Any news from Gygax Games yet?

It's been a while and I was wondering if anyone's heard anything?

I'd love to see Castle Zagyg finished.

I'd love to be proven wrong, but at this point I don't think that we'll ever see any product from Gygax Games.

She may look into something in the future, but at this time she has no immediate plans to publish any of Gary's works, although that could change depending on how things go.

The gaming market is really bad right now and I think she wants to wait to see if it picks up before deciding on anything. CZ was started in 2003 and the gaming market has pretty much gone downhill except for a few major players. If the gaming market never picks up after several years, she may go with a plan "B" to get Gary's writing out there.

Right now, Gail is focusing on the memorial project for Gary, as that is something that will last a lot longer, is not dependent on profit, and has a lot more people willing to see it done. (A lot more people would contribute to a Gygax memorial than would buy Castle Zagyg--potentially there are a lot more D&D fans out there who'd pay their respect that way then purchase a product).

With all due respect to Gail Gygax, I think she is missing her best opportunity to release EGG's works.

The OSR seems to picking up steam and there are plenty of people, like me, with a renewed interest in old school products... especially those penned by Gary Gygax himself. I realize that she needs to do what is best for herself financially but holding off on releasing anything, and failing to communicate any plan of action to EGG's fans, isn't going to better Gygax Games at all.

I fear that the longer she silently waits, the more EGG will pass out of the collective geek consciousness and that the draw of his name will be diminished.

Does anyone really see the tabletop RPG market *expanding* in the future?

I seriously doubt it.

If she's not going to publish now, I doubt we will ever see anything (unless she tries to salvage something to a smaller audience later).

(Unless she's thinking CRPG/MMO, in which case there may indeed be a better time in the future.)

cperkins said:

steam and there are plenty of people, like me, with a renewed interest in old school products... especially those penned by Gary Gygax himself. I realize that she needs to do what is best for herself financially but holding off on releasing anything, and failing to communicate any plan of action to EGG's fans, isn't going to better Gygax Games at all.

I fear that the longer she silently waits, the more EGG will pass out of the collective geek consciousness and that the draw of his name will be diminished.

Click to expand...

I doubt Gary will ever really fade from Geek consciousness, at least with the hard core. He's still the most famous RPG game designer out there. So I doubt she has to strike "now", otherwise it would just be saying the Old School is a fad.

The big problem though for the old school is--Gary doesn't have a lot of finished work for the system people most want to see. Most of his pure unpublished stuff revolves around Lejendary Adventures.

Castle Zagyg was him mostly giving notes to another. It might be in the best shape but still it's not as ideal as it was when originally proposed back in 2002/2003, due to changes, delays, and various factors.

Stonik was never committed to paper.

The "Shadowland" module (the original solicited WG7) required Skip Williams to help, and would not really be publishable outside of WoTC because it dealt with a lot of Greyhawk lore.

Even if Gary had notes on Greyhawk proper, you couldn't really publish them without going through a lot of awkward name changes.

Gary's proposals for 1e post UA are more or less lost in his mind and antiquity. I had suggested he consider creating the new classes hinted at in Dragon for C&C, but he didn't seem interested in writing rules for C&C other than a small 2-pager on multi/dual classing. I once asked for details on the Dumalduns, Dreggals, and Maelvis for LA, and he said he couldn't really remember any major details.

People need to remember that Gary, while having his own personal set of quality and things he wouldn't compromise on, didn't devote a lot of time to writing down stuff that was not commercial. In other words, unlike a guy like Ed Greenwood who did and does write Realms Lore on his own for his own campaign, Gary did not go through the craft of writing about his campaign settings if he would not likely benefit from them directly. Thus, DJ, a game he worked really hard on, as soon as the settlement was made, no more writing for that game system or world.

DaveMage said:

Does anyone really see the tabletop RPG market *expanding* in the future?

I seriously doubt it.

Click to expand...

Well, if there's anything about markets, it is cyclical. We might be hitting a valley, but there's always the opportunity for a new resurgence, maybe 5 or 10 years from now.

DaveMage said:

If she's not going to publish now, I doubt we will ever see anything (unless she tries to salvage something to a smaller audience later).

(Unless she's thinking CRPG/MMO, in which case there may indeed be a better time in the future.)

Click to expand...

I think the latter is what she may be considering, as Gary always wanted to have a computer game, and LA is perfect (it was originally designed as a computer game, that's why the term avatar is used for what we call character). Plus, that's a good way to either finance the print side of things, or to give Gary's works to a new generation that may not care about AD&D.

I also think that the former might be considered in the latter doesn't work out.

Who knows. Sure, marketing is a concern, but it shouldn't be the main issue here.

It's about how Gail and the Gygax are doing. Point is: we do not know what is going on.
Let's stop pretending we do for a moment. We don't.

When they're ready, they'll make their move and release some of Gary's works. Maybe that'll never happen, but I prefer to see them all well and good, rather than getting stuff I want at their expense, monetary, personal, and otherwise. I wish them all the best in the world.

JohnRTroy said:

Stonik was never committed to paper.

Click to expand...

FWIW, Stoink was left on Gary's office desk at TSR, unfortunately, per Rob Kuntz

JohnRTroy said:

The "Shadowland" module (the original solicited WG7) required Skip Williams to help, and would not really be publishable outside of WoTC because it dealt with a lot of Greyhawk lore.

Click to expand...

Easily handwaved, with or without an obvious decoder ring key

JohnRTroy said:

Even if Gary had notes on Greyhawk proper, you couldn't really publish them without going through a lot of awkward name changes.

Click to expand...

See above

JohnRTroy said:

People need to remember that Gary, while having his own personal set of quality and things he wouldn't compromise on, didn't devote a lot of time to writing down stuff that was not commercial. In other words, unlike a guy like Ed Greenwood who did and does write Realms Lore on his own for his own campaign, Gary did not go through the craft of writing about his campaign settings if he would not likely benefit from them directly. Thus, DJ, a game he worked really hard on, as soon as the settlement was made, no more writing for that game system or world.

Click to expand...

Good point, John.

I'm gonna go way against the grain here and go m'eh.

If something is actually done, great.

If not, in the 30 or so years this has been talked about, I've played a few official version (including yanking some of the joke stuff), as well as a lot of home brewed stuff and a lot of net stuff.

Gygax's original inspiration has moved WAY beyond him at this point and to be honest, I can't see a lot of what we'd get at this point being 'real' Gary as opposed to 'inspired by Gary' ala a lot of the Troll Lords material with his name on the cover.

Hope it does well. Hope the statue gets made, but in the meantime, I'm more anxious at getting back to some regular gaming than wondering what the OSR will be making of this lost potential.

The really sad thing is how Jeff Talanian was pushed off the Castle Zagyg project. Given the time he'd spent on it, and how good the Upper Works were, I had high hopes for the next installment. Honestly, at this stage it was only CZ that would interest me - and without Jeff, I don't think Gygax Games has a hope of producing it.