This is going to be out of order, but I did that for a reason.

increment wrote in 1973 Pre-publication Edition of D&D:While I agree that it is within the realm of possibility that fans could make radical extrapolations from the published material, I don't think that is a sufficient explanation for examples like the elemental devices, or the "division" for alignment, or the Magic-user spell list order - and especially not for all three in the same document.

With all due respect, you really don't have a basis to do that and this kind of hints at what I was leaning towards earlier about confirmation bias.  In order to make an objective analysis, we need a more substantial and measurable reason to come to that conclusion.

"It seems implausible" isn't reason enough to dismiss it out of hand. It can be good reason to come to the conclusion that following along that particular pathway of research is better served at this point, but it's not actually proof of anything.

increment wrote in 1973 Pre-publication Edition of D&D:Those are the sorts of things that tell us what to look for in a pre-publication document

I disagree, at least in large part due to the fact that you're dealing with one campaign setting versus a full(albeit small) ruleset, but far more importantly a completely different group of people doing the potential reading/editing.

increment wrote in 1973 Pre-publication Edition of D&D:I believe the examples like the ones I cite above are sufficient for me to establish the "tie in" for the narrow claim I've made ("involved in the actual process of the creation" is a kind of vague term, but I would argue this evidence does restrict the set to that, pretty much).

I disagree here again, because unless I've missed it, you haven't found anything that actually makes it being from an outside source not possible. As you note, in your post, new information may come to light which is the case with any research, the problem though is that upon further analysis, I do not believe you have truly adequately & effectively eliminated any outside scenarios, i.e. it's a fan work.  You believe it's not plausible, but other than playing the odds, there's no actual concrete evidence to support dismissing this.

increment wrote in 1973 Pre-publication Edition of D&D: I would hesitate to make a stronger claim from this evidence. However, even that weak claim means we're dealing with a unique resource here: as you say, something that we've simply never turned up before. Given the difficulties in authenticating the document, though, it could hardly be surprising that something like this would be overlooked - arguably it's hidden in plain sight for more than a decade.

I'm not sure I disagree here, but the thing that I think that you're missing, is that the very same thought process that you're using to dismiss that it could be a fan work(it's a numbers game), is the exact opposite of what you're arguing here for it being one of a kind.  To me, you can't really have it both ways.  If you're willing to dismiss simply on "numbers" the possibility of it not being a fan work, then you can't be willing to dismiss from a numbers standpoint, what should be multiple revisions of it at some point of this document(assuming that a fully typed up and illustrated manuscript is how they chose to proceed with the the editorial process for the game), up to and including the final one agreed to by multiple parties, right before publication.

Sheer numbers of revisions and the need for a final agreed upon copy amongst several parties prior to publication, should indicate that this Dalluhn Manuscript should not be a loner.

Further, and while I'm sure he's prone to some mistakes in his life(aren't we all ), Paul Stormberg, an archaeologist by trade and long time researcher/member of this hobby has been the one disseminating the Gygax collection, I would have to think that if EGG or Arneson or Kuntz had something along these lines, he'd have known about it by now, if not sold it off in one of his Collectors Trove auctions(though I'm sure I'll get some heat from D. on this remark).  

increment wrote in 1973 Pre-publication Edition of D&D:I think we can say with real confidence that there is pre-D&D system material preserved here; I don't think other explanations for the sorts of evidence I mentioned above are tenable.

Them not being tenable is not reason to make a final judgement "just because", though.

increment wrote in 1973 Pre-publication Edition of D&D: If we knew a lot more about 1973, we'd have an easier time fitting the pieces of the puzzle together, and certainly I don't pretend we have them all even.

I concur fully and the more research that's done, the better. .

increment wrote in 1973 Pre-publication Edition of D&D:It is entirely possible that Kurt Vonnegut wrote Dungeons & Dragons, and Gygax and Arneson stole it from him.

