Arneson, as everyone reading this surely knows, was one of the two men without whom Dungeons & Dragons (and, by extension, the entire hobby of roleplaying) would never have come to be. Yet, despite that foundational role, his name and his contributions are too often overlooked, overshadowed, or, worse still, treated as footnotes to someone else’s story. It’s as though we remember him only when we’re reminded to, rather than as a matter of course.

As this year shows, I’m as guilty of this as anyone. I should have remembered October 1 instinctively, the way I do July 27, Gary Gygax’s birthday. The fact that I didn’t speaks volumes, not about Arneson himself, but about how unevenly we remember our own history. Arneson’s legacy is not just that he co-created a game; it’s that he opened the door to an entirely new form of play, one that invited imagination, collaboration, and improvisation in ways no game had before.

His Blackmoor campaign remains one of the great, underappreciated achievements in the history of the hobby. It was the first sustained experiment in what we now take for granted: a shared world, evolving through the choices of its players. So much of what defines roleplaying today, like the open-ended campaign, the emphasis on character, the freedom to explore an imagined world rather than simply play through a fixed scenario, traces back to the quiet, curious mind of a young man running games in Minnesota in the early 1970s.

Forgetting Arneson is easy precisely because his influence is everywhere. It has become invisible through ubiquity. Every time we sit down at a table together (real or virtual), describe what our characters do, and ask, “What happens next?," we are living in the world he imagined. We rarely stop to think about that, not because we’re ungrateful, but because the roots of the hobby have sunk so deep we no longer see them.

Perhaps that’s the real issue. Arneson’s case is just the most visible example of how the contributions of countless others – designers, artists, playtesters, editors, and even just fans – have been forgotten. The history of roleplaying is not just the story of a few Great Men, but of a community of experimenters and dreamers, most of whose names never made it onto any game’s credits page. Our hobby, like any living thing, was nurtured by many unseen hands.

So, while this post began as an apology for my forgetting Dave Arneson’s birthday, perhaps it should instead serve as a reminder simply to remember. To remember Arneson, certainly, but also to remember all those who came after him – and before him – who helped shape the peculiar, beautiful pastime that continues to inspire all of us more than fifty years on.

I was reminded of this when I started reading Wulfwald, Lee Reynoldson's superb roleplaying game set in a world inspired by the folklore and legends of pagan Anglo-Saxon England. I say "inspired by," because, as Reynoldson explains, "Wulfwald is not set on our Earth," but rather is set on "another world," where "the myth and magic that was superstition in Earth's history is a real, if rare, force." As a game, Wulfwald should be almost immediately familiar to anyone who's played D&D or one of its descendants – not merely in terms of its rules but also in terms of its play. All the usual activities you expect in Dungeons & Dragons, whether they be delving in the dark, fighting monsters, or looting treasure, are supported in Wulfwald, but are given a new and compelling context.

Before proceeding further, I'd like to elaborate briefly on Wulfwald's relationship with D&D and its rules. Wulfwald is not "complete" game in the sense of including all the rules you need to play yet another retro-clone of Dungeons & Dragons. Reynoldson assumes you already know what hit points, armor class, and saving throws are, for example. When these and other familiar concepts come up in the text, there's no explanation of them or how they work, except when Wulfwald offers a new take on them that deviates from the way anyone who's played D&D generally understands them. I don't see this as a problem, but it might be surprising or even off-putting to those used to the approach adopted by most other old school D&D-derived games. 

With that out of the way, let's move on to Wulfwald itself. The game comes in a thin, sturdy box, inside of which are five staplebound A5 booklets and a cloth(!) map depicting the land of Wulfwald, as drawn by the late, great Russ Nicholson. The booklets have a clean, simple layout that's easy on the eyes. The covers of each booklet features artwork by Katie Wakelin, while the interior art is done by Stefano Accordi. I like the cover art much better than the interior art, but all the illustrations evoke the dark, early medieval period in which the game is rooted. Nicholson's cartography, of course, is gorgeous and a joy simply to look at and wonder at its details.

The premise of Wulfwald is that all the characters are "wolfsheads," who are outsiders and outlaws who exist outside the law's protection. Their status means that anyone can harm or kill them without fear of retribution. To avoid this fate, the game assumes the characters have banded together in the service of a Thegn or warrior-lord and act as his service. In exchange for such service, the wolfsheads can expect gifts of beauty and value that reflect their newfound honor and status within the setting. This set-up is a clever way to recontextualize adventurers, making them simultaneously rough outsiders but also having a place, albeit an unusual one, in society. 

