to produce an updated, d20 System version of the Blackmoor setting. Goodman Games published and distributed this new Blackmoor in 2004.

Now in his 50s, Arneson continues to play games, including D&D, military miniatures, and an annual meeting to play the original Blackmoor in Minnesota. He has received numerous industry awards for his part in creating Dungeons & Dragons and roleplaying games.

Interviews

 * GameSpy: Dave Arneson Interview, Aug. 11, 2002
 * GameSpy: Dave Arneson Interview, Aug. 19, 2004
 * EN World: Interview with Dave Arneson
 * Pegasus Magazine Issue #1: Interview with Dave Arneson (Apr/May 1981)

Dave Arneson