Kilgore Trout wrote it - Vonnegut ripped it off from him.

increment wrote in 1973 Pre-publication Edition of D&D:

bclarkie wrote in 1973 Pre-publication Edition of D&D:With all due respect, you really don't have a basis to do that and this kind of hints at what I was leaning towards earlier about confirmation bias.  In order to make an objective analysis, we need a more substantial and measurable reason to come to that conclusion.

I don't have the basis to do what - to claim that I don't think radical fan extrapolation is a sufficient explanation for certain facts about the document? I disagree, I think I have ample basis to make that assertion, and it's backed by research that I maintain is solid.

You don't have any basis or concrete evidence to dismiss it out of hand.

increment wrote in 1973 Pre-publication Edition of D&D:Step back a minute and think about this elemental example in isolation. Published OD&D has one set of elemental control devices in the magic items list, and for some reason lists a different set of elemental control devices in the elementals text. No fan could have made that happen - that proves, period, that before D&D was published, there was an alternate set of elemental control devices known to whoever wrote that elementals text in OD&D. An anonymous rules document comes to light, a document found among other documents we know date from no later than mid 1974, in the possession of a member of the Twin Cities gaming circle of that era, and this document just happens to have a list of elemental control devices in the magic items list that matches exactly what is listed in the OD&D elementals text. That fact alone, full stop, makes this document entirely unique in our knowledge of role-playing history. Is that substantial? Is it measurable? Is it objective? If your answers there are "no," then I think you perhaps need to be looking for confirmation bias elsewhere in this discussion.

Unfortunately, it doesn't prove that at all. While your statement about what ended up in published OD&D not being affected by anyone than those is absolutely true, the fact that it was published as it was makes it impossible to rule out that someone else did not pick up on the same thing you picked up on your else in your research. Truth be told, that's a pretty simple editorial oversight and the fact that OD&D is so rules light, could have easily been noticed by someone reading though the booklets.  

Your hypothesis here is sound, but it's not proof into itself.  There needs to be some other supporting evidence that backs up your hypothesis and or concretely eliminates other possibilities.

increment wrote in 1973 Pre-publication Edition of D&D:That much said, I understand why you might feel that you can't make an objective analysis of something you've never studied on the basis of second-hand reports about its correspondence with other things you've never studied. But does that mean I am not entitled to make my own conclusions from studying those works? I'm not sure how else to understand your point here.

For the purposes of this discussion, I'm really not trying to make an objective analysis of the document though and even if I had it, based on the lack of any other concrete supporting evidence, I'm not sure that I could.  That's my point here. I do not believe that due to the fact that there is no independent third source  tie in, that a claim of it being a pre-D&D manuscript is possible.

increment wrote in 1973 Pre-publication Edition of D&D:It is entirely possible that Kurt Vonnegut wrote Dungeons & Dragons, and Gygax and Arneson stole it from him. It is however quite unlikely. "Not possible" is the wrong bar to set here.

I'm not really sure that this type of comment is productive to the conversation.  With that said, there is plenty of concrete and independent evidence out there that Gygax and Arneson did in write D&D.

increment wrote in 1973 Pre-publication Edition of D&D:I'm not sure I get your argument here, but, I agree it's always difficult to talk about probability when you're dealing with a unique event;

My argument here is simple; if you want to use the assumed position that it's a low probability that it's a 3rd party(fan) work, you should also be consistent in that mind frame taking into consideration that this "manuscript" being a [legit precursor to OD&D, should not be one of a kind.

increment wrote in 1973 Pre-publication Edition of D&D:I just don't think it's particularly remarkable that we aren't swimming in copies of it.

I don't think we'd need to be swimming in copies of it either.  The problem is that the fact that it at this appears to be a fully printed and illustrated one off to be more than a little odd, especially in light of the fact that several of the main players who would/should have had some sort of tie-in, do not.  Despite the fact that most of their materials have been poured over and disseminated now.

increment wrote in 1973 Pre-publication Edition of D&D:As for Gary, well, who knows? I didn't say he made or ever saw it. Maybe it was minted in the Twin Cities on the basis of prior notes from Gary and Dave, and never made its way to Lake Geneva. Those are all pieces of the puzzle I know we don't have, because we lack a lot of insight into 1973. All I've tried to do is show what the contents of the document must tell us about the provenance of its text.

