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.

 

[haakon1]

Just make sure that the ones you want to keep alive aren't wearing red.

If the shirt is red, the man is dead.

Some of you might be amused at this collection of Star Trek observations produced by my D&D crowd back in our college days:

http://trek.starshine.org/rec/drunktrek/

Rule 14 is my own poor, red shirt-designed rule . . .

 

[Frank Mentzer]

how many of them made it through?

If that was directed toward me...

As you have already reviewed my games from the late 1970s, assessed an 80% casualty rate, and cited 20+ non-PC characters in the party (very specific numbers generated from absolutely no real data) why should I distract you with facts?

Feel free to continue your fictions, but I choose not to fuel them.

 

[lukelightning]

Logically, given the greater number of NPCs than PCs dying in most campaigns and adventures (ToH included), I conclude that the gene for "NPC" is going to become rarer and rarer, resulting in more PCs. It's a simple matter of evolution! Of course, this is complicated by the fact that when PCs pass on their genes, it is typically with an NPC (at least in my experience). The PC gene seems to be recessive, since two NPC parents can have a PC child.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Wow, you have some real balls, Patryn,

Thanks! I checked again, just to make sure, and, yep, there they are. One wonders how you came across the information, though ...

suggesting that Gary has been dishonest, and on his own thread no less. Why not drop the euphemistic dance and just call him a 'liar?'

Because I'm not calling him a liar. Duh! Did you miss that? Read my post again. I'm just saying that maybe he's not telling the whole story - and that I'd like to hear the whole story. Others might be interested in it, as well.

like maybe you're harbouring a deep seated desire to lash out at someone who has given joy to others through his creations. How's that? Have I gotten the hang of it?

Uh, my hat of Gary Gygax know no limit?

Riiiiiiiight.

Cute flame, but it's really only a 1 / 10. Keep trying - someday you'll be a real troll!

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

As you have already reviewed my games from the late 1970s, assessed an 80% casualty rate, and cited 20+ non-PC characters in the party (very specific numbers generated from absolutely no real data) why should I distract you with facts?

Feel free to continue your fictions, but I choose not to fuel them.

Well, it's a shame that you don't wish to continue the conversation. I was genuinely interested in the actual data.

I thought it was pretty obvious that my numbers were examples only. Maybe it wasn't as obvious as I'd hoped.

I based them off of previous posts by GG (in this thread and other Q&A threads), detailing his usual gaming group: 10+ PCs, each PC usually with a "trusted cohort," a couple extra hirelings, some torch-bearers, etc. According to him, that was pretty common "back in the day," and that's easily 20+ members of the PCs' horde. 80% was based on the fact that there were 5 categories, and 1 of them was "PCs" who we know didn't die.

Are you saying that it wasn't common in your campaigns? Because it wasn't common in any of mine, either.

 

[Col_Pladoh]

But did they also have the 20+ retainers which, I'm led to believe, was fairly standard "back in the day"?

If so, how many of them made it through?

Absolutely not. The tournament was for groups of single PCs played by actual participants in the event. I can't recall the number per team, but I suspect it wes eight.

Cheerio,
Gary

 

[Col_Pladoh]

Gary, thanks as always for a thorough and quick reply. As mentioned previously, I wasn't confronted by this obstacle when I ran the adventure back in the day, which is fortunate, as I considered the word of a published module to be sacrosanct back then (I was young). Were I to run it now, I would build in some type of mechanism for the PC's to further seal/obscure the temple (and reward them for this) or maybe somehow allow the possibility to blow the treasure out of the cyst without bowing to T. Characters who choose to eat from his tree, of course, get what they deserve.

Thanks again!

Understood...

Back then I made many assumptions regarding the DMs, mainly based on what I knew and thought. Only by geting a lot of feedback over many years have I come to realize that there are times I need to pass along the reasoning behind some of the material I present. Sadly, even now I sometimes forget to do that or blithely assume the information is too obvious to state.

Cheers,
Gary

 

[Col_Pladoh]

Hmmm, maybe this should be moved to a "Retainer's rights" thread...? "Although I receive a fee, I will not be tasked with jumping into the fiend's maw to check his tonsils"?

(To go hopelessly off-topic, I love the way "Lost" knowingly brought back the red shirt concept.)

As a matter of fact...

My relatively veteran group of players had their Avatars do precisely that in The Hermit module. The only exception was a n Ecclesiastic who stayed true to his ethical values and so escaped doom Needless to say, I was most disconcerted, for I was liberal in hints against listening to the fiend. The concensus was that all of us, palyers and me as the Lejend Master, were not up to par that night.

Cheers,
Gary

 

[Col_Pladoh]

Well, yeah!

One of the main reasons for which people are claiming to dislike ToH is that it is an unabashed meat-grinder of a PC-killer.

whiners incapable of good play, by and large, is my response. Who says one can win them all?

Gary - and Frank - have said that this is pretty much bollocks, because anyone who's playing intelligently and well can make it through without any PC deaths at all! In fact, they've offered several instances of anecdotal proof that it can be done.

What I'm trying to determine is if they're being a little intellectually dishonest.

I've got a theory that in these examples, sure, no PCs were killed, but over 40 characters (including various torch bearers, men-at-arms, sages, etc.) were lost their lives in breaching the Tomb. They just happened to not have the mystic star of PC floating over their heads.

In other words, it's not a PC killer if you play intelligently - where "play intelligently" is defined as "hire /summon lots of cannon fodder to poke and prod at anything remotely dangerous looking before you let the PCs anywhere near it."

EDIT:

Whereas those who seem to dislike it may have a more PC-centric view of things. The PCs are the heroes, the PCs are the ones risking their lives, and therefore it's the PCs who should be (largely alone) fighting and trapping and sleuthing their way through the Tomb.

For reference, I've never played in *any* game, in any version of the rules, in which we had anything approaching the number of hirelings or PCs that Gary has indicated was pretty standard, back in the day (i.e., 10+ PCs, an equal number of "trusted cohorts," several armed retainers, etc.).

And as i have said several times now, there were groups of players that played through the module with absolutely no losses--only a few, whilst others llost some of their team.

For goodness sake, Mordenkainen and Bigby have been lost in adventures, as have virtually all of my other PCs, and I don't whine about it. As a player I assume the risk of death is always present in a really challenging adventure, and do what I can to plan for some sort of recovery of the lost PC, make sure my team mates will assist, as I would assist their PCs.

Gary

 

[Grimstaff]

3 Questions

Hi, Gary! Congrats on Yggsburgh, its a great book.

Three quick items:

1) Third party publishers are, of course, very common nowadays. What was your take on Judges Guild, anecdotal or otherwise, back in the 70's?
2) There have been rumors of WotC dropping Greyhawk as "default setting" and farming it out for third party. Any take on that? Would you or the Trolls want to grab it?
3) In your stories of the old guard, it seems like magic users, fighters, and clerics were pretty well-represented, but I rarely hear anything about thieves, assassins, or rangers. Any cool old-day characters of this ilk?