D&D Historian Benn Riggs On Gary Gygax & Sexism

The recent book The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons 1970-1977 talks about the early years of D&D. In the book, authors Jon Peterson and Jason Tondro talk about the way the game, and its writers, approached certain issues. Not surprisingly, this revelation received aggressive "pushback" on social media because, well, that sort of thing does--in fact, one designer who worked with Gygax at the time labelled it "slanderous".

D&D historian Ben Riggs--author of Slaying the Dragon--delved into the facts. Note that the below was posted on Twitter, in that format, not as an article.

D&D Co-Creator Gary Gygax was Sexist. Talking About it is Key to Preserving his Legacy.

The internet has been rending its clothes and gnashing its teeth over the introduction to an instant classic of TTRPG history, The Making of Original D&D 1970-1977. Published by Wizards of the Coast, it details the earliest days of D&D’s creation using amazing primary source materials.

Why then has the response been outrage from various corners of the internet? Well authors Jon Peterson and Jason Tondro mention that early D&D made light of slavery, disparaged women, and gave Hindu deities hit points. They also repeated Wizard’s disclaimer for legacy content which states:"These depictions were wrong then and are wrong today. This content is presented as it was originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed."

In response to this, an army of grognards swarmed social media to bite their shields and bellow. Early D&D author Rob Kuntz described Peterson and Tondro’s work as “slanderous.” On his Castle Oldskull blog, Kent David Kelly called it “disparagement.” These critics are accusing Peterson and Tondro of dishonesty. Lying, not to put too fine a point on it.So, are they lying? Are they making stuff up about Gary Gygax and early D&D?

Well, let's look at a specific example of what Peterson and Tondro describe as “misogyny “ from 1975's Greyhawk. Greyhawk was the first supplement ever produced for D&D. Written by Gary Gygax and Rob Kuntz, the same Rob Kuntz who claimed slander above, it was a crucial text in the history of the game. For example, it debuted the thief character class. It also gave the game new dragons, among them the King of Lawful Dragons and the Queen of Chaotic Dragons. The male dragon is good, and female dragon is evil. (See Appendix 1 below for more.)

​

It is a repetition of the old trope that male power is inherently good, and female power is inherently evil. (Consider the connotations of the words witch and wizard, with witches being evil by definition, for another example.)

Now so-called defenders of Gygax and Kuntz will say that my reading of the above text makes me a fool who wouldn’t know dragon’s breath from a virtue signal. I am ruining D&D with my woke wokeness. Gygax and Kuntz were just building a fun game, and decades later, Peterson and Tondro come along to crap on their work by screeching about misogyny.

(I would also point out that as we are all white men of a certain age talking about misogyny, the worst we can expect is to be flamed online. Women often doing the same thing get rape or death threats.)

Critics of their work would say that Peterson and Tondro are reading politics into D&D. Except that when we return to the Greyhawk text, we see that it was actually Gygax and Kuntz who put “politics” into D&D.

The text itself comments on the fact that the lawful dragon is male, and the chaotic one is female. Gygax and Kuntz wrote: “Women’s lib may make whatever they wish from the foregoing.”

​

The intent is clear. The female is a realm of chaos and evil, so of course they made their chaotic evil dragon a queen.

Yes, Gygax and Kuntz are making a game, but it is a game whose co-creator explicitly wrote into the rules that feminine power—perhaps even female equality—is by nature evil. There is little room for any other interpretation.

The so-called defenders of Gygax may now say that he was a man of his time, he didn’t know better, or some such. If only someone had told him women were people too in 1975! Well, Gygax was criticized for this fact of D&D at the time. And he left us his response.

Writing in EUROPA, a European fanzine, Gygax said:“I have been accused of being a nasty old sexist-male-Chauvinist-pig, for the wording in D&D isn’t what it should be. There should be more emphasis on the female role, more non-gendered names, and so forth."

"I thought perhaps these folks were right and considered adding women in the ‘Raping and Pillaging[’] section, in the ‘Whores and Tavern Wenches’ chapter, the special magical part dealing with ‘Hags and Crones’...and thought perhaps of adding an appendix on ‘Medieval Harems, Slave Girls, and Going Viking’. Damn right I am sexist. It doesn’t matter to me if women get paid as much as men, get jobs traditionally male, and shower in the men’s locker room."