This is entirely possible.  Part of me wonders if this isn't Dr Barkers own personal creation, perhaps to simplify his work on putting out EoTPT after OD&D was released.

bclarkie wrote in 1973 Pre-publication Edition of D&D:

increment wrote in 1973 Pre-publication Edition of D&D:<snip>
That fact alone, full stop, makes this document entirely unique in our knowledge of role-playing history. Is that substantial? Is it measurable? Is it objective? If your answers there are "no," then I think you perhaps need to be looking for confirmation bias elsewhere in this discussion.

Unfortunately, it doesn't prove that at all. While your statement about what ended up in published OD&D not being affected by anyone than those is absolutely true, the fact that it was published as it was makes it impossible to rule out that someone else did not pick up on the same thing you picked up on your else in your research. Truth be told, that's a pretty simple editorial oversight and the fact that OD&D is so rules light, could have easily been noticed by someone reading though the booklets.  

Doesn't prove what at all? That the single piece of evidence I described is substantial, measurable and objective? That this is the only document known to us that matches this pre-D&D remnant we see in OD&D, and that it has a credible provenance? That's all I was arguing above. It is, as you say, impossible to rule out that some fan picked up on the same quirk that I did in my research and copied. It's also impossible to rule out that a fan coincidentally decided to rename the elemental control devices to just those options in total ignorance of any pre-D&D variant. A good way to rule out coincidence is by showing that you'd have to be willing tolerate too many of them. My argument elsewhere does show that, but the paragraph above didn't attempt to.

I've also alluded to the fact that I can run examples that don't draw on editorial messes in OD&D, but instead rely on unpublished documents. So, let's try again:

Step back a minute and think about this personality example in isolation. The Wizard Gaylord sheet lists its abilities (Strength, etc.) under a general heading of "Personality." That isn't a usage that appears in OD&D, or even survives in the FFC. However, in the Dalluhn Manuscript, the term is used instead of "ability" in OD&D, in constructions like, "the player rolls a series of three dice for his personality traits." We also see in the Dalluhn Manuscript variant names for some of the abilities, like Cunning for Wisdom and Health for Constitution, though these usages leave no trace in the FFC (others, like the "Ego" ability of Dalluhn, do leave traces in FFC). Both of those appear in the Personality list of the Wizard Gaylord sheet. So again, the Dalluhn Manuscript happens to have these matches, comes to light in the possession of a member of the Twin Cities gaming circle, found among other documents  we know date from no later than mid 1974. Is that objective? It is measurable? Is it substantial?

Could some fan have coincidentally chosen to rename the ability traits to personality traits, and lighted on the same trait names we see in Dalluhn? Sure. But the same fan who "fixed" the elemental control devices? And constructed that magic spell list order, and did the 50-odd other things I talk about? It's not impossible, of course not. But if you think it's a tenable explanation, Mr. Vonnegut has a new game you've just got to see (sorry if that's not productive, I won't invoke him again).

bclarkie wrote in 1973 Pre-publication Edition of D&D:

increment wrote in 1973 Pre-publication Edition of D&D:I just don't think it's particularly remarkable that we aren't swimming in copies of it.

I don't think we'd need to be swimming in copies of it either.  The problem is that the fact that it at this appears to be a fully printed and illustrated one off to be more than a little odd, especially in light of the fact that several of the main players who would/should have had some sort of tie-in, do not.  Despite the fact that most of their materials have been poured over and disseminated now.

