What Do You Want To Do?

A "Secrets of Blackmoor" Review

This site is clearly not a review site, but occasionally I come across something truly special and I like to celebrate it. Chris Graves and Griffith ("Griff") Mon Morgan III have released their documentary film titled SECRETS OF BLACKMOOR: THE TRUE HISTORY OF DUNGEONS & DRAGONS on Vimeo. SECRETS is a documentary on the history and origins of DUNGEONS & DRAGONS but, in many ways, is also a documentary on the evolution of role-playing games. And I think it's important to add that this is also the first volume. Filming of the second volume has just started.


The short review (TL;DR) is this: If you have any interest in role-playing games, let alone their creation and evolution, this documentary is phenomenal and well-worth your time. Seriously, I cannot recommend it enough. You can find it on Vimeo at https://vimeo.com/ondemand/secretsofblackmoor and the film's official website is at https://www.secretsofblackmoor.com/

Rent it or buy it. Your choice. But watch it! 
 
The rest of this review will go into some detail about the film and also talk about why I find it so fascinating.

My Background

I got into role-playing games, like a lot of kids, when I was 8 or 9 years old (so around 1982-83). Interestingly, I never played D&D as a kid. I have a memory of being shown the rulebooks for ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS and I found them daunting. Big complex-looking hardcovers that really didn't speak to me at all. I was also big into comics and not that into fantasy of any sort at that time. What got me into role-playing was not D&D; instead, it was another product from the same company, namely MARVEL SUPER HEROES: THE HEROIC ROLE-PLAYING GAME. That led to games like FASA's STAR TREK: THE ROLE PLAYING GAME. I played a lot of these games as a teenager and really enjoyed them. Like comics and science fiction in general, they were a perfect escape from some pretty rough times.

And then, like a lot of young adults, I fell out of them in my late teens and early twenties.

D&D, or rather that style of fantasy gaming, didn't come until much later. How much later? Well, more like 2010 when I first came across DUNGEON CRAWL CLASSICS. That sparked an interest in fantasy role-playing and, through a pretty circuitous route, eventually D&D. This eventually led me to tracking down the original publications, published in 1974, and co-written by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson.

I say this for three reasons.

1. I don't have a particular pedigree with D&D. I came to it very late in life, especially compared to most of its fans. I certainly don't have any particular childhood affinity to one version of the game over others (what is known colloquially as "edition wars"; I have no interest in that).
   
   
2. I'm not in any particular "camp" (usually defined as fans of Gary Gygax versus fans of Dave Arenson). By coming to D&D so late, I missed all of that. And, of course, both men have died so I really have no horse in this race.
   
   
3. The SECRETS OF BLACKMOOR film is directly in my "wheelhouse" because it was released at the same time I've been separately exploring the origins of the game. For me, it's a case of perfect timing.
   

What Do You Want To Do?

So what is it about the film that I find so compelling? It's a combination of a number of things.

The History and Development of Role-Playing

The history of role-playing games is part of it. All role-playing games are a comparatively new and the evolution of role-playing is a very modern development. I think David Wesely in the film says it best, "...you just can't seem to describe the game by just writing down all the rules. You actually have to have somebody talk you through what it looks like when people are playing it so they get a feel for the social interaction on a level that's very hard to describe as just simple flat statements."

The film proceeds to discuss not only wargaming, but how Charles Totten's STRATEGOS: THE AMERICAN GAME OF WAR (1880) tied so many of the Twin City gamers together. The film then develops the importance of the impartial referee. As Greg Scott notes in the film, "as the referee becomes more and more important, you have the kernel of the role-playing game. That's where role-playing games come from, because you don't have role-playing games without a referee."



In fact, Wesely's role is critical to how role-playing games develop. Some of the most informative and most amusing parts of the documentary is when Weseley and his players describe the develop of BRAUNSTEIN, a wargame set in the fictional German town of Braunstein. BRAUNSTEIN combines elements of wargaming and STRATEGOS 'N' (Weseley's variation on Totten's rules, especially the involvement of a powerful but impartial referee). This is a part of the history of role-playing that I knew nothing about. 



Early in the film, Griff notes that "the referee invents a fantasy and describes everything about it to the players...The referee asks you, 'What do you want to do?' The story has begun and now it's up to you to decide, what do you want to do?...This pattern repeats endlessly, building a shared imaginary experience."

What do you want to do? 

