I was saddened to learn of the passing of Jennell Jaquays. She was a pioneer in our gaming industry, both in game design and as an artist and was devoted to the hobby until the very end. 

In addition to being a fan of her work, I was lucky enough to be one of many friends of hers on Facebook and we interracted a few times. She even helped with some information for a few articles on this very blog. 

I reported on Jennel's medical issues and the fundraiser to cover her expenses back in October. If you haven't donated yet, it might be worth taking another look now as her wife likely has been left with many expenses.

May she rest in peace. 

-Havard

The First Fantasy Campaign (FFC) was published in 1977 by Judges Guild. It was written by Dave Arneson and edited by Bill Owen. Dave Arneson once told me that Judges Guid President and gaming legend of his own Bob Bledsaw had later transferred the rights to the FFC back to Dave. The two had apparently always been on friendly terms, ever since Dave Arneson worked for TSR as a liason to the Judges Guild.

"Not in the near future, sadly. I would love to see her in print again. Dave and I spoke about it before his passing, and he said there was some editing he wished to do to FFC, but that he wanted JG to release it. The written content is owned by his daughter now, and I put no pressure on her. It will be as she wishes."

It is a shame that Dave Arneson never got to do the editing he wanted for the FFC to share it with fans, but it is nice to see that the agreement between him and the elder Bledsaw was a formal agreement.



Blackmoor is a registered trademark that belongs to Wizards of the Coast.


-Havard

The City and Dungeon of Tonisborg has long historic ties to Dave Arneson's Blackmoor. Greg Svenson, whom Dave has described as one of his most enthustiastic players, developed this area of map in Dave Arneson's Campain. When Dave added the city of Vestfold, named after a region in Norway, Greg made adjustments so that Tonnisborg became relocated on a small island that is part of the greater City of Vestfold, the largest city in the Kingdom of Blackmoor.

 People who want to learn more about Tonisborg are now in for a treat. As reported by the Secrets of Blackmoor Website, Greg Svenson is working with the producers of the documentary project "Secrets of Blackmoor". The plan seems to be that Tonninsborg will be a published adventure which will be a "thank you gift" to those who invest in the Kickstarter for the Documentary. Also involved with the Tonnisborg module are Dan Boggs (aka Aldarron), publisher of Champions of ZED and Dragons at Dawn and Bob Bledsaw II of Judges Guild.

 The whole "invest in Kickstarter for documentary to get a module" sounds a bit complicated to me and I think I would have preferred to have a separate Kickstarter for the Tonisborg project, but in any case I am really curious to see what this module will be all about. Having Aldarron on board with this project makes me even more optimistic as he is a talented game designer and someone with intimate knowledge of Blackmoor. If you are curious to see more of Greg Svenson's ideas for Blackmoor, make sure you get the free PDF booklets by Greg hosted at The Comeback Inn.





See more discussion of this article at the Comeback Inn here.


 -Havard

The First Fantasy Campaign (FFC), published in 1975 by the Judges Guild Chronicles Dave Arneson's original Blackmoor campaign from the years 1971-1975.

Over the last few years, reprinting old gaming material has become increasingly popular among publishers. Recently, Robert Bledsaw III asked over at the Wilderlands Fans Facebook Group which old JG modules people would be interested in seeing reprinted and updated to Pathfinder or universal systems.

Not surprisingly, several people requested that the First Fantasy Campaign by Dave Arneson would be among the books reprinted. Now the question is, should JG be interested, would it be possible for them to reprint the FFC?

From what I understand, the IP to the FFC is owned by the Arneson family. Bob Bledsaw reverted the ownership of the FFC to Dave before Bledsaw passed away. When it comes to Blackmoor, that IP is owned by Wizards of the Coast. ZGG was operating under a lisence from WotC to publish Blackmoor material, but that lisence expired in 2008. It is possible that the FFC could be published without a lisence from WotC, but it is probably a good idea to check with them to avoid complications.

It should be noted that I am in no way a lawyer and do not posess any inside knowledge of any of this. The above is based on information that should be available online.

I think it would be amazing to have the FFC return in print or even as a PDF. To be the FFC does not need to be updated to have value for gamers today. OTOH, Dave Arneson did make a request if the FFC was to be reprinted, Robert Bledsaw III says (on FB, August 21st 2013):

"As for First Fantasy Campaign, Arneson offered to let us reprint FFC so long as some typos were corrected in a phone conversation with my dad. However, he passed away unexpectedly so we have no clue what typos he was referring to."