We wouldn't say printed, it's typed, and part of my analysis does demonstrate that the construction of the manuscript is consistent with those illustrations being added after the fact. I'm not sure who would have had the kind of tie-in you're referencing here. I think the production quality is fully consistent with a fan work, and I agree with what I gather to be your implication, that it was created for distribution, not as a set of personal notes. It has some pretty glaring editorial deficiencies if it was intended to instruct people unfamiliar with the game, perhaps even more than the very forgiving standards of the day would allow. But it's roughly on a par with the production level of the Domesday Book, is a higher level than Arneson's Corner of the Table, is probably below 1973 level of International Wargamer issues. No one did this at a print shop. From a materials perspective, this literally could have been made by anyone.

bclarkie wrote in 1973 Pre-publication Edition of D&D:

increment wrote in 1973 Pre-publication Edition of D&D:As for Gary, well, who knows? I didn't say he made or ever saw it. Maybe it was minted in the Twin Cities on the basis of prior notes from Gary and Dave, and never made its way to Lake Geneva. Those are all pieces of the puzzle I know we don't have, because we lack a lot of insight into 1973. All I've tried to do is show what the contents of the document must tell us about the provenance of its text.

This is entirely possible.  Part of me wonders if this isn't Dr Barkers own personal creation, perhaps to simplify his work on putting out EoTPT after OD&D was released.

Unsurprisingly, since this was found by Tekumel players, that was the first hypothesis the Tekumel Foundation folks explored, long before I ever heard of this thing. They dismissed it. I have done my own analysis of it, based on Barker's early drafts (we have a lot of his pre-pub material from this era), his letters, his contemporary artwork, and so on, and I think it's a non-starter that he self-produced it materially or as a system. I wouldn't be surprised if he photocopied it, from whoever had the original, when he was sitting down to work on the earliest drafts of EPT, say. But there's no clear evidence of how he might have used it, or that connects ideas unique to Dalluhn to any other draft or published system in EPT, not that I've found so far, anyway.

increment wrote in 1973 Pre-publication Edition of D&D:

bclarkie wrote in 1973 Pre-publication Edition of D&D:And while I fully respect your hard work on this Jon(as well as on your book & blog), your research as it stands on this "manuscript", it is rife with confirmation bias.

That's not to say that your conclusion is wrong, only that you haven't come close to proving this is really a pre-D&D manuscript.

Given that I initially dismissed this as preposterous, as I'm sure grodog would be happy to attest, confirmation bias probably isn't the source of any errors here. I stood nothing to gain from this being authentic, as it was thrust into my hands right after I had just published a book with a narrative that would be impacted by the authenticity of this document. If anything, I stood more to gain from adhering to my initial judgment that this was nonsense.

Agreed!  Jon and I first met over the Dalluhn ms., so to speak, and spent a solid 8 hours or so bashing ideas around about it, while he was writing his long analysis paper about the DM.  

Jon:  it occurs to me that it would probably be worthwhile to present a seminar on the mss. at both GaryCon and NTX, in which you run through some of your research and analysis and allow for some Q&A with fans, collectors, ex-TSR folks, and similar interested parties.  You never know what might turn up---such as Brian Blume at GaryCon, for example.  Getting the big picture from your various blog posts and threads like these is pretty difficult, I imagine, so something like a seminar/webinar might be a good way to help communicate your big-picture points in a way that's more accessible for folks without a copy of the ms. to examine.

If the session was recorded and later available from your blog, that would also be a way to help folks to connect the dots better on your points, as well as to get a better handle on the nature of the challenges of researching this, future areas where exploring and finding additional supporting materials would be particularly helpful (a call for digging around in old storage boxes, so to speak), etc.

nesbit37 wrote in 1973 Pre-publication Edition of D&D:I see you bring this up regularly, and frankly, I don't think it matters.

I'm not sure about "regularly", but the two times I've said it is because assuming that this document is in fact authentic and it pre-dates OD&D, I was simply pointing out that the chances of finding further concrete evidence that points to or references this particular piece of material is marginally less now than it once was, in light of the fact that most, if not all that remained of their respective collections have now been disseminated.*

Does that mean that for sure nothing exists?  Absolutely not.  Just simply put that the best chance at finding something to further support Jon's claim is now not seemingly as likely as it was 5 or 6 years ago.  No more, no less.

nesbit37 wrote in 1973 Pre-publication Edition of D&D:Having a large quantity of material available and scrutinized does not mean all of the answers have been found and all questions can be dismissed.  If my work has taught me anything its that there is always something else to be found and at least two scholars to disagree on it.