That is, I think, a key factor in what makes a role-playing role-playing. Is it the only thing? No, I don't think so. Can it be more than that? Sure. Can it be less than that? That is an interesting question. Part of what I'm groping at here, something that the film really explores, is just what is role-playing? As Griff notes in the film, "what is even more confounding about the play-style is that you can play a role-playing game without any rules at all, but you can't play a role-playing game without the play method that is employed by all of these games."

This notion of just what makes a role-playing game a role-playing game is a huge and fascinating part of the film. It is well-framed and well-presented in the film itself and leaves plenty of room for reflection.

History of the Players

Role-playing is a shared experience. One of the things the film does is bring the players, especially those players from the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul (Minnesota), to the forefront. Often we focus on who created a thing, especially in the formal sense of celebrity, fame, author credits, and so on and lose focus on all the other human beings who played key roles. It's a great credit to both Chris and Griff that they sought out so many people to interview and record. When watching the film in this light, I think the viewer really gets the sense of how important everyone was. All of these people were incubators and share credit on the creation and evolution of role-playing. To put it another way, if these players hadn't been there, would role-playing even exist?

As I've noted, both Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson have died (Gygax in 2008 and Arneson in in 2009). As a result, the film focuses on interviews with friends and family of both men (notably Malia Weinhagen, Dave Arneson's daughter; John, Arneson's dad; David Wesely, creator of the Braunstein RPG; David Megarry, creator of DUNGEON!; Bob Meyer; Greg Svenson; Rob Kuntz; Ross Maker; Gail Gaylord; Peter Gaylord; Jeff Berry; and on and on). The comments from Malia and John are especially poignant. I would argue that one of the most important things that the film does is give these folks an opportunity to have their memories, thoughts, and feelings about role-playing recorded for posterity.

The Conflict Between Gygax and Arneson

The least compelling part of it, at least for me, was the conflict between Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, though this is not a large part of the film's story. That said, I do think the comments from Barbara Keyes-Jenkins, Dave Arneson's accountant, are important and relevant. To be clear, I find the conflict immensely sad, in the same way I find the conflicts between Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and Stan Lee and Steve Ditko sad.

Why?

Falling outs between people do happen (I've had my fair share), but when it comes to the falling out between creative co-creators, it leaves a lot of "what ifs?" In the case of Arneson and Gygax, what if the falling out hadn't happened? What would the evolution of D&D look like? Would ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS have even been published? What if D&D had focused on developing and publishing game tools rather than hard and fast rules? A whole trajectory of the game, both wonderful and different, might have occurred.

Conclusion

SECRETS OF BLACKMOOR is a remarkable and wonderful film. It is educational in the best sense of the word and I am extremely pleased that the film was made and I had the opportunity to watch it. I can't wait for volume 2!

Do yourself a favour and see it. You won't regret it.

Epilogue

I'll leave it with this: Griff, in a podcast interview discussing the film, noted the following letter that he received from John Arneson, Dave's dad. It reads in part, "Congratulations for a job well done. The efforts, planning, time, and resources required were tremendous. Malia Weinhagen's, David Wesely's, and Greg Svenson's insight and input for the production added to the success of the endeavour. I was surprised and pleased to see and hear about the Hartford House, where I believe DUNGEONS & DRAGONS was conceived. The recognition of Dave Arneson, his talent and creativity, is long overdue. He is, indeed, the father of role-playing and has authored many articles about board games, rules, and procedures. Again, I thank you and appreciate the work of a multitude of people who made the documentary possible. My thanks to all."

Other Links

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CBC Ottawa All In A Day Interview Von Allan on Revisiting Artwork for Documentary Film

When I was invited by filmmaker Megan Durnford to participate in the documentary film “I Am Still Your Child”, one of the unique aspects of the film is that Megan wanted to include some of my artwork from my first graphic novel “the road to god knows…”, originally published in 2009. I’m proud of that book, but the artwork is rough. Megan’s request made me pretty damn nervous but we worked out a solution that we were both happy with.

This interview with CBC Ottawa’s Alan Neal on the drive-home radio program “All In A Day” delves into all of that and more.
You can listen to the interview by clicking here, playing it using the audio player below, or you can read the lightly edited transcript of the interview just below the audio player.

Lightly Edited Transcript

Alan Neal: A new documentary called “I Am Still Your Child” opens with two powerful statistics. One in five Canadians experience mental illness. 60% of them have children. It kind of sets up the film telling the story of children with parents who’ve struggled with mental illness. Local comic book artist Von Allan is one of the people featured in the film.

