No, I'm not talking about losing exclusive rights through genericization. I'm talking about having someone else obtain/retain exclusive rights to the TM even though you retain the content.

The speculative example is: I write a game, call it Peonies and Pansies, and I launch the Peonies and Pansies brand through SRQ, Inc., which includes revised versions of the game. I then separate from SRQ with more or less ill-will, but a court rules that I retain copyright on the original game (only). So the question is, how much control would SRQ now have over my ability to publish Peonies and Pansies on my own? Would I have to change the title? Could I publish just that one game under the original name but not other games with similar titles? Or what?

I suppose underlying all this is the assumption that I granted SRQ the right to make derivative works of P&P but we never explicitly established ownership of the trademark.

Also needless to say, a good contract could avoid all this mess.

I don't think they're currently at risk of that, no.  But if by 5e it's a completely different game as some people have suggested you could have people using the term "D&D" to mean substantially different games.

But that's really an aside.  I'm more interested in how Gary Gygax, the (co-)author of a game lost control of it completely -- to the point they were doing things with the game he didn't agree with.

My wife's uncle had 2 business partners and was forced out of his business in a similar way.  I got out of a business partnership a few years ago because I was going to be in a position where I had < 50% share.  Starting a game company now, this is all both very interesting... and probably pretty important too.

Maybe I'll release my game in French first in both Quebec and France.  Their laws seem to protect authors a bit more. :haw:

Quote from: StuartBut that's really an aside.  I'm more interested in how Gary Gygax, the (co-)author of a game lost control of it completely -- to the point they were doing things with the game he didn't agree with.

That happens when you sell it. First he dropped below 50% in TSR and then he completely bailed. EDIT: TSR ending up owning the sole distribution rights and sole rights to make direct derivative works. Gary is still the creator but he'd effectively and explicitly signed away any control of the use of it.

Quote from: jgantsHow much of the product should Arneson have owned?  Didn't he form a lot of the original rules as well?

Looking at Arneson's published work it is hard to attribute many D&D rules to him.  First Fantasy Campaign is basically a collection of his campaign notes and it doesn't look very much like D&D at all.  I suspect much of his influence on the game is procedural in a way that doesn't come through in rules.  My recent obsession on my blog with OD&D is basically an attempt to reconstruct some of the procedures that the earliest DMs took for granted and hence didn't make it into the text of the game.

Quote from: jrientsI suspect much of his influence on the game is procedural in a way that doesn't come through in rules.

A comment by Gygax that I read recently (in the gamespy interview in post 1 perhaps?) supports this.  Gygax stated that his group used heroic figures in Chainmail.  But Arneson took the next step with one heroic figure per player and no other player controlled figures.  This was what inspired Gygax to transfrom Chainmail to D&D.  Arneson seems to have had the first rpg campaign that predated the first actual rpg.

Quote from: jrientsMy recent obsession on my blog with OD&D is basically an attempt to reconstruct some of the procedures that the earliest DMs took for granted and hence didn't make it into the text of the game.

Uh, sorry for the tangent, but I gotta say that is very cool.


How much is there from the other parties perspective? Ms. Wisemans (sp?) or the Blumes? I'm really interested in a kind of 'where are they now' way.

I'm not really that interested in being a sympathetic ear, mind.

Somebody just put up a link to an article with some direct quotes from both those parties. It may have been on Gamespy. (In any case Gamespy has quite a few articles on Gygax and Arneson.)

Hey, Jeff, that's a pretty cool project.

I'm not sure which of the following was either procedural or rules-ey. What is abundantly clear, though, assuming the Wired obit is accurate, is that Arneson came up with a LOT.

QuoteWhen Arneson saw Chainmail, he was very intrigued by its potential for free-form, improvisatory play. It was similar to the game scenarios that one of his game groups in the Twin Cities had been experimenting with. "We didn't have volumes of rules and people arguing about historical accuracy," Arneson recalls. "In one game, we all ended up chasing a South American dictator as he was trying to escape with his comic book collection."

