RIP Dave Arneson

April 08, 2009 | David

Dungeons & Dragons co-creator Dave Arneson passed away April 7th.

The gaming community suffered a huge blow last March when E. Gary Gygax, the legendary creator of Dungeons and Dragons and father of the entire fantasy RPG genre passed away.

Today we are dealt a second blow. A little more than a year after GG’s death, Dave Arneson’s family officially announced that Dave died last last night, April 7th, 2009.

While Gygax is typically credited with creating D&D, and his original game, “Chainmail” is often credited as the direct precursor to D&D, Dave Arneson’s original fantasy campaign, eventually released as “Blackmoor,” is arguably a more direct father to what eventually became D&D. A lot of lawsuits argued both sides of this, and the tension between Arneson and Gygax was well known in the industry. Eventually, the lawsuits were settled, and Arneson even came back to TSR for a while in the 1980s to head the Blackmoor campaign within the D&D framework.

While I’ve great admiration for Gary Gygax, I’m a bigger Arneson fan. Gygax was by all accounts a wargamer at heart, interested more in gameplay mechanics than deep role playing (though all of his games allowed a wide latitude for role playing alongside combat).  Arneson was, by reports, more of a role-player (though, admittedly, the amount of storytelling in my games would probably have pissed them both off). I should point out I never met either man, and admire them both greatly, but based on the Blackmoor stuff I’ve read, I’m probably more of an Arneson guy than a Gygax disciple.

The Arneson/Gygax feud has a connection to GOLD as well. When I originally wrote the character of Jackson, he was in a long-running feud not with The Consortium, but with Gary Gygax. The feud was about who originated a certain gameplay style—Jackson, in my original drafts, was based very loosely upon Dave Arneson (he’s even named “Dave Jackson"). I had even written a scene (for Season 2) where Gygax and Jackson have it out, and eventually reconcile. When Gygax passed away last March, right before we began shooting GOLD, I scrapped the Jackson/Gygax feud and re-wrote it as a Jackson/Consortium issue, not wanting to poke fun so soon after the passing of one of my heroes.

So, I’m deeply saddened to find out that Arneson is gone. He was in poor heath for the last few years, battling cancer along with the aftermath of a stroke. With his passing, the two fathers of the hobby I love are now gone. It makes me feel old and sad.

According to the family:

Cards and letters can be sent to:
Dave Arneson
1043 Grand Avenue, Box #257
St. Paul, MN 55105

Visitation will be on April 20th
@ Bradshaw Funeral Home
687 Snelling Avenue South
St. Paul, MN 55105