TSR Q&A with Gary Gygax

Col_Pladoh · Jan 15, 2008

haakon1 said:
Thanks, Gary. I'm going to guess you enjoyed the Tower of London and the Invalide (sp?) museum during your time in London and Paris, respectively.

The Imperial War Museum in London is my favorite museum, but it's all about the 20th century wars, no knights or Napoleonics.

Westminster was something else, as was Notre Dame. Sadly I did not get to the Imperial War Museum.

Just being in London and Paris, seeing the hostorical places, the monuments, and famous streets is quite an exhilarating thing.

Of course bistros, pubs, and restaurants were much appreciated by me as well. Staying in PAris at the Plaze Athena in a room that opened onto tthe courtyard fountain that went "plop, plop, plop," as mentioned in Coward's play, Private Lives, just made my stay there.

Cheers,
Gary

Piratecat · Jan 15, 2008

loseth said:
I've since put together a little reading list based on your answer and am having a great time working my way through it.

I just finished reading all of Jack Vance's Cugel stories, something I've been meaning to do since I learned about them in the back of the 1e books in '81. (Yes, yes, it took me a while.) They're utterly delightful! Thanks, Gary.

- Kevin

Col_Pladoh · Jan 15, 2008

Zaltman said:
Gary,

Would love to get your input on the following:

According the 1e PHB:

Monk ability A is "the ability to speak with animals as druids do..."
Monk ability F is "the ability to speak with plants as druids do..."

Druids do not have speak with animals or plants as abilities, only as spells. So, I am confused. These are actually pretty strong spells since they prevent attack. To give monks unlimited use of these spell like abilities seems much too powerful, especially since druids do not get them as "abilities" and this type of behavior seem much more druid like than monk like.

Thanks.

The intent there was to empower the Monk character to speak as indicated sans use of a spell.

Cheers,
Gary

Col_Pladoh · Jan 15, 2008

loseth said:
Hey Colonel,

I asked you to rank your literary influences a while back. I've since put together a little reading list based on your answer and am having a great time working my way through it. Just wanted to say thanks.

Pleased to oblige.

If so motivated later on, I would evry much enjoy learning how you felt about those works I cited as influencing my creativity.

Cheerio,
Gary

Col_Pladoh · Jan 15, 2008

JamesM said:
Gary,

Someone recently passed along a story, supposedly about your Greyhawk campaign and the origin of one of the demon princes. The story has the ring of plausibility to it, but I'd never heard it before, so I thought I'd ask.

The story goes that players in your campaign often ran afoul of Demogorgon by saying his name, which alerted him to their presence. To avoid this, they started calling him "You Know Who," which in turn led to your creation of the demon prince of Gnolls, Yeenoghu, to teach them a lesson.

Any truth to this tall tale or is it just a gamer urban legend? I'm inclined to believe it's not true but, as I said, it's not implausible given your love of puns and other wordplays.

Thanks.

Close but no cigar :lol:

A group of players, including regulars that should have known better, did something that brought eother Demogorgon or Orcus, I can not recall which it was, to the location of their relatively high-level PCs. They used a wish to call a potent deity opposed to that demon prince, not specifying that the one desired be of Good alignment, so who should appear but Asmodeus.

They were glad to escape with their lives, for I rules that the two great lords of Evil were so amused by such stupidity that they found it beneath their dignity to expinge such bumblers, that they would soon manage that themselves without the helping hand they could employ.

Cheerio,
Gary

Col_Pladoh · Jan 15, 2008

Piratecat said:
I just finished reading all of Jack Vance's Cugel stories, something I've been meaning to do since I learned about them in the back of the 1e books in '81. (Yes, yes, it took me a while.) They're utterly delightful! Thanks, Gary.

- Kevin

Hi Piratecat

Something I've not mentioned before about the Cugel novel, Eyes of Overworld. I was a young teenager when I first read it, and it so amused me that I gave it to my mother to read, as she sometimes read fantasy and SF works.

She was appauled by the total lack of character evidenced by Cugel, and I suppose she feared that I might be influenced by such amorality and self-indulgence as Vance wrote into his anti-hero. Of course I concurred with her assessment of Cugel, but pointed out that making such a despicable character the protagonist was a stroke of considerable creativity, done with much dark humor, which, coupled with the author's marvelous talent for prose, made the novel a great work in its genre. She was not convinced...

Ciao,
Gary

JamesM · Jan 15, 2008

Col_Pladoh said:
Close but no cigar

So then what was the origin of Yeenoghu? Or was he just another random demon lord created whole cloth for some other purpose?

Thanks.

JamesM · Jan 15, 2008

Col_Pladoh said:
I just played a house ruled OD&D (three booklet) adventure at the Winterdark convention here, taking six created-on-the-spot 2nd level PCs on a dungeon crawl through the upper levels of my original Castle Greyhawk campaign, those dungeon levels being created in 1972 and 1973.

I often read of your running a house ruled OD&D game with the three little brown books rather than AD&D. Is there any reason for this other than simplicity? I ask mostly because I often here contradictory things about the extent to which AD&D as published represented your truest vision of the Dungeons & Dragons game or not. I know, for example, that you've expressed a dislike for certain sub-systems added to the game (such as psionics, weapon speed factors, etc.), so I often wonder if this has any impact on your choice of OD&D with which to play.

Thanks.

Col_Pladoh · Jan 15, 2008

JamesM said:
So then what was the origin of Yeenoghu? Or was he just another random demon lord created whole cloth for some other purpose?

Thanks.

Just so.

I wanted to augment the roster of potent demons, so I made up Yeenoghu as the Demon Lord of Gnolls.

Cheerio,
Gary

Col_Pladoh · Jan 15, 2008

JamesM said:
I often read of your running a house ruled OD&D game with the three little brown books rather than AD&D. Is there any reason for this other than simplicity? I ask mostly because I often here contradictory things about the extent to which AD&D as published represented your truest vision of the Dungeons & Dragons game or not. I know, for example, that you've expressed a dislike for certain sub-systems added to the game (such as psionics, weapon speed factors, etc.), so I often wonder if this has any impact on your choice of OD&D with which to play.

Thanks.

OD&D allows for easy character creation and being rulkes light encourages DM creativity and player creativity and innovation in play. Thus I prefer to use the system when doing one-off adventures and dungeon crawls.

For campaign play I use the Lejendary Adventure game system these days, as characters and milieux created using it are in my considered opinion superior, as well as encouraging the sort of play that is fostered by OD&D.

Cheerio,
Gary

TSR Q&A with Gary Gygax

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