That time the US army intelligence infiltrated Gygax's war-gaming group

[Kramodlog]

Apparently it happened, according to a new bio on Gygax.

According to Michael Witwer’s new biography of Gygax, “Empire of Imagination: Gary Gygax and the Birth of Dungeons & Dragons,” U.S. Army intelligence sent two agents to infiltrate Gygax’s war-gaming circle in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, in the nineteen-seventies, believing that the group’s tabletop reënactments with miniature figures might be training sessions for would-be anti-government insurgents. Finding Gygax and his cohort to be harmless, they asked to join.

http://www.newyorker.com/books/page...oots-of-dungeons-dragons?mbid=social_facebook

And Gygax was a Jehovah's Witness that didn't celebrate Christmas because it was a pagan holiday. Then he sold a book called "Deities and Demigods".

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[D'karr]

Now that I think about it, I don't imagine that would fly too well nowadays.

How else would we be able to stand up against the Red Dawn? I mean we wouldn't have Thor and the Avengers to bail us out.

 

[Ranes]

I didn't know that nugget, Goldomark. Brilliant, thank you. It reminds me of the time British authorities impounded an imported consignment of Steve Jackson Games' Autoduellists Association Handbook supplement for Car Wars because they thought it was a terrorist weapons catalogue. Yep, our guys were too clever to fall for that Steve Jackson Games label piece of misdirection on the cover.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

How funny. I had heard about the Top Secret incident, but not this.

Considering how religious Gygax was, seeing his creation labeled “satanic” and then persecuted must have been painful for him.

 

[WayneLigon]

HARMLESS HISTORICAL NUTS
by Leslie Fish

As I was out shopping, expecting no harm
Two big F.B.I. men grabbed me by the arm
Dragged me into a cellar, shown lights in my eyes
Demanding full answers without any lies
About this new threat to good patriotism,
This Society for . . . Creative Anarchism.

I said they're just...
..... harmless historical nuts
Who wear boiler plates on their butts
Who dress up in clothes from the 12th century
To bash on each other with sticks and debris
And make up the worlds largest private army.....
Harmless historical nuts


I answered 'tis true to that club I belong
But pardon me gentlefolk, you've got the name wrong
Now, I swear by the cross and the host and the chrism
That last word is actually Anachronism
It just means outdated, pray why don't you look
In Sir Merriam Webster's reliable book

It'll says we're just....
..... harmless historical nuts
Who wear boiler plates on their butts
Who dress up in clothes from the 12th century
To bash on each other with sticks and debris
And make up the worlds largest private army.....
Harmless historical nuts


When finally persuaded to look up the word
They blushed and they winced loud enough to be heard
They hastily sent me back out on the street
But I new it wasn't over and once more we'd meet
So I passed on the warning to realms far and near
To give the impression for all the next year

That we're just...
..... harmless historical nuts
Who wear boiler plates on their butts
Who dress up in clothes from the 12th century
To bash on each other with sticks and debris
And make up the worlds largest private army.....
Harmless historical nuts


And yep, soon enough four infiltrators came in
All snooping for politics, sniffing for sin
Three went away again scratching their heads
But the fourth quit his job and turned stick jock instead
He's won coronets, he's in love with the sport
And we still have a copy of his last report

It says we're just...
..... harmless historical nuts
Who wear boiler plates on their butts
Who dress up in clothes from the 12th century
To bash on each other with sticks and debris
And make up the worlds largest private army.....
Harmless historical nuts
Harmless historical nuts

 

[Eltab]

If you get a copy of Grimtooth's Traps Fore, it states (to summarize):
Traps Three could not be released due to An Unnamed Government Agency confiscating the entire print run (plus the originals), in the belief that something illegal and dangerous - as in, how many people will get HURT should such mechanisms be installed in actual buildings? - was being encouraged.

 

[RadioKen]

If you get a copy of Grimtooth's Traps Fore, it states (to summarize):
Traps Three could not be released due to An Unnamed Government Agency confiscating the entire print run (plus the originals), in the belief that something illegal and dangerous - as in, how many people will get HURT should such mechanisms be installed in actual buildings? - was being encouraged.

And that's four years before the Secret Service raid on Steve Jackson Games. Though I'm pretty sure the crew at Catalyst were joking. After all, didn't they go straight from Fore to Ate?