D&D General Whom has had a greater impact on D&D? Gygax or Greenwood?

[RobJN]

Arneson. Because co-creator. And Blackmoor

 

[aco175]

Gygax by default since he created the whole thing, but FR over Greyhawk if I was picking one of their worlds.

 

[not-so-newguy]

Picked Gygax. Easy choice for me.

Perhaps less easier choices

Who had greater influence on D&D? Arneson or Gygax

OR

Who had greater influence on D&D 5E? Gygax or Greenwood

 

[Zardnaar]

IDK if Greenwood would even be number 1 for FR.

One could argue RA Salvatore and Eric L Boyd have done more.

 

[Iry]

Arneson and Gygax are like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. The industry would have gotten here sooner or later, but these were the names that made it happen. I'm going with Mearls and Crawford for modern D&D, because the modern renaissance wouldn't have been possible without a good product to put into people's hands. Hickman, Weiss, Greenwood, and Mercer are certainly appreciated, but they are the sauce I put on my meat when I'm not making my own.

Greenwood is a pretty cool guy, and I don't want to discount the importance of a good melting pot setting. But melting pots mean people set up shop in your sandbox and play with your toys, making it impossible to tell where your contribution ends and theirs begins.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I mean... there wouldn’t be a D&D without Gygax, so he kinda wins by default.

My exact thoughts.

 

[Kodiak3D]

Other: Tolkien

 

[Mistwell]

Early 2e, especially in terms of Monster design essentially Adopted/Emulated
Ed Greenwood's Ecology articles in Dragon.

Who cares about "early 2e?" That's not even a highly influential era of D&D. Concerning a series of articles that are nostalgic but couldn't even cut it as a regular type of article in later years.

To refer to the Forgotten Realms as "Just a setting" is akin to referring to the
Marvel MCU as "Just a bunch of movies".

No, it's not. FR isn't even the most influential of the settings across all the editions, Ed's contributions are not even a majority of the contributions to that setting these days, and published settings are not even used by a majority of the players, much less a specific one.

But hey, you can look at the results of this poll. You stand with one or two other people total. This is about as skewed a result as you will ever find on ENWorld for a poll. I can't recall a poll that had a 95% agreement!

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I can't recall a poll that had a 95% agreement!

There was that "are you a DM or player" one, but you're correct overall.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Other

You should ask this of different age groups. All us old farts here know all these names, some better than others, but you ask this of newer players in their teens or early 20's and they won't have a clue to most of the names and I would not be surprised if the name the majority give you is Matt Mercer, because of all his streamed games and his setting.