Bad Mike & I had Griff Morgan from the Secrets of Blackmoor Documentary as a Special Guest on the Talking Crit LiveStream

I don't normally post links to The Tavern's Youtube Channel as the very subject of a post, but I'm making an exception tonight.

I'm going to highly recommend watching tonight's Talking Crit LiveStream with special guest Griffith Morgan. The "behind the scenes" and "behind the camera" stories relating to the Secrets of Blackmoor Documentary were fun to hear for the first time, and I learned new pieces of the convoluted history of D&D and RPGs in general. 

Griff is an amazingly entertaining and knowledgeable guest to have on the livestream, and certainly someone Mike & I will have on again.

Here's the link to the Secrets of Blackmoor website, where you can find the documentary, Tonisborg, and more.

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You can catch the daily Tavern Chat podcast on Anchor, YouTube, or wherever you listen to your podcast collection. - Tenkar  

Rewatching The Secrets of Blackmoor - The True History of Dungeons & Dragons

Griffith Morgan was kind enough to gift me with a copy of The Lost Dungeons of Tonisborg. (a more detailed review of Tonisborg is in the works) It's a book that simply reeks with gaming history, and I've been enjoying my time traveling experience. It has, however, put the documentary - The Secrets of Blackmoor, back into the forefront of my thoughts. I decided today, it was time to rewatch it.

I am literally watching as I type this post.

To put it simply, I had forgotten how good The Secrets of Blackmoor was, not just as a gamer and a History Major, but simply for the pure enjoyment of an amazingly well done documentary. I may need to watch this again with Rach. I think she'll enjoy it.

You can rent The Secrets of Blackmoor on Amazon for less than 4 bucks, or own it in digital for less than 11 bucks.

What if everything you knew about the history of Dungeons & Dragons was wrong?

6 Years, 12 Cities, 200 Hours of Interviews, 20,000 Documents and Photos: An unprecedented investigation into the history of D&D - the game that spurred a multi-billion dollar industry.

Be among the first to know the Secrets of Blackmoor.

Blackmoor is the name of a fictional world created by David Arneson. It is also the prototype of Dungeons & Dragons, the first published role playing game. Unlike other fantasy worlds, such as J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth, Blackmoor is a living world that is being explored to this day. Secrets of Blackmoor investigates the origins of the role playing game, through candid interviews, archival footage, and newly discovered artifacts.

In 1963, David Wesely becomes a founding member of a club that includes history buffs, model makers, and miniature collectors. Hiding within the group, however, are a bunch of college students who are interested in war gaming. Within a year, the gamers meet a high school kid named Dave Arneson who is playing war games with his friends in his parents' basement.

These gamers have no idea that they will change the face of this hobby forever. Their only concern for now, is how to simulate the reality of war, and above all, they just want to have fun. Their voracious hunt for new rules and knowledge leads them to the University of Minnesota Library where they discover an old manuscript, Strategos; the American Game of War. Within the dense pages are a few sentences that inspire them.

The influence of Strategos changes how they play their war games. But are they really following these old rules, or have they stumbled onto something truly unique by misinterpreting what it says? Should a game be constrained by rules, like Monopoly, or should there be no boundaries at all, like a game of make believe?

One thing is very clear--something magical was going on in the Twin Cities.

The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern. 

You can catch the daily Tavern Chat podcast on Anchor, YouTube, or wherever you listen to your podcast collection. - Tenkar 

Kickstarter - The Dreams in Gary’s Basement: A Documentary on Gary Gygax

There are a number of interesting Kickstarters on the gaming radar right now, and I'm going to do my best to get to them in a timely (meaning - still funding) manner.

The Dreams in Gary’s Basement: A Documentary on Gary Gygax is what it says on the tin - this isn't a D&D focused documentary, instead it's focused on one D&D's co-creators (and the wind beneath the sails and sales of D&D - see what I did there?;)

I must say, it does look very interesting. I may be a bit gun shy after dueling D&D documentary Kickstarters spent years duking it out in court - and I still don't know what, if any, is going to see the light of day from either.

Here's the pitch:

Gary Gygax was one of the great minds of the 20th century – his innovations have influenced generations of artists and spawned tens of billions of dollars in global revenue. 