Unlike "normal" D&D, Wulfwald has only three levels, corresponding (more or less) to the veteran, hero, and superhero levels from Dave Arneson's Blackmoor campaign. However, there is a rules appendix that provides for a greater number of levels for those referees and players who prefer them. Characters belong to one of four kindreds: Eorðwerod (Men), Ælfcynn (Elves), Dweorgas (Dwarves), and Réðealingas (Outlanders). Each kindred has three unique classes, each belonging to one of three archetypes: warrior, skirmisher, and wizard. For example, Men have the Scildmægden (warrior), Sperebróga (skirmisher), and Scinnlæca (wizard), while Elves have the Wuduheald (warrior), Scytta (skirmisher), and Gealdor Sangere (wizard). All classes have their own advancement tables, as well as unique results for criticals and fumbles. Warriors also have an ability called "heroic effort," an unusual feat of arms that can be employed once an adventure.

An aspect of Wulfwald that could, I imagine, discourage some potential buyers is its regular use of Old English, complete with odd letters like æ or ð. Speaking as an old Tékumel hand, I know that a lot of people don't like words that require the use of a pronunciation guide to say properly. I can only say that Old English, once you know the rules, isn't all that difficult to pronounce. Moreover, its use in Wulfwald goes a long way toward investing the setting with a distinct flavor. In many cases, the text does provide alternate, contemporary words to use instead of the Old English ones for those who find the others a bit too flavorful, but I much prefer the Old English ones. Your mileage may vary.

Flavor is a big part of what separates Wulfwald from "standard" D&D, even if it makes use of all the expected elements of the game, like magic, monsters, and treasure. I've already noted that each of the character classes is distinctive. The same holds for the systems of magic some of them use. Wulfwald includes four different systems, from runic fateweaving and spell singing to the Forbidden Path and wicce cræft. Likewise, magic items are all unique items, each with its own history and powers. Monsters, too, include a fair number of unique beings, like the draca (dragons) and eotenas (giants).

"Unique" is a word I've used a lot in this review and with good reason. What sets Wulfwald apart from many old school fantasy products is that it's very specific in not just its inspirations but also in the way it's chosen to make use of them. While I'm on record for saying there's nothing wrong with vanilla fantasy, there's also, in my opinion, a distinct pleasure that comes from roleplaying according to the culture, customs, and beliefs of a particular society, whether real or imaginary. That's why my House of Worms campaign has been so enjoyable: the players get to be, if only for a little while, people who inhabit another world with its own rules and ways of looking at things. This is something Wulfwald does very well, too.

The game's five books cover character generation, magic (including magic items and religion), the setting of Wulfwald (including a sample scenario and skirmish battles), monsters, NPCs, and more. Taken together, they provide enough for the referee to kick off a campaign while still leaving lots of room for individual creativity. Wulfwald isn't Tékumel or Glorantha; there isn't an encyclopedia's worth of information to digest. Rather, the game's five books do a good job of painting a compelling big picture with plenty of room to add detail here or a splash of color there. It strikes a nice balance between too much and too little. In short, it inspires, which is exactly what I want out of a product like this.

If you're looking for a well presented new setting for your favorite D&D-alike that draws on real world folklore and history in a fun way, I'd highly recommend yout take a look at Wulfwald. It's one of the best things I've bought this year.

Likewise, Holmes states that at least one class – thieves – are "not truly good," while AD&D goes further, claiming that "most thieves tend toward evil." Assassins engage in an activity that Gary Gygax memorably described as "the antithesis of weal," hence their outright restriction to evil alignment. Monks have a very limited range of alignments, but Lawful Evil is among them. Bards are almost as restricted in their alignment options, yet they too can be evil. Only druids, paladins, and rangers are forbidden from being evil by the rules, suggesting that the possibility of a player choosing to play an evil cleric or fighter is in no way beyond the pale. 

Of course, it's one thing to see the possibility of evil characters as legitimate and another to see it as desirable. In the early days, I tended to transfer Moldvay's perspective about Chaotic characters to evil ones more broadly: they don't play well with others. For the most part, my friends shared this perspective. I cannot recall anyone of my neighborhood buddies wanting to play an evil character, let alone actually doing so. Like me, they'd come to D&D as relatively innocent boys who looked to the heroes of mythology and literature for inspiration in generating our earliest characters.  Few, if any, of these characters were evil either in thought or deed and our own characters reflected this.

