David "Dave" Lance Arneson (October 1, 1947 – April 7, 2009) was an
AmericanThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
game designerA game designer is a person who designs gameplay, conceiving and designing the rules and structures of a game. It is essentially the game equivalent to a screenwriter. The term applies to the designer of any game, whether a video game or tabletop games such as board games or card games...
best known for co-developing the first published
role-playing gameA role-playing game is a game in which the participants assume the roles of fictional characters. Participants determine the actions of their characters based on their characterization, and the actions succeed or fail according to a formal system of rules and guidelines...
,
Dungeons & DragonsDungeons & Dragons is a fantasy role-playing game originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, and first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. . The game is currently published by Wizards of the Coast, a subsidiary of Hasbro...
, with
Gary GygaxErnest Gary Gygax was an American writer and game designer, best known for co-creating the pioneering role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons with Dave Arneson...
in the early 1970s. Arneson's early work in developing the concept of the RPG using devices now considered to be archetypical, such as adventuring in "dungeons", using a neutral judge and having conversations with imaginary characters to develop the storyline, were fundamental to the development of the genre.
Arneson discovered wargaming as a teenager in the 1960s, and began combining these games with the concept of
roleplayingRole-playing refers to the changing of one's behavior to assume a role, either unconsciously to fill a social role, or consciously to act out an adopted role...
. He was a
University of MinnesotaThe University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States...
student when he met Gygax at the
Gen ConGen Con is one of the largest and most prominent annual gaming conventions in North America. The convention has featured role-playing games, miniatures wargames, board games, live action role-playing games, collectible card games, strategy games, computer games, and more, where attendees can engage...
gaming convention in the late 1960s. In 1970, Arneson created the game and fictional world that became
BlackmoorBlackmoor is a fantasy role-playing game campaign setting generally associated with the game Dungeons & Dragons. It originally evolved in the early 1970s as the personal setting of Dave Arneson, the co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, first as a setting for Arneson's miniature wargames, then as an...
, writing his own rules and basing the setting on medieval
fantasyFantasy is a genre that uses magic and other supernatural forms as a primary element of plot, theme, and/or setting. Many works within the genre take place on fictional planes or planets where magic is common...
elements. Arneson brought the game to show Gygax the following year, and the pair co-developed a set of rules that became
Dungeons & Dragons (
D&D). Gygax subsequently incorporated
TSRTSR, Inc. was an American game publishing company most famous for publishing the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. The company was purchased in 1997 by Wizards of the Coast, which no longer uses the TSR name for its products.-Tactical Studies Rules:...
to publish the game in 1974, and Arneson worked briefly for the company.
Arneson left TSR in 1976, and filed suit in 1979 to retain credits and royalties on the game. He continued to work as an independent game designer, briefly worked for TSR again in the 1980s, and continued to play games for his entire life. Arneson also did some work in computer gaming, and taught computer game design and game rules design at Full Sail University from the 1990s until shortly before his death in 2009.
Experience with miniature wargaming
Arneson's role-playing game design work grew from his interest in
wargameA wargame is a game that represents a military operation. Wargaming is the hobby dedicated to the play of such games, which can also be called conflict simulations, or consims for short. When used professionally to study warfare, it is generally known as a military exercise or war game...
s when his parents bought him the
board wargameA board wargame is a wargame with a set playing surface or board, as opposed to being played on a computer, or in a more free-form playing area as in miniatures games. The hobby around this type of game got its start in 1954 with the publication of Tactics, and saw its greatest popularity in the...
GettysburgGettysburg is a board wargame produced by Avalon Hill which re-enacts the American Civil War battle of Gettysburg. It was originally published in 1958, and was the first board wargame based on a historical battle....
by
Avalon HillAvalon Hill was a game company that specialized in wargames and strategic board games. Their logo contained their initials "AH", and it was often referred to by this abbreviation. It also published the occasional miniature wargaming rules, role-playing game, and had a popular line of sports...
in the early 1960s. After Arneson taught his friends how to play, the group began to design their own games, with Arneson especially fond of
naval wargamesNaval wargaming is a branch of the wider hobby of miniature wargaming. Generally less popular than wargames set on land, naval wargaming nevertheless enjoys a degree of support around the world...
