Such a shame this man finally gets the overdue create he was owed in death as the co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons. Thankfully, he did receive recognition about 10 years ago when WOTC took over the game in their purchasing of TSR. How much money was involved was never disclosed but I hope it was enough to compensate for the dick move Gary Gygax used to cheat Dave out of any money their collaboration made.
Ever wonder why it was called Advanced Dungeons & Dragons for 20 years? By tacking on the word “Advanced” and changing up some of the rules, it was enough from a legal standpoint to say AD&D and D&D were separate games despite the former being a derivative work. Thus, Dave had no claim on any money AD&D generated. TSR would use the same tactic against Gary later in the 2nd edition era.
I never met Dave Arneson. I had heard his name off and on. He did appear in that awful movie starring Jeremy Irons and Thora Birch. Hmm. It says his scene(s) was deleted. Seems to be par for the course of the poor guy’s career. Well, I can only hope the last 10 years of his life went better than the previous 25 since he was vindicated in every D&D rule book from Third Edition on.