Secrets of Blackmoor: The True History of Dungeons & Dragons

I found this good, but more accurately a biography of Dave Arneson and war gaming with very little D&D in this. I wish it would have dealt more with D&D in the 2nd hour and not have it deal so little with what the title implies.

This is a highly informative documentary that goes deep into the period when the basic concepts of RPGs were first evolving from miniature wargaming. It's a great resource for people who are interested in those early days and want to meet some of the people who were there at the table when RPGs were being invented.

It does, however, tend to veer into hagiography when it comes to Dave Arneson. I'm the last guy to want to take credit from him: he deserves far more than he got. However, there are two sides to the Arneson story and this documentary largely only tells the sympathetic one (i.e., that he was unfairly muscled out of TSR by Gary Gygax.) I have read elsewhere that during Arneson's stint at TSR that he simply wasn't producing, and in fact there's little published material authored by him from this period. Meanwhile, no one seriously denies that Gygax cranked out the bulk of the 100s of pages of copy that went into D&D and AD&D. So there's the "unfairly muscled out" narrative and the "unproductive employee let go" narrative." Unfortunately, this documentary doesn't want to give you the choice of deciding which is more accurate.

In fact, I think the documentary may have missed out on an interesting subtext, because it's pretty clear to me from looking at Arneson's typed and handwritten notes that he was dyslexic. In the documentary, much is made of Arneson's "poor typing skills," and Arneson himself ascribes Gygax's ascendancy to the fact that Gygax could "type five times faster than me." But in the 60's and 70's no one knew dyslexia from a hole in the ground, and this sounds to me like one of the ways that intelligent dyslexics used to rationalize their disability. I think there's a lost story in here about how undiagnosed dyslexia cost a creative genius fame and fortune.

All that aside, this documentary offers a great, detailed look into those early days when the core concepts of the RPG were being birthed.

This documentary traces how the modern role playing game evolved from a group of war gamers, passionate for realistic and accurate battle simulations. Step by step they wanted to push the envelope, playing campaigns where they alternated between diplomacy and battles, drawing in storytelling and freedom to take actions not covered by the rules, e.g. talk to local peasants.

One step lead to another, sometimes with novel new ideas that eventually lead to Blackmoor, Chainmail and Dungeons & Dragons.

The fascinating story is mostly told by the survivors of the group of war gamers -- Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax are, sadly, no longer with us -- and focuses on Dave Arneson and the events leading to the development of Blackmoor.

I knew bits and pieces in advance, i.e. that role playing evolved from war gaming, but seeing the evolution (with certain revolutionary jumps) explained was quite interesting. I had no idea that a 1880s book to educate on military tactics proved to have such a profound influence on the hobby that I have been enjoying for 30 years.

It would have been nice to get a look at the early role playing games to see what elements they contained and why, but one can hope that this will be included in the sequel.

Disclaimer: I backed the project to create this documentary on Kickstarter, but I have no further stake in the documentary or the creators.

Great film covering the origins and sources that influenced the creation of RPGs. Light on the actual development of D&D which I was really looking forward to, hopefully that will come with part 2.

I have to be honest, I viewed the unedited version at Gary Con XI 2019. I just received the kick-starter edited version in the mail. A very professional product, the high definition color video is superb, the sound is excellent, and the captions a complimentary addition. The story flows smoothly and is easy to follow. The subject matter is thoroughly researched and very well substantiated, given the restriction, decay and degradation of such historical subject matter, no fault of the author. It was a well chronicled documentary of Arneson's participation in, if not the foundation of, the role playing game phenomena. A compelling argument has been made for Arneson's significant role, for sure. Overall an excellent and professionally produced documentary of Arneson's critical role in the evolution of role playing games. An excellent addition to any collectors set of historical gaming documentaries. I recommend it highly.