, and trying out new ways to play games. Exposure to role-playing as a tool also influenced his later game 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 joined the
Midwest Military Simulation AssociationThe Midwest Military Simulation Association was a group of wargamers and military figurine collectors active during the late 1960s and 1970s when wargaming was in its heyday and role-playing games were first developed. The group lived in the Minneapolis-St Paul area...
, which was a group of
miniature wargamersMiniature wargaming is a form of wargaming that incorporates miniature figures and modeled terrain as the main components of play. Like other types of wargames, they can be generally considered to be a type of simulation game, generally about tactical combat, as opposed to computer and board...
and military figurine collectors in the
MinneapolisMinneapolis is the largest city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and is the county seat of Hennepin County. The city lies on both banks of the Mississippi River, just north of the river's confluence with the Minnesota River, and adjoins Saint Paul, the state's capital. Known as the Twin Cities,...
-St. Paul area that included among its ranks future game designer
David WeselyDavid Wesely is a wargamer, board game designer, and video game developer. Dave Arneson credited him with coming up with the idea of the role-playing game....
. Wesely asserts that it was during the
Braunstein games he created and refereed, and in which other MMSA members participated, that Arneson helped develop the foundations of modern role-playing games on a 1:1 scale basis by focusing on non-combat objectives; a step away from wargaming towards the more individual play and varied challenges of later RPGs.
In 1969, Arneson was a history student at the
University of MinnesotaThe University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States...
and working part time as a security guard. He attended the second (formal)
Gen ConGen Con is one of the largest and most prominent annual gaming conventions in North America. The convention has featured role-playing games, miniatures wargames, board games, live action role-playing games, collectible card games, strategy games, computer games, and more, where attendees can engage...
gaming conventionA gaming convention is any event gathering focused primarily around role-playing games, collectible card games, miniatures wargames, board games, video games, or other types of games...
in August 1969 (at which time wargaming was still the primary focus) and it was at this event that he met
Gary GygaxErnest Gary Gygax was an American writer and game designer, best known for co-creating the pioneering role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons with Dave Arneson...
who had founded the
Castle & Crusade SocietyFormed by Gary Gygax in 1968, the Castle & Crusade Society was a chapter of the International Federation of Wargamers dedicated to medieval miniature wargaming.Its membership included Gary Gygax, Rob Kuntz and Dave Arneson....
within the
International Federation of WargamersThe International Federation of Wargamers was founded by Gary Gygax, Bill Speer, and Scott Duncan in 1966. Originally named the United States Continental Army Command, the organization served as an umbrella for local wargaming clubs such as the Lake Geneva Tactical Studies Association and the...
in the 1960s at
Lake Geneva, WisconsinLake Geneva is a city in Walworth County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 7,148 at the 2000 census. A resort city located on Geneva Lake, it is southwest of Milwaukee, and popular with tourists from metropolitan Chicago and Milwaukee.-History:...
, not far from Arneson's home in
MinnesotaMinnesota is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. The twelfth largest state by area in the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.2 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the...
. Arneson and Gygax also shared an interest in sailing ship games and they co-authored the
Don't Give Up The Ship!Don't Give Up the Ship! is a set of rules for conducting Napoleonic era naval wargames. The game was published by Guidon Games in 1972 and republished by TSR, Inc. in 1975. It was the first collaboration between Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax, the co-creators of Dungeons & Dragons...
naval battle rules, serialized from June 1971 and later published as a single volume in 1972 by
Guidon GamesGuidon Games produced board games and rulebooks for wargaming with miniatures, and in doing so influenced Tactical Studies Rules , the publisher of Dungeons & Dragons. The Guidon Games publishing imprint was the property of Lowry's Hobbies , a mail-order business owned by Don and Julie Lowry...
with a revised edition by
TSR, Inc.TSR, Inc. was an American game publishing company most famous for publishing the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. The company was purchased in 1997 by Wizards of the Coast, which no longer uses the TSR name for its products.-Tactical Studies Rules:...
in 1975.