However, as I mentioned in my post about murderhobos, a number of the protagonists of the pulp fantasy stories that served as the inspiration of Gary Gygax in his personal conception of the game were, at best, morally ambiguous and, in a few cases, evil by the standards of D&D's alignment system. That this is the case is made unmistakable in, for example, the write-up of Elric in Deities & Demigods, which judges him Chaotic Evil in alignment. One can certainly argue the fine details of that or similar judgments, but there's no denying that there's a strong tradition of pulp fantasy characters whose exploits include a lot of morally dubious actions.

Beyond that, one need only take a look at the play of the earliest Dungeons & Dragons campaigns. Blackmoor, the birthplace of D&D, featured at least one significant evil player character – Sir Fang, a fighter-turned-vampire whose depredations proved so frightful to the other characters in that campaign that the cleric class was created to stand against him. Meanwhile, one of the most successful characters in Gygax's Greyhawk campaign was Robilar, played by Rob Kuntz. Robilar was not unique in this regard. A quick look at The Rogues Gallery reveals a number of evil-aligned player characters among TSR's writers and designers. If you look at the pregenerated characters for use with modules like Expedition to the Barrier Peaks and Dwellers of the Forbidden City, you'll find several also have evil alignments.

The weight of all this evidence was still insufficient to turn me into a defender of evil characters, except in the narrowest sense. Yes, the rules allow for evil characters, but that didn't mean I had to like it. What ultimately changed my mind was when, many years after I first played D&D, I participated in several sessions that featured an evil character. He was a Neutral Evil psionicist/thief – this was in the days of 2e – and he made himself very useful to his companions by both his skills and his knowledge. I never completely trusted him, but there was no denying that he filled a niche in the party and that his presence helped us succeed when we might otherwise have not. It helped, too, that he was well roleplayed as a charming, if not at all trustworthy, rascal. 

Ultimately, that's what convinced me that an evil character could be fun: good roleplaying. Here was a completely disreputable character, a liar and a cheat, whose actions were always self-interested – but he was played so well and so enjoyably that I almost forgot he was evil. Eventually, the character had the opportunity to betray his comrades to his benefit and he took it. The betrayal left us in a bit of a bind and, while my character was certainly angry, I was not. The character acted as he ought to have, given his alignment. If anyone is to be blamed, it's the rest of us for taking on such a character, knowing as we did that he was evil. But, as I said, he was charming, so fun, that we let our guard down and paid the price for it.

That may seem an odd defense of evil characters. From my perspective, though, it's the strongest one I can offer: sometimes it's fun. Roleplaying games are a form of escapism, something I consider very important, especially nowadays. Having a creative outlet for our baser instincts is, in my opinion, just as vital as having one where we can behave heroically. Sometimes we want to be Galahad and sometimes we want to be Cugel the Clever. I don't see either one as inherently better than the other. While my preference remains for less morally compromised characters, I can easily see the fun in evil characters. Arguably, many of the characters in my House of Worms campaign would be considered evil in D&D terms, so it's not as if the playstyle is completely outside my taste. I've also long harbored a desire to a referee a D&D campaign in which all the characters are members of a Thieves' Guild. In such a campaign, I suspect the vast majority of the characters would be evil, or at least non-good.

I'd love to know of your experiences playing or playing with evil characters. Is it enjoyable? Is it something you'd recommend? What are the advantages and drawbacks of this kind of game? It's a topic that I think deserves greater examination.

Since last week's Retrospective was about Greyhawk, it seemed only right that this week's should be about Blackmoor. It's also appropriate because Supplement II to Original Dungeons & Dragons occupies a special place in the story of my explorations into the history of the hobby of roleplaying. When I was in high school, my father told me about a hobby shop near his workplace that was selling off all their "old D&D stuff" and he asked if were interested in any of it. I told him that, without a list of the titles they had on offer, there was no way I could answer. The next day, he went back to the store and brought me "samples" of what they had, among which was Blackmoor.

At the time, I think I'd seen the occasional references to Blackmoor, such as in the preface to the Monster Manual. And, of course, I was familiar with the land of Blackmoor as it was briefly described in the World of Greyhawk. However, that was close to the extent of my knowledge, this being several years before the publication of the DA-series of D&D modules that began with Adventures in Blackmoor. Consequently, I was very excited to read this weird, little, brown book and see what secrets it might reveal.