I agree, however the more information found and scrutinized will certainly bring us closer to the truth.  I find Jon's research into this particular "manuscript" interesting, but having some seemingly very large holes still left to be answered for.

*edited for clarity

I'll try to keep this shorter this time.  With your most recent post, it appears that we're much closer on much of this than I initially thought.

increment wrote in 1973 Pre-publication Edition of D&D:Doesn't prove what at all? That the single piece of evidence I described is substantial, measurable and objective?

The evidence that you've found is objective and measurable.  How substantial it is, has yet to be determined.

nesbit37 wrote in 1973 Pre-publication Edition of D&D:A good way to rule out coincidence is by showing that you'd have to be willing tolerate too many of them.

The problem is and as I have tried to lead you to in my previous posts, your skepticism, however well intentioned, is not an objective data point.  It can lead you in certain directions to find further objective facts, but it in itself is not an objective data point.

To note, your using your skepticism of other possibilities as a way of ignoring other them in order to come to a conclusion.  In order to effectively rule them out, you need concrete evidence against them.  

For example, if the copy of this manuscript you received had editorial notes in Dave Arneson's(or any other known quantity from those involved) handwriting, that would pretty much objectively eliminate the possibility that this was a completely outside parties work.  It still would not conclusively eliminate the time frame component to it's creation versus the release of OD&D, but it would fill in significant data point that's still currently missing. Unfortunately, this type of data is not currently known, if it even exists at all

increment wrote in 1973 Pre-publication Edition of D&D: Step back a minute and think about this personality example in isolation. The Wizard Gaylord sheet lists its abilities (Strength, etc.) under a general heading of "Personality." That isn't a usage that appears in OD&D, or even survives in the FFC. However, in the Dalluhn Manuscript, the term is used instead of "ability" in OD&D, in constructions like, "the player rolls a series of three dice for his personality traits." We also see in the Dalluhn Manuscript variant names for some of the abilities, like Cunning for Wisdom and Health for Constitution, though these usages leave no trace in the FFC (others, like the "Ego" ability of Dalluhn, do leave traces in FFC). Both of those appear in the Personality list of the Wizard Gaylord sheet. So again, the Dalluhn Manuscript happens to have these matches, comes to light in the possession of a member of the Twin Cities gaming circle, found among other documents  we know date from no later than mid 1974. Is that objective? It is measurable? Is it substantial?

Once again, it is measurable and it is objective, but how substantial it is still remains to be determined.   To note, this could indicate that this "manuscript" was in fact produced by someone in Twin Cities gaming group.  It would not stretch the imagination to say even that is is likely that it was created by someone within that group.

However, without any other dated supporting documentation, even assuming that it was created by someone in/from that group, a significant unanswered question still remains wide open.  And that question is, "when"?  Until that is answered, it puts the claim of "pre-OD&D manuscript" very much in doubt.  That's one of the two main points, I've been trying to drive at here.

And to reiterate from above, I'm not saying that I think that your conclusion is "wrong", there is just two major missing objective data points that still need filled in to make a more substantive claim that your conclusion is "right".

I do appreciate your patience and good comportment in this discussion, and while I hope you're right that we're converging, I still think we have some issues below, so I'm afraid mine isn't any shorter this time...

bclarkie wrote in 1973 Pre-publication Edition of D&D:The problem is and as I have tried to lead you to in my previous posts, your skepticism, however well intentioned, is not an objective data point.  It can lead you in certain directions to find further objective facts, but it in itself is not an objective data point.

To note, your using your skepticism of other possibilities as a way of ignoring other them in order to come to a conclusion.  In order to effectively rule them out, you need concrete evidence against them.  

