TSR Q&A with Gary Gygax

diaglo said:

i know i offered to run an OD&D at DragonCon which gary wasn't going to make. he then mentioned going to Biloxi with Chris Clark to me. and then bagged out on it.

so i'm curious too.

Click to expand...

As CoastCon came at the same time as the GAMA trade show, Chris Clark had to cancel his appearance. As Chris was my ride there, that sort of made my appearance impossible, eh?


[/QUOTE]are you saying people can't have fun playing the game as written?

i beg to differ. we did for 10+ years.[/QUOTE]

Before you bang you bang your drum too loudly, there are some gamers who have played D&D since 1972, me amongst them That said, yes, I am saying that the majority of gamers were looking for more in their PCs than was developed by the regular 3d6 stat rolls taken in order. This is especially true when AD&D was published and all of the stats were given more weight.

But...as a matter of fact I have DMed OD&D, the three-booklet really original version, at a dozen cons over the past few years. I have players roll 3d6, record the scores in order. and play the characters as developed thus. I do modify the rules in regards HPs, have any 1 rolled count as a 2. We have a great time. Of course that's mainly due to nostalgia on the players' part, and I do my best to make the dungeon crawl exciting and unusual--encounters such as those with my Old Guard kobolds.

That your group played OD&D and enjoyed it for 10 years is great, and I am honored to have written a game that brought all of you so much entertainment, Diaglo. Clearly you and your associates are excellent role-players, and the campaign was undoubtedly very well developed and well-DMed. I know that there are many RPGers still playing OD&D, and also OAD&D, That aside, a great number of gamers wanted more, and the success of 3E indicates that change is welcomed still. if it is for the better.

Beside all that, I am an inveterate game designer, and that means I am compelled to ever-tinker with rules

Holiday best,
Gary

Col_Pladoh said:

Beside all that, I am an inveterate game designer, and that means I am compelled to ever-tinker with rules

Click to expand...

i refereed OD&D, not DMed. i'm still miffed at you for coming out with Advanced. my players revolted and i had to include some of the rules from those books to placate them. i never did adopt the other means of rolling tho from the UA.

i don't punish you for tinkering. but have pity on us little guys.

diaglo said:

i refereed OD&D, not DMed. i'm still miffed at you for coming out with Advanced. my players revolted and i had to include some of the rules from those books to placate them. i never did adopt the other means of rolling tho from the UA.

i don't punish you for tinkering. but have pity on us little guys.

Click to expand...

Holiday Cheer, Diaglo

I stand corected. Indeed, you refereed OD&D.

Believe me, I know very well that without all the "little guys" I'd be nowhere, so I have no airs or inflated opinion about myself. While it is the nature of my thinking to look for different ways to accomplish a desired end, there was a lot of instigation from my many players to do that with OD&D. J. Eric Holmes pushed hard for a revision, the Basic Set rules, so I agreed. When I got his ms. it seemed a good plan to add in a few of the new rules I was in process of writing for AD&D

The variations on rolling dice for characters came from me, mainly because i was weary of watching players roll dozens of times in order to come up with a set of stats they wanted.

It seemed a logical thing to do, as with allowing the scores to be ordered as the player desired so as to arrive at stats for a PC they wanted to play

Cheers,
Gary

How much of the changes between the original dragon articals and the final print version of UA was your doing. A couple changes in noticed.

Weapon of choice changed

Specialization was given to the ranger as well as the fighter.

Barbarians could eventually use magic.

Magice full and field plate where added to the treasure tables. (the cavalier articile implied that the player would have too pay to construct them, although i could be reading to much into it)

Magical Elven Chain (i.e. elven chain +1) added to the treasure tables, when the DMG specfically said there was no magic elven chain. (was this done to strengthen thieves?)

Attrubute Method V (orginally made for the barbarian, now available to all humans)

On a related note, how much of oriental adventures was your work. The proficency system makes me think that OA was geared with 2nd edition in mind.

Gary, I just wanted to say that I ran the original Temple of Elemental Evil less than three months ago, and still find it, along with Isle of the Ape, in my top two D&D modules.

And the village of Hommlet is actually my favorite part of the module. It reminds me of the European towns my father visited during and after WWII. All that old world charm, but with steel and hidden weapons underneath.

I really think no one has ever mastered the art of writing a D&D module like you, and I wanted to thank you for countless hours of enjoyment from them alone.

