Talk:Dave Arneson

message: Why is there none? 60.234.155.202 05:28, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Birthdate 

message: "Arneson attended the Gen Con gaming convention for the first time in 1970, which was only its second annual meeting."
Something needs to be changed in this sentence, as both the Gen Con article and the Gary Gygax article say that GenCon started officially in 1968, making 1970 it's third outing, not the second.  Does anyone have the correct information for this? 69.180.225.127 16:32, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Year of GenCon 

message: This thing reads horribly.  Any objections if I attempt a rewrite?  Kythri 01:45, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rewrite? 

message: This article makes a large number of not-generally-known and completely uncited details.  Perhaps most notably, the article places the lion's share of credit for the development of modern role-playing games with Arneson.  While it may be correct, it's a bold claim and requires supporting evidence.  More aggressive editors than I would be tempted to delete the majority of the article.  — Alan De Smet | Talk 04:52, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've flagged a bunch of claims with "[citation needed]".  If they're still uncited after a while, I'll just delete them.  Note that if the only citations we can find are from Arneson himself (in the form of his own writing or interviews), we'll need to rewrite the claims in the form "Arneson claims". — Alan De Smet | Talk 00:57, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citations badly needed! 

message: I don't have a strong source to go on, so I won't update the main page, but Mr. Arneson appears to have been hospitalized with cancer (orig. forum link). -Miskaton (talk) 04:39, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I have deleted the new information about Arneson's apparently declining health.  While I believe it likely to be true, a forum post on a public forum by someone identifying themselves solely as "Finarvyn" is not a gold standard reliable source.  I'm very open minded about reliable sources, and I'm more open to forum posts than the guidelines and policies recommend and allow.  However, I believe the Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons policy is vitally important.  We need to be absolutely certain for anything of import, and the fact that Arneson may be dying is the sort of important thing we need to be careful with.  If it's true, this will be widely reported in a few days, perhaps a few weeks.  We can add it then.  There is no need to hurry; we're crafting an encyclopedia, not a newspaper.  (We went through this same situation with Gygax's passing.  The first news was on forums, and while accurate it was best for the article to not say anything until highly reliable sources reported it.)  So please wait until there are reliable sources about Arneson's health before re-adding it.  — Alan De Smet | Talk 22:43, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

text: I absolutely agree - this article is poorly sourced enough as it is. Sad thing is, we might not get some reliable information about his health until he goes the way Gygax went. :( 204.153.84.10 (talk) 22:50, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Which cancer did he die of? Nietzsche 2 (talk) 14:19, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Good question - I'm not sure if we know yet? BOZ (talk) 03:58, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cancer 

message: Today, April 7th, we lost a legend. http://dnd4.com/ I updated the page to reflect this.Piuro (talk) 18:05, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  James Maliszewski, who runs the website Grognardia and was in contact with Arneson has reported as such as well.  No idea when anything official will come out though. -- g026r (talk) 18:45, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Turns out I was wrong, and he may not have been in contact.  Definitely not an official/reliable source then. -- g026r (talk) 20:47, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

text: Twitter from Atomic Overmind and Mike Stackpole indicate that Mr. Arneson has not died. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:38, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  In other words: information is a mess, and nobody's certain what's what. Agreed on leaving as is until a reliable source surfaces. -- g026r (talk) 20:25, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I've requested that this page be temporarily semi-protected. –Drilnoth (T • C) 20:29, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Standard procedure until we get an official source or two confirming his death; otherwise we'll be reverting it every five seconds. HalfShadow 20:37, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

text: D'oh! BOZ (talk) 22:45, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, at least there's some good news. –Drilnoth (T • C) 22:58, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alleged death 

message: That should be long enough. By then, we should have official word as to whether he's dead or if the rumors of his death are greatly exaggerated. HalfShadow 20:53, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds good. –Drilnoth (T • C) 21:20, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  Andrew Hackard has cononfirmed that he is at least hospitlizedhttp://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.php?p=768162&postcount=2 but has stated those that would be contacted and update have not beenhttp://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.php?p=769028&postcount=7 --Roguebfl (talk) 22:10, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Please see my thoughts on the matter here. BOZ (talk) 22:20, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

text: Oh my; this is a sad day. Well, somebody can add it to the article I guess... would you say that that's a reliable source? –Drilnoth (T • C) 23:01, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Would say so this time, sadly... Not going to be any repeat of what happened yesterday re. sourcing information. Harami2000 (talk) 23:51, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah... that's the site who got it wrong in the first place, but this doesn't look like a mistake. (I'm not going to get all "boy who cried wolf" on him either.) BOZ (talk) 12:41, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Semi-protected for three days 

message: "...using archetypal devices such as adventuring..."
-->
"...using now-archetypal devices such as adventuring..."  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.211.105.148 (talk) 01:17, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Good suggestion as to tense, thanks: the original wording kinda jarred but my head couldn't do any better at the time. Now rewritten more clearly in line with suggestion. Harami2000 (talk) 01:58, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggestion to change wording 

message: Should the first paragraph begin, "David "Dave" Lance Arneson (October 1..."?  That is, explicitly noting that Arneson is widely known as "Dave".  It's currently the title of the article (and understandably; I expect most people will search for it) and as the title of the infobox.  But I usually expect to have the exact article title in the opening, or at least a clear idea of why the title and the opening bold don't match.  — Alan De Smet | Talk 03:44, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds good to me. –Drilnoth (T • C) 12:04, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Dave" in opening paragraph 