I'm not entirely sure I follow you here. I am not offering my skepticism as a data point. I'm offering citations from published and unpublished materials. I'm not "ignoring" other possibilities, I'm showing why they aren't tenable. I hope we're not getting into a meta-argument about what constitutes evidence. One post ago, you were skeptical because the evidence I provided was from a published source, and wanted an unpublished one, which I furnished. Now you want something else, as you say here:

bclarkie wrote in 1973 Pre-publication Edition of D&D:For example, if the copy of this manuscript you received had editorial notes in Dave Arneson's(or any other known quantity from those involved) handwriting, that would pretty much objectively eliminate the possibility that this was a completely outside parties work.  It still would not conclusively eliminate the time frame component to it's creation versus the release of OD&D, but it would fill in significant data point that's still currently missing. Unfortunately, this type of data is not currently known, if it even exists at all

Because you're certainly not the first to raise this question, I did show the document to some experts on handwriting and art, along with samples of Gygax and Arneson's hands (and in Arneson's case, illustrations), of which I have some good exemplars.  In my paper I excerpt expert testimony from a forensics person, who does these sorts of analyses for courts, that the hand on the dungeon maps is likely to be Gygax's. If you think this would be a source of true objective certainty, though, I have some bad news for you - these experts never couch their assessments in certainties, and I only mention them in the hopes that they happen to be useful for future research.

bclarkie wrote in 1973 Pre-publication Edition of D&D:

increment wrote in 1973 Pre-publication Edition of D&D: Step back a minute and think about this personality example in isolation. The Wizard Gaylord sheet lists its abilities (Strength, etc.) under a general heading of "Personality." That isn't a usage that appears in OD&D, or even survives in the FFC. However, in the Dalluhn Manuscript, the term is used instead of "ability" in OD&D, in constructions like, "the player rolls a series of three dice for his personality traits." We also see in the Dalluhn Manuscript variant names for some of the abilities, like Cunning for Wisdom and Health for Constitution, though these usages leave no trace in the FFC (others, like the "Ego" ability of Dalluhn, do leave traces in FFC). Both of those appear in the Personality list of the Wizard Gaylord sheet. So again, the Dalluhn Manuscript happens to have these matches, comes to light in the possession of a member of the Twin Cities gaming circle, found among other documents  we know date from no later than mid 1974. Is that objective? It is measurable? Is it substantial?

Once again, it is measurable and it is objective, but how substantial it is still remains to be determined.   To note, this could indicate that this "manuscript" was in fact produced by someone in Twin Cities gaming group.  It would not stretch the imagination to say even that is is likely that it was created by someone within that group.

How substantial? Well. It shows that this document incorporates unpublished pre-D&D system concepts. That seems like actually the main thing that is material to this discussion. Again, I'm really not sure what you're driving at here.

You seem to be eager to arrive at a claim very different from the one I'm advancing. I just claim that this is indeed a document that preserves a pre-D&D system, without insisting on any particular theory as to who made it or even when. If you think there's enough evidence here make some further claim, I'd be happy to read your analysis of it. But I would reject the contention that we need to make some further claim in order to validate the weak claim that I'm putting forward.

bclarkie wrote in 1973 Pre-publication Edition of D&D:However, without any other dated supporting documentation, even assuming that it was created by someone in/from that group, a significant unanswered question still remains wide open.  And that question is, "when"?  Until that is answered, it puts the claim of "pre-OD&D manuscript" very much in doubt.  That's one of the two main points, I've been trying to drive at here.

And to reiterate from above, I'm not saying that I think that your conclusion is "wrong", there is just two major missing objective data points that still need filled in to make a more substantive claim that your conclusion is "right".

When you do history, usually things don't come with a date. The Wizard Gaylord sheet didn't come with a date. Nothing at the top of it says "This is an original Blackmoor sheet, circa 1972!" Many of the issues of Corner of the Table don't have dates. Some of the Domesday Books don't have dates. Your job when you do history is to find evidence to date things, internally or externally. Getting someone to tell you the date usually doesn't work. I showed that Wizard Gaylord sheet to Pete Gaylord, in person, back in 2009. He had no idea what it was. I've mentioned a few times in this thread that the Dalluhn Manuscript was found next to an early draft of EPT. It wasn't dated either. Is it possible that Barker or parties unknown decided decades later to type up some pages that looked like early notes on EPT and stick them into a box in his garage, for some reason? Of course it's possible. Would it be any less possible if Barker had written a date on the document? Somehow, the lack of a date on that document doesn't strike me as an impediment to dating it, any more than the presence of a date would be an ironclad assurance.