Blackmoor
In the summer of 1970, Arneson began to create a game that involved medieval miniatures exploring the dungeons of a castle inhabited by fantastic monsters. Originally Arneson played his own mix of rules using
rock, paper, scissorsRock-Paper-Scissors, or Paper-Rock-Scissors, is a two-person hand game....
to resolve combat, but later adapted elements from his naval wargame rules which had an
armor classIn some role-playing games, Armor Class is a derived statistic which indicates how difficult it is to hit a character with an attack....
system like that later used in
D&D. The armor class system also appeared in the
ChainmailChainmail is a medieval miniatures wargame created by Jeff Perren and Gary Gygax. Gygax developed the game with fellow Lake Geneva Tactical Studies Association member Perren, a hobby-shop owner that he had become friendly with, and the set of rules for medieval miniatures combat was published in...
rules, written by Gygax and Jeff Perren. However, also finding those lacking, Arneson wrote modified rules, applying those to his role-playing game scenarios. “I had spent the previous two days watching about five monster movies on channel 5’s ‘Creature Feature’ weekend, reading several Conan books (I cannot recall which ones, but I always thought they were all pretty much the same), and stuffing myself with popcorn, doodling on a piece of graph paper. At the time, I was quite tired of my Nappy (Napoleonic) campaign with all its rigid rules and was rebelling against it.”
The game that evolved from those modifications to
Chainmail was the game
BlackmoorBlackmoor is a fantasy role-playing game campaign setting generally associated with the game Dungeons & Dragons. It originally evolved in the early 1970s as the personal setting of Dave Arneson, the co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, first as a setting for Arneson's miniature wargames, then as an...
, which modern players of
D&D would describe more as a campaign setting rather than a "complete game." The
gameplay----Gameplay includes all player experiences during the interaction with game systems, especially formal games. Proper use is coupled with reference to "what the player does"...
would be recognizable to modern
D&D players, featuring the use of fixed hit points,
armor classIn some role-playing games, Armor Class is a derived statistic which indicates how difficult it is to hit a character with an attack....
, character development, and
dungeon crawlA dungeon crawl is a type of scenario in fantasy role-playing games in which heroes navigate a labyrinthine environment, battling various monsters and looting any treasure they may find...
s. This setting was also fleshed out over time and has continued to be played to the present day. Arneson described Blackmoor as “roleplaying in a non-traditional medieval setting. I have such things as steam power, gunpowder, and submarines in limited numbers. There was even a tank running around for a while. The emphasis is on the story and the roleplaying." Details of Blackmoor and the original campaign, which was by then established on the map of the
Castle & Crusade SocietyFormed by Gary Gygax in 1968, the Castle & Crusade Society was a chapter of the International Federation of Wargamers dedicated to medieval miniature wargaming.Its membership included Gary Gygax, Rob Kuntz and Dave Arneson....
's "Great Kingdom", were first brought to print briefly in issue #13 of the
Domesday Book, the newsletter of the
Castle & Crusade SocietyFormed by Gary Gygax in 1968, the Castle & Crusade Society was a chapter of the International Federation of Wargamers dedicated to medieval miniature wargaming.Its membership included Gary Gygax, Rob Kuntz and Dave Arneson....
in July 1972, and later in much-expanded form as
The First Fantasy Campaign, published by
Judges GuildJudges Guild is a small game publisher in the business of creating and selling role-playing game supplements, periodicals and related material, most notable as one of the leading publishers in the late 1970s and early 1980s of Dungeons & Dragons-related materials...
in 1977.
Although much of what was later deemed to be "Tolkien-influenced" in
D&D and the concept of adventuring in "dungeons" originated with Blackmoor, as a setting it was not purely fantasy-orientated, with recent history and science fiction elements also incorporated or linked in. These are visible much later in the
DA module seriesThe DA module series is a series of four adventures for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, designed to be compatible with the Dungeons & Dragons Expert Set. They were written for character levels 10–14 by Dave Arneson and David J...
published by TSR (particularly
City of the Gods), but were also present from the early-mid 1970s in the original campaign and parallel and intertwined games run by
John SniderStar Probe is a space game written by John Snider and published by TSR, Inc. in 1975. It consists of a 36 page rulebook with a map and counters. Prepublication play-testing was done by members of the MMSA. Artwork is by Paul Snider....
