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Domesday Book: Research Report
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increment
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Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2012 5:49 pm

I'll just list off the contents without much editorializing. I see that Paul already covered #4.

I'm surprised that you don't mention the interesting article in Ge'ez in your summary of DB#5.

I'd also remark that there is some pretty good evidence that the contents of a theoretical #14 would differ from those listed.

As an aside, in reference to the Messenger speculation here, there were articles about the proposed Medieval Society in a couple of the IFW's periodicals of the era, including the Messenger and the Supplement. AFAIK these were more or less directly in the few weeks leading up to DB#1 - there's nothing from 1969. The important one by Rob Kuntz is the March 1970 IFW Supplement. The Messenger notes are from Gygax, and do have some minor historical interest in detailing how Rob ended up the first King instead of Gary.

Domesday Book #1 (March 15, 1970)

One-page, no attribution (presumably all by Gygax). All are short blurbs, 1 paragraph or so.

"Hear Ye, Hear Ye, Hear Ye!"
"King: Robert (Kuntz) I"
"Program of Activities"
"Fattening Ye Exchecquer"
"Entering the Lists"

Domesday Book #2 (April 1, 1970)

One-page, no attribution (presumably all by Gygax). All are short blurbs, 1 paragraph or so.

"Muster of Arms Goes Apace"
"DB Contest #I"
"What is the Medieval Period?"
"King Creates First Peer of the Realm"
"Armorial Bearings"
"Join this Society!!!"
"DB Contest #II"

Domesday Book #3 (April 15, 1970)

Four pages, plus a joke. Mostly unattributed, presumably by Gygax.

"What the Heck is This?"
"DB Contest III"
"Attention: Miniatures Enthusiasts"
"DB Contest IV"
"Ranks of Liegemen [sic] Swell!"
"Wanted by the King!"
"Divisions of the Medieval Period" (Perren)
"The Battle of Webster's Gully" (early LGTSA miniatures battle report, the bulk of the issue)
"Forsooth! Scribings of Ye Editor!"
"Plug Time Again!"
"Who is the Varlet Responsible for This?!"
... joke page

Domesday Book #9 (undated)

Twenty-one pages. Unlike the issues described above, this one has a Table of Contents - pretty fancy. Printed by Schleicher.

"The Varangian Guard" (unattributed)
"Futile" (Dave Arneson)
"Evolution of Naval Warfare" (Dave Arneson)
"The Great Kingdom" (Gary Gygax)
"Precedence by Title or Office" (unattributed)
"The Mongols in Europe" (Rick Crane)
"Manzikert" (Gary Gygax)

FoulFoot
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Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2012 9:01 pm

Everything I've gotten -- from you and others -- is up here:

http://www.acaeum.com/library/domesday.html

Edit: posted this before I saw the post above! And btw, if you happen to actually have the issues you mention, cover scans would be much appreciated!

Foul

stratochamp
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Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2012 11:12 pm

i'm working off memory (because i haven't looked inside it in a bit), but the description of issue #14 here on the site is pretty accurate. i brought it with to the North Texas RPG Con for people to see (along with a few other choice rares).

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increment
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Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2012 11:48 pm

I'm sorry stratochamp, I didn't mean to suggest you were misrepresenting the documents that you have or anything along those lines - certainly I know that you're holding some very serious pieces of history. I just meant that there are external sources that describe the circumstances under which the Domesday Book was discontinued, and also some direct hints about what a hypothetical #14 might have contained.

For a concrete example, take a look at the very end of "Facts about Blackmoor" in DB#13. It actually has a "next issue" blurb suggesting that there would be a followup article in the next DB. We know that the text for that followup exists (it survived in a different format). I would be pretty surprised if it did not get included into what would have been a 14th DB.

stratochamp
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Posted: Sun Jul 22, 2012 12:36 am

hi increment, no need to apologize, i took no offense at anything you wrote. i understand the logical inference you were making as to its contents. It seems however that the issue was ready to go out as it was, so perhaps his intent at that time was to save the teased part 2 of Blackmoor for a future issue.

by the way, i did go check and the description on the website is accurate as to the contents of DB 14

Shrink is not a condition

increment
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Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2012 3:40 pm

Regarding posting cover scans, I'd be happy to start making more information about the Domesday Book available, including scans, though of course "cover scans" of the first couple issues are in fact scans of the entire issue. I do however get the sense that the community perhaps believes the Domesday Book is more important as a resource for understanding the history of Chainmail and D&D than it probably is. As far as I know, it was not the earliest nor the only place that most of the key pieces appeared, though that requires a bit of explanation. I started writing all this as a post for this thread, but it got a bit long so I put it up on a blog page instead:

http://playingattheworld.blogspot.com/2 ... -book.html

One of the things I provide in the blog post, incidentally, is a link to a university library that is holding three copies of the Domesday Book. Useful if you want more than cover scans.

grodog
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Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2012 4:52 pm

increment wrote:One of the things I provide in the blog post, incidentally, is a link to a university library that is holding three copies of the Domesday Book. Useful if you want more than cover scans.