I can't say for certain that Blackmoor revealed any secrets to me at that time, but I did find it a very peculiar book nonetheless. Gary Gygax's effusive foreword included references to Dave Arneson's Blackmoor campaign, as well as how he "would rather play in his campaign than any other." This certainly whetted my appetite for information about the campaign itself. Indeed, I was hoping that this little book might shed light on the mysterious northern land mentioned in the World of Greyhawk folio.

Instead what I found was a collection of disconnected rules, many of which looked like early versions of material I'd later see in various AD&D books. There were write-ups for the monk and assassin character classes, sages, diseases, and aquatic monsters – all stuff I'd seen previously in slightly different forms. The only rules in Blackmoor I hadn't seen before were the "Hit Location During Melee" sections. Though they intrigued me, I also found these rules somewhat out of place in Dungeons & Dragons, which conceived of hit points in a fairly abstract manner. 

I was feeling a little confused and even let down by all of this. That's when I decided to look more closely at the sample adventure that took up almost twenty pages of Blackmoor. Entitled "The Temple of the Frog," it was quite different from any adventure I'd seen before. For one, its maps were clearly hand drawn, unlike the much more polished maps with which I was hitherto familiar from TSR's products. For another, its primary antagonist, the high priest of the Temple, Stephen the Rock, was described in great detail – including the fact that was "an intelligent humanoid from another world/dimension!" This really grabbed my attention, especially after it became clearer that Stephen possessed high-tech weapons and armor of a science fictional sort.

By this point, I'd already read Gygax's own Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, which also mixed the peanut butter of science fiction with the chocolate of fantasy, so the ideas presented in "The Temple of the Frog" weren't completely unfamiliar to me. At the same time, Arneson's adventure had a very distinct feel to it, one that differed considerably from Gygax's. The crashed alien spaceship in Barrier Peaks is basically a one-off dungeon, a weird locale separated from the wider world. The Temple of the Frog, though, is an active player in the world of Blackmoor; the Brothers of the Swamp are a rising power, whose ideology of batrachian supremacy over mankind might one day threaten the order of things. That their new high priest just so happens to be an alien possessed of advanced technology only makes the situation more potentially volatile.

When I first opened the pages of Blackmoor, I expected I'd probably find some new rules and ideas derived from Dave Arneson's Blackmoor campaign. Instead, what I got was a mishmash of ideas I'd mostly seen before and that, as I later learned, were largerly the work of other hands (Steve Marsh primarily). But then there was "The Temple of the Frog." Though it's almost completely lacking in larger details about the Blackmoor setting, its ideas and presentation took me by surprise. After reading the adventure, I wanted to know more about Arneson's odd setting and the way it might have mixed elements of science fiction and fantasy together.

That would have to wait a few more years, of course, but Blackmoor was the first step I took down that road. Prior to this, Dave Arneson himself was just a name I'd occasionally see in the credits of my D&D books and Blackmoor was just a mysterious land at the top of the World of Greyhawk map. Now, I knew a little better and for that reason I'll always be fond of OD&D's Supplement II.

Megadungeon for 2023. 12 levels. 365 rooms. One room a day. Keep it all in a journal. ⁦@LukeGearing⁩ let’s do this. pic.twitter.com/tCVgh8i1MF

— 💭 Sean McCoy (@seanmccoy) December 5, 2022

An old mantra of this blog has long been that "roleplaying games were born in the megadungeon." By this, I simply mean that most of the earliest examples of what we would today recognize as RPGs were played in the context of exploring an immense, subterranean locale filled with monsters, magic, and mysteries – Dungeons & Dragons, Tunnels & Trolls, and Empire of the Petal Throne, to cite just three examples, all assume that much of a campaign's action will center around delving into the depths. Obviously, roleplaying games can (and should) include so many more activities, but there's something satisfyingly primal about braving the mythic underworld and returning to tell the tale.

To be worthy of the name, a megadungeon shouldn't merely be vast in size, it should also contain enough to hold the players' attentions for a long period of time. Unlike smaller, more focused "lair" dungeons, like those typically found in published adventure modules, a megadungeon is a sprawling, rambling thing that isn't about any one thing, nor is it possible to "clear" it. Instead, it's a place to which the characters can come again and again over the course of weeks, months, or even years without ever fully exhausting. A megadungeon can thus be the centerpiece of a campaign, in the way that Castles Blackmoor and Greyhawk were in their respective campaigns and the Jakállan Underworld was in the earliest Tékumel campaign.