message: People are looking at this article; whatever is added will be seen by someone. We have to constantly make sure that this article is free of vandalism and misinformation. I'm guessing that we all kind of knew that already, but here's some evidence: Last month's hit count statistics totaled 2583. As of yesterday, we already have 61488 this month. –Drilnoth (T • C) 17:06, 11 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Over 100,000 and there are still a few days left in the month! April 10th got nearly 30,000 hits alone. BOZ (talk) 04:00, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: You know, I actually looked at some other statistics. On the 10th, this page actually got more hits than Barack Obama. Wow. I reckon that it's going to top Dungeons & Dragons in the April page hit counts! –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 13:59, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please note 

message: In the article, it currently sez: "Arneson briefly returned to "Blackmoor" and D&D in the mid 1980s when Gygax became president of TSR. This production yielded the "DA" (Dave Arneson) series of Blackmoor modules. When a new president after Gygax took control of TSR, Arneson was removed from the company before the fifth module was published. Gygax and Arneson again went their separate ways." 
However the dates don't seem to match up. Gygax was forced out of TSR on 31 Dec 1985. Two of the DA modules were published in 1986, and the other two in 1987. Either the mods were written before Gygax left, and then printed up to two years after he left, or the mods were written and published after Gygax left. But being part of TSR and then being forced out when Gygax left, why would TSR publish his mods anyway? <scratches head> Is it possible Arneson just forgot the sequence of events? He is fairly vague in that part of the interview.Guinness323 (talk) 06:32, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: There does seem to be a good bit of date confusion surrounding D&D's history... for example, I have two print sources that conflict about which Gen Con Gygax met Arneson at. I'm not really sure what should be done. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 12:26, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Include both, with citations. :) Some of the parts in that paragraph will have to be removed; we'll have to look more closely at that GameSpy interview and see whether that was misremembering on Dave's part, or if the interviewer got it wrong, or if whoever added that to the article misread it. BOZ (talk) 12:30, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: DA set of modules: Dates don't match up

message: Regarding the unsourced statement,
:"Adventure Games published several games and made money, but Arneson handed it over to Flying Buffalo as the workload became unbearable."
The
Guardian instead said, "In the late 1980s, Dave shut down Adventure Games and moved to California." There are some blogs that appear to confirm the wikipedia statement, but it is unclear whether they are simply repeating wikipedia or some other unconfirmed source. For example,  the  mercurie blog says, "While Adventure Games would be successful, it would also create a considerable workload for Arneson. He eventually sold out to Flying Buffalo (publishers of Tunnels and Trolls)." Thus it may be appropriate to just source the Guardian and modify the sentence accordingly.—RJH (talk) 19:01, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The trick to that is to look at the most stable version from before he died. It said the exact same thing in February, thus it's certainly possible that the obits ripped it from here. Since the Guardian had info beyond what we had in February, I'd say it's probably not just a copy from us. BOZ (talk) 19:20, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

text: I wrote that line: . It was from an interview by Ciro Allessandro Sacco that was once at EN World. There's a copy at the Internet Archive. "Overall, Adventure Games made some money but it was a lot of work. Having gotten married and with a daughter, the company was just taking too much time." It also explains the Flying Buffalo deal. Google found a copy of the interview in this forum post. --Mrwojo (talk) 20:09, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks! We were using similar sources for the Gary Gygax article, but had eventually removed them in an attempt to get it up to FA.  However, those interviews were good enough to get Gygax up to GA, so I'm sure the same would hold true here. :) BOZ (talk) 22:14, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Adventure Games 

message: This section still needs a few citations here and there.  Particularly that first paragraph, which is still totally unsourced. BOZ (talk) 00:29, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  After TSR 

message: The last sentence in the lead paragraph about Arneson's death seems unnecessary. Firstly, his dates of birth and death are given right after his name. Secondly, the lead paragraph is a summation of his life's achievements (i.e. the reason he rates an aritcle in Wikipedia), and the fact that he died from cancer in 2009 isn't an important part of his life's work. Thirdly, while I agree that in the first few days and weeks after his death it was important to emphasize that he had recently died, I think we have reached the point where it is no longer news. Finally, I randomly chose a dozen other biographical articles concerning people who have died in the past year, and none of them listed the date and cause of death in the lead paragraph. However, as always, your mileage may vary, I'd be interested to hear opinions. Guinness323 (talk) 16:08, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it is good to mention his death in the lead, but I will also digress to the opinions of others. 204.153.84.10 (talk) 16:47, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, so why do you think it is a good thing to mention his death in the lead?Guinness323 (talk) 17:48, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Mention of death in lead paragraph

message: I dislike the vignetting, as it looks like a gravestone photo, thus giving the infobox a 'memorial' feel. I would like to replace it but cannot find the original image any more... can anyone help? --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 07:08, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Not a lot we can do. here is the original.  I just cropped out the text and sword.  I did extend the vignetting so that the bottom matched.  Wikipedia has permission to use the vignetted version, but the copyright holder has not offered/uploaded a vignette-free version.  Someone would need to track the original down and acquire permission. — Alan De Smet | Talk 05:57, 24 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Infobox image vignetting 

message: During an interview Dave gave me for Stroke and Dagger magazine at Gen Con, back in the early 1990's, he told me an interesting side bit about how the polyhydra die got introduced to D&D.  Effectively, it was because he had been given some by a friend visiting from Britain (where they were used in some game system or another) and he thought he'd try to come up with a use for it.  Sadly, I cannot find my original notes nor do I have a copy of the article as it was published in that long-dead mag, so I can't add it, but it was a fun story and interviewing him made for a highly enjoyable afternoon.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.100.2.39 (talk) 17:13, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Interesting Paranthetical 

message: On 16 August 2020, the Dave Arneson page has been exported from here and imported at RPG Museum (page link), a growing wiki on Fandom that intends to be a resource for all tabletop RPGs. RPG Museum is using this content under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 license. Thanks, all! -- Supermorff (talk) 13:08, 16 August 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Exported to RPG Museum