Clearing the Castle

Blackmoor at Gary Con XI

I. Abstract
The following is a summary of a session of the Blackmoor game run by Bob Meyer at Gary Con
XI, on March 9, 2019, in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.

II. Background
For the fiftieth anniversary of Braunstein, there was a display of Braunstein and Blackmoor
related items in the Legends of Wargaming room. Original Braunstein and Blackmoor players
from the Twin Cities were also present to run games. These included Dave Wesely running
Braunstein scenarios, and Bob Meyer running Blackmoor. A preview screening the
documentary Secrets of Blackmoor also took place at that convention, and Dave Megarry did a
presentation on the 1972 game Dungeon!

As of 2019, Bob Meyer is the referee who runs Blackmoor for the original players, and he runs
the game out of the Twin Cities area. Bob was present at the first known session of Blackmoor.
In this rudimentary early session, Chainmail rules were used to resolve combat, resulting in
Bob’s character quickly being killed by a troll, much to his chagrin. Dave Arneson later
dropped Chainmail combat rules from the Blackmoor game.

Following Dave Arneson’s death, Bob Meyer took over running Blackmoor. The game that
Bob runs aims to emulate the player experience of Blackmoor in the early 1970’s. The
mechanics are based on 2d6, and the game mechanics are abstracted away from the players. The
referee facilitates the game rules for the players, and the players only need to be concerned with
the internal logic of the game world.

Bob Meyer does not attempt to replicate all the underlying mechanics actually used by Dave
Arneson, as those were often kept secret. Nevertheless, the player experience could be
consistent, as the underlying mechanics were generally abstracted in the early Blackmoor
games. The following report will hopefully clarify these matters for others who wish to run a
Blackmoor game as well.

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III. Event Listing
The Gary Con event for the Blackmoor session was advertised as follows:

Legends of Roleplaying event! In May 1971 Dave Arneson invited friends to play a
Middle Ages Braunstein and they were hooked! A year and a half later he would
demonstrate this new game to Gary Gygax who would use it to create Dungeons &
Dragons! Experience what it was like to play early Blackmoor Castle dungeon
adventures with original player, Bob Meyer! Just bring a pencil and two 6-sided dice.

The first part is referring to the game by its original description as a medieval Braunstein,
featuring a troll and other mythical creatures. Next it refers to that fateful day in November
1972, when Twin Cities gamers Dave Arneson and Dave Megarry would visit Lake Geneva and
demonstrate both Blackmoor and Dungeon! for Gary Gygax, Rob Kuntz, and others. This was
a year and a half after they had started playing Blackmoor.

The event listing for the Blackmoor session summarized the relationship between the early
Blackmoor game, and the modern Blackmoor game, as follows:

Bob has carried on the tradition of running Blackmoor for Dave Arneson’s original
players. However, lacking Dave’s original notes, he instead captures the experience he
and the other players had with Dave running the game back in the early 1970s. When
the original players once again adventure into Blackmoor Castle they say it is the closest
thing they have experienced to actually playing with Dave Arneson as their Dungeon
Master!

This is clarifying that the aim of Bob Meyer’s modern Blackmoor game is to re-create the
general manner of playing early Blackmoor, rather than trying to reproduce Dave Arneson’s
hidden mechanics from “behind the screen.”

IV. Setup
The table for playing this session was Dave Arneson’s ping pong table, covered in brown paper,
with a map of the Blackmoor area drawn on it. The map was a hand-copied reproduction of a
map published in the booklet, The First Fantasy Campaign, depicting the castle and town, and
was drawn with marker on the brown paper.

There was also a model of Blackmoor Castle that was used as a prop. This was the same type of
Kibri model that was used by Dave Arneson for the original Braunstein University, and later

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for Blackmoor Castle. The model is of the very real castle Burg Branzoll, a 13th-century castle
located in the village of Chiusa, in northern Italy. The castle model was used to introduce the
setting of Blackmoor Castle, but it was not used during play.

There were player handouts provided for the interior layout of Blackmoor Castle. The layout
of all floors was given in advance, including the basement level. The maps included did not
cover levels of the dungeons beneath Blackmoor Castle, as the adventure did not include the
dungeons below the basement level. These maps were copies of the Blackmoor Castle interior,
as published in The First Fantasy Campaign.

