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Gary is like Thomas Edison. While Edison didn't invent the light blub, he came up with a popular form that became mass produced. Dave wrote the first rules and played the first games. Dave shared this with Gary at Gen Con in Geneva WI. Gary saw this and took them and wrote them better and played them better. Like Edison, he took something already present and made it more popular. Though Gary did WAY more work than Dave did. Dave had like a dozen pages of rules but Gary wrote 10x as much in a matter of months after seeing Dave's first draft.

Calm down. Gygax always gets all the credit.

Gygax and Arneson were credited as writers on the original D&D game. Arneson created the game experience and wrote the first drafts, and Gygax heavily edited the mechanical aspects that made it to publication. They were clearly co-creators with complimentary skill sets.

I never worked with Dave on Blackmore in any capacity. You might inquire at Full Sail University, where Dave worked. They probably know. I did work with Dave on Trapman and the Trapman Novel is available on Amazon Books

There’s a fantastic documentary called Secrets of Blackmoor that gives context for its creation through interviews with Arneson’s players.

A nerd

@@darkairlord LOL

This interview with Dave Arneson was done in Metro Studios in Minneapolis, MN in 1995. It was for the Trapman Project, which of course was created by me. Dave did the Trapman Game. The novel TRAPMAN only came out in 2020, available on Amazon Books.

This interview was done in 1996 I think at Metro Studios in Mpls MN. The 1st Trapman Comic Book came out in 1994 and the novel came out in 2020. The Trapman Game was not quite finished before Dave died.

I do not understand, how can you write the rules and not be co-creator?

Between Arneson and Gygax, for most of the credit I tend to lean in favor of Arneson as father of modern roleplaying games. All the basic concepts were probably put together by Arneson and later Gygax elaborated on them. Gygax always deceptively talked about the origins of roleplaying games in terms of dates when D&D was first played, rather than the prior roleplaying game Blackmoor, so Gygax could bring credit on himself as the 'writer' of D&D. Or maybe the typist of D&D. What exactly do you mean Arneson was the 'sole creator,' of D&D and Gygax merely wrote the rules? It sounds about right, but whenever I challenge Gygax's supremacy, I"ve found you get blasted by angry fanboys defending their orthodoxy. How is Gygax "not a co-creator?" I don't like the man, but he did innovate a lot of rules that Arneson didn't write up, or had written up differently. If you have other data, that would be valuable and worth hearing !

Excuse me: game rules ARE the game. Those who write the rules own game rights. Arneson did get royalties -- and a large lump sum payment. 90% of the actual work in writing, developing, MAKING the game was done by Gygax. Arneson is not the sole creator of Dungeons & Dragons, which is widely recognised.

D&D is a method first of all and Arneson is his creator. The particular set of rules laid down on the Brown Box is irrelevant in the great scheme of things. It's so hard for people understand this.

The sole creator of D&D? Wow!

Hi Charles, Yes, well that was when I was 25 and now 72. Things are quite different, though not too different. I was in India a couple of months ago and will be back there and Sikkim this winter traveling. I have traveled in 87 countries and have taken some neat photos that the museum of art in Mpls, MN is using. Friend me on facebook and have a look at some photos. I have 23 books out there on the web. "The Adventures of Doctor S". Now that's wild. All the best, Peter

The TRAPMAN novel came out in 2020 on Amazon Books.