OK, so a couple of questions
the interviews with the now-deceased... recorded? text and read by someone else?
how are you planning to tie in Totten's Strategos into the longer history of the original Kriegsspiel going back to the 1820s?
no mention of Braunstein?
It depends on the person. In the case of Dave Arneson himself, we know of several recordings with him. Not all are available to us. We have an entire set of videos from the Dragons in the Basement Documentary, but we never got rights to use them; those just sit in our archive for historical purposes. We finally received a video which the Arneson estate sanction us to use. That is what you see in the trailer.
Some of the guys we did interviews with, were fairly ill and in later stages of their illness. We consider ourselves lucky to have spoken with Duane Jenkins, the third ever RPG ref in history. We also, are always touched when we review our interview with Pete Gaylord.
As to sources and connections, we hint at some rule concepts the Twin Cities gamers used. We are fairly critical of some contemporary writings on the history of RPG's because it is too easy to play a big game of connect the dots. This kind of "looks the same" thinking leads to assertions that, although seemingly strong, are often attacked by at least half of the historical community.
The Minnesota Gamers had one text that they used as their source for everything that followed, and that book is Strategos. So while it can inferred that they are essentially using Kriegspiel via tottn, they had never seen a copy as they created their numerous RPG style games. And of curse this sort of funneling of ideas is an important aspect of how the Minnesota gamers came up with their ideas.
I often like to look at ideas and concepts by using the same sort of terminology and research done with genetics. So, there is an idea and it is evolving, and there is admixture coming in as well. But the lack of complete access to all the texts on war gaming through history, creates genetic bottle necks. We know for a fact that Wesely, Maker, Scott, Clark, and Nicholson were central to the adoption of Strategos variants for their wargaming beginning with a time around 1963-64. This is when they find the text individually and check it out from the U of M library.
They never speak of Kriegspiel, except when talking in general terms about gaming and what they have learned since those early days. How big a change occurs in the wargame RPG, as we call it, from the time of kriegspiel on down through to Strategos? Can we talk about it with confidence? And in terms of making a film, sometimes you have to ignore the tiny details. Again, the movie is about the Twin Cities Gamers.
So a long explanation, to basically say: No we do not explore Kriegpsiel. But we have reasons for not doing so.
Of course if you go and read the forward to Strategos, and even the body text itself, there are references in there. I have only read it maybe twice. It is ponderous to read without the actual play pieces at hand, so you can examine how it works. I do know that one of our research guys is very well schooled on the subject, and even runs straight from the Book, Strategos games. Of course, we also have David Wesely, who is in the film and is also one of the most versed Strategos scholars you could find.
You can say the same thing about Modern War in Miniature. We know that Wesely was aware of the game. I have letters were he speaks of it. Yet, people today do not understand that it was actually difficult to get copies of many games. Wesely says he knew of it, but hadn't gotten a copy yet. The one detail, I would like to know, is exactly what was the print run on MWIM? 500 copies? 1000?
And I had to get my own copy, not cheap for a perplexing little book, and study it closely to see how it was using RPG methodology during play. One of the things I discovered on reading that text, is that it is not clear how many players are in a game. It could simply be 2 players with a referee. The use of MWIM as a multi player game, may be something introduced by the actual users. How many groups were doing multi player minis games?
And then, it is implied that somehow this is an infusion into Wesely's Braunstein. The two or so distinctly mechanically different, as well the difference in scope for the players, that I think you have to seprate them. All you can do is say that it is parallel development.
I hope that helps you understand our views on these things, Griff
It is unfortunate that you moved this discussion here, as this first movie has so much about wargaming in it.