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.

 

[green slime]

As a matter of fact...

As the leader of the player group in Jim Ward's Metamorphosis Alpha game campaign I just got an email this morning that urged me to a certain course of action because I had been ignoring the none-too-subtile hints given in the last session

Cheers,
Gary

Yes, sometimes a little nudge is enough, other times, it takes a huge "road closed - use detour" sign.

 

[Modin Godstalker]

In regards to winging it, my old DM, (he was awesome), never planned out adventures. He would go completely off the cuff. If an NPC became significant, he would stat them out to the same detail as the characters. If there was such a thing as a professional DM, he could qualify. Didn't matter the genre or game system. Anything he DM'd was gold.

Some of the players would make attempts at DMing, but becuase they could not hold a candle to him, he always ended up Dming again.

Interesting to note, although he was a world class DM, he was a horrible player.

 

[trollwad]

colonel pladoh, the original 'cowboy dm'

 

[Col_Pladoh]

Yes, sometimes a little nudge is enough, other times, it takes a huge "road closed - use detour" sign.

Playing in the Ma game environment is most harrowing, so when leaving what is a relatively secure movement base and strike out afoot into the unknown is a perilous undertaking that requires a blatent sign of some sort as far as I am concerned.

Cheers,
Gary

 

[Col_Pladoh]

In regards to winging it, my old DM, (he was awesome), never planned out adventures. He would go completely off the cuff. If an NPC became significant, he would stat them out to the same detail as the characters. If there was such a thing as a professional DM, he could qualify. Didn't matter the genre or game system. Anything he DM'd was gold.

Some of the players would make attempts at DMing, but becuase they could not hold a candle to him, he always ended up Dming again.

Interesting to note, although he was a world class DM, he was a horrible player.

Having such a person to run game sessions for you is indeed a blessing!

Cheers,
Gary

 

[robertsconley]

Sure, but if they decide to do a complete 180 and go in a totally unexpected direction without any advance warning what is the DM supposed to do? I know I don't have 4 separate adventures planned for every contingency. I can always wing it decently enough, but there has to be some willingness of the players to try out what the DM has prepped. I'm lucky I guess in that my players don't really think about the game much outside of the game night so I can usually have a solid idea what they want to do from the last session.

I can't speak for Gary, but I been DMing since 1979. The trick, for me, is that over the years is developing a "toolkit" of adventure elements that I can throw together to form a particular encounter.

The second part is just well... wargaming knowing how to run your game as a game and being somewhat good at it. What are the best tactics for a 6th level wizard, a 9th level fighter. What variations exist and their strengths and weakness.

This is why I keep returning to running my GURPS game as opposed to running D20. As I know this stuff for GURPS cold through years of playing.

Now how do YOU develop these abilities without spending 20 years of playing? Read, and read again, read about people, read about places, read history, read about acting, when you are at a movie look at how put it together, what made Lords of the Rings so good compared to others like Willow and other fantasy films. Star Wars versus other sci-fi films. Learn about story development, how novels develop plot.

Then play your game as a game. Make character and run them against monster. Work with a friend and see how various combos work. This way your ruleset now becomes a tool for you to use.

Looking back the biggest difference between the old-timers and recent gamers today was the old-timers background in wargames, most started with some type of wargame and then got into role-playing games.

Hope this helps.
Rob Conley

 

[Col_Pladoh]

colonel pladoh, the original 'cowboy dm'

At one of TSR's small cons--Autumn Revel, Winter Fantasy, and Spring Revel--a large contingent of the DMG group came to assist us in managing events. All they asked unb return is that I run an adventure for them on Sunday. I actually prepared a combined outdoor trek and dungeon crawl as its conclusion, had it in a manilla folder, and grabbed it early Sunday morning when I left home to travel some 35 miles to Lake Geneva and the convention.

About 10 AM I gathered the group of around eight players to a large round table and hauled out my books and the folder. Lo and behold! It was one filled with copies of inter-office memos regarding some company matter I have long since forgotten/

I gulped, began winging a play session that went on for about six hours. Only one person in the group suspected I was making up the whole adventure as I went along, that near the end of it. I told the players about how I had messed up and not brought the prepared material I had done especially for them, displayed the memo copies and so forth. They assured me that what I had DMed was excellent, kept them guessing and on edge throughout. That was most gratifying, as I was nervous about such a special session not being very special because of my error.

Cheers,
Gary

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

Mainly off the top of my head. I rely on a map for general inspiration, but do not usually have any real notes at all, only pretend ones to make the players think the adventure has been planned. Of course my old-time regulars knew that wasn't the case, especially when they were returning to Greyhawk from the Land of Chin. as well as when dungeoneering, as all of them had seen the encounter notes page for one or more levels, single lines for each of 20 or so places on each level.

Dice assisted in that by indicating random encounters, what was encountered...if it fitted. Otherwise I would select the one that seemed right or make up something.

I've done that -- and I think every DM who's prepared to be honest will admit to it, at least occasionally.

I've also done it in prepared or published modules. When the players are having too easy a time of it based on the text, I'll suddenly drop a challenging encounter on them -- preferably one I've thought about in advance, but I've certainly pulled more than a few of them out of my a$$ at near-zero notice.

For larger dungeons, I've been known to run a Room Roster system. When this happens, I do flesh out maybe ten or a dozen rooms in the level at fixed points, but the rest of it is on a random table. I pregenerate a dozen sets of room contents. The players open the door into room 38, I roll a d12, up comes a "3". So I note that room 38 = room roster 3 (so it'll be the same next time they go in) and it all makes sense... that way I'm not needing to generate a load of content that isn't being used, and I can refresh the Room Roster later.

I'm also lazy with wand charges. I can't be bothered to keep track of them, so every time the player uses his or her wand, I roll a d20. If it comes up 1, I tell the player they're out of charges. Works like a charm.

Do you have similar tricks that you're prepared to share?

 

[Col_Pladoh]

Hi PapersAndPaychecks,

Outside of the random tables, dungeon componentsm etc. I have prepared over the years, most of which have been published when I wing it I try to suit the edventure to the players and their PCs.

As you note, keeping track of charges and missiles is a bother, so I make the players keep their own records. If I find one fudging the talley, the lot of whatever was being kept track of is lost to some unfortunate event.

I listen to what the players are saying about the adventure, and take inspiration from chance remarks...as I believe most other GMs are wont to do.

That's about all I can think of this close to lunch time

Cheers,
Gary

 

[haakon1]

My plan is to keep the honor point and start tracking them to the ocidental characters to measure how they are seem by the oriental people. I was planing to jettison only the NWP, as I don't think they are particularly well designed and I would need some adaptation to give them to the western characters.

Remembering back to the late 1980s . . . I don't think we used the NWP's for much, but they were good for atmosphere, which I found important in OA. It would be neat to do something like a diplomatic dinner party at the cherry blossom festival, where the PC's have to use NWP's in poetry to compete to gain influence. Very difficult for a gaijin, though.

BTW, you've seen "Ran", right? Akira Kurosawa doing "MacBeth" in medieval Japan.