We were given an introduction to the history of the game, and then the way that the game
would be played. When discussing rolling 2d6, the referee mentioned that he will not tell us
what the rolls are exactly for. He also stated that about half of his own rolls are fake rolls.

The scenario the players were given was that the king had died, and half-men (i.e. orcs) had
overtaken Blackmoor Castle. The land was in a state of general disrepair. We were playing the
role of soldiers who were charged by the princess with entering Blackmoor Castle and taking it
back from the half-men. To give us some extra help, the referee allowed us to request one
special power, and to not be shy about it. I requested a form of minor precognition that would
inform my character of dangers nearby. This request was denied. My second choice was
supernormal speed and agility, and that request was allowed. The referee required that our
party had a leader (the sergeant) who was responsible for giving orders and leading the party.
This leader provided some of the same functions as the caller in D&D, helping to organize the
player characters, and to communicate actions and intentions to the referee.

No character sheets were present during the session. No miniatures or grids were used. The
maps provided were used extensively.

V. Session Notes
The session began at the entrance of Blackmoor Castle, and we started on the first floor.
During the session, we found that the referee was quite strict about requiring us to clearly state:

• Location on the map

Light source distance was also tracked. Due to the additional rigor related to movement and
positioning, and the lack of game mechanics that we could rely on, our party quickly developed

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tactics for investigating rooms and attacking the half-men occupying them. As a rule, the
rooms were in a terrible state of disrepair, filled with old rubbish, papers, furniture, etc.

As we entered rooms and encountered half-men, players were occasionally asked to roll the dice
based on their actions. The referee would also roll dice occasionally, and generally narrate the
results. There was a fair amount of dice rolling overall (certainly not much less than a D&D
game). The events for dice rolls seemed to cover matters such as whether the characters were
detected by the half-men, or reaction rolls for the half-men, or whether an attack succeeded,
how bad an injury was, etc. At least for attacks, higher rolls were better than lower rolls. A roll
of one was especially bad, and a roll of twelve was especially good.

At one point, we were confronted with what looked like a family of orcs, and faced with a
moral dilemma. Seeing no clear alternatives, the party dispatched them. We did have at least
one injury that necessitated one player character staying in a room with the injured player
character temporarily. The encounters generally went smoothly, though, and the party handled
the half-men without too many problems.

While moving through the castle, the party attempted to open the door to the tower, unaware
that this tower was haunted. As several party members pulled on the door, we heard a loud
howling wind, and voices, and ultimately decided not to attempt it further. This tower is
detailed in The First Fantasy Campaign, as being home to, “about half a dozen assorted
spirits,” and is one of Blackmoor Castle’s many haunted areas.

After clearing out the levels above ground, the party made its way down to the basement of the
castle. The basement is larger than any of the floors above, and is generally dark. There were
arched entrances connecting the rooms, as depicted on the maps. After we walked down the
stairs, we encountered some type of slime or jelly lurching toward us. Swords did nothing to
hurt it, so we retreated back toward the stairs. While retreating, we used a torch to try attacking
it. After several successful attacks, it stopped moving.

The party carefully investigated each room in the basement. When we reached the large room
with the fountain, we saw a large and ferocious hairy green creature. This turned out to be a
large troll. At one point, my character jumped onto its back and stabbed it with a sword. After
quite a few attacks, the troll fell and appeared dead. The party, being paranoid about the troll’s
body regenerating, burned the body with a torch.

Finally, we discovered a secret area in the wall near the fountain along the south wall. This
secret area had treasure. Naturally, we took the treasure.

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VI. Post-game Discussion
Following the game session, we briefly discussed how the party did. We were assured by the
referee that we did very well, and that our teamwork and methods were effective. The referee
shared some stories about other groups. In particular, one group actually ran away from the
half-men at first, who chased them throughout part of the castle.

The referee then discussed the simplicity of the rules, and expressed his view that many rules
are not necessary to enjoy this type of game. Following the session, another player asked Bob if
it would be okay to run Blackmoor games using this method, and Bob confirmed that he
would happy if we would run Blackmoor games, and he encouraged us to use that method.