, whose ruleset developed from these adventures and was intended for publication by TSR from 1974 as the first SF RPG.
Dungeons & Dragons
Arneson thought that Gygax would be interested in role-playing since Gygax was already a game-maker with similar interests, so Arneson took his game and a few friends to demonstrate to Gygax in late 1971. After collaboration by phone and mail, and playtesting carried out by their various groups and other contacts, Gygax and Arneson wanted to publish the game, later called "The Fantasy Game", but both
Guidon GamesGuidon Games produced board games and rulebooks for wargaming with miniatures, and in doing so influenced Tactical Studies Rules , the publisher of Dungeons & Dragons. The Guidon Games publishing imprint was the property of Lowry's Hobbies , a mail-order business owned by Don and Julie Lowry...
and
Avalon HillAvalon Hill was a game company that specialized in wargames and strategic board games. Their logo contained their initials "AH", and it was often referred to by this abbreviation. It also published the occasional miniature wargaming rules, role-playing game, and had a popular line of sports...
rejected it and Arneson could not afford to invest in the venture.
Given the need to publish the game as soon as possible, since similar projects were being planned elsewhere, rules were hastily put together and Arneson's own final draft was never used. Despite all this,
Brian BlumeBrian J. Blume is noted for being a business partner of Gary Gygax in TSR, Inc., producers of the fantasy role-playing game, Dungeons & Dragons....
eventually provided the funding required to publish the
original Dungeons & Dragons setThe original Dungeons & Dragons boxed set by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson was published by TSR, Inc. in 1974, and initially comprised the original edition of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. Its product designation was TSR 2002...
in 1974, with the initial print run of 1,000 selling out within a year and sales rapidly increased in subsequent years. Further rules and a sample dungeon from Arneson's original campaign (the first published RPG scenario in a professional publication) were released in 1975 in the
BlackmoorBlackmoor is a supplementary rulebook by Dave Arneson for the original edition of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. It was published by TSR, Inc. in 1975 as the second supplement to the original Dungeons & Dragons boxed set and bears the designation "Supplement II", with Greyhawk...
supplement for
D&D, named after the campaign setting. The supplement offered little in the way of details from Arneson's actual campaign, however.
Arneson formally joined TSR as their Director of Research at the beginning of 1976 but left at the end of the year to pursue a career as an independent game designer.
After TSR
In 1977, despite the fact that he was no longer at TSR, Arneson published
Dungeonmaster's Index, a 38-page booklet that indexed all of TSR's D&D properties to that point in time, including
ChainmailChainmail is a medieval miniatures wargame created by Jeff Perren and Gary Gygax. Gygax developed the game with fellow Lake Geneva Tactical Studies Association member Perren, a hobby-shop owner that he had become friendly with, and the set of rules for medieval miniatures combat was published in...
, the
original 3-book set of D&DThe original Dungeons & Dragons boxed set by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson was published by TSR, Inc. in 1974, and initially comprised the original edition of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. Its product designation was TSR 2002...
, the five D&D supplements (
GreyhawkGreyhawk is a supplementary rulebook by Gary Gygax and Robert J. Kuntz for the original edition of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. It was published by TSR, Inc. in 1975 as a supplement to the original Dungeons & Dragons boxed set and bears the designation "Supplement I", with...
;
BlackmoorBlackmoor is a supplementary rulebook by Dave Arneson for the original edition of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. It was published by TSR, Inc. in 1975 as the second supplement to the original Dungeons & Dragons boxed set and bears the designation "Supplement II", with Greyhawk...
;
Eldritch WizardryEldritch Wizardry is a supplementary rulebook by Gary Gygax and Brian Blume for the original edition of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. It was published by TSR, Inc...