Chuck

mistere29 said:

How much of the changes between the original dragon articals and the final print version of UA was your doing. A couple changes in noticed.

Click to expand...

Happy New Year!

What you are asking is that I recall relative minutia from about 20 years ago. Add to that the fact that I was back from running D&D Entertainment because TSR was in grave financial trouble. At the same time that I instructed thet my Dragon magazine articles be compiled into a work I named Unearthed Arcana, I was dealing with a bank that was ready to shut the company down. Meantime I was fending off idiotic ideas. For example:

The head of sales and marketing was ready to kill the RPGA to save a few thousand dollars. I saw to it that he was dismissed. The three outside members of the board of directors were considering selling Dragon magazine, at that time the only part of the company that was showing a profit. Meanwhile, I was working with an outside investment group willing to acquire TSR--the only answer that the foolish outside directors thougtht possible in regards saving TSR from bankruptcy. Their audit was uncovering gross mismanagement, and I had to work through that, cleaning up the mess with a pro tem CEO the board put in place, a fellow who knew nothing about hobby gaming, let alone TSR.

So the points you raise: I recall editing the compiled ms. for the UA book, but what changes I put in and which were done by others i can not say.

Because of severe time constraints I put Francois Marcela Froideval and Zeb Cook onto the Oriental Adventures book project. Although I had planned to co-write that work with Francois, TSR needed is immediately after UA was published so as to continue the positive cash flow from product sales. Zeb took it upon himself to delete much of Francois' material in favor of his own--which I found inferior. By the time the ms. hit my desk it was too late for me to rectify that. In all, the OA work was done according to my outline and overall direction, but the end product was not what I had envisaged or anywhere close to what I would have designed. Were TSR not at a desperate pass, I'd have placed Francois in charge of the project and had it re-written.

So Cook's work in OA was evident, yes, and as he was mainly responsible for 2E, a product that lost about 50% of the AD&D audience, your observation is accurate.

As an aside, the publication of the two new books was sufficient to bring TSR out of the red, what with the internal measures taken to reduce waste and expense. With that evident, I sent the investment group packing, and told the three outside directors they were history as soon as I could manage that. That was a mistake. I should have dissembled, and not allowed my ire to be evident.

It is generally impossible to manage a large company and devote any considerable amount of time to creative work.

Cheers,
Gary

Vigilance said:

Gary, I just wanted to say that I ran the original Temple of Elemental Evil less than three months ago, and still find it, along with Isle of the Ape, in my top two D&D modules.

And the village of Hommlet is actually my favorite part of the module. It reminds me of the European towns my father visited during and after WWII. All that old world charm, but with steel and hidden weapons underneath.

I really think no one has ever mastered the art of writing a D&D module like you, and I wanted to thank you for countless hours of enjoyment from them alone.

Chuck

Click to expand...

Thanks Chuck

About all I can say is that I do love gaming, and likely that shows in my writing of adventure material.

When I write a module I immerse myself into the setting, imagine the players' characters interacting with the environment and the encounters, try to anticipate what they will do--the clever and the foolish. To be frank, I find writing modules a lot of work, but it is really fun, much like actually playing the adventure with a character.

Anyway, I am glad you have had so much enjoyment from my designs, and I hope that you'll find some of my more recent efforts good fun too

Happy New Year,
Gary

Hi Gary (and merry christmas and happy new year!!)

I was wondering something about the names of Erythnul and Nerull; Erythno means red or something like that in latin or greek, and nero means black. Did you name Erythnull and Nerull with that in mind?

grodog said:

Well, if you're referring to the site at http://www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/gh_anagrams.html then that page is mine, and I'd be happy to fix any errors you've discovered; if you found another site, I'd be happy to look it over for more ideas for additions, too

Click to expand...

I've seen several typos...

"Bilarro = anagram for Robliar" Robilar
"Tom Bombidil, J. R. R. Tolkien's character" Tom Bombadil
"Radigast = Radigast the Brown" Radagast the Brown
"Jack Vance was" Jack Vance still is. Not in a good shape, but still alive.

Col_Pladoh said:

Happy New Year!
What you are asking is that I recall relative minutia from about 20 years ago.

Click to expand...

Well what versions of the material do you use in your AD&D games today. That's what i was really interested in. Or do you play mostly LA now?

Thanks for all the info.