Another player asked about the Blackmoor supplement for original Dungeons & Dragons (i.e.
Supplement II: Blackmoor). Bob expressed some dislike for that supplement, as he felt that its
editing was too heavy-handed, and it did not adequately reflect the Blackmoor game and
setting. He instead only recommended The First Fantasy Campaign as being the most accurate
to the original game. He then shared the anecdote that he sold his roleplaying game books,
with the exception of The First Fantasy Campaign.

After the session, I asked Bob further about his own method and mechanics, and if those were
a secret. He confirmed that they are meant to be kept secret, just as Dave Arneson kept his own
early methods and mechanics obscured and abstracted away from the players. He did mention
that for his own games, he tries to keep the underlying mechanics very simple.

VII. Analysis
From the perspective of the Blackmoor player experience, it seems reasonable that the
experience of playing a Blackmoor game could be replicated by following the general method
previously described. When the referee facilitates the game rules, but does not communicate
the underlying game mechanics, then the players will generally operate in accordance with the
internal logic of the game world.

Without a pre-selected list of options, players are free to try new things, or take precautionary
measures that would make sense in a simulated game world, but not necessarily in the rules of a
game like D&D. The referee may adapt to things that a more codified game system would not
as easily support, or at least not on the same level as the codified mechanics. In that sense, I
would describe Bob Meyer’s Blackmoor game as more of a simulation, than what we would see
in a typical D&D session.

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The game procedure may be summarized as a loop with the following:

1. The referee describes the setting and game world. The exact mechanics are left to the
discretion of the referee, and obscured and abstracted away from the players. When
needed, dice rolls are 2d6. Fake dice rolls are regularly used to obscure the mechanics.

2. The players describe what they are doing in the game world according to its own
internal logic. They may ask the referee questions about their surroundings, talk to
other characters, take actions, etc. The referee will tell them if and when dice rolls are
needed, and all rolls are 2d6.

The cycle continues over and over, until the game session ends.

During the session, there were not many game rules for players to remember, but there was
quite a bit of dice rolling for both the referee and the players. In that sense, there are certainly
mechanics being used, but the players do not need to be concerned with them. Anecdotally, my
impression was that this made for a more vivid experience in the game. Instead of multitasking
between a character sheet, recalling mechanics, asking if we can do something according to the
rules, etc., we could just focus on the game world, and the decisions and actions we were
making at that moment. There were fewer distractions and extraneous details.

In terms of mechanics used by the referee (i.e. those that players are not privy to), I believe that
the mechanics used by Bob Meyer are different in a variety of ways than those initially used by
Dave Arneson. We can see this in the character sheets preserved by Dave Megarry and Pete
Gaylord, in which we see characters represented in a matrix. For each character, there is a long
list of combined attributes and skills, with numbers in the 2d6 range. These character stats
show that even in 1971-1972, Blackmoor had more attributes than D&D, and also had a type of
early skill system. In this sense, it could be viewed as the forerunner of the many skill-based
modern RPG systems. In the early Blackmoor character sheets, these skills include those for
medieval weapons in the 2d6 range, in the same order as they appear in Chainmail (reflecting an
early version of the combat system different from Chainmail, but still using it as a source).

We also know that early Blackmoor characters included those familiar to Chainmail players,
such as ordinary men, heroes, superheroes, and wizards. Ordinary men gained experience to
become heroes, who could eventually become superheroes. Wizards stayed as wizards, but
could improve their own abilities and spell-casting. These ranks were expanded with other
classes for some players, such as thief, cleric, monk, vampire-knight, etc.

When D&D was published, the Blackmoor players finally had a copy of the rules to see for
themselves. We can see that at least for one session circa 1975, a character sheet from Dave
Arneson’s game (“Gnome Fighting Man”) more or less resembled one in D&D, so the

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publication of that game likely had a strong impact on Arneson’s Blackmoor sessions, and on
the rest of his group. As described by his original players, there was a continuity from early
Blackmoor to D&D, and the players did not clearly distinguish between the earlier Blackmoor
game and the newer D&D rules. Some Twin Cities gamers were also employed at TSR in the
1970’s, and Dave Arneson was publishing not just his early Blackmoor materials, but Judges
Guild reference materials for D&D (i.e. Dungeonmaster’s Index).