What dates an ambiguous work for me? It's evidence like what we see in the personality trait and elemental device control examples. The text in OD&D proves (again, period) that the elemental control devices in that form were pre-D&D. When we happen to find a document following that pre-D&D system, and again, happen to find it in the possession of an early Twin Cities gamer, with other 1974 docs, with the "personalities" text and the other points of evidence, yadda yadda, um... I'm really not sure what other conclusion we're supposed to draw about the date of the text? How do you think things get dated? As faro pointed out earlier, testimony about dates is extremely problematic, especially when reputations are on the line.

But to be clear, once again, my argument is just that the text in the document preserves a system that predates D&D. I will reiterate I do believe I have enough evidence to say that confidently, as confidently as I would say that the EPT draft is a pre-EPT document. Given that I accept that hypothesis, I do extrapolate it's relatively likely, though far from a certainty, that the document of which Dalluhn is a photocopy was produced before D&D. Who knows when it was photocopied, sure. And there are possibilities that I won't trivially rule out for why parts of the document, or the whole thing, could have been constructed from pre-D&D notes at some point after 1974. But again, given the circumstances of its discovery, the other documents it was found with, I find those possibilities remote (about as remote as Barker typing up those EPT notes decades later), and not salient to the weak claim I am making.

I don't think the position I'm representing now is different from what I said originally in the way you're implying, though, I am trying to explain it more precisely than my brief, and yes excited, introductory note did.

bclarkie wrote in 1973 Pre-publication Edition of D&D:

increment wrote in 1973 Pre-publication Edition of D&D:It's with no small surprise that I report that there survives a 1973 pre-publication edition of Dungeons & Dragons.

As far as I can tell, it seems to be a playtesting copy.

So if your position on this has changed and I missed it, I apologize.  I was under the impression that you still were indicating this to be true.

Those are both short and simple sentences. They're conveying high-level ideas. They don't rule out some things that I would rule out if I was explaining further what I think this is, sure. The first sentences is intended to communicate that this system survives. That's what I say below, when I say that there exists a document that preserves a system that predates D&D: a more nuanced idea, and more accurately reflecting what I think, I'll readily agree. But beyond that, the claim I made above is pretty vague. "As far as I can tell" and "it seems" are not conveying certainties, but I still would say that's the explanation for this I find most plausible (playtesting system of some kind).

Sometimes when something interesting is happening the first thing you say about it might not be the clearest. "The house is on fire!" might give you the impression that entire thing is going up in smoke, when in fact it's just the drapes.

bclarkie wrote in 1973 Pre-publication Edition of D&D:

increment wrote in 1973 Pre-publication Edition of D&D:But to be clear, once again, my argument is just that the text in the document preserves a system that predates D&D. I will reiterate I do believe I have enough evidence to say that confidently, as confidently as I would say that the EPT draft is a pre-EPT document. Given that I accept that hypothesis, I do extrapolate it's relatively likely, though far from a certainty, that the document of which Dalluhn is a photocopy was produced before D&D.

But as noted, your position here is different then the one that started this thread.  

I'll certainly agree that what I'm saying now is more nuanced than what I said above.

bclarkie wrote in 1973 Pre-publication Edition of D&D:

increment wrote in 1973 Pre-publication Edition of D&D: I'm not "ignoring" other possibilities, I'm showing why they aren't tenable.

You've simply indicated that you don't think they're possible.  But you don't really have any concrete basis for it.  You've done a better job ruling out a third party "fan work" so to speak than I originally though, however there's still a gap to show that this wasn't something that one of the TC group produced themselves.

