What were Gygax & Arneson & pals looking at for early D&D?

[OgreBattle]

And their playtester pals and freelancers too, lets just gather all the info online here


This article:


-Mentions playing Afrika Korps
-Mentions Dave Arneson had Rules Referees to handle rules lawyering

"Wesely's Braunstein drew inspiration from Diplomacy, a game requiring players to negotiate in between turns.[citation needed] The idea of a referee was derived from Strategos: The American Game of War (1880), by Charles Totten.[1] Totten's book also inspired Wesely with the idea of having a game master who invented the scenario for the evening's battle. Wesely discovered the idea of "n-player" strategy games from The Compleat Strategist (1954) by J.D. Williams. Wesely also read and cited as influential, Conflict and Defense: A General Theory (1962), by Kenneth E. Boulding."

That's cool, sounds like it began as a person scale 'Model UN' kind of game
You know, I never hear "Model UN" brought up as a role playing game, but it's possibly the first one I played in elementary or middle school.


Various threads on Ultraman monsters as early D&D, it's confirmed by the artist but not sure which monster is which

Tim Kask of Dragon magazine says he was given the miniature that became the Bullete by Gary:


This page has Ultraman monsters including the bulette inspiration:

I found the ultraman kaiju name before but forgot it, it's a quadraped and the back opens into a fin for something.


Someone mentions "slimes were based on a Japanese monster movie", I think they mean The Green Slime" (?????3? ????? (Ganm? Daisan G?: Uch? Daisakusen, 1969) which was a Toho Hollywood joint production with space slime that turns into... pretty much a D&D roper!


*hmmm can't include links, even if I edit them to not be links ones.