Gary Gygax Q&A, Part IX - Page 3

ScottyG · 30th March 2005, 12:50 AM

Another adventure from the author/editor team responsible for The Keep on the Borderlands, and The Temple of Elemental Evil is good news indeed. If you go the C&C route, perhaps you could work it into the Yggsburg wilderness area.
Have you resumed serious development of the upper ruins and dungeon levels? You know your little olde guard kobolds are just dying to be introduced to the gaming public.
Scott

Gray Mouser · 30th March 2005, 06:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Col_Pladoh

Speaking of tourists...

Frank Mentzer came by yesterday, and we had several hours to sit on the front porch here--the weather being great--and chew the fat. Speaking of chewing, this morinng I am devouring excellent bakery goodies Frank was kind enough to bring here from the Baker's House in Minoqua, or maybe they were from his new Baker's House store in Wausau

Frank mentioned that I needed to get busy and get more modules out, wouold I care to co-create with him? He was not pleased when I told him my creative energy is not great, so new material is going to be scarse. He then asked if there was any of my old adventure material available. As it turned out there is a DMG tournament module I created back in c. 1974, ran around 1976 or 1977 at the DMG con all by myself for groups of 20 gamers per team, 100 total in the tournament.

We are considering Frank fleshing it out for publication as a generic or perhaps a C&C game system adventure. It is mainly an outdor expedition and has eight fukll-page maps.

Cheers,
Gary

This sounds great, Colonel. I'm looking forward to seeing a collaboration in the (near) future between you gentlemen. BTW, I'd cast my vote for a C&C venture as it seems quite easy to convert to 1e AD&D

Gray Mouser

PS
20 gamers a team!?!? Hope they weren't running multiple PC's!

Gray Mouser · 30th March 2005, 06:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ScottyG

If you go the C&C route, perhaps you could work it into the Yggsburg wilderness area.

Now this sounds like a good idea!

Gray Mouser

Frank Mentzer · 30th March 2005, 06:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ScottyG

from the author/editor team responsible for The Keep on the Borderlands...

Neigh I say (horse from a day of gaming) and nay again. This earns the obvious placement in the orb of a swine, but I am moved (by my prediliction to garrulous diversions no doubt) to clarify the matter.

I was spurned as a designer but nonetheless offered a staff position as a mere editor at TSR. I felt that the reasoning was less due to my minimal editing credits than to the feel for the essence of the game that I displayed during a long-distance telephone interview (with Mssrs. Schick and Johnson) in late 1979.

'twas thus 1980, and I was newly arrived in the legendary Lake Geneva. Tho not unwise in the ways of polite society, my position was still tenuous indeed in the service of the eminent publisher. I was not schooled in the behind-the-scenes behavior of the Great Ones, and my naivete hung o'er my desk in great invisible clouds seen only by those who had been flailed into paranoia and caution by the iron whim of certain local authors.

The introductory adventure "In Search of the Unknown" was contained within each and every D&D set, but this august work was slated for replacement by an a broader one containing a base of operations, with adventure potential oozing from every nearby cave. This Gygaxian endeavor, the aforementioned "Keep on the Borderlands", did arrive on my 'humble editor's desk by mere chance -- perhaps no other dared to risk the thunderous voice and furrowed brow of the company's near-mythic President, should errors be made -- and I was strictly admonished to correct blatant spelling errors only, with no development or rewriting allowed. And that I did, adequately I trust, but in the course of this simple task one glaring omission became obvious; the Keep contained multiple clerics but no chapel for their work. After considering the matter, especially the hectic schedule being kept by the Boss during this turbulent era, I took it upon myself to write up a suggested Chapel (if one must point out problems a solution should be included, if only as a shield usable in self-defense) and sent it over via interoffice mail.

When my actions were revealed to my comrades, they started making preparations for a farewell party, sure that I would be fricasseed by my temerity. It startled everyone that Gary's prompt response was so placid -- "Yup, I left that out, this is fine, run it" -- and thereafter I was treated with an extra milligram (no more) of respect, just for surviving the affair.

Although I later veered to the true border of dismissal when I failed to notice a major error in the Dungeon! boardgame reprint, I weathered that too, and Gary and I became acquaintances and eventually friends. I even work still at the same desk as when I edited KotB, a clunky old oaken thing upon which Gary first labored to type the manuscript for the first Dungeons & Dragons game.

But don't credit me for any part of the creation of "Keep on the Borderlands" -- at least, nothing but one small Chapel tucked away amidst the vast array of sites and challenges therein, and a routine bit of spellchecking that is nowadays easily performed by the least of computer chips.

FM

gideon_thorne · 30th March 2005, 07:26 AM

True genius need not pretend to humility. And that goes for the pair of you.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frank Mentzer

I was spurned as a designer but nonetheless offered a staff position as a mere editor at TSR. I felt that the reasoning was less due to my minimal editing credits than to the feel for the essence of the game that I displayed during a long-distance telephone interview (with Mssrs. Schick and Johnson) in late 1979.

weasel fierce · 30th March 2005, 07:36 AM

Frank, if you don't mind me asking (you answered a question or two for me, a while ago on Dragonsfoot), the literary inspiration that Gary had is rather well known (what with the list in the DMG and all), but what do you consider your main sources of inspiration, litterature wise ?