Yes, I've been in touch with Bowling Green, and am hoping to get scans from there sometime in the not too distant future

edit: so, when's your book coming out, Jon?

Allan Grohe ([email protected])
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https://www.facebook.com/BlackBladePublishing/

increment
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Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2012 5:06 pm

The official release date is next Wednesday (Aug 1), but it may open for orders on Amazon before then.

I was surprised not to see the BGSU Domesday Book holdings mentioned here before. They turn up from a WorldCat search pretty quickly, and they've been there for some years now. Funny story, when I started working with them on it, they didn't quite have the entire collection indexed yet and available through their catalog, so I actually hired a student with a scanner to go through boxes there for me. Since then they've made much more sense of their holdings.

Lurker Below
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Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2012 6:04 pm

Diplomacy Zines (and the Hoosier Archives) are something I know a little about. Diplomacy is one of my other hobbies besides D&D. I always liked seeing the common names in both; Gygax, Lakofka, Turnbull and St. Andre being the first that spring to mind. I liked seeing the ads for Walter Buchanan's Diplomacy World in the SR and early Dragon Mags. The stories of the Hoosier Archives from a Diplomacy Hobbyist perspective are documented here http://www.diplom.org/Zine/F1999R/Hand/about, here http://www.diplomacyworld.net/old/hoosier.htm, and here http://www.diplomacyworld.net/pdf/dw100.pdf.

I was aware that Gary Gygax was credited with several Diplomacy variants in the Diplomacy Variant Bank. See diplomacyzines.org.uk/VariantBank/VBAlp ... BAlpha.htm. There you will find a scanned copy of the rules of the Diplomacy Variant Crusadomacy, written by Gary, apparently taken from Panzerfaust. In it is a variation on a familiar picture, signed Gygax. http://www.diplomacyzines.org.uk/VariantBank/m/mc04.pdf

This is probably old news to the research hounds here, but it might be fun for some of the other newbies. What other connections between D&D and Diplomacy do you grognards know of? What troves of research material lay unmined?

LB

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Posted: Fri Jul 27, 2012 12:31 pm

Lurker Below wrote: There you will find a scanned copy of the rules of the Diplomacy Variant Crusadomacy, written by Gary, apparently taken from Panzerfaust. In it is a variation on a familiar picture, signed Gygax. http://www.diplomacyzines.org.uk/VariantBank/m/mc04.pdf

Thanks for the link. I posted the artwork to my blog today for Gary Gygax Day.

Zenopus Archives website & blog: Exploring the Underworld of Holmes Basic D&D. Holmes Ref: Reference Sheets for Holmes Basic Referees, also compatible with OD&D plus the Greyhawk supplement

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Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2012 5:11 pm

I can't recall ever seeing a drawing by Gygax, anywhere. That's cool. It looks like a tracing though.

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Posted: Tue Jul 31, 2012 12:18 pm

increment wrote:The official release date is next Wednesday (Aug 1), but it may open for orders on Amazon before then.

Hi Jon, I just got your book today! Massive, can't wait to dive in and read it!

increment
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Posted: Wed Aug 01, 2012 2:14 pm

Thanks mrmanowar, hope you enjoy.

For those interested in taking a look at Domesday Book #1, I've put up a scan and a detailed analysis of the contents on my blog.

http://playingattheworld.blogspot.com/2 ... ook-1.html

increment
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Posted: Sun Aug 05, 2012 6:38 pm

I put up another pretty lengthy blog post with a number of scans that covers the LGTSA Medieval Miniatures rules, in their April (Panzerfaust) and July (Domesday Book) incarnations. I do include a scan from DB #5.

http://playingattheworld.blogspot.com/2 ... rules.html

increment
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Posted: Tue Aug 07, 2012 1:34 pm

For the last of my series on heresies of the Domesday Book, we take a look at the Great Kingdom system from Domesday Book #9.

