Dave Arneson: The Lost Interview

Following the recent death of Dave Arneson, Gamasutra has posted a previously unpublished interview they did with the Dungeons & Dragons co-creator years ago. A sampling:

So, where did you get 20-sided dice from?

We were in the very beginning using the six siders, but when we started doing the fantasy games, I dug out some 20-sided dice I’d purchased in England in the mid 60s.

I went to a game store — well, a historical miniatures store — in London, right off of… I think it was at Picadilly, I’m not sure. And I went upstairs to their gaming area and they had these little boxes of 20-sided dice, and I thought “oh, how cool!”

And so I picked up three pair, and I came back home with them and tried to introduce them into our military games, but the guys would have nothing to do with them.

We had several mathematicians, and working out percentages for six-sided dice was child’s play for them, but it gave me a headache. So really, the dice sat there for three or four years.

Then we did fantasy, and I said “Hey, let’s use this stuff for it.” So when we started on Blackmoor, we started using 20-sided dice at the same time. Go figure. They’re gamers, you know?

…

If you could jump on a development team and direct a project, who would you join?

Oh, I’d probably like work with the Neverwinter Nights people [BioWare] at some point. They seem to have a good notion about what to do.

I’ve learned enough about computers and programming from this school to understand this better over the last four and a half years. It’s easy to say “Oh, they’re not doing it right.” But, could they do it any other way? Well, the answer is probably no, at this point. Also, you’ve got to get the game done in a couple of years.