Von Allan (Excerpt from the Documentary Film): “We came to Ottawa, I think, for my mom to try to get more education and sort of change her circumstances. My mom was very ill, mentally ill, which is something I didn’t quite realize when I was very small. But we were struggling with poverty. She just declared bankruptcy and was going through bankruptcy. So, welfare, bankruptcy, schizophrenia, all of that together. This was tough stuff. Later on, I started to realize that I wanted to draw. And I really felt that drawing something that was close to me would be a good way to start.”

Alan Neal: And he did draw something very close to him, a graphic novel that drew from his childhood experiences titled “the road to god knows…”, which we talked about here on the program back in 2009, I believe. Years later, this documentary has given Von Allan the opportunity to revisit both that artwork and his story.

He’s with me now in studio. Hi there.

Von Allan: Hey.

Alan Neal: Obviously you were familiar with telling your story when “the road to god knows…” came out. You were very open about it then, too. Was this something different once a documentary filmmaker comes in and says, “now will you retell your story with me being in control of it?”

Von Allan: Yeah, it really was. It took a while to get used to it. And it was a strange experience to do. I had moved on. So I had done the graphic novel, it was fine. And it was my first book so it’s kind of rough. I had moved on to other projects. I think it was about a six year gap, between when Megan, the director, first contacted me to when the book was actually published. So at that point, I was like, “Whoa.” And then when she said, “we want to talk to you about your story about the situation,” everything you just described. And we want to use some of the artwork in the documentary. I kind of went, “I’m not so sure about that. It’s kind of scary for me.” So to make a long story short, they chose images that they wanted to use and they allowed me to redraw them.

Alan Neal: And was that what was scary? I mean, people may hear that and think, “Oh, what was scary? He doesn’t like his artwork as much from 2009. Was that really… what was scary?”

Von Allan: In some ways, yeah, because I’ve had such an up and down experience with art. Certainly talking about my mom, and talking about my childhood and what have you is not something I find all that easy to do. And it is weird when there’s cameras in your house, sound recorders in your house, and everybody’s great. And I have talked to Megan quite a bit about this since particularly now that the film is out. I’m not in control of it, I had to put a lot of faith and trust in her that I’m not going to look like an idiot. I’m not going to look insensitive, that it’s going to come across well. And it’s also going to work because there’s two other young women involved in the film as well. So it’s going to intercut everything really well. But I find it always tough. I was poor and, you know, my mom died at 48. So she died pretty young. I have a lot of wistful “what ifs,” that maybe she could have beaten it and she didn’t and sort of gotten herself into a better place. And the reality is, as she had gotten older, things got worse, mainly because — and one of the things with mental illness for a lot of people is — the illness itself is a struggle. And then, if you’re younger, your body… you have these physical situations that make it tough, too. So my mom’s health, physical health deteriorated on top of all the mental stuff, the schizophrenia that she was dealing with. And my feeling to this day is that that all sort of became a perfect storm that caught up with her. I’ll never know exactly what happened, but it was probably a simple heart attack. And that was it.

But too young to die and talking about it on camera is not an easy thing. That combination of, you know, visiting the artwork, revisiting the artwork, wondering “what if the graphic novel had been a bit stronger?” It did fine. But I mean, you know, I am a very different artist than I [am] now. How I approach things is different. So there are some wistful “what ifs” on that. And the story itself.

Alan Neal: I’ll come back to artwork in a moment, but were there elements of the story that you found yourself telling on film that you were not able to address back in 2009? Were there ‘pieces’ that you found coming to the surface that had not come to the surface before?

Von Allan: Yeah, in some ways, for sure. Because one of the major differences between me doing the book and the film experience is Megan had questions. And she had questions and she was pretty specific about it. So it wasn’t just me rambling or me in control of the script. She wanted to talk about very specific things. And that was new for me.

I have been interviewed a lot. But being in a situation where somebody is asking fairly probing, pretty sensitive, but pretty probing questions about aspects of my childhood. A good example is “how did I find dealing with friends and what have you?” Well, I fictionalized a lot of that in the story. But the reality of it was, I was a pretty shy kid. I was pretty ashamed of our living situation and my mom’s situation. I didn’t understand my mom’s situation all that well. So talking about that and getting into that, and some of that didn’t make it into the film completely. But that was hard.