With Dungeons & Dragons, Gary crafted a vehicle for engaging the mind at a creative, analytical, social and even emotional level - all at the same time. There is truly nothing else like it. 

Gary's work has woven itself into the fabric of our culture, yet there is no monument to recognize him, not even in his own hometown. (wonder how that failed to happen?) We intend this project to be a filmic monument of sorts – a high-quality, emotionally engaging record of Gary’s story that can be appreciated by gamers and non-gamers alike for generations to come.

As a lifelong player of D&D, I feel this project has been a dream come true. I've met so many of my idols, made so many friends, and developed a deeper understanding of Gary Gygax and his magical game. 

This movie has been three years in the making and is now just months from being completed. We have dozens of interviews and hours of other great footage, and in a rough cut, it already tells a compelling story. 

With your support, we can bring it across the finish line by giving the movie high-end color grading, sound mixing and additional archival photos and video. We have a talented post-production team in place and ready to work as soon as we fund.
Please help us bring Gary's inspiring story to life and create a lasting addition to his legacy. 

- Pat Kilbane, Director

Watch the video on the Kickstarter page. It's less than 3 minutes long and I find it enticing. 

Still not sure I'm going to pull the trigger on this one, but it has funded and is hitting stretch goals.

Dueling Dungeons & Dragons Documentaries Lawsuit "Discontinued with Prejudice"

Definition: In the formal legal world a court case that is dismissed with prejudice means that it is dismissed permanently. A case dismissed with prejudice is over and done with, once and for all, and can't be brought back to court.

Remember the dueling D&D documentaries that turned into an expensive lawsuit? I'm not even referring to the dollars involved - it cost the gaming community a true gem or two. Now, hopefully, these gems will see the light of day.

You can read some articles on the original dispute at The NY Times and The Verge

Kickstarter - The Tavern Inadvertently Helped Knock Down The Great Kingdom

Thanks to JRT for pointing this out - I think.

First time The Tavern has appeared in a court document that I know of.

Tenkar's Tavern, now also known as Exhibit B...

Another Dungeons & Dragons Documentary is being Kickstartered - The Great Kingdom - Do We Need Two?

Just to refresh everyone, the original D&D documentary kickstarter was Dungeons & Dragons: A Documentary, which funded back in fall of 2012. It's supposedly due to release sometime this year, which may hit some bumps, as 2/3 of the folks behind the original project left it to produce The Great Kingdom, which is Kickstarting now (and is about 60% short of goal with a week left to fund.)

Yep, there's a lawsuit involved. Can't have a documentary (documentaries?) without a lawsuit. Well, you could, but then there would be no drama.

Anyhow, "personalities" is what led folks from the first project to leave to form a second project. We all know how evil personalities can be.

Do we need two D&D documentaries? Damned if I know. I didn't support the first one and I'm into stuff like this. Would I buy a copy of either upon release? Probably.

Examiner.com has a bit more on the legal issues involved between the two competing documentaries.

A 7 Minute PBS Documentary - "Dungeons & Dragons and the Influence of Tabletop RPGs"

Shout out to +Gnome Stew for bringing this video to my attention. Certainly an interesting seven minutes of D&D Documentary video. Shame that some of the clips seem to show 4e ;)

A Response to My Post About the D&D Documentary - From Andrew Pascal, Producer - Dungeons & Dragons: A Documentary

This was added as a comment to the original D&D Documentary post, but as it will probably get very few views there, I'm reposting it as it's own post. It goes a long way to addressing questions  and issues raised on this blog and elsewhere.  As I post this the Dungeons & Dragons Kickstarter has 53 hours to go.

Hi All -

I'd love to weigh in on some of your concerns and be given the opportunity to explain ourselves on this forum. 

My producing partners and I have been working for over a year now on the footage we've acquired. We've paid for everything out of pocket and had come to the point this past April when we realized, taking into account the scope of the story we needed to tell, that we simply could not afford to do it ourselves. What's more, the story is so compelling that our initial budget simply would not suffice in order to tell it appropriately and with the due respect it deserves. 

