How Gary Gygax lost control of D&D

[increment]

As a followup, I started a thread on Board Game Geek and have found a good number of folks expounding on where they got their games in the 1970s. I also asked the question on a dozen Facebook groups but I won't link to those as there might be some overlap.

Very enterprising. The earliest accounts of where Gary bought games suggest that he favored Brentano's in Chicago to get his Avalon Hill titles in the very early 1960s. My point though was more that Monopoly was a game that could be secured in any number of venues, while, say, to get Metagaming products in the 1970s, if you could buy them over the counter at all, you went to specialty retailers. There are amazing stories of where people went to get copies of D&D in the mid-1970s - I remember Niall Shapero's account in DW of driving around the Bay Area to locate one hobby shop where a copy could be procured.

Still, I'll follow your thread on BGG, I'm interested in what people have to say.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

There is more to it than that but IMHO he was an icon and visionary that the world couldn't handle and because he was an ideas man and not a business man, the world took from him what it could and spat him out.

Its a chicken/egg situation because whilst him being born later and being part of our more creative generation would have been a great thing, the fact that is massive influence would have been missed could well have made this scenario impossible.

I'm still laughing at the histrionics that you have employed here.

It's clear Gary was an outstanding entrepreneur who synthesised various ideas from David Arneson et al (including his own) and then created a product for sale. In doing so, he not only created the RPG hobby but his ideas provided the foundation for the CRPG/MMORPG industry. And that's an amazing achievement.

But what happened next was really a textbook example of what also happens today when real entrepreneurs fail to grasp what skills they lack due to a range of reasons from egotism to an inability to work with others to a lack of self-awareness to wishful thinking. I wouldn't presume to say which of these applied to Gary - and it's also none of my business - but I think your histrionics glosses over the fact that this still happens today.

And while full credit does go to Gary for his achievements, I also think it's fair to say that someone else would have invented the RPG before long. After all, there are, in a sense, a lot of monkeys banging away on typewriters!

 

[wlmartin]

I can't disagree more and am really surprised at the Gygax bashing

Perhaps someone would come up with the RPG but considering the mechanics employed to produce it (paper, pencil, dice) are old tools, if it could have been done by someone else then why not 100 or 1000 years ago


He was an artist but I reckon from the negativity shared about him where he isn barely given a tip of the cap, I guess that just isn't appreciated

So sad

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

I can't disagree more and am really surprised at the Gygax bashing

Perhaps someone would come up with the RPG but considering the mechanics employed to produce it (paper, pencil, dice) are old tools, if it could have been done by someone else then why not 100 or 1000 years ago


He was an artist but I reckon from the negativity shared about him where he isn barely given a tip of the cap, I guess that just isn't appreciated

So sad

More histrionics. Seriously, look up the meaning of the word. It fits perfectly.

Where is the Gygax-bashing? Heck, my own post is very complimentary - and rightly so - of the role he played creating the RPG hobby and the CRPG/MMORPG industries.

And saying someone else would have eventually have created something similar is NOT a slight of his achievement. Histrionics.

 

[wedgeski]

I can't disagree more and am really surprised at the Gygax bashing

I think you're over-reacting slightly. Gygax is venerated on these boards, and rightly so. What might have piqued a few posters' trigger fingers was the notion that the "world wasn't ready for him".

 

[Dungeoneer]

It's clear Gary was an outstanding entrepreneur who synthesised various ideas from David Arneson et al (including his own) and then created a product for sale. In doing so, he not only created the RPG hobby but his ideas provided the foundation for the CRPG/MMORPG industry. And that's an amazing achievement.

But what happened next was really a textbook example of what also happens today when real entrepreneurs fail to grasp what skills they lack due to a range of reasons from egotism to an inability to work with others to a lack of self-awareness to wishful thinking.

I agree with all of this. I actually think Gygax did incredibly well. Remember, this guy was an out-of-work shoe salesman who suddenly found himself at (or near) the helm of a multi-million-dollar company that employed hundreds of people. It's incredible that he was able to do this at all. But it's not surprising that he wasn't prepared for some of the challenges that came with it.

And while full credit does go to Gary for his achievements, I also think it's fair to say that someone else would have invented the RPG before long. After all, there are, in a sense, a lot of monkeys banging away on typewriters!

One of my pet theories is that the myth of the lone inventor is just that, a myth. The number of times in history when people who could not possibly be aware of each other invented the same thing within a year or two of each other is staggering. Invention and innovation do seem to be things that can be 'in the air'.