And they filmed a lot. I mean, one of the amazing things about this is my screen time is like 12 minutes, 15 minutes, whatever. But the reality is they were at my place twice on two separate filming occasions for probably six hours each time. So 11 or 12 hours of film. So we talked about a lot of different things. And it was also interesting to see in the final screening; I hadn’t seen it until just Friday night, this past Friday night. What made it in, what wasn’t in, you know, and how it all came together. It’s a very unique experience.

Alan Neal: Is there any part of it that you’re not comfortable with how it was edited? Obviously, editing choices have to be made.

Von Allan: Absolutely.

Alan Neal: Sometimes, though, editing choices are made to form a narrative, too. Were there things where you’re like, “oh, that’s not quite what I meant?”

Von Allan: It’s hard. I think the only thing I was sensitive to is I can babble and I can talk quite a bit about it. It’s a shorter film. It’s 45 minutes. So certainly, there are times where I wish we could have gone into more. More context. I think one of my takeaways — and it’s certainly a part of the film — is poverty and how that affects you. Dealing with mental illness, dealing with trying to pay bills. But for my life, and I think for some of the other people involved, and particularly a lot of other people in general who are dealing with this stuff and kids, that’s a huge aspect of it. And if I had a very mild criticism is it would have been awesome for more of that to be [covered in the film]. But it might have been a different film if it was done. It would have had a different focus. All of a sudden, you’re bringing these financial things into it. So, no, I think they did an amazing job with it.

I probably can’t even stress the financial aspects. With my mom, the welfare stuff, I wonder sometimes as an adult — because I was a kid — is what was it like to have the self-awareness and said, “I can’t make it? I need help.” And I have to go to the government. I have to do this. And I know that in terms of our extended family — that I’m not close to — that was a major sore spot.

One of the things that’s not in the film that I remember vividly is my mom having to ask family for financial help. And instead of trusting my mom and going, “here, Judy, here’s 100 bucks, here’s whatever you need.” They made decisions for her. They were like, “no, no, no, we don’t trust you with money. We’re gonna… if you need money, you must need groceries. We’ll buy you groceries.”

We had bills to pay. Actually food at that time might not have been an issue. That kind of thing. And what that does to somebody’s dignity. She also had to explain it to me. “This is why you don’t have the greatest school clothes. This is why you don’t have all the great supplies that other kids have.” I went to Glebe [Collegiate Institute]. I went to Mutchmor [Public School] and Glashan [Public School] in Ottawa. So there were some relatively affluent kids. It was very apparent to me that I wasn’t one of them. And for my mom… I’m a stupid kid. You are just sort of aware of what you don’t have or what other people have. And if it was now, I would love to know… I think it would have been very tough on my mom to have to make those types of sacrifices and choices.

Alan Neal: Before I let you go, you mentioned redoing the art. And I still remember elements of “the road to god knows…”, where the scene where the main character is floating in the sky and all these things are swirling around her, conveying how her brain works at that point, or how she’s dealing with what she’s been going through.¹ Were there major changes to the artwork? Or was it just a matter of — did you change the actual way you portrayed an image like that?

Von Allan: It’s a tricky. It’s hard to answer is because Megan had chosen what images she wanted to use. So she said “page 30,” “this panel on page 35.” So I knew what she wanted and I felt I was obligated to maintain that. So what I tried to do was use the page as a thumbnail and basically not change the compositional approach, not change anything like that, but just approach the page, the redrawn page, with better craftsmanship.

And it was kind of freaky because I hadn’t really revisited the book at all. I sort of put it aside. And I think a lot of artists might pull out an old sketch book, sort of flip [through it], but you don’t get an opportunity to compare the art literally side by side. And that, particularly after I had done it and started looking at them side by side was pretty remarkable. I wanted to keep the tone of it the same. I wanted to keep most of the composition the same, but I wanted to approach it with better craft. And I think that’s what I was able to do. But it was weird.

Alan Neal: I’m encouraging people to check this out. The documentary aired over the weekend, but you can still stream it online. It’s called “I Am Still Your Child” by Megan Durnford. We will tweet out the link from CBC All In A Day. Von Allan is one of the people featured in it. Thanks so much for coming.

Von Allan: That’s fantastic. Thank you.

Alan Neal: Von Allan, comic book artist based here in Ottawa. Once again, the documentary, “I Am Still Your Child” is streaming online right now. And we will tweet out that link from CBC All In A Day.

Footnote

1This is fascinating, because I don’t know what Alan is referencing, but this scene wasn’t in “the road to god knows…”. I would love to know what the source is, so if anyone reading this knows, please contact me!