I was reminded of all of this for two unrelated reasons. First, as you'll know, I've been working on a science fantasy RPG I'm calling The Secrets of sha-Arthan. When I first conceived of the idea a year and a half ago, I called the project The Vaults of sha-Arthan. The Vaults of the title are megadungeons by another name – deep, ancient labyrinths reputed to contain the secrets of the deific Makers. From the beginning, I knew I wanted to develop one of these Vaults as the basis of a sha-Arthan campaign and have been slowly poking at the idea ever since.

Second, Sean McCoy, the creator of Mothership, proposed something that's come to be known as Dungeon23. The idea quite simple: create one room each day for a megadungeon throughout the entirety of 2023 and then share the results. I thought this was a great idea, if only because it took what might otherwise have seemed like an insurmountable endeavor and broke it down into a much more manageable form. Since I was already contemplating the development of one of the Vaults of sha-Arthan for use in a campaign, Sean's idea struck me as worthy of an attempt.

So, among other things, 2023 will see me attempt to flesh out the Vaults beneath the ancient city of da-Imer one room at a time. Since I already have a lot of ideas of what that fabled underworld might contain, I'm pretty confident that I'll be able to keep up the pace for a while. Of course, this is a marathon, not a sprint. The real test comes after a few weeks or even months, after the novelty of the exercise begins to wear off and the realization that a year is a long time to commit to a single project.

I'll undoubtedly have a few more thoughts on this, as I work on it over on my Patreon. For now, I only wanted to say publicly that I intend to pick up the gauntlet Sean has thrown on the ground. Wish me luck.

I'm as guilty of this as anyone, as evidenced by the fact that I struggled with finding something interesting or relevant to say in this post. In the end, I decided that the most important thing was simply to remember him and acknowledge that, whatever else he was, Dave Arneson was a man of singular imagination and creativity who hit upon a remarkable, indeed groundbreaking, idea that literally changed the world. I am constantly struck by how many of the concepts and terms of D&D have spread into the wider world, often used by people who've never played in a RPG. That's a level of influence of which few creators can boast and, while he's not solely responsible for that, he was the man who got the ball rolling with his Blackmoor campaign in the spring of 1971. 

All of us who enjoy roleplaying games of any sort owe Dave Arneson a huge debt. Happy birthday, Dave. May you be long remembered!

"An Introduction to Dungeons & Dragons" by Lewis Pulsipher is the first part of what is described as a series "written for those who have little or no experience of playing" the game. Much like "The Beginner's Guide to Role Playing Games" from the pages of Imagine, I can't help but question the purpose of articles like this. Would anyone utterly unfamiliar with D&D ever buy or read a copy of White Dwarf in order to become better informed about the hobby? Perhaps it was intended to be given to neophytes to read by someone hoping to expand his circle of players? 

The first part reads almost like a history – and prehistory! – of Dungeons & Dragons itself, with Pulsipher relating the fact that Dave Arneson had described the activities of his original Blackmoor campaign to him in 1972, long before he had any real understanding of just what was aborning in Minnesota. That Pulsipher highlights the contributions of Arneson is fairly remarkable to my mind, seeing as his was a name that wasn't much spoken in 1981, at least in the circles in which I moved. Pulsipher also states that "D&D is not a pastime for crackpots." He supports this claim by explaining that "one of the designers is in his early 40's, a minister and former insurance executive." Is he referring to Gary Gygax here? Gary would have been 43 at the time of this issue and he did work as an insurance underwriter, but minister? Did I miss something about Gygax's life?

Next up is a lengthy interview with Marc Miller of Game Designers' Workshop. It's a superb interview filled with lots of insights into Traveller – so superb, in fact, that I'll be devoting an entire post to it later this week. "Fiend Factory" continues after the model established a couple of issues back by a series of related monsters and then a scenario that makes use of them. In this case, the monsters are the Flymen by Daniel Collerton, a collection of humanoid houseflies, which I have to admit strikes me as faintly ridiculous. The accompanying adventure, "The Hive of the Hrrr'l," is better than it has any right to be, given the silliness of the monsters. It presents a large, twisting hive of Flymen whose internal conditions are at times quite alien and disorienting to non-insects. 

"Open Box" reviews four products, starting with GW's own game, Warlock (8 out of 10). I've always felt somewhat uncomfortable with a publisher reviewing its own releases, but this review seems even-handed and fair. Cults of Prax for Chaosium's RuneQuest and receives a much deserved 10 out of 10, while TSR's Deities & Demigods achieves only 8 out of 10, which I think is generous. The final review of the issue is Leviathan for Traveller (9 out of 10).  

