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.

 

[Aegir]

Welp, you sold me: just went and bought a load of LA PDFs, and looking forward to reading through them. Might be some time before I get to use the system, but I can already see where a few of the adventures would fit into my homebrew very well.

 

[haakon1]

That said, I did indeed find the concept of FtA quite inappropriate, but typical of TSR at the time. Creatively speaking, I do not believe they could find their butt with both hands.

Indeed. That's why I refer to it as "From the As*es".

 

[Col_Pladoh]

In a nutshell: you worry about what your character is doing and how he does it, and I'll worry about the numbers.

This I've found is most glaring when using the social skills. All too often you get a player who says, "I roll diplomacy to make him see things my way," instead of explaining what he says, or, even what "his way" is.

I suppose the best way to go about it is to simply try and take the numbers out of it. Let me (the DM) worry about the figures and how they interact, I just want to know what your PC does.

Yes indeed. What I typically do is to ask the player how his Avatar is going to convince the NAC to be agreeable. "What will your Avatar say to do that?"

Moving on: I'm checking out your LA Quickstart rules, and they look very interesting; not so different from something I've been wanting to do myself: take the rigidity of classes and such out of the equation and just let the PC be what he is, even if that happens to be a mage who can swing a greatsword, or rogue that augments his abilities with magics.

Are there any plans to release more of these books in PDF? I've got too many books as it is, and its way easier to just expand my hard drive space then it is to add a wing to my house for more books.

I am happy you find the system interesting. The Orders presented enable architypical Avatars to be played but in development over time with some fair amount of difference between those in the same Order. The Knacks and Quirks generally provide an interesting initial difference.

Guideon Thorn answered the second part of this. Bsfore the revised edition of the LA game is published there will be two core rules supplements forthcoming, More Beasts of Lejend and Tome of Knowldege. I do not know if these will be available on pdf.

Cheers,
Gary

 

[Col_Pladoh]

Dear Gary,

Not to push or anything, but how about a general description of how they are supposed to look. I am running them as NPCs and I would like to use better descriptions than "a big jovial man" or "an aging man " for Robliar and Mordie and i figured I'd go to the source

As a matter of fact u have nor given this matter much thought before this, as my mental picture of my PCs sufficed, it being rather vague.

Robilar, Tenser, Erac's Cousin, Terik, etc. not being my PCs I can not describe...altough I did insist that Otto, Rob's mage, was a burley chap resembling Friar Tuck, someone always joking and singing and prone to imbibing vast quantities of ale.

Mordenkainen I pictured as tall, lean, with a pale complexion tanned by sun and weather. His features are sharp, eyes gray. His hair is rather byshy, with a long moustache but no beard. He favors garments of gray with black or bright blue accents--girdle and blouse for example. His age apears to be somewhere around 50.

Bigby I envisioned as of medium height, bald, with prominent nose and large, dark eyes. He is also around age 50, but as he is rather plump, Bigby has few wrinkles. his hands are large and long-fingerd. His clothing is generally of deep green.

That's enough of that

Cheers,
Gary

 

[Col_Pladoh]

Welp, you sold me: just went and bought a load of LA PDFs, and looking forward to reading through them. Might be some time before I get to use the system, but I can already see where a few of the adventures would fit into my homebrew very well.

Have fun

Creating an Avatar or two is the most interesting way of getting into the system. If you need the list of Avatar Knacks and Quirks, email me personally, and I'll email them to you.

Cheers,
Gary

 

[Col_Pladoh]

Indeed. That's why I refer to it as "From the As*es".

I was not going to mention it, but that makes two of us

Cheerio,
Gary

 

[Geoffrey]

Before the revised edition of the LA game is published there will be two core rules supplements forthcoming, More Beasts of Lejend and Tome of Knowldege.

Gary, I hadn't heard of the Tome of Knowledge until now. Please tell us a bit about it.

 

[Col_Pladoh]

Gary, I hadn't heard of the Tome of Knowledge until now. Please tell us a bit about it.

It is a few minor corrections, some clarifications, and a lot of additional material for the players' and Lejend Masters' rules--most of the information appeared in Kejends magazine or on the LA game website boards, but a compilation is much handier for all concerned. There are more Powers and the like, a few new weapons, lots of new Knacks, more equipment on the lusts and a few new locations as well. Lots more too. TLG has had the ms. for at least a year now.

Cheers,
Gary

 

[Aegir]

Before the revised edition of the LA game is published there will be two core rules supplements forthcoming, More Beasts of Lejend and Tome of Knowledge.

Do you have any kind of ballpark estimate on when these come out?

 

[grodog]

Hi Gary---

When you were designing the various monsters in Grenadier's "Action Art" Monsters set (#8002) that featured the drow captain, drider, EHP, bugbear chief, etc. (see http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290095678408 for reference), what level of design input did you have? Did you select the monsters, provide descriptions for the sculptors, review the greens and then request revisions, etc.?

Regardless of these, have you designed other miniatures lines (perhaps some for the Minifigs line @ http://web.archive.org/web/20050205204432/http://users.accesscomm.ca/lmec/fgo_mfwg.htm)??

Thanks, as always