#RPGaDAY2023 Day Six: “Favourite game you NEVER get to play”.
The Arduin Grimoire was published in 1977 and was the first volume of a series of supplements which appear to have originally been based on the 1974 D&D… although, I find it curious that in The Compleat Arduin, published posthumously in 1992, we read:
“My own fantasy world has been in play since 1973, and is called Arduin.”
The Compleat Arduin Book One: The Rules, Hargrave (Schynert ed.), 1992, page 1
I am curious about that because D&D was published in 1974 and, well, why and how did David Hargrave begin his campaign world earlier? Nevermind.
Over the years I’ve collected every thing Arduin that I could find: all three editions of the Arduin rules, the Atlas of Khaas, many other titles. But I’ve never been able to play these old games.
It’s not that I particularly admire the rules stuff either, being as it is a messy and eclectic assortment of ideas which progressively express the kind of fantasy roleplaying which Hargrave championed.
While I think I would enjoy messing around with each edition of the rules – especially the first supplements – it was the other inspiration that drew me in.
Hargrave represents a certain spirit of the game. It’s a do-it-yourself multiversal approach to fantasy roleplaying that draws inspiration from the gamut of fantasy, horror, and science-fiction literature and film from his era. While there are certainly elements I find problematic, the general thrust of the work is one of experimentation and exploration.
Hargrave had gates to other worlds, multiple species of creatures alien and familiar, and many amazing suggestions which sought to enrich the fantasy roleplaying experience. He self-published the many volumes of the Arduin Grimoire and wrote extensively in Alarums & Excursions, sharing his views with boldness. He was the one who invited us to “take a Troll to lunch”.
Overall, I enjoy the tone which says, “Here’s how I do it. How are you going to do it differently?”
My favourite game which I NEVER get to play is Arduin.
Game on!
Roleplay Rescue’s Blog 
“My own fantasy world has been in play since 1973, and is called Arduin.”
Maybe I’m reading to much into this unusual little statement but it seems like an attempt by the author to shoehorn the product in question into gaming history as an ur-rpg 🤷♂️
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Maybe. Or maybe he really did play some D&D before it was published. More likely, if we want to be generous, is that Hargrave was writing fantasy before he began roleplaying. This would perhaps be similar to the trajectory of Stafford (whom Hargrave knew) who created Glorantha, then the board game, then eventually the RPG stuff. Perhaps Hargrave played Dynasty like Lee Gold tells us the folk in LA did, and then moved on to D&D. But it remains a mystery.
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I want to follow up that Lee Gold/Dynasty thread, but I have no idea where to start looking. Any suggestions?
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If you want to get back issues of A&E from Lee Gold, this is the page to start from: https://www.conchord.org/xeno/aande.html
When I started collecting them, Lee sent me a document that explained the background of the creation of A&L as it arose out of APA-L. This article mentioned roleplaying in the LASFS fandom as starting with “Dynasty” and other games pre-D&D. Some of the relationship between A&L and APA-L is hinted at on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alarums_and_Excursions
Hope that helps.
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Is that “APA-L and Roleplaying” by Gold, as found here?
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Looks like it, yup!
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[…] Grimoire, well, I wrote about that earlier in this #RPGaDAY sequence so there’s not much to add. The thing about secondhand books is that you get the full […]
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