"They can jolly well stay away from wargaming in droves for all I care. I’ve seen many a good wargame and wargamer spoiled thanks to the fair sex. I’ll detail that if anyone wishes.”

So just to summarize here, Gygax wrote misogyny into the D&D rules. When this was raised with him as an issue at the time, his response was to offer to put rules on rape and sex slavery into D&D.

The outrage online directed at Peterson and Tondro is not only entirely misplaced and disproportional, and perhaps even dishonest in certain cases...

Part 2: D&D Co-Creator Gary Gygax was Sexist. Talking About it is Key to Preserving his Legacy....it is also directly harming the legacies of Gygax, Arneson, Kuntz and the entire first generation of genius game designers our online army of outraged grognards purport to defend.

How? Let me show you.The D&D player base is getting more diverse in every measurable way, including age, gender, sexual orientation, and race. To cite a few statistics, 81% of D&D players are Millenials or Gen Z, and 39% are women. This diversity is incredible, and not because the diversity is some blessed goal unto itself. Rather, the increasing diversity of D&D proves the vigor of the TTRPG medium. Like Japanese rap music or Soviet science fiction, the transportation of a medium across cultures, nations, and genders proves that it is an important method for exploring the human condition. And while TTRPGs are a game, they are also clearly an important method for exploring the human condition. The fact the TTRPG fanbase is no longer solely middle-aged Midwestern cis men of middle European descent...

...the fact that non-binary blerds and Indigenous trans women and fat Polish-American geeks like me and people from every bed of the human vegetable garden ...

find meaning in a game created by two white guys from the Midwest is proof that Gygax and Arneson were geniuses who heaved human civilization forward, even if only by a few feet.

So, as a community, how do we deal with the ugly prejudices of our hobby’s co-creator who also baked them into the game we love? We could pretend there is no problem at all, and say that anyone who mentions the problem is a liar. There is no misogyny to see. There is no **** and there is no stink, and anyone who says there is naughty word on your sneakers is lying and is just trying to embarrass you.

I wonder how that will go? Will all these new D&D fans decide that maybe D&D isn’t for them? They know the stink of misogyny, just like they know **** when they smell it. To say it isn’t there is an insult to their intelligence. If they left the hobby over this, it would leave our community smaller, poorer, and suggest that the great work of Gygax, Arneson, Kuntz, and the other early luminaries on D&D was perhaps not so great after all…

We could take the route of Disney and Song of the South. Wizards could remove all the PDFs of early D&D from DriveThruRPG. They could refuse to ever reprint this material again. Hide it. Bury it. Erase it all with copyright law and lawyers. Yet no matter how deeply you bury the past, it always tends to come back up to the surface again. Heck, there are whole podcast series about that. And what will all these new D&D fans think when they realize that a corporation tried to hide its own mistakes from them?

Again, maybe they decide D&D isn’t the game for them. Or maybe when someone tells you there is **** on your shoe, you say thanks, clean it off, and move on.

We honor the old books, but when they tell a reader they are a lesser human being, we should acknowledge that is not the D&D of 2024. Something like...

“Hey reader, we see you in all your wondrous multiplicity of possibility, and if we were publishing this today, it wouldn’t contain messages and themes telling some of you that you are less than others. So we just want to warn you. That stuff’s in there.”

Y’know, something like that legacy content warning they put on all those old PDFs on DriveThruRPG. And when we see something bigoted in old D&D, we talk about it. It lets the new, broad, and deep tribe of D&D know that we do not want bigotry in D&D today. Talking about it welcomes the entire human family into the hobby.To do anything less is to damn D&D to darkness. It hobbles its growth, gates its community, denies the world the joy of the game, and denies its creators their due. D&D’s creators were visionary game designers. They were also people, and people are kinda ****** up. So a necessary step in making D&D the sort of cultural pillar that it deserves to be is to name its bigotries and prejudices when you see them. Failure to do so hurts the game by shrinking our community and therefore shrinking the legacy of its creators.

Appendix 1: Yeah, I know Chaos isn’t the same as Evil in OD&D.

But I would also point out as nerdily as possible that on pg. 9 of Book 1 of OD&D, under “Character Alignment, Including Various Monsters and Creatures,” Evil High Priests are included under the “Chaos” heading, along with the undead. So I would put to you that Gygax did see a relationship between Evil and Chaos at the time.

