TSR Q&A with Gary Gygax

Col_Pladoh · Sep 25, 2002

Skarp Hedin said:
Hi Gary,

It's very nice of you to be sitting around answering question after question here.. and when I saw this:

I just had to ask: So, then, what monsters did you designate as "must be cut" from the Fiend Folio?

Hey! I don't sit around, but when I see a notice that a reply has been posted to this thread I get back here in due course

As to the should-have-been-gornished entries in the FF book, well, it's 20 years, and damned if I can recall many off hand. I haven't one of those books handy, or I'l flip through and answer in detail. I surely didn't care much for the Needleman, and I do believe that the Disenchanter was another that I found rather too flimsy a creature to include. The treatment of the Kenku (sp?) also was not liked by me--katana-armed sparrows didn't do it in my view.

Alas, all that's water under the old bridge, as every entry I said should be cut was left in. Bah!

Heh,
Gary

Col_Pladoh · Sep 25, 2002

Rel said:
Do me a favor and next time you see him tell him thanks for being the best hard-sci-fi writer I've ever read and that I wouldn't mind seeing another Dream Park novel when he gets a chance.

Do you also know Jimmy Buffett? If so, we can just call this thread "All Rel's Greatest Heroes" and be done with it.

Last time I saw Larry was out in California in the 90s. I don't make it to many SF cons, but if I do, and the Good Mr. Niven is there, I will pass along your lauds and urging for more DREAM PARK sotires.

Can't say that I have ever met Jimmy Buffet, alhtough I have run into Willy Nelson at the Beverly Hills Hotel way back, exchanged a few words with him. Being quartered in Lake Geneva, working all the time, sort of diminishes one's social contacts, shall we say. About the only "name" people outside gaming I see regularly are cartoonist Joe Martin and author and motivational speaker John Powers.

Cheerio,
Gary

Col_Pladoh · Sep 25, 2002

Re: (Lighthearted) Would you?

The Sigil said:
I have to ask, because some of the posters on another thread were afraid to... and I figure that since I thought of it, I should bring it up...

This comes from the 1,000 Ways to Freak out your players thread... would you be willing to do this one, Colonel? It's way #1,000.

http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=14010&perpage=40&pagenumber=17#post387575

--The Sigil

LOL!

I have not followed that thread, 1,000 ways', because I don't want to freak them out save by what I throw at them--we don;t get to play but once a week and then only about 40 weeks a tear. So much gaming to get in so little time and all that...

Of course I would do that

The idea is hilarious--likely more so in the exposition than in actual fact, but what the hell, I love practical jokes. I've played many a one in my younger days, mainly inspired by an old book named THE PRACTICAL JOKER'S HANDBOOK. My wife talked me out of the last one I was going to pull--putting smut zines in the john at a friend's house when he was giving a dinner and play for charity...

Cheerio,
Gary

Col_Pladoh · Sep 25, 2002

Bjorn Doneerson said:
Hello. I don't know what to say so I guess just thanks, and I'll get on to asking you annoying questions:

You came up with all the planes, right? And the planes have their little mysteries, like what's in Chronias. Do/did you have an answer in mind for any of these and would you be willing to tell us such things?

And on a dare I ask you: Will you be my friend?

To be fair, I mostly took existing material and arranged it so as to form a cosmology for PAD&D, the planes of existence. Then I made up and/or placed creatures from the game milieu into the various planes.

As for what didn't get done, all that is now moot. the property belongs to WotC, and they are the ones who will populate all of them now.

I will happily acept you as an acquaintance, and if throught the course of personal interaction friendship develops, then great! Have you ever read the essay ON FRIENDSHIP? I can't recall if it was done by emerson or Thoreau. When I first read it I was stunned--blown away in current parlayance. Well worth looking up and reading, that short piece of truly enlightening literature

Cheerio,
Gary

Col_Pladoh · Sep 26, 2002

ScottGLXIX said:
Greetings,
A question on some of the undead creatures. Did you originally see wights and wraiths as having corporeal forms or not? Early on wights and wraiths were very similar, the wraith was just the more powerful of the two. Over the years they’ve developed into very different critters with a wight having a physical form, and wraiths not.
Scott

Hmmm. Absolutely did have in mind that a wight was a physical being, a wraith mainly immaterial, and I thought that was clear from the get-go in original D&D. Certainly the movement rates for the two creatures reflected that, as I recall. (Heh, you can tell it's been a while since I have delved into the MM--over a year now, in fact.)