When original FFC manuscript fell into the lap of Judges Guild editor, Bill Owen back in 1977,  he decided not to make heavy alterations to the "somewhat disorganized" manuscript. Perhaps Dave Arneson would have liked to see a reprint that, while not neccessarily updated, might be edited in a way to make it organized in a way to make it more accessible to new audiences?



-Havard

In 1977, Judges Guild published the First Fantasy Campaign. In a recent Save or Die Podcast, Judges Guild Co-Founder Bill Owen talks about Judges Guild history, including his contact with Dave Arneson. Mr Owen and the legendary Bob Bledsaw had formed the Judges Guild in 1976. When they went to meet with TSR on July 18th 1976, it was Dave Arneson who gave them the verbal approval to publish D&D related material. More on this story can be learned from mr Owen's book, Judges Guild's Bob & Bill, a Cautionary Tale, which was reviewed at Grognardia.

Bill Owen in 1976

Dave Arneson left TSR later that same year and in 1977, he submitted his manuscript for the First Fantasy Campaign to Judges Guild for publishing. Echoing former TSR employees, Bill Owen describes the material Arneson sent them in the mail as "somewhat disorganised". Where mr. Owen differs from those who worked on Supplement II, is in his attitude towards the author. "I respected Arneson greatly", Owen says. He goes on to say that he was intimidated and frustrated that this work had been delegated to him, but the reason for that was that he was worried that the changes he felt neccessary to make in order to make the product "look like the kind of thing we would make" would not be worthy of an Arneson authored product. On the other hand, he stresses that Arneson was not the kind of person who might be upset about any such changes. "He was very easy going about the whole thing", Owen says, mirroring how many others have described Arneson's generous nature.

Perhaps it was this attitude of respect for the author and his professionality that made mr Owen that allowed the First Fantasy Campaign to become the gem among gaming products that it is. While others might have been tempted to apply heavy handed edititing in order to make the product onto a preconcieved idea of what a D&D product was supposed to look like in those days, Owen allowed the First Fantasy Campaign to appear as the unique product that it is, with the author's voice being heard clearly. We are eternally thankful for this!

Bill Owen in 2008

-Havard

Well, certainly it was, but as it turns out only parts of what appeared in D&D Supplement II: Blackmoor was written by Dave Arneson himself. Over at the Dragonsfoot Forums , people have been investigating which parts of Supplement II were Arneson's. In a recent post, Aldarron sums it like this:

Arnesons material in Supp II;
Temple of the Frog, pretty much straight from Arneson, with light editing by Kask. Marsh's statement that Gygax converted it must be a misunderstanding, generalizing from the rest of Arnesons material (which was somewhat converted by Kask). My reason for saying this is that anyone who has read TotF will be struck by all the non standard FFC like approaches, mechanics and terminology used. There's nothing Gygaxian about it, not even the way stats or lack thereof are presented.

The Disease section was straight from Arneson with only light editing by Kask. (I asked him, see pages 138-40 of Q&A here on DF and a few pages earlier for monk topic). Arneson also wrote a similar article on diseases for the first Pegasus magazine.

The hit location was perhaps a little more closely edited but was also from Arneson.

The Assasin , including the assasination table, was "reimagined" from Arnesonian material to conform to "standard" Greyhawk D&D. (same Q&A with Tim Kask pages). Arneson, on his web page, mentions a backstabbing thief arising in Blackmoor - likely the progenetor of the Assasin, since the D&D thief came from another gaming group and was first written up by Gygax.

The rest of the material in Supp II came from other people.

Apparently, Arneson provided enough material for an entire supplement himself, but other people at TSR considered the rest of the material "unusable". One can only wonder what this submitted, but never published material might have been. Some have speculated that this remaining material was what made it to become the First Fantasy Campaign Supplement. If so, it is great that Arneson with the help of Bob Bledsaw of Judges Guild made the material available. It is interesting that TSR decided not to make more use of what Arneson submitted. It has been suggested that it had to do with the quality of the material, but I suspect it had as much to do with understanding Arneson's ideas, which at times were quite different from that of Gygax.





-Havard