Given the number of times I have typed "of course it's possible" or something like in the past couple days, I'm a bit curious that you're suggesting I said other explanations are not possible (rather than just untenable). Do be mindful not to create a strawman of what I'm saying to argue against, either here or referring back to the beginning of this thread.

bclarkie wrote in 1973 Pre-publication Edition of D&D:

increment wrote in 1973 Pre-publication Edition of D&D:Because you're certainly not the first to raise this question, I did show the document to some experts on handwriting and art, along with samples of Gygax and Arneson's hands (and in Arneson's case, illustrations), of which I have some good exemplars.  In my paper I excerpt expert testimony from a forensics person, who does these sorts of analyses for courts, that the hand on the dungeon maps is likely to be Gygax's. If you think this would be a source of true objective certainty, though, I have some bad news for you - these experts never couch their assessments in certainties, and I only mention them in the hopes that they happen to be useful for future research.

The issue with that I would have is probably not what you would think.  I can understand the issue with handwriting expert not quantifying anything as "certain".  My issue with the maps being Gygax's would be "How did they get there?"  Now that may seem to be an obvious answer, however if your working with a photocopy of a document(as I believe that you are), that levies a whole host of other possibilities other than "He obviously put them there himself".

As you say, given the whole thing is apparently a photocopy, of course the compiler of this text could have just photocopied pages of Gygax's hand and then typed page numbers on them. That handily illustrates that where we do see handwriting in this document, even that doesn't provide us with a stronger flavor of certainty than a textual analysis. But access to handwrititen pages of Gygax's that are pre-D&D would not be something many people had, and it would be another indicator that we're on the right track with this. I agree that it does not at all entail that Gygax himself put the pages there. But it would mean that this document preserves the original material Gygax before D&D, which is indeed what my whole argument here has been about. That isn't altered one iota by who compiled it.

bclarkie wrote in 1973 Pre-publication Edition of D&D:

increment wrote in 1973 Pre-publication Edition of D&D: I've mentioned a few times in this thread that the Dalluhn Manuscript was found next to an early draft of EPT. It wasn't dated either. Is it possible that Barker or parties unknown decided decades later to type up some pages that looked like early notes on EPT and stick them into a box in his garage, for some reason?

No, but that doesn't really help date it either. That stuff could all sat in his den until 1989 of which he personally just packed it up and put it into his garage where it sat for years before it was discovered. That's not any more unreasonable or implausible  than to think that it's been there since the mid-seventies put there in some attempt to lead people to a date decades later.

My point here really was about the fact that dates don't come to you on a silver platter, and that having a date on a document isn't some kind of mystical ward that prevents confusion. I have opened a lot of old garage boxes or their close cousins in my days of researching gaming, and I'd say when you find a bunch of material together, it's a reliable indicator of rough dates, not a silver bullet. String together enough reliable indicators, from the text, from forensics, from provenance, and yes, the case for other explanations becomes untenable. Again, it's a question of how many coincidences and far-outlier hypotheses we have to tolerate at one time before the explanation that this is a photocopy of a pre-D&D draft just becomes far less painful to bear.

And how painful is it to bear? It's a bit of an aside, but I do find it interesting how easily we can swallow an early EPT draft surviving, but when it comes to D&D, we expect something much grander and more obvious. It's like a kind of "D&D exceptionalism." Because D&D turned to be so important, we develop an expectation that people must have treated it differently when it was under development, that there'd be golden tablets or something left behind. But no one knew this would be important. No one thought we'd be agonizing over these details later. We don't when the title D&D was devised, though it seems to have been quite late. We don't know how many ways of bringing the game to market were considered before TSR was founded. We really don't have much grounds to expect what form a pre-D&D draft would take. Now when it comes to Dalluhn, maybe it originally had a cover page that was lost, just like at least one page on the back of the thing was lost (it was bound only with paper clips). But even if we had a cover that said "by Dave and Gary!" I think we'd still need entirely the same textual analysis before we should believe something like this to be authentic: which is why I'm comfortable accepting the document on these grounds.