Ben Riggs​

Look, folks, we know how a conversation like this goes on the internet. Because, internet. Read the rules you agreed to before replying. The banhammer will be used on those who don't do what they agreed to.

 

[Steampunkette]

Which was written after he created the character.

The only one who knows what Gary was thinking when he made Tiamat is Gary and he’s not answering questions right now.

He created the character as an unnamed "Dragon Queen of Chaos" and later provided the name Tiamat.

D&D Historian Benn Riggs On Gary Gygax & Sexism

The recent book The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons 1970-1977 talks about the early years of D&D. In the book, authors Jon Peterson and Jason Tondro talk about the way the game, and its writers, approached certain issues. Not surprisingly, this revelation received aggressive "pushback" on...

www.enworld.org

@Mannahnin provided the receipts.

She was -just- the evil chaos dragon queen in 1975 when he made the sexist callout to feminists and gained the name Tiamat in 1977's Monster Manual.

She wasn't even referred to as referencing the Babylonian Deity 'til 1980.

The "The Tiamat argument is weak" argument is dead.

 

[Iosue]

I always thought it had more to do with being rushed for time and not having the resources to properly edit.

I wouldn't be surprised if he would resist the administrations of a good editor, but I don't recall ever reading or hearing anyone saying this about him.

I'm pretty sure there are folks talking about this in the "When We Were Wizards" podcast, but I don't recall who or in what episode(s). However, there is this Wired article about B3 Palace of the Silver Princess, with these quotes from former editor Stephen Sullivan:

Stephen Sullivan, TSR editor and artist, 1980-84: Jean [Wells] kind of straddled two camps. She was a good friend of mine, and very friendly with most of the designers. But she was also kind of part of management, and she was a good friend of [D&D co-creator] Gary Gygax’s. So when Jean sent this through, it came through with the same edict as Gary’s modules, which was, "Don't touch this language."

So when this thing came through, and the development people wanted to edit it, Jean went to Gary and said—and I know I’m going to make this sound more harsh than it actually was—"They’re changing my stuff, tell them not to do it." And Gary reminded us all that we were not to change the designers’ word or intent in the work. We were just to proof it, do the production line, get it done.

 

[jasper]

He created the character as an unnamed "Dragon Queen of Chaos" and later provided the name Tiamat.

D&D Historian Benn Riggs On Gary Gygax & Sexism

The recent book The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons 1970-1977 talks about the early years of D&D. In the book, authors Jon Peterson and Jason Tondro talk about the way the game, and its writers, approached certain issues. Not surprisingly, this revelation received aggressive "pushback" on...

www.enworld.org

@Mannahnin provided the receipts.

She was -just- the evil chaos dragon queen in 1975 when he made the sexist callout to feminists and gained the name Tiamat in 1977's Monster Manual.

She wasn't even referred to as referencing the Babylonian Deity 'til 1980.

The "The Tiamat argument is weak" argument is dead.

My Cleric cast raise dead on "The Tiamat argument is weak" argument. IT IS NOW ALIVE> It iS ALIVe. AVlie.

 

[ColinChapman]

The only one who knows what Gary was thinking when he made Tiamat is Gary and he’s not answering questions right now.

That's where you're wrong! Pass me that shovel!

 

[Maxperson]

Well, that argument seems to have completely fallen apart once we noticed that she didn't even start being called Tiamat until two years later.

Not really. We still can't say with certainty that he had attacking women in mind when he created the rulers. Only that he used them later to attack women.

 

[Reef]

Does it matter whether or not he created Tiamat specifically to attack women, or simply found it a convenient way to attack women after the fact?!?

Are we down to splitting hairs so fine that the defender's are down to saying "Ok, he was sexist, here, and here, and maybe there. But you can't prove he was at this specific time!"

The fact that Tiamat was named Tiamat was never the strongest evidence. The "Nah nah, Women's Lib!" which directly followed it, was. He may have had intentions pure as snow when adding Tiamat to the lore, but he completely undid that by his sexist taunts.

 

[increment]

TSR drew a number of its ideas about monsters in the mid-late 1970s from the Lehners' Fantastic Bestiary. It identifies Tiamat (on page 189) as a "serpent-monster of chaos." Not gendered, and possibly not a direct inspiration for the account in 1975 Greyhawk, but still might be a factor in how the name got attached to a chaotic monster.