;
Gods, Demi-gods & HeroesGods, Demi-Gods & Heroes is a supplementary rulebook for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. It was published by TSR, Inc...
; and
Swords & SpellsSwords & Spells is a supplementary rulebook by Gary Gygax for the original edition of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. It was published by TSR, Inc...
), and all seven issues of
The Strategic Review.
TSR had agreed to pay Arneson royalties on all D&D products, but when the company came out with
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D) in 1977, it claimed that this was a significantly different product and did not pay him royalties. In response, Arneson filed the first of five lawsuits against Gygax and
TSRTSR, Inc. was an American game publishing company most famous for publishing the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. The company was purchased in 1997 by Wizards of the Coast, which no longer uses the TSR name for its products.-Tactical Studies Rules:...
in 1979. Two years later, in March 1981, as part of a confidential agreement, Arneson and Gygax resolved the suits out of court by agreeing that they would both be credited as "co-creators" on the packaging of
D&D products from that point on, but this did not end the lingering tensions between them. (Twenty years later,
Wizards of the CoastWizards of the Coast is an American publisher of games, primarily based on fantasy and science fiction themes...
(WotC) bought TSR and wanted to drop the word "Advanced" from its planned third edition of D&D. WotC CEO
Peter AdkisonPeter D. Adkison is a hobby game professional best known as a primary founder of Wizards of the Coast and its first CEO .During Adkison's tenure, Wizards of the Coast rose to the status of a major publisher in the hobby game industry...
approached Arneson to resolve the two-decade-old issue and for an undisclosed sum of money, Arneson agreed to release all claims to D&D.)
In 1979, Arneson and Richard L. Snider, an original Blackmoor player, co-authored
Adventures in Fantasy, a roleplaying game that attempted to recapture the "original spirit of the Role Playing Fantasy Game" that Arneson had envisioned in the early 1970s, instead of what
D&D had become. In the early 1980s he established his own game company, Adventure Games, that produced the miniatures games
Johnny Reb and
Harpoon, as well as his own
Adventures in Fantasy role-playing game. Adventure Games was profitable, but Arneson found the workload to be excessive and finally sold his company to
Flying BuffaloFlying Buffalo Incorporated is a Scottsdale, Arizona game company that publishes role playing games, card games, gaming materials, and runs Play-by-mail games....
.
While Gary Gygax was president of TSR in the mid 1980s, he and Arneson reconnected, and Arneson briefly relinked
Blackmoor to
D&D with the
"DA" (Dave Arneson)The DA module series is a series of four adventures for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, designed to be compatible with the Dungeons & Dragons Expert Set. They were written for character levels 10–14 by Dave Arneson and David J...
series of modules set in
Blackmoor (1986–1987). The four modules, three of which were written by Arneson, detailed Arneson's campaign setting for the first time. When Gygax was forced out of TSR, Arneson was removed from the company before a planned fifth module could be published. Gygax and Arneson again went their separate ways. In 1986, Arneson wrote a new
D&D module set in Blackmoor called "The Garbage Pits of Despair", which was published in two parts in
Different Worlds magazine issues #42 and #43.
Arneson stepped into the computer industry and founded 4D Interactive Systems, a computer company in Minnesota that is still in business today. He also did some
programmingComputer programming is the process of writing, testing, debugging/troubleshooting, and maintaining the source code of computer programs. This source code is written in a programming language. The code may be a modification of an existing source or something completely new...
and worked on several games. He eventually found himself consulting with computer companies.
Living in
CaliforniaCalifornia is the most populous state in the United States, and the third largest by area. California is the second most populous sub-national entity in the Americas, behind only São Paulo, Brazil...
in the late 1980s, Arneson had a chance to work with
special educationSpecial education is the education of students with special needs in a way that addresses the students' individual differences and needs. Ideally, this process involves the individually planned and systematically monitored arrangement of teaching procedures, adapted equipment and materials,...
children. Upon returning to Minnesota, he pursued teaching and began speaking at schools about educational uses of role-playing and using multi-sided
diceA die or dice is a small polyhedral object, usually cubic, used for generating random numbers or other symbols...
to teach math. In the 1990s, he began working at Full Sail, a private
universityA university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education...
that teaches multimedia subjects, and continued there as a professor of computer
game designGame design is the process of designing the content and rules of a game. The term is also used to describe both the game design embodied in an actual game as well as documentation that describes such a design.- Interaction with other design disciplines :...
until 2008.
