I played my first D&D game in 1976, but did not explore the Chainmail supplement. In the mid-80's, I found a copy of Chainmail 3rd edition. Soon, we had a group of guys playing Chainmail every Wednesday night. Our armies were 25mm, and I often fielded an Ottoman Turk army. We had a blast for a year or so. Good games and good memories!

The troll at 11:20 is a converted 54mm Marx Indian figure from the Fort Apache playset. It was originally a "medicine man" dancing - but the gong in the left hand was removed, the rattle in the right made into a bone, the figures kilt-like clothing carved off and the buffalo hat horns removed. Then a nose and ears were added at it was painted black.

It is interesting to think about how if Jeff Perren had actually liked fantasy gaming that he could have ended up a third name alongside Gygax and Arneson, considering how important he was to the groundwork of Dungeons & Dragons. I sort of understood this after reading Playing at the World, but this video really drove that point home.

Seems like there is an issue with the audio between 7:10 and 9:23. Otherwise great video!

I’m sad it loses audio.

This was immaculately well-researched to the point I'm sad that there will be crowds who see it and just not get it. Thank you for putting this together. I'm actually going to save a copy of this video for my hard drive. Documentary on Gary's Castle Greyhawk sometime, perhaps?

I’ve learned quite a bit from this video, including why the name Chainmail was chosen, if only subconsciously: GG was a chain smoker.

Anyone else the sound drops out at 7:07?

"At last some FUN for the war gamer!" Wow, that really puts a lot into perspective.

Now this is a quality documentary!

This is amazingly researched and produced. Shocked to only 6.8k views. Expected easily 10x that number if not more

Nice to see the recognition to Dave Arneson's Blackmoor, in my opinion truly the very first roleplaying game as we know it and the ancestor to our beloved Dungeons & Dragons.

Fantastic video, so well researched, documented, and presented

Note: The photo at 21:38 is a Napoleonic game, not a fantasy/Chainmail game.

A well-crafted history.

Very informative and well made documentary! Interesting for me to see that Germany, a complete wargaming backwater due to the (understandable) rejection of everything too miitaristic after 1945, has at least contributed to the birth of the hobby of fantasy gaming through Elastolin figures (and, of course, the ancient and medieval Ochel flats of Tony Bath's famous Hyboria campaign).

This is fantastic. Good stuff.

Great doc!

Very nicely done!

I'll have to try it next year at GaryCon

This was cool to watch.

A part of de audio is missing, from 7:07 to 9:23. Great video otherwise.

Is it me, or is there sound missing?

I just had wished our rules guy would've not been interested in talking to some guy for most of the game and never helped out to play the game. Set up late and just didn't seem to care at all.

Why does the audio cut out?

:)

So it sounds like Gygax just kept publishing other people's ideas and taking credit?