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.

 

[Silver Moon]

No question about it! There are still large and active audiences for OD&D and AD&D.

Absolutely, my weekly AD&D group had our 25th anniversary earlier this year and is still going strong.

The C&C RPG system is gaining considerable following because it is akin to OAD&D and a vital game.

I am signed up to play at Castle Zagyg C&C game later this month that Jeff Talanian is running. Very much looking forward to it.

And rest assured i had a lot of fun creating and playing games of mine and others back then too...as I still do nowadays

As do I, my Boot Hill/D&D hybrid campaign (you had read the Story Hour/Campaign Journals a few years back) continues to thrive as a both a table game and also a very successful Play-by-Post campaign. I'm currently running a spin-off module in that campaign setting for my teenage daughter and several of her High School friends. I never would have even thought of the concept if you hadn't printed the crossover rules in the "Sixgun and Sorcery" section of the DMG.

 

[Col_Pladoh]

The first CZ module was good indeed, if I do say so myself, and the ones coming are going to be even better. The third has just been completed in next-to final draft. Two more and the first boxed set will be ready for release.

As for combination genre RPGs I have loved them since I did the Sturmgeshutz & Sorcery tabletop scenario when Hector was a pup. I do want to work up Wild West genre rules for the LA game system, as it will be easy to include the supernatural and even magic thus.

Cheers,
Gary

 

[Gentlegamer]

There is no saving throw vs. Gary Gygax.

 

[Col_Pladoh]

There is no saving throw vs. Gary Gygax.

That's a warning to all those that dare to question or criticize my work!


Gary

 

[Anson Caralya]

Isle of the Ape

Gary,

I'm thinking of running Isle of the Ape, and after a refresher reading, I have a few questions I thought I'd run past you. As always, my apologies if I've missed coverage of this elsewhere. And, of course, thanks for making yourself available for questions like these!

Regarding the non-functional spell list, I gather the idea was to bar instantaneous/planar travel, summoning, and divination spells, as the demi-plane is isolated from the ethereal, astral, and other planes, and, of deities, only Zagyg knows of what happens there and he's not the helpful kind. However, I think there are a few more spells that fall into these categories: conjure animals, succor, vanish, beckon (dismissal reversal), and implore (abjure reversal) pop out at me when looking through the cleric and m-u spell lists (I don't expect any druids or illusionists for the game). I'm also wondering about stone tell, given commune with nature is on the list. A really strict view of the demi-plane's isolation could even rule out extra-dimensional spells like Mordenkainen's Magnificant Mansion and maze, but given no prohibition on bags of holding and the like, I figure that's probably taking it too far. (And it's not that I'm looking to prohibit more spells; I'd just like a consistently applied rationale for whatever is prohibited in the likely event it comes up in the intro with Tenser and post-game discussions.) Also, why place invisibility to animals on the list? If it's OK to speak with, charm, and hold them through spells, why not be invisible to them? I'm guessing it's less a prohibition and more an indication of ineffectiveness against dinosaurs, but then again, the spell's description actually uses a T. Rex as an example of an affected creature. My inclination is to add conjure animals, succor, vanish, beckon, and implore to the banned list and remove invisibility to animals, but I'd certainly like to hear your thoughts.

Are there any spell restrictions on the "formless, featureless plain" setting for the climactic battle with the daemons? I'm guessing no, as this is a "neutral zone" and the daemons' tactics include use of teleport and word of recall... but then again, that leaves the PC's free to just teleport away with the Crook, which seems to skirt the "rules" Iggwilv and others are following in bringing about this confrontation in this particular way, with its particular outcomes regarding control of the Crook.

Lastly, the text of the module presents "giant carnivorous apes" as minor monsters, hounds for the Kawibusas on the peninsula and wild elsewhere, and "gargantuan apes" as Oonga and the 5 females. The random encounter and statistic summary tables inside the module's covers don't fit with this, though -- I'm assuming where the tables say "giant carnivorous apes" one should read "gargantuan apes", with the exception of the number of such apes encountered (3-8 or 2-5), which I imagine should be reduced to 1 (a random encounter of multiple gargantuan apes seems extremely tough even for level 20+ parties). Then the "carnivorous apes" of the tables can be equated to the "giant carnivorous apes" of the text. Or am I missing something somewhere?

Thanks!

 

[Gentlegamer]

Gary Gygax loves Gelatinous Cubes. Especially with Cool Whip.

 

[Orius]

There is no saving throw vs. Gary Gygax.

Seems appropriate.

I've been away for a while, but I've returned. I'm glad to see that Gary still seems to be to alive and well. I just kind of jumped into the end of this thread, I forget where exaclty I left off in the long line of "Ask Gary" threads, but I'll just go with the flow.

 

[ghul]

When a minotaur is forced to find its way through a hostile maze, it has to face a pole-arm bearing Gary Gygax at the end.

 

[Joseph Elric Smith]

Yes, and then the minotaur has to figure out which of the 25 pole arms it is
Ken

 

[Col_Pladoh]

Deleted duplicate post.