Jon Peterson makes a strong case in 'Playing at the World' that all the pieces necessary to invent the tabletop role playing game existed by about 1970; they just required someone to put them together. The first person to do so appears to have been Dave Arneson, and then Gary Gygax quickly iterated on that to create a version that could be commercialized. But if those guys hadn't come along, would someone else have stumbled across the idea of a role-playing game?

Very probably.

I think one of the most interesting questions is whether the first rpg had to be a FANTASY rpg. What if we lived in a world where 'Aliens & Astronauts' was what people thought of when they thought of role playing??

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

I agree with all of this. I actually think Gygax did incredibly well. Remember, this guy was an out-of-work shoe salesman who suddenly found himself at (or near) the helm of a multi-million-dollar company that employed hundreds of people. It's incredible that he was able to do this at all. But it's not surprising that he wasn't prepared for some of the challenges that came with it. (snip)

This is why I do refer to his case as a textbook example of what can happen to entrepreneurs. While wlmartin seems to read that as some sort of insult, the reality is that it is simply something that happens a lot in business. It's nothing to do with histrionics - "and the world wasn't ready for him"-like lines - but simply the hard-headed reality of building a business in the real world.

There is a saying that there is nothing more common than unrewarded genius. What Gygax did was genius because he turned it into a product that he not only took to market but, in so doing, created a new market in which remain participants to this day.

One of my pet theories is that the myth of the lone inventor is just that, a myth. The number of times in history when people who could not possibly be aware of each other invented the same thing within a year or two of each other is staggering. Invention and innovation do seem to be things that can be 'in the air'.

Jon Peterson makes a strong case in 'Playing at the World' that all the pieces necessary to invent the tabletop role playing game existed by about 1970; they just required someone to put them together. The first person to do so appears to have been Dave Arneson, and then Gary Gygax quickly iterated on that to create a version that could be commercialized. But if those guys hadn't come along, would someone else have stumbled across the idea of a role-playing game?

Very probably.

I think one of the most interesting questions is whether the first rpg had to be a FANTASY rpg. What if we lived in a world where 'Aliens & Astronauts' was what people thought of when they thought of role playing??

I think this is 100% right, and not just because we're in agreement.

This doesn't detract from Gary's achievements either - [MENTION=6679380]wlmartin[/MENTION], take note - because he got there first and his name will be forever associated with RPGs. However, if he wasn't around, on a similar note to yours, I wonder if Star Wars would have inspired the first RPG in 1977. I know my friends and I would have bought it because we were trying to do something similar with our Lego!

 

[jadrax]

Jon Peterson makes a strong case in 'Playing at the World' that all the pieces necessary to invent the tabletop role playing game existed by about 1970; they just required someone to put them together. The first person to do so appears to have been Dave Arneson, and then Gary Gygax quickly iterated on that to create a version that could be commercialized.

Arneson was a player in Dave Wesley's Braunstein game, which seems to have been the first tabletop role playing game as we would understand it. But he did not publish anything so largely gets forgotten.

 

[Dungeoneer]

Arneson was a player in Dave Wesley's Braunstein game, which seems to have been the first tabletop role playing game as we would understand it. But he did not publish anything so largely gets forgotten.

There were numerous groups doing some form of 'role playing' before Arneson. The trick was thinking to combine that activity with a war game with its free-wheeling, referee-based rules.

ETA: Oh, and making it a fantasy game was an important innovation. Many of the earlier 'role playing' games stuck closely to historical settings like the Napoleonic Wars.

 

[wlmartin]

I am sorry if i come across as defensive.

I do think there are certain creative innovators that come up with something that is so different that there is a good chance someone else would not have come up with it themselves.


Invention stories are often plagued with many people inventing something and the credit going to the one that patents it or gets there first getting the credit.

I don't think there was anyone working on roleplaying games at the time of D&D so I don't think it was a case of D&D pipping anyone to the post.


I do believe that the concept of tabletop roleplaying games was born from the early D&D games and without D&D I really don't think RPGs would have taken off.

Its like anything, there will be a small section of the world devoted to something so niche that no-one could think it was worthwhile but maybe half a dozen people. The second those people develop interest in it and enough people catch on.. then its out there and if it is creative enough to be dissimilar from anything else then it creates a genre (rather than mimicking one or fitting into an existing one)

This is what happened with D&D. It started small with a unique idea, picked up steam and an entire community and gaming concept was built around it.

Do I say it is impossible someone else would have come up with the idea.. no, but even if it was delayed by 10 or 20 years, the evolution of the game would not be anywhere close to what it is now and worse still, with the advent of globalization, it could have diluted the concept and fractured support for it.



I just dont think the "pfft, someone else would have come up with it if Gygax didn't" just doesn't hold water because
a) It would have likely taken much much longer
b) It would not have evolved into the same beast it is now