In fact, as I recall the Mm illos of the two showed the wight as a clearly physical, corpse-like monster, while the wraith was shown as spectral, ghostly, no?

Cheerio,
Gary

Henry · Sep 26, 2002

Gary, if you would -

This question came up elsewhere on these boards, and I had never thought about it before -

in 1st Edition AD&D, was the magic item known as Daern's Instant fortress meant to expand AND contract?

or

was it meant to be a single-use item only?

Tewligan · Sep 26, 2002

Mr. Gygax, I humbly offer up a question to thee:

Back in "the day", Judge's Guild material was pretty much official D&D/AD&D. In addition to JG's contributions, however, I remember plenty of material by plenty of other companies that declared themselves to be suitable for use with all major fantasy RPG's, or something to that effect. A quick look inside these books made it clear that "all major fantasy RPG's" meant "AD&D." Occasionally a term would be changed ("strength" becomes "might", "hit points" becomes "wounds"), but it was obviously D&D without coming out and saying it. I was just curious if this kind of thing got TSR's legal hackles up, or was it overlooked or even encouraged? Of course, I do remember the stern warning in the DMG against using unofficial material, but was there any non-TSR/JG material at the time that caught your fancy?

ColonelHardisson · Sep 26, 2002

Col_Pladoh said:
Have you ever read the essay ON FRIENDSHIP? I can't recall if it was done by emerson or Thoreau. When I first read it I was stunned--blown away in current parlayance. Well worth looking up and reading, that short piece of truly enlightening literature

Cheerio,
Gary

Are you thinking of the one by Cicero?

http://www.bartleby.com/9/1/

Col_Pladoh · Sep 26, 2002

Henry said:
Gary, if you would -

This question came up elsewhere on these boards, and I had never thought about it before -

in 1st Edition AD&D, was the magic item known as Daern's Instant fortress meant to expand AND contract?

or

was it meant to be a single-use item only?

What's the matter with you, Henry?:! I know what I had in mind, and just because I neglected to put down that one small detail, there is confusion! USe your psionic power of mind reading for goodness dake.

Heh, and sorry. The item, Daern's Instant Fortress, was meant as a multi-use object, anbd upon command it would contract after being activated.

The devil is in the details, and it seems that I oft shun the devil, eh?

Gary

Col_Pladoh · Sep 26, 2002

Tewligan said:
Mr. Gygax, I humbly offer up a question to thee:

Back in "the day", Judge's Guild material was pretty much official D&D/AD&D. In addition to JG's contributions, however, I remember plenty of material by plenty of other companies that declared themselves to be suitable for use with all major fantasy RPG's, or something to that effect. A quick look inside these books made it clear that "all major fantasy RPG's" meant "AD&D." Occasionally a term would be changed ("strength" becomes "might", "hit points" becomes "wounds"), but it was obviously D&D without coming out and saying it. I was just curious if this kind of thing got TSR's legal hackles up, or was it overlooked or even encouraged? Of course, I do remember the stern warning in the DMG against using unofficial material, but was there any non-TSR/JG material at the time that caught your fancy?

As protective of its IP rights as TSR was, there was never any thought of attempting to somehow patent the RPG system. As long as the marks, D&D and AD&D were not used, or likenesses of creatures unique to TSR's games weren't used, "generic" material was ignored--neither encouraged nor discouraged.

Judge's Guild requested and received a license to use the marks belonging to TSR on its products. I was all for that, and wanted to license Mayfair's "Role Aids" line later on, but the BLumes would not agree.

As for me using any generic material, no. I was too busy creating new work of my own, checking that done in house, or going over tournament module material. never enough hours in a day to get in half what I would have liked to.

Cheers,
Gary

TSR Q&A with Gary Gygax

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