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RPGnet: The Inside Scoop on Gaming Page 5 of 8 eager approval to the combination of "Dungeon" and “Dragon," that confirmed my choice..." RPGNet: You and Dave Ameson are both generally lauded as the "creators of Dungeons & Dragons’yet clear reference to the role you each played in its genesis is hard to come by. Ameson's website, www.castieblackmoor.com, states that Ameson conceived of a proto- roleplaying campaign set in a place called Castle Blackmoor, using a modified form of your Chainmailules, and was invited to Lake Geneva in 1972 to demonsirate it for you and some friends. Gary: That's essentially correct. Dave was running a campaign using the Chainmaiirules, a variant that sounded fascinating. So he and Dave Megary came down from the Twin.Cities to my place in Lake Geneva to do some gaming. Dave Megary brought his game, Dungeon! for me to have a look at. RPGNet: Arneson further says that a correspondence grew between the two of you in the wake of that visit, and you reworked Arneson's reworking of your own rules into what would eventually become Dungeons & Dragons. {f your account and Dave's account are merged, it seems that you evolved the heroic fantasy batile game from Chainmail, he evalved the small-party exploration game from the same rules, and the two flavors bled together with a heavy re-write of existing rules to become Dungeons & Dragons.|s this an accurate chronology of events as you remember | them? j Gary: Well sorta... Dave Arneson and | had already been working on various miniatures rules, such as the Don't Give Up the Shiprules (Arneson, Gygax, and Carr) that were eventually published by Tactical Studies Rules. We made contact by mail, then personally at a GenCon before his visit to Lake Geneva. Between Dave Arneson's modifications of the ChainmaifFantasy Supplement figures, giving “Heroes” four hit dice rather than requiring four simultaneous hits to kill them, and "Superheroes" eight hit dice, and Dave Megary's boardgame based on a dungeon adventure with Chainmail Wizard", “Superhero”, "Hero", and "Elf' competing, exploring, slaying monsters, and gaining treasure by so doing, the special nature of what could be done with the rules bases. became evident to me. Dave Arneson never did furnish any solid rules for me to use in devising a new game, although he (and collaterally Dave Megary) certainly did provide solid ideas though. So, as Dave Arneson has said in an.interview that was published in Different Worldsmagazine #3), | devised and wrote the whole of the work that became the Dungeons & Dragonsgame. The initial draft was only 50 pages long, written and mailed out to about two dozen fellow members of the International Federation of Wargaming in the late winter of 1972. Thereafter, as play-testing in Lake Geneva proceeded (at a happily furious pace}, and responses from the first draft recipients came pouring in, | revised and expanded the manuscript to 150 pages in length. That's essentially what was published in 1974 as the three D&D game booklets. As an aside, | must laugh at some comment | saw about the name for the game being "The Fantasy Game" until someone "wised me up". Having been employed as an Editor-in-Chief, selecting what game rules and games would be published by Guidon Games since the beginning of 1971, | was well aware of the need to use a working title, the need for some caution in regards using the actual name for a a projected game release. So that’s the reason for that bland one on the draft works. By the time the second draft was circulating amongst the testers, | had decided upon the actual title to be used, D&D. This was done by making a list of likely words. | then asked the members of my gaming group, and my family, to choose that one, or that combination of words, that they found best suited.the game, and appealed most. When my youngest daughter, Cindy, added her eager approval to the combination of "Dungeon" and “Dragon,” that confirmed my choice, and FBI(19-cv-1495)-2281