What is Gygaxian?

fnork de sporg

First Post

• Sep 5, 2005

• #1

Obviously it means like the works of Gygax, but in what way? What counts as Gygaxian and what doesn't?

What modern (post-3e) books do you think are the most Gygaxan?

 

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Keeper of Secrets

First Post

• Sep 5, 2005

• #2

Gygaxian is good or bad, depending on who you are. If you are Gygax then it is sweet. If you are a player who who does not like unusual dungeons with endless rooms and unusual traps and creatures in said rooms then it is not so sweet.

One of the 'problems' with Gygaxian materials seems to be the fact that little concern seemed to be given to the ecology of the dungeon. For instance, there were lots of corridor traps and room traps but the wandering monsters that were roaming around never seemed to set them off. In addition, lots of nasty creatures would live in rooms next to each other but they never seemed to do anything other than wait for adventuring parties to enter their lair.

World's Largest Dungeon seems to be in the spirit of Gygax but more attention was given to the details. The closest thing I can think of that is truly Gygaxian would be City-State of the Invincible Overlord.

 

MonsterMash

First Post

• Sep 5, 2005

• #3

The other thing would be the use of language with the extended vocabulary implementing unusual terminology.

 

S

S'mon

Legend

• Sep 5, 2005

• #4

Necropolis & Hall of Many Panes

 

Whimsical

Explorer

• Sep 5, 2005

• #5

To me, it's a lot of distinctly 1st ed AD&D elements: alignment languages, silly dungeons that would have cost my character several million gp to duplicate the stupid magical effects that were encountered which made me wonder why they existed in the first place, the UA barbarian aka the grossity, polearms polearms polearms, exceptional STR (although that unfortunately carried over to 2nd ed and was my second biggest gripe of the system), "humorous" methods of humiliating PCs, and other things that I can't think of right now. To me, "Gygaxian" is a pejorative. But I do honor the man for creating, or at least popularizing, the RPG category of gaming and didn't like the treatment that he received from TSR at all.

 

Jupp

Explorer

• Sep 5, 2005

• #6

Go read through Castle Zagyg..now!

Thats Gygaxian.

 

Akrasia

Procrastinator

• Sep 5, 2005

• #7

Jupp said:

Go read through Castle Zagyg..now!

Thats Gygaxian.

Click to expand...

Agreed! It is a great Gygax book.

 

R

raleel

Explorer

• Sep 5, 2005

• #8

I think the vocabulary is key. For better or worse, 1e improved my vocabulary greatly.

 

S

Staffan

Legend

• Sep 5, 2005

• #9

Whimsical said:

silly dungeons that would have cost my character several million gp to duplicate the stupid magical effects that were encountered which made me wonder why they existed in the first place,

Click to expand...

This reminds me of a parody adventure in a Swedish gaming magazine, sometime back in the 80s: "Krugal Svylses förbannelse" (The Curse of Krugal Svylse). The adventure was for a Swedish RPG, but that's beside the point. Anyway, after going through a pretty big dungeon (especially for one that's in a gaming mag) with lots of traps and nasty opponents, the party arrrives at the treasure trove, and find... a chest with a handful of gold pieces and a note that says "Sorry, I spent all my money building this dungeon, so there's not much left."

 

The Traveler

First Post

• Sep 5, 2005

• #10

Thief, not Rogue!