So we decided on a KS campaign. And we also decided to launch at GenCon 2012. What we imagined to be the simple process of mounting a KS campaign, was without question, one of the hardest things we've ever had to do. It was something we completely under estimated. Plus with the added deadline of GenCon, things became very interesting for us, very fast. We've never done anything like this before, we're film-makers not fund raisers. So yes, we made a lot of mistakes.

That being said, we managed to hobble together the clips we wanted to show at GenCon, a trailer for KS and a few interesting rewards to offer. And we launched, hoping, truly beyond hope that what we had to show would be enough to get us the funds we needed to meet the KS goal. We begged and pleaded the many connections that we made to help spread the word. Many in the industry championed our project and to them we owe an eternity of gratitude.

The fault in explaining our goals and stretch rewards was purely mine. Our intention was never to obfuscate what we have set out to do, which is to make a kick-ass documentary on a game we love. And we have addressed any and all who had their concerns about what it is exactly their funding. Simply put, the KS allows us to finish filming the way that we have been filming with the added exception of some help (and a good sound mixer). It also allows us to finish the film in a much shorter period of time instead of waiting for our own bank accounts to be replenished with our day jobs. Documentaries of this caliber cost lots more money than what we are asking for (an average Michael Moore documentary is in the neighborhood of $5-7 Million). We've managed to creatively cut costs wherever we can and use the resources we have to come up with a budget that is a tenth of what bigger documentaries cost to make, but without sacrificing the "look" and "feel".

Someone mentioned "Clerks" as perhaps a model to follow in terms of getting a labor of love made with maxed out credit cards and loans...that may be well and good for a movie like "Clerks". But when you're looking at $100 a second for archival footage, things get very expensive very quickly. And this is nothing but a labor of love for us.

Beyond the money we get from KS, we still have to raise even more. And we will go to investors for that. What the KS is going to help with is easing the concerns of our investors in terms of getting their money back. We can show them that the anticipation for the film is already in place. 

Our goal has always been to make a great documentary about a game we love and guys (Gary, Dave, et al) we admire and do it well. Unfortunately all of that costs money. Money we just don't have.

I hope this helps to explain our position a little bit. If you have any questions at all, please do not hesitate to reach out. Our email is DungeonsDoc@gmail.com

Thanks for your time and thanks for listening.

Andrew Pascal

Producer

Dungeon & Dragons: A Documentary

The deal for the companion book has been put together with Chris Pramas of Green Ronin and author James Lowder. Everything is in place, except for actual funds. Our stretch goal, which as you mentioned, we have no way in hell meeting, would have paid for the printing of and shipping to our backers. The rest of the money would have been spent on the proper marketing of the film.

Grown Geeks - The Reckoning

Watching the the Dungeons and Dragons documentary last nite got me thinking about my old gaming group.  The core of the group are still close friends and we aim to get together about once a season (The Gathering of Fools).  Of course, we rarely get close to any type of gaming in these gatherings... we distract ourselves by ac ting silly and watching stupid, but gaming related, movies.

Looking at the group I'm not sure if any of us found the career we expected to find when we gamed multiple times a week:

Dave and Bri - managing techies for a large international firm (also known as the Stormbringer Brothers)

Tony - VP at a major American bank

John (Tony's brother) - physical therapist for the stars

Erik (me) - Sergeant in a major metropolitan police force

Paul - lost on 9-11 but not forgotten - the first of us to find success and inspiration for all

None of us became rock stars, or got to make a living off our love for gaming.

But we did find our way.  We did maintain our friendships.  In the end, that is what has always made gaming such a huge part of our lives... the friendships we found and strengthened.  It why I've never been able to fully step away from the hobby.  One can never have enough friends :)

D&D Experience - Video Documentary

I wish I could find the blog that posted this link to the Dungeons & Dragons  Experience.  It's a decent documentary on D&D, its players and a bit of the history of the game.  It includes interviews gamers, writers and with members of the gaming industry, including EGG.

There where more then a handful of cringe inducing moments, quite possibly because I could relate to them.  The last part in the series has a nice EGG interview after the credits.  Altogether the 7 parts add up to about 70 minutes of viewing.