TSR Q&A with Gary Gygax

This is the multi-year Q&A sessions held by D&D co-creator Gary Gygax here at EN World, beginning in 2002 and running up until his sad pasing in 2008. Gary's username in the thread below is Col_Pladoh, and his first post in this long thread is Post #39.

 

[VirgilCaine]

No, it isn't. The Steve Jackson referred to is a Brit, and was the co-owner of Games Workshop back in the 1980s.

Cheers,
Gary

Oh.

 

[Col_Pladoh]

Oh.

Indeed...

...and very different the two chaps with the same name.

British Steve, shall we say, was a quite and rather unassuming fellow

Cheerio,
Gary

 

[Gray Mouser]

Heh-heh,

Quite a typical lot then, eh?

Yes, it seems so. In fact, one of them makes it a habit to seemingly go out of his way to annoy the NPC's who offer the party quests in the first place. "Sure we'll look for your lost wand, Mage and take the money you offer us. But shouldn't we get more gold? I mean that wand must be special to you, right?" Heh, I can't wait until they give the CN mage back his wand

Of course, they're on the quest in the first place because the Mage was kind enough to remove the curse said PC got from being too uppity with the local Thieves' Guild second-in-command! "Remove the curse in exchange for finding your wand? Sure! But it'll cost ya..."

I really can't wait until they give him that wand back

the beauty of having a good droup is that on any given day at least one of the bunch will have the good sense to avoid the disastrous, thus manage to keep the campaign going. Having been the one leading to misadventure not a few times, i really do apreciate my fellow players intervention at such times

Cheers,
Gary

OK, here's an actual question for you, Colonel. What are a few of the memorable spots of trouble you got your fellow players into?

Gray Mouser

 

[Col_Pladoh]

...

OK, here's an actual question for you, Colonel. What are a few of the memorable spots of trouble you got your fellow players into?

Gray Mouser

Actually, the situation and players' PCs' reactions to it tend to get the characters into trouble--usually despite sometimes obvious warnings of some sort, veiled usually, from me. as the GM. Of course, in the role of an adversarial NPC of any type I am likely doing my best to bring them to grief.

The outstanding instances of that, including my own PCs' gaffs, have been pretty well covered in the Dragon magazine column.

The veterans of my LA game group are likely to hang their heads if asked what happened to them in the "Gmome Maze' when adventuring in The Hermit module. They lost a lot of good Avatars there, and all because of being thoughtless. spoiled my night too, for that ended play in the setting :\

Cheers,
Gary

 

[Gray Mouser]

Actually, the situation and players' PCs' reactions to it tend to get the characters into trouble--usually despite sometimes obvious warnings of some sort, veiled usually, from me. as the GM. Of course, in the role of an adversarial NPC of any type I am likely doing my best to bring them to grief.

The outstanding instances of that, including my own PCs' gaffs, have been pretty well covered in the Dragon magazine column.

Well, in order for you not have to recount those misadventures here, I'll inquire as to any update on the possibility of seeing those columns published as a stand alone volume. I'm not a reader of Dragon these days (although I picked up my first Dungeon ever a while back wehn Rob had an updayed Maure Castle in it) and finding all of your columns would be quite a task, I think (although I am interested in reading them).

The veterans of my LA game group are likely to hang their heads if asked what happened to them in the "Gmome Maze' when adventuring in The Hermit module. They lost a lot of good Avatars there, and all because of being thoughtless. spoiled my night too, for that ended play in the setting :\

Cheers,
Gary

That is a danger in gaming, no? I don't mind killing PC's (and sometimes wish to have a go at the players ) but sometimes the deaths come on because of blatant carelessness.

Gray Mouser

 

[Col_Pladoh]

Greetings Gray Mouser,

I am awaiting more material from rob to fill sifficient pages to warrant a book. when he has sent me a dozen or so such yarns, I'll add some more material, and they we'll seek a publisher

When Rob and I chatted at the Lake Geneva Gaming convention at the end of last month, he said he hoped to get to the writing task soon...

Character deaths are not much to be desired in a campaign, and when they are lost en mass to sheer neglect of caution it is generally calamatous

Cheers,
Gary

 

[SuStel]

Hi, Gary! I was wondering how many rooms tend to appear on an average dungeon level that you devise for your games. I tend to have 20–30 keyed areas on any given level, on a letter-sized five-squares-per-inch piece of graph paper. How 'bout you?

Anyone else should pipe up too!

 

[Col_Pladoh]

Hi, Gary! I was wondering how many rooms tend to appear on an average dungeon level that you devise for your games. I tend to have 20–30 keyed areas on any given level, on a letter-sized five-squares-per-inch piece of graph paper. How 'bout you?

Anyone else should pipe up too!

The number of encounter areas I have on a level depends on the overall setting, but 20 on a map with four lines per inch is about as spare as I'll go so as to avoid tedium in exploration. With careful planning one can work in a lot of encounters without the place seeming like a fun house. Take a look at the "Old Time Dungeon Crawl" in the Hall of Many Panes for an example of this

Cheers,
Gary

 

[Gray Mouser]

Greetings Gray Mouser,

I am awaiting more material from rob to fill sifficient pages to warrant a book. when he has sent me a dozen or so such yarns, I'll add some more material, and they we'll seek a publisher

When Rob and I chatted at the Lake Geneva Gaming convention at the end of last month, he said he hoped to get to the writing task soon...

Character deaths are not much to be desired in a campaign, and when they are lost en mass to sheer neglect of caution it is generally calamatous

Cheers,
Gary

Good news about the compilation project, Colonel. I hope Rob is a quick typist!

Speaking of the LGGC, how did things go? I haven't seen a write up of it here or at dragonsfoot and was curious as to how things went. Did you run an AD&D or OD&D game or an LA session? Any memorable gaming sessions?

Gray Mouser

 

[Col_Pladoh]

Good news about the compilation project, Colonel. I hope Rob is a quick typist!

Speaking of the LGGC, how did things go? I haven't seen a write up of it here or at dragonsfoot and was curious as to how things went. Did you run an AD&D or OD&D game or an LA session? Any memorable gaming sessions?

Gray Mouser

Rob is not as slow as I am these days, but more I can not assert

The LGGC was a smashing success--an ideal mini-con of relaxed fun with many "name" persns there as regular folks just having fun. I don't believe there was a single complaint, and all the attendees played games and enjoyed themselves.

We had an "open porch" party in the thursday evening ot the cn, and about 20 people showed up- Gail had prepared too much food, so there were leftovers here for several days after.

I schmoozed around with folks on Friday and Sunday, answered questions and signed autographs, played a couple of short games.

On Saturday I was the tour guide for those who wanted to see the locations of TSR during its history. We went in a yellow school bus, too big for easy pull-over stops for my extended descriptions of things, so we rolled along. When the group got back to the Cove i spent about a quarter of an hour completing my spiel. All seemed pretty well satisfied with the tour.

I then had seven gamers over to my front poech for an LA game adventure session, which the all seemed to enjoy greatly.

We then went to the Next Door Pub--the scene of much old GenCon revelry--with the Trolls for pizza and beer.

The Trolls were delighted with how the gathering went, and the next LGGC is going to be held in early June next year, possibly with a second one following in the early autumn.

I for one surely had a great time

Cheerio,
Gary