http://playingattheworld.blogspot.com/2 ... ook-9.html

ScketreWhisp®
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Posted: Tue Aug 07, 2012 8:01 pm

Does your book come in a hard back ? I only own hard back books (just don't like paper backs.. sorry) ...

increment
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Posted: Thu Aug 09, 2012 11:46 am

No plans for a hardcover at this time, I'm sorry to say. Honestly, having a print edition at all is a bit of an anachronism these days, for some reason most people are leaning on me to get a Nook edition done...

sauromatian
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Posted: Thu Aug 09, 2012 12:43 pm

increment wrote:For the last of my series on heresies of the Domesday Book, we take a look at the Great Kingdom system from Domesday Book #9.

http://playingattheworld.blogspot.com/2 ... ook-9.html

A paynim kingdom, possibly the object of crusades? Seems like the sort of place to find The Dungeons of Pasha Cada.

A few years ago I proposed a campaign based on re-constructing the early world of both Greyhawk & Blackmoor. At the time I had no idea that so much information survived, such as the Great Kingdom map, or Arneson's early Blackmoor notes. So my proposal would have involved a great deal of creative inference (often leading to self-indulgence on the part of the editors) & disappointing results.

Now it's looking more like there's a critical mass of material, begging to be compiled together: the info from this new book, grodog's work on reconstructing Greyhawk, Arneson's First Fantasy Campaign.

increment
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Posted: Sat Feb 23, 2013 9:58 pm

For those interested in research on the Domesday Book, I put up a blog post today about the sources behind several of Arneson's DB articles and illustrations related to medieval naval warfare. Although these articles are perhaps not the most material to the history of D&D, the originals can be found at quite a reasonable price.

http://playingattheworld.blogspot.com/2 ... tions.html

Author of Playing at the World and The Elusive Shift, co-author of D&D Art & Arcana and Heroes's Feast

Malchor77
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Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2019 12:00 pm

increment wrote in Domesday Book: Research Report:I'll just list off the contents without much editorializing. I see that Paul already covered #4.

I'm surprised that you don't mention the interesting article in Ge'ez in your summary of DB#5.

I'd also remark that there is some pretty good evidence that the contents of a theoretical #14 would differ from those listed.

As an aside, in reference to the Messenger speculation here, there were articles about the proposed Medieval Society in a couple of the IFW's periodicals of the era, including the Messenger and the Supplement. AFAIK these were more or less directly in the few weeks leading up to DB#1 - there's nothing from 1969. The important one by Rob Kuntz is the March 1970 IFW Supplement. The Messenger notes are from Gygax, and do have some minor historical interest in detailing how Rob ended up the first King instead of Gary.

Domesday Book #1 (March 15, 1970)

One-page, no attribution (presumably all by Gygax). All are short blurbs, 1 paragraph or so.

"Hear Ye, Hear Ye, Hear Ye!"
"King: Robert (Kuntz) I"
"Program of Activities"
"Fattening Ye Exchecquer"
"Entering the Lists"

Domesday Book #2 (April 1, 1970)

One-page, no attribution (presumably all by Gygax). All are short blurbs, 1 paragraph or so.

"Muster of Arms Goes Apace"
"DB Contest #I"
"What is the Medieval Period?"
"King Creates First Peer of the Realm"
"Armorial Bearings"
"Join this Society!!!"
"DB Contest #II"

Domesday Book #3 (April 15, 1970)

Four pages, plus a joke. Mostly unattributed, presumably by Gygax.

"What the Heck is This?"
"DB Contest III"
"Attention: Miniatures Enthusiasts"
"DB Contest IV"
"Ranks of Liegemen [sic] Swell!"
"Wanted by the King!"
"Divisions of the Medieval Period" (Perren)
"The Battle of Webster's Gully" (early LGTSA miniatures battle report, the bulk of the issue)
"Forsooth! Scribings of Ye Editor!"
"Plug Time Again!"
"Who is the Varlet Responsible for This?!"
... joke page

Domesday Book #9 (undated)

Twenty-one pages. Unlike the issues described above, this one has a Table of Contents - pretty fancy. Printed by Schleicher.

"The Varangian Guard" (unattributed)
"Futile" (Dave Arneson)
"Evolution of Naval Warfare" (Dave Arneson)
"The Great Kingdom" (Gary Gygax)
"Precedence by Title or Office" (unattributed)
"The Mongols in Europe" (Rick Crane)
"Manzikert" (Gary Gygax)

Can someone please update the Domesday Book page with the above information? https://www.acaeum.com/library/domesday.html

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