The Evolution of Fantasy Role-Playing Games - Michael J. Tresca [38]
Gygax and Perren added a fifteen-page “Fantasy Supplement” to Chainmail in 1971, published by Guidon Games. It added jousting, one-on-one melee, and, most of all, fantasy creatures. Chainmail’s Fantasy Supplement introduced many enduring fantasy concepts, including elementals, dragons of different colors, and the now archetypical fireball, lightning bolt, and polymorph spells. These spells matched the power of artillery; fireballs inflicted the damage of catapults and lightning bolts were the equivalent of cannons. Creatures were divided by alignment into law and chaos, drawing on Moorcock’s similar alignment of philosophies in the Elric series. Each of the fantasy creatures were treated as troop types. Hobbits were treated as light footmen and elves as heavy footmen. Individual heroes were as powerful as four heavy footmen.
It was Arneson who applied the Fantasy Supplement to dungeon exploration in his Blackmoor campaign setting. Unlike Braunstein, Arneson’s Blackmoor was a campaign with an endless series of progression (Whetsell 2006). When his players grew tired of the standard monsters, Arneson provided a variety of options. The games themselves weren’t all about combat. Characters could fight their way through the dungeon or sneak through the sewer system. Most importantly, it was cooperative play. The players were successful only if the group was successful.
In 1971, at a convention in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, Arneson demonstrated his heroic fantasy commando raid for Gary Gygax, who was duly impressed. Working with Arneson, Gygax collaborated on a set of rules for what was initially called the Fantasy Game. Unable to find a publisher, they renamed their game Dungeons & Dragons (Archer 2004:43). In 1973, Gygax collaborated with Don Kaye and Brian Blume in a group called Tactical Studies Rules. Due to the untimely death of Kaye, the partnership was dissolved. The game appeared that same year at EasterCon. Pre-release copies were in circulation by the end of 1973, but the first commercial version of Dungeons & Dragons was published in January 1974 (Costikyan 2007:5).
By the wargaming standards of the time, Dungeons & Dragons was becoming a huge success. Nearing the end of 1974, Tactical Studies Rules had sold all of its 1,000 copies. That November, they ordered 2,000 more, only to sell out by April 1975. Another 3,000 units were sold by July. It was clear Dungeons & Dragons’ appeal had gone beyond wargamers. Fan demand was insatiable.
On November 1, 1973 (I was born exactly a year earlier), Gygax penned the foreword of the first Dungeons &Dragons rulebook. Dungeons & Dragons consisted of three booklets: Men & Magic, Monsters & Treasure, and Wilderness & Dungeon Adventures. It featured four races (humans, dwarves, elves, and hobbits) and just three classes (fighting-men, magic-users, and clerics). It also introduced individual statistics that had never existed before: Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Dexterity, Constitution, and Charisma. This was a quantum leap from wargames of the past, as the statistics described an individual person, not a unit.
Men & Magic recommended miniatures “if the players have them available and so desire,” but they were not required. Cardboard counters were given as an alternative, “although by themselves the bits of cardboard lack the eye-appeal of the varied and brightly painted miniature figures” (Gygax and Arneson 1974:5).
Since both Gygax and Arneson were running their own games using Dungeons & Dragons rules, they decided to publish an expansion detailing each of their respective campaigns. Gygax’s game, Greyhawk, introduced the paladin and thief class. Blackmoor, Arneson’s game, introduced the monk and assassin. Finally, Eldritch Wizardry was published, which introduced the druid class as well as psionics. The next installment was Gods, Demigods, and Heroes. It listed a variety of pantheons for use in the game,