Around 2000, Arneson was working with
videographerStrictly speaking, a videographer is a person who works in the video medium — recording moving images and sound on tape, disk, other electro-mechanical device, broadcasting live, or even on actual celluloid film in some cases. On a set, he or she is usually responsible for the camera, sound, and...
John Kentner on
Dragons in the Basement, a video
documentaryDocumentary film is a broad category of visual expressions that is based on the attempt, in one fashion or another, to "document" reality. Although "documentary film" originally referred to movies shot on film stock, it has subsequently expanded to include video and digital productions that can...
on the early history of role-playing games. Arneson describes the documentary: “Basically it is a series of interviews with original players (‘How did D&D affect your life?’) and original RPG designers like Marc Miller (
Traveller) and M.A.R. Barker (
Empire of the Petal Throne).” He also made a
cameo appearanceA cameo role or cameo appearance is a brief appearance of a known person in a work of the performing arts, such as plays, films, video games and television. Short appearances by film directors, politicians, athletes, musicians, and other celebrities are common. These roles are generally small, and...
in the
Dungeons & Dragons movie as one of many
magesThe wizard is one of the standard character class in the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. A wizard is an arcane magic user, and is considered less effective in mêlée combat than other classes.-Creative origins:...
throwing fireballs at a
dragonIn the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, dragons are an iconic creature used as either enemies or allies of player characters. Dragons are often depicted as having many different races, each usually based on a particular color of their scales or an affinity with an element...
, although the scene was deleted from the completed movie. Arneson and Dustin Clingman founded Zeitgeist Games to produce an updated,
d20 SystemThe d20 System is a role-playing game system published in 2000 by Wizards of the Coast originally developed for the third edition of Dungeons & Dragons...
version of the
BlackmoorBlackmoor is a fantasy role-playing game campaign setting generally associated with the game Dungeons & Dragons. It originally evolved in the early 1970s as the personal setting of Dave Arneson, the co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, first as a setting for Arneson's miniature wargames, then as an...
setting.
Goodman GamesGoodman Games is an American publisher of games, primarily based on fantasy and science fiction themes. Goodman Games is best known as the publisher of the Dungeon Crawl Classics series of adventure modules, as well as the Dragonmech and the award-winning Etherscope role-playing games, and has...
published and distributed this new
BlackmoorBlackmoor is a fantasy role-playing game campaign setting generally associated with the game Dungeons & Dragons. It originally evolved in the early 1970s as the personal setting of Dave Arneson, the co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, first as a setting for Arneson's miniature wargames, then as an...
in 2004.
Personal life
Arneson married Frankie Ann Morneau in 1984; they had one daughter, Malia, and two grandchildren.
Arneson continued to play games his entire life, including
D&D, military miniatures, and an annual meeting to play the original
BlackmoorBlackmoor is a fantasy role-playing game campaign setting generally associated with the game Dungeons & Dragons. It originally evolved in the early 1970s as the personal setting of Dave Arneson, the co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, first as a setting for Arneson's miniature wargames, then as an...
in Minnesota. He taught the class "Rules of the Game" at Full Sail University, a school of graphic arts and game design, in which students learned how to accurately document and create balanced rules sets. He retired from the position on June 19, 2008.
Arneson died on April 7, 2009, after battling cancer for two years. According to his daughter, Malia Weinhagen, "The biggest thing about my dad's world is he wanted people to have fun in life ... I think we get distracted by the everyday things you have to do in life and we forget to enjoy life and have fun".