Arneson modified Chainmail for his own group's purposes. He took the action underground, like the claustrophobic sets of the Hammer Film Productions horror flicks he watched. Corridors. Tunnels. Caves. "A dungeon is nice and self-contained," he says. "Players can't go romping over the countryside, and you can control the situation."

Arneson tested his Chainmail mod in play sessions with his group and, based on their feedback, continued to tinker with the rules to make it more fun. "We had to change the combat system because we added more monsters. They were getting big and gruesome."

There was another aspect of the game he wanted to tweak: the fact that it ended. Arneson's group was having too much fun playing these specific roles to want to part with them after a single game. Outside of the individual games, Arneson created an experience system for characters. Your character would earn experience points based on their success from game to game. After a certain number of poins, a character would "level up."

To help move the story along, Arneson assumed a more elaborate role than that of the referees used to resolve disputes in war games. He would be the game master – setting the scene, guiding players along their quests. After developing the game, dubbed Blackmoor, for about six months with his group in Minnesota, Arneson and a couple of his buddies trekked back to Lake Geneva in late 1971 to run a game for Gygax and his crew. "Six-level dungeon, you start on the first floor and you go to the others by taking staircases," Gygax says. "We ran into a troll with magic armor, and we fought him and killed him and took it." The Wisconsinites all loved it. Arneson had successfully distilled the involved tactical military campaigns into a virtual world of first-person action.

Further down, G & A agree that A couldn't "type" while G could. Where typing obviously means: A is one of those people with awesome ideas who just can't organize them into at least a semi-coherent text. A's later game publication history bears that out.

I used to be in denial, but I have to say that Wired obit makes it pretty clear just how much D&D owes to A, and I find G's conduct at the time grating. Again, assuming here the report is accurate.

That's interesting.  The Wired obit makes it sound like it was Dave's idea to turn the referee into a GM.

Gary talks playing Cops and Robbers with a GM with his childhood friends John and Jim Rash:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ra9h63CLtLY

In response to the question -- "Where did the idea come from?" He says Jim Rash was the first game master that he knows of.

More interestingly... LARPing predates tabletop. :haw:

It was Dave's idea to take the Braunstein concepts and (a) move them into a fantasy medieval context and (b) (apparently) move from style of game that was multisided to one where the main source of challenge/opposition to the PCs was the GM.

Also from Gamespy...

Quote from: Dave ArnesonI had a regular miniatures group that played wargames for, oh, 10 years at that point. We started it in the early '60's really. I had of course encountered role-playing in College. In history classes. And then I applied some of that to our wargames...

Lots more info!
http://archive.gamespy.com/articles/august02/gencon/arneson/

Quote from: StuartGary talks playing Cops and Robbers with a GM with his childhood friends John and Jim Rash:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ra9h63CLtLY

In response to the question -- "Where did the idea come from?" He says Jim Rash was the first game master that he knows of.

That's an interesting story Gary tells. I don't think anyone ever questioned Gary's skill at spinning a yarn. :keke:


P.S. Oddly that little story of his does underscore how a single person with the role of 'game master' IME isn't a typical part of children playing cops and robbers.

QuoteAnyway, when we tried to use the old matrix rules (for Chainmail) only one die decided combat. So either the player would die or the monster would die. Well, the players didn't like that, so that's where I came up with hit points. Actually I got that from a set of Civil War Naval Rules where you had Armor Class and Hit Points and guns would do different damage.

Oh, man.

I've known that Gamespy article for a long time, but as I said I was in denial.

Quote from: StuartAlso from Gamespy...

>> Dave Arneson: Oh sure. I play a lot of computer games. In fact, you can get an A in my course if you can beat me in Age of Empires 2.

Hehe, the old guy's a pro at a click-fest game no less.

Dudes...

Braunstein, RPG Roots, and the Role of the GM
Dungeon Master Zero
R&D
Update on Totten and "Dungeon Master Zero"
More D&D Roots

Whether or not you agree with my theses, it's all there. But the Gamespy articles are a very good collection, too.

Also: The history of the GM-as-God meme