With these trends in mind, and considering that Dave Arneson was often tinkering with his
own mechanics, it should be clear that nobody can fully replicate what Arneson was doing in
1971. However, that does not mean that the general method of roleplaying that the Twin Cities
gamers were doing with early Blackmoor, cannot be replicated. What this relies on is not what
the referee is doing behind the screen, but instead the procedure followed collectively by the
players and the referee together. In that sense, the method used by Bob Meyer does seem to
follow the example set by Dave Arneson, and it could be a good model for those who wish to
run a Blackmoor or Blackmoor-like game.

With the evidence available again from surviving character sheets, though, we do know that the
mechanics of the early Blackmoor game were not entirely abstracted away from all the players.
At least for some players such as Dave Megarry and Pete Gaylord, the players keeping and
maintaining their own character sheets was allowed. In the case of Dave Megarry’s characters,
we see quite a lot of rapid change in how many characters he was using and how many must
have died in the early game. There is even a row in the character matrix to record how the
character died, which may be an implicit indication of the mortality rate of early characters.
Hence in the early Blackmoor game, the idea of allowing players to keep and maintain their
own character sheets was not unheard of.

The scenario we played in was roughly similar to the one played in 2009, after Dave Arneson
passed away. It is similar to the one shown briefly in Secrets of Blackmoor. It was meant as an
introductory scenario, serving as a bridge between the old Blackmoor, as started by Dave
Arneson, and the next steps with the game and its setting. In this scenario, the king that has
died is a metaphor for Arneson, while the overrun Blackmoor Castle could either stand for
Blackmoor as a setting, or perhaps the RPG hobby or D&D in particular. The use of the term
half-men is Blackmoor lingo for orc, and the final showdown with the troll is likely a nod to the
first Blackmoor session with the troll under the bridge (and perhaps Bob Meyer having his
revenge on the trolls of Blackmoor).

The distaste shown for Supplement II: Blackmoor, is a common sentiment among those who
enjoy the Blackmoor setting. There is broad consensus that Dave Arneson’s ideas about the
Blackmoor game and setting were not well represented by that publication. Fortunately,
Arneson had a number of opportunities to develop those ideas further with subsequent

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publications of both the Blackmoor setting, and adventures within the setting (e.g. the DA
series of modules published by TSR).

It may be worth considering the heavy emphasis placed on The First Fantasy Campaign. There
is a general consensus among the original players, and historians and enthusiasts who have
investigated the matter, that The First Fantasy Campaign represents the best single source on
Dave Arneson’s early Blackmoor game. Due to its nature of being a compilation of his
Blackmoor campaign notes, there is a range of valuable material available dating back to the
early 70’s. Included in this book are resources and personalities for each kingdom, anecdotes
about early sessions, maps of the Blackmoor region, and the local area, including the town and
castle, interior maps of the castle, and an early but full ten-level megadungeon (i.e. Blackmoor
Dungeons). With all these resources available, The First Fantasy Campaign represents a highly
useful resource for those who wish to run Blackmoor as a setting.

VIII. Conclusion
Based on the general game method used by Dave Arneson and Bob Meyer, it seems reasonable
that Blackmoor games could be run with good results by other referees, using similar methods
to what Bob Meyer is currently using to run the game. The general game procedure should be
fairly consistent if using the same basic method of having the referee facilitate the rules, while
keeping the rules abstracted away from the players.

The success of this on a broader scale remains to be seen, as this method of running Blackmoor
has only been resurrected in recent years. It will be up to other referees to demonstrate the
success of this type of game within the larger community. Perhaps gamers will enjoy it as they
have enjoyed other forms of roleplaying games. The method of play also provokes an
examination of the nature of the game, and naturally raises questions about the nature of a
roleplaying game.

In the meantime, Bob Meyer running his Blackmoor game is demonstrating that people other
than Dave Arneson are able to run the game successfully with the early method of play, and
that players may be engaged in the game world without necessarily having access to the internal
game mechanics. This is valuable and meaningful in and of itself, and can hopefully inspire
further developments and permutations in the future.