Secrets of Blackmoor: The True History of Dungeons & Dragons

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.

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.

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 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.

Having played roleplaying games for about 38 years, and of course the majority of the time it has been Dungeons & Dragons, then I would definitely sit down and watch this 2019 documentary titled "Secrets of Blackmoor: The True History of Dungeons & Dragons", as I happened to stumble upon it by random chance here in 2024.

Sure it was watchable, but I have to say that directors Chris Graves and Griffith Mon Morgan III delivered something that deviated somewhat from what I was expecting. The documentary focuses a lot on war gaming, whereas I was expecting more on actual roleplaying. But there was some interesting information throughout the course of the documentary, though I wouldn't exactly say that the documentary would heighten my perception on roleplaying games in general.

It was interesting to see how a book from the 1880s would help shape war gaming and mold it into the multi-billion dollar industry that roleplaying games is today.

There is absolutely zero replay value to "Secrets of Blackmoor: The True History of Dungeons & Dragons".

I am sure that there are viewers that will enjoy this 2019 documentary a lot more than I did.

My rating of "Secrets of Blackmoor: The True History of Dungeons & Dragons" lands on a four out of ten stars.