"The Elementalist" by Stephen Bland is a new class – a variant magic-user – for use with D&D. As its name suggests, the class specializes in elemental knowledge and magic, including more than two dozen new spells. Not having had the opportunity to use the class in play, I can't speak to how well it stacks up against other classes. Based on reading it, I like it what Bland is attempting to do with it and think it might be a good addition to certain kinds of campaigns. "A Spellcaster's Guide to Arcane Power" by Bill Milne is a proposal for a power point magic system for AD&D. Again, I've not had the chance to use it, but it looks much like one would expect. The only thing about it that caught my eye is that Milne indicates that he modeled it on AD&D's psionics system, something I don't believe anyone has admitted to doing before.

"Khazad-Class Seeker Starship" by Roger E. Moore is a new small craft for use with Ttraveller, described in brief detail, along with a set of deckplans. "Non-Magic Items" describes four unusual but non-magical items for the referee to introduce into his D&D campaign. That sounds more exciting than it is, since three of the four items are simply exotic weapons (and the fourth "item," an odd plant, is there mostly for its damage-dealing capacity). That's too bad, because I'm generally of the mind that most D&D campaigns include too many magical items, even as I recognize the need for providing memorable rewards for the player characters. A collection of truly odd but non-magical items that aren't just weapons would go some way toward alleviating this concern of mine.

Issue #23 is a solid one. I particularly like the increasing presence of Traveller coverage in White Dwarf's pages, as well as its willingness to do things differently than magazines like Dragon. I'm keen to see what the next issue will bring.

 A close reading of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rulebooks often reveals little details that are easy to overlook. In most cases, these details are rules-related, but one occasionally finds details that pertain to the implied setting of the game. I came across one of these just recently while re-reading the description of the monk class found in the Players Handbook.

There can be only a limited number of monks above 7th level (Superior Master). There are three 8th level (Master of Dragons) and but one of each higher level. When a player character monk gain sufficient experience points to qualify him or her for 8th level, the commensurate abilities attained are only temporary.

The above is, I think, well known and has been an aspect of the class since its first appearance in the pages of OD&D's Supplement II. Like the druid, the monk is a class that advances to higher levels only through the defeat of the current holder of that level in a trial by combat. I know that, even back in the early days, some players and referees disliked this aspect of the class, both because of its seeming unfairness – why don't other classes have to do this? – and because it introduced an additional layer of complexity to leveling up. For myself, I liked it precisely because it was unique; it gave the monk a bit of flavor to distinguish it further from other classes.

The next sentence of this section of the PHB also contains a bit of flavor, but one that I must have somehow overlooked, because I honestly cannot recall ever reading it before.

The monk must find and defeat in single combat, hand-to-hand, without weapons or magic items, one of the 8th level monks – the White, the Green, or the Red. 

For a moment, the colors baffled me. I quickly realized that they were connected to the fact that the title of 8th-level monks is "Master of Dragons," of which there are only three. Thus, it would seem that these monks consist of the Master of White Dragons, the Master of Green Dragons, and the Master of Red Dragons. How had I never seen this detail before? It's baffling to me and yet I have no recollection of ever having seen it, let alone making any use of it in all the years I played AD&D.

The detail makes a certain amount of sense, since, unlike levels above 8th, there are three 8th-level monks, so there ought to be some way to distinguish them. Of course, I soon find myself wondering: Why only three? Why not one for each color of dragon? Is there some special significance to the three dragon colors chosen? Why are they only evil dragons? Thinking about and potentially answering these questions are the stuff from which a fantasy setting is made. I have no idea if Gary Gygax intended there to be a logic behind the three Masters of Dragons or not, but I enjoy puzzling out matters like this regardless. I doubt I'm alone in this regard.

There's not much I can say about him here that others have not already said better – a big change from the days of my youth, when Arneson and his contributions to the hobby weren't as well known as they are today. In the years since his death, Arneson's star has risen considerably, particularly among those of us who favor the earliest editions of D&D. That's as it should be. 

Dave Arneson was, after all, "the innovator of the 'dungeon adventure' concept" on which the entire game was founded. It's an idea of such remarkable durability and flexibility that it remains a centerpiece not just of D&D and its many imitators but also of other forms of entertainment that have grown up in its wake. In a very real sense, so much of modern popular media was born in the dungeons beneath Castle Blackmoor in the first years of the 1970s and we have Arneson to thank for lighting the spark that would one day grow into a brilliant flame.

Happy Birthday, Dave.