To you, what /is/ D&D, withoutm of course, being D&D

Also, a practicality. In your basic D&D set, clerics are mentioned to be unable to cast reversed spells untill 4th level. Was this left simply to save space in the basic book ?
It does raise a question, as regards neutral clerics, as they must choose either normal, or revised. Is this choice done at 4th level, or from the start, or what did you imagine ? (if you remember, that is)

Cheers!

Frank Mentzer · 30th March 2005, 04:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by weasel fierce

Frank, if you don't mind me asking (you answered a question or two for me, a while ago on Dragonsfoot), the literary inspiration...
Also, a practicality....

I must demur, this being Gary's dais (albeit an oxymoronic living archive) and, anticipating the followup question, must also reluctantly concur with his earlier comment; I am quite busy these days on matters not involving Important Things (i.e. gaming), and cannot support a board of my own hereabouts. I do believe my bakery is, in its little way, just as revolutionary in concept as was D&D in its realm, but again this is not the place (the kernel's corn notwithstanding).

You are thus welcome to goad me over on Dragonsfoot, and I'll respond as soon as possible.

F

Gray Mouser · 30th March 2005, 07:48 PM

Hey Colonel, I was just pondering the possible collaboration between you and Frank Mentzer and was wondering if there was a chance to possibly do the adventure as a double stated C&C/LA module (I know you've done LA/d20 stuff in the past).

just a thought.

Gray Mouser

Col_Pladoh · 30th March 2005, 07:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gentlegamer

I'm sure this question has been addressed in the many hundreds of posts of this ongoing Q&A:

Will the key for CASTLE ZAGYG include where to place DUNGEONLAND, LAND BEYOND THE MAGIC MIRROR, and ISLE OF THE APE?

Not on your life!

Those are the copyrighted property of Wizards of the Coast. If a GM wishes to have a transporter located somewhere in the dungeon levels of Castle Zagyg that takes PCs to such adventure modules, that will be up to him.

Cheers,
Gary

Col_Pladoh · 30th March 2005, 07:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NewJeffCT

First - thanks to you and everybody else involved with D&D for the last 30 years for giving me thousands of hours of entertainment since the late 70s.

Welcome, of course.

Quote:

To take the paladin thing a bit further, we had a lengthy thread on here a few months back about whether paladins should be chaste/celibate, as in they do not engage in any sexual activity at all. I had started the thread because I was wondering why so many DMs seem to require paladins to be basically sexless when the various Player's Handbooks dating back to 1st Edition do not technically require it.

When you DM somebody playing a paladin, is this an unwritten part of your paladin code?

I will say that sex/love is not something that comes up every session in our games, but I was thinking about it a while back when a paladin PC of mine basically stood guard while the rest of the group was visiting our game's equivalent of the Castle Anthrax... And, I am also not saying that the paladin would be wildly promiscuous like a medieval era Wilt Chamberlin, but I could see a paladin in a committed monogamous relationship with a follower of the same deity.

Where on earth such a notion came from is quite beyond me...and beyond the pale. Paladins have no requirement of celibacy, and those of the troubador bent can be unchaste as well. How they fare with that is a matter of what deity they honor, of course.

Cheers,
Gary

Col_Pladoh · 30th March 2005, 07:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ScottyG

Another adventure from the author/editor team responsible for The Keep on the Borderlands, and The Temple of Elemental Evil is good news indeed. If you go the C&C route, perhaps you could work it into the Yggsburg wilderness area.
Have you resumed serious development of the upper ruins and dungeon levels? You know your little olde guard kobolds are just dying to be introduced to the gaming public.
Scott

Noppers....

Although I am fairly busy with work related to publishing, I am still ducking that really demanding task.

As Rob hasn't been bugging me about it, is slow getting his humorous adventure anecdotes to me for the proposed book, I am led to believe he is not itching to get going either

cheers,
Gary

Col_Pladoh · 30th March 2005, 08:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gray Mouser

BTW, I'd cast my vote for a C&C venture as it seems quite easy to convert to 1e AD&D

Heh...

What else can I say

The 20 players were each assigned a PC I had sketched out for the tournament.

Cheers,
Gary

Col_Pladoh · 30th March 2005, 08:07 PM

Hey Frank!

Not a peep from you about the enthusiasm for the C&C game base for the 'Quest?

Cheers,
Gary

Frank Mentzer · 30th March 2005, 08:32 PM

NewJeffCT · 30th March 2005, 08:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Col_Pladoh

Welcome, of course.

Where on earth such a notion came from is quite beyond me...and beyond the pale. Paladins have no requirement of celibacy, and those of the troubador bent can be unchaste as well. How they fare with that is a matter of what deity they honor, of course.

Cheers,
Gary

I think it comes from a time a bit later than Charlemagne - possibly the Templar Knights of the Crusades that aspired to things like celibacy and devotion to God above all earthly pleasures, though it rarely held true in actual practice. (To quote Monty Python & The Holy Grail, "I am Sir Galahad, the Chaste")

I had mentioned it because I have been playing D&D for over 25 years now and in many different groups and that sort of ideal always seems to be the unwritten rule of paladinhood.