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.

 

[Joseph Elric Smith]

Wow thanks for th elink
Ken

The link below leads you to the website of this fellow who did a Solomon Kane short film. In 4 minutes this film captures REH better than the Conan movies were able to do in 4 hours.

http://www.kanefilms.com/SolomonKane/

All the best,
--Jeff T.

 

[Particle_Man]

The problem I had with the movie is that it was such a lame ripoff of The Seven Samurai.

assuming this is not a joke, walk we through this one slowly. Aside from group of people go to protect village, and some of the group of people die, how is The Thirteenth Warrior anything like The Seven Samurai?

 

[RFisher]

I really love the first Conan movie. Don't care how faithful to the source material it is. Fun movie.

Note that I did not say the movie was bad. In fact, I have a really hard time saying whether I liked it or not because its REH veneer created expectations for me that the film didn't deliver. If it'd been called "Gronan" or "Korgoth", I'd've had a much easier time judging it on its own merits.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Have you guys read the John Crichton book they based 13th Warrior off of, Eaters of the Dead? Significantly more fun to read and its short under 300 pgs. Told as the diary or thoughts of the Arabian man as he deals with all this brutal and crazy viking culture.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Indeed. Tried the sequel; didn't like it. Got the collectors edition of the movie. Love it -- significantly better movie than the theatrical release.

"Crom, I have never prayed to you before. I have no tongue for it. No one, not even you, will remember if we were good men or bad, why we fought, or why we died. All that matters is that two stood against many. That's what's important! Valor pleases you, Crom, so grant me one request: Grant me revenge! And if you do not listen, then to hell with you!"

For me that was my first experiences with Conan. I had gotten into Fantasy gaming a year or so before that and Conan was just killer. The first time I experienced the source material was in the Dark Horse comic series that adapted the Howard tales, great comic but I quit reading a while back. I do have an old copy of Howard's Conan the Conqueror novel, but haven't found time to read it.

 

[Col_Pladoh]

The link below leads you to the website of this fellow who did a Solomon Kane short film. In 4 minutes this film captures REH better than the Conan movies were able to do in 4 hours.

http://www.kanefilms.com/SolomonKane/

All the best,
--Jeff T.

I saw it one on Youtube, and I concur. It is pure REH without extraneous input from someone seeking to "improve" it by forcing his own vision onto the work.

Cheers,
Gary

 

[Col_Pladoh]

When my group played The Village of Hommlet, we defeated Lareth's men and took the survivors prisoner. To make sure Lareth couldn't cast any spells, one of our fighters smashed his jaw and bound his hands. This prompted one of the other players to do his dead-on Al Pacino impression for the rest of the game session (Michael Corleone got his jaw busted when he was arrested in The Godfather). When the party handed Lareth over to the village elders (who decided to try him and string him up), this crazy guy starts with the whole "I'm out of order, YOU'RE out of order!" shtick and right before they hanged him, he did the "I'm dyin' over here!" bit. We had to stop the game we were laughing so hard.

Levity in tha game is great IMO. A bit of comedy reinforces the drama of past events, that to come as well.

Cheers,
Gary

 

[Col_Pladoh]

If not "Conan", what about "Red Dawn" or the bits of the original "Dirty Harry" that he wrote?

Editorial comment: I think "Red Dawn" is a ridiculous movie with lots of truly stupid stuff in it, but I still think it's amusing, and a good time capsule of the time it was made and what paranoias existed then. Sort of like "War Games", only written by someone who was drunk at the time.

Red Dawn was a grade B flick for certain, and I do not believe that a bit of script writing can be classified as credit for a good motion picture.


Gary

 

[Col_Pladoh]

Worse still, that movie is part of that most fiendish of genres:






THE CHICK FLICK! AAAAAIIIIIEEEEEE!



Though the cinematography by Vittorio Storaro was amazing.

Gail was not at all fond of 300 which we (or more properly I) watched last night, and gransdon Mike is watching at this very moment. It is the sort of movie all chicks should enjoy...but do not

Cheerio,
Gary

 

[Col_Pladoh]

I tend to agree. Though I wouldn't go as far as you would in saying M-U's were the be-all-and-end all, I do think M-U's had a very low survival probability at lower levels in AD&D, and were more powerful than the other classes at higher levels. Fighters, on the other hand, took a strong lead and weakened over time. Clerics and thief-types were more in the middle -- overall, clerics seem the most durable characters and got decent power at high levels.

Perhaps I only say that because my highest level character was a cleric . . .

If the group is playing cooperatively, the others protect the low-level m-u most assiduously knowing that later on he will be the one that will carry the day for them/ Thus the viabillity if such a character should be high when part of a thoughtful player group

Cheers,
Gary