Honors and tributes
Arneson received numerous industry awards for his part in creating
Dungeons & Dragons and role-playing games. In 1984 he was inducted into the
Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design's Hall of FameThe Origins Awards are American awards for outstanding work in the game industry. They are presented by the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design at the Origins Game Fair on an annual basis for the previous year, so the 1979 awards were given at the 1980 Origins.The Origins Award is commonly...
and in 1999 was named by
PyramidPyramid is a gaming magazine, publishing articles primarily on role-playing games, but including board games, card games, and other sorts of games. It began life in 1993 as a print publication of Steve Jackson Games for its first 30 issues, though it has been published on the Internet since March...
magazine as one of
The Millennium's Most Influential Persons, "at least in the realm of adventure gaming".
Three days after his death,
Wizards of the CoastWizards of the Coast is an American publisher of games, primarily based on fantasy and science fiction themes...
temporarily replaced the front page of the Dungeons & Dragons section of their web site with a tribute to Arneson. Other tributes in the gaming world included
Order of the Stick #644, and
Dork TowerDork Tower is an online comic created, written and drawn by John Kovalic. It chronicles the lives of a group of geeks living in the fictional town of Mud Bay, Wisconsin. Mud Bay's design is strongly influenced by the author's home town of Madison, Wisconsin. Topics have included role-playing...
for April 8, 2009.
Video game publisherA video game publisher is a company that publishes video games that they have either developed internally or have had developed by a video game developer....
Activision BlizzardActivision Blizzard, Inc. is the American holding company for Activision and Blizzard Entertainment, majority owned by French conglomerate Vivendi SA. The company is the result of a merger between Activision and Vivendi Games, announced on December 2, 2007 in a deal worth USD$18.8 billion. The...
posted a tribute to Arneson on their website and on April 14, 2009, released patch 3.1 of the online roleplaying game
World of WarcraftWorld of Warcraft, often referred to as WoW, is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game by Blizzard Entertainment. It is the fourth released game set in the fantasy Warcraft universe, which was first introduced by Warcraft: Orcs & Humans in 1994...
,
The Secrets of Ulduar, dedicated to Arneson.
Partial bibliography
- Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons is a fantasy role-playing game originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, and first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. . The game is currently published by Wizards of the Coast, a subsidiary of Hasbro...
(1974) (with Gary GygaxErnest Gary Gygax was an American writer and game designer, best known for co-creating the pioneering role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons with Dave Arneson...
)
- Blackmoor
Blackmoor is a supplementary rulebook by Dave Arneson for the original edition of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. It was published by TSR, Inc. in 1975 as the second supplement to the original Dungeons & Dragons boxed set and bears the designation "Supplement II", with Greyhawk...
(1975)
- Dungeonmaster's Index (1977)
- The First Fantasy Campaign (1977)
- Adventures in Fantasy (1979) (with Richard L. Snider)
- Robert Asprin's Thieves' World (1981) (co-author)
- Citybook II – Port o' Call (1984) (co-author)
- Adventures in Blackmoor
The DA module series is a series of four adventures for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, designed to be compatible with the Dungeons & Dragons Expert Set. They were written for character levels 10–14 by Dave Arneson and David J...
(D&D Module:DA1) (1986) (with David J. Ritchie)
- Temple of the Frog
The DA module series is a series of four adventures for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, designed to be compatible with the Dungeons & Dragons Expert Set. They were written for character levels 10–14 by Dave Arneson and David J...
(D&D Module:DA2) (1986) (with David J. Ritchie)
- City of the Gods
The DA module series is a series of four adventures for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, designed to be compatible with the Dungeons & Dragons Expert Set. They were written for character levels 10–14 by Dave Arneson and David J...
(D&D Module:DA3) (1987) (with David J. Ritchie)
- DNA/DOA (1989)
- The Case of the Pacific Clipper (1991)
- The Haunted Lighthouse (Dungeon Crawl Classics
Dungeon Crawl Classics is a series of roleplaying adventure modules published by Goodman Games under the d20 open gaming license. It includes more than 40 adventures, and features celebrated game designers such as Michael Mearls, Dave Arneson, and Monte Cook, as well as classic TSR artists like...
Module #3.5) (2003)
- Dave Arneson's Blackmoor (2004) (lead designer)
- Player's Guide to Blackmoor (2006)
External links