Gygax Magazine? [UPDATE 3 - Electric Boogaloo]

darjr · Nov 20, 2012

He posted a 'trippy' character sheet to his g+ page.

https://plus.google.com/104177045387090507216/posts

TheAngryDM · Nov 20, 2012

Angry here. As a small business accountant working in NYS, I can almost guarantee that TSR Hobbies, Inc. simply has not been removed from the state records. NYS Dept. of State is very, very bad about clearing defunct entities. I run into it ALL THE TIME. Especially with a corporation from another state.

This whole thing smacks of paranoia. There is no reason to suspect this is a scam. The guy publishes another magazine, his address is legitimate, and he has a background in gaming you can find on the internet fairly easily. Why entertain the possibility that he's not actually getting set to publish some sort of old-school tribute to D&D gaming? There's caution and skepticism, then there's witch hunting. This is the latter.

Now, you might feel it is disingenuous to use the TSR or Gygax name even if it is legal and legit. But knowing nothing about it, I think its a little early to make that call. I mean, we let whole game systems get away with basically republishing entire rule sets as retroclones.

Has anyone just signed up for the info? Has anyone e-mailed the guy and politely expressed an interest in his plans and asked for information? This is rapidly approaching torch-and-pitchfork here people. We're better than this.

mudbunny · Nov 20, 2012

I signed up with my email addy.

Morrus · Nov 20, 2012

TheAngryDM said:
This whole thing smacks of paranoia. There is no reason to suspect this is a scam.

Not at all; that's not an accurate summary of this thread's tone at all. We've - in this very thread - completely revised our opinion, but only because we had to dig and research. None of the information you cite is on that website - just Gygax's name and a reference to "TSR". Based solely on that info, it looked waay dodgy. This is what we had, in total:

Gygax Magazine from TSR. Your email addy, please!

Now we've spent a couple of hours digging into WHOIS records and finding out more info, I agree it doesn't seem to be a scam, no. I still find it a little distasteful, though.

Has anyone just signed up for the info? Has anyone e-mailed the guy and politely expressed an interest in his plans and asked for information? This is rapidly approaching torch-and-pitchfork here people. We're better than this.

No it's not. This thread seems to me to be focused primarily on learning about this person and his plans. Yes, I have attempted to contact him.

Bear in mind none of this info is up-front. We had to dig for it. I really do not think it unreasonable to be suspicious based on the info he gave us. All the info you say alleviates that suspicion we had to find for ourselves. And we did and arrived at the conclusion it wasn't a scam. No pitchforks have been waved; skeptical research has been undertaken and information obtained.

technoextreme · Nov 20, 2012

Ehhh... I knew about this guy ages ago. Its a classic trademark trick since they do expire you can in fact legally obtain the name from patent and trademark office.

darjr · Nov 20, 2012

Wait, the podcast is roll for initiative!

Ha! I'm way behind in listening but it's been in my list of favorites for quite a long time.

As far as the podcast goes it's legit. I think they've had Larry Elmore and Frank Mentzer and Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman and a few others on their podcast.

www.rfipodcast.com

I'm A Banana · Nov 20, 2012

TheAngryDM said:
This whole thing smacks of paranoia. There is no reason to suspect this is a scam. The guy publishes another magazine, his address is legitimate, and he has a background in gaming you can find on the internet fairly easily. Why entertain the possibility that he's not actually getting set to publish some sort of old-school tribute to D&D gaming? There's caution and skepticism, then there's witch hunting. This is the latter.

Prolly because when you use the name of a fondly-regarded dead man to try and sell your magazine, you sort of lose the benefit of the doubt.

Witch-hunting and paranoia? Man, when someone you don't know and haven't heard of uses an appeal to emotion to get your e-mail address on the internet, the only sane reaction is caution and verification. If you disagree, I've got some buddies in Lagos who need your help with an inheritance problem, if you aren't too paranoid...

darjr · Nov 20, 2012

Maybe he's got permission to use the name? Maybe the web site isn't supposed to be public, maybe it's a pie in the sky dream idea that somebody accidentally clicked the publish button on. It happens a lot.

Morrus · Nov 20, 2012

darjr said:
Maybe he's got permission to use the name? Maybe the web site isn't supposed to be public, maybe it's a pie in the sky dream idea that somebody accidentally clicked the publish button on. It happens a lot.

Could be, could be.

technoextreme · Nov 20, 2012

darjr said:
Maybe he's got permission to use the name? Maybe the web site isn't supposed to be public, maybe it's a pie in the sky dream idea that somebody accidentally clicked the publish button on. It happens a lot.

Actually in the case of names you don't need to.