The First Fantasy Campaign: Introduction

 

Frontispiece to "The First Fantasy Campaign" (1977).  I have been unable to locate the source, presumably artwork in the public domain.

 

Dave Arneson's introduction to JG 37 "The First Fantasy Campaign" is packed with insights from the early years of the Blackmoor campaign, dating from approximately 1971-1975.

From the first excursions into the dark depths of Blackmoor Castle's Dungeon, it became apparent that these first hardy bands of adventurers would soon seek out new worlds to pillage.  From the castle itself the small town of Blackmoor grew, then the surrounding countryside became filled with new holes to explore and beyond that the talk was already spreading about visiting the Egg of Coot.

He goes on to describe his role in overseeing the various inter-related campaigns:

At the height of my participation as chief coordinator, there were six Dungeons and over 100 detailed player characters to be kept track of at any one time.

Blackmoor Castle, Glendower, and The Lost Dungeons of Tonisberg likely represented three or four of these six dungeons, although I'm not yet certain which the others were.  For additional discussion, see this thread at The Comeback Inn.

Arneson compares Blackmoor to a "Conventional" Napoleonic Wargames campaign in certain respects, requiring some sort of "Overall Background" to serve as a framework, and "Thus the overall concept of the Evil Egg of Coot and the Great Kingdom was born."

These two entities could prove to be the source of great events outside of the actual campaign, a source of new recruits and monsters, and give the stimulus, in the way of quests and adventures to give the players more of a motive than just looting the Dungeon.

We learn that the original dungeon beneath Castle Blackmoor "was only some six levels deep", a number chosen since it allowed random placement with six-sided dice, and that "only the basic monsters in Chainmail" were used.

As deeper levels were designed, new monsters were introduced, including "different types of Dragons (by size)", Gargoyles and other creatures "from standard mythology", and giant-sized versions of regular animals "like Beetles" with details drawn from standard textbooks.

Experience points were only gained when money was spent on an "area of interest", a key difference between Arneson's Blackmoor campaign and the manner by which experience points were gained in OD&D, with its emphasis on acquisition of treasure.

Combat based on "Hit Location" was used, as described in the Blackmoor supplement, the rationale being "so that even the mighty Smaug could fall to a single arrow in the right place (very unlikely)." although "Hit Location was generally used only for the bigger critters"

Characters initially had 0-100 hit points, a number which, like ability scores, did not increase over time.  Rather, characters became harder to hit.  Furthermore, even when a character was hit, saving throws were involved to avoid taking damage, particularly with fighters.*

Update (Sept 9): Jon Peterson elaborates on hit points in this thread over at The Comeback Inn, and covers the subject in "Playing at the World" (2012)

*clerics and "magicians" are also mentioned, rounding out the three original character classes present in OD&D

By the end of the Fourth year of continuous play Blackmoor covered hundreds of square miles, had a dozen castles, and three separate Judges as my own involvement decreased due to other commitments.

Arneson is likely referring to 1974-75 as "the Fourth year of continuous play".  His own involvement decreased probably as a result of his move to Lake Geneva in 1976 in order to work as "Research Director" at TSR.

From the introduction alone, we are therefore able to obtain a general sense of the scope of the Blackmoor campaign, as well as key differences between the mechanics of play and what was ultimately to become OD&D.

Arneson closes with a guiding principle:

...after all, the keynote is that "Anything is Possible", just that some are more likely than others.