 

[Hussar]

Does it matter whether or not he created Tiamat specifically to attack women, or simply found it a convenient way to attack women after the fact?!?

Are we down to splitting hairs so fine that the defender's are down to saying "Ok, he was sexist, here, and here, and maybe there. But you can't prove he was at this specific time!"

The fact that Tiamat was named Tiamat was never the strongest evidence. The "Nah nah, Women's Lib!" which directly followed it, was. He may have had intentions pure as snow when adding Tiamat to the lore, but he completely undid that by his sexist taunts.

That whooshing sound you hear? That's the sound of people missing the point faster than Neo dodging bullets.

 

[Chaosmancer]

And in doing so you've just pushed back as DM. Perfect.

At some tables (maybe including yours) this would be accepted and everyone just carries on. At others where people are more stubborn there'd be an argument - I'm very, very used to this - until eventually the DM has no choice but to say something like "This is my ruling, and I am god: abide or die."

If I have ever gotten to that line, where I am forced to state that they will either accept my ruling or their character will die, I have failed as a DM and a friend.

I have had, maybe one person in my entire time DMing, who I could even conceive of needing to set down the hard line of "I am the GM, this is my call. There will be no further discussion." And I never needed to have that conversation with them, because I have so often worked to help the players, to make them more awesome, that they know when I say something is too much, that I'm not just taking their toys away, I have legitimate reasons.

It is likely too late for the culture of your gaming group to change, but when your players see you as an ally, they don't force you to pull the "I am the god of this game" card, because they know you would help them, if it was reasonable.

How do you play a captured character other than:

DM: "What do you do now?"
Player(s): "Given that we're near-naked, bound, and locked in, we stay put until someone comes that we can talk to."

Keep in mind that ideally the players of the captured characters don't know what the rest of the party is doing, and vice-versa.

You ignore that ideal because the players should know not to metagame on things happening in scenes they don't see? I mean, you can't keep the captured person ignorant of what the party is doing unless you banish them from the room, and that seems extreme, especially if you aren't going to then take breaks to go talk to them and have them do their own thing.

But, yeah, you have them talk to people. Play out the interrogation session, have them talk with other prisoners, let them attempt to work towards their own escape that parallels the rest of the party. Let them keep playing their character, just from jail. Just like you would if the entire party was captured and jailed.

I much prefer the easy-come easy-go model of 1e, where there's lots of items to be found but they're also relatively easy to destroy. The beholder-rust monster fight you describe sounds a bit over the top; the DM could have achieved much the same end by simply fireballing you all a few times and - when you failed your saves - letting your geat melt down when it too started failing saves.

You are mixing editions again, gear doesn't have saving throws against fireball.

And, sure, you may like easy-come easy-go, but quite literally I cannot think of a single person I have ever played with who has. We don't have tons of magical items at the end of every quest, we might have two or three. And they generally don't overlap, you aren't going to find an incredible magical sword... then find an even better magic sword next adventure which completely invalidates the cool sword you found. Because then you previous cool item is left in the dust and no one cares about it anymore.

I've only ever DMed one true TPK, but I can think of at least half a dozen occasions where of a party of 6-10 characters there was one survivor, or maybe two. The game and campaign continued each time.

The trick is to focus on the story (or mission, whatever) of the party as an entity; which can resemble a Ship of Theseus as its parts (the characters) come and go for various reasons. "You're new to this party? Good. Here's what we're doing, and why. Tell us your adventuring capabilities now; we'll get to know you otherwise over beer once we're back in town."

I know how to do that in theory, but in practice it doesn't work like that at my tables. Currently one of the games we are playing involves one character being a princess whose family was murdered by her aunt. Most of the party are also survivors from that event, who have sworn loyalty to the princess, and had various mentors and important people killed in the coup. We are her advisors.

One person had their character leave, and played a myconid child. Who had none of this. They had no connection to the kingdom, no loyalty to the princess, they were mostly non-verbal. Now that person is changing characters again, and I hope that the DM has worked with them, but frankly... it is going to be hard to say why we should trust them. We aren't going to tell them "We will get to know you later, come along" because we are at war.

In a game I am running, I had a druid who had the speak with animals spell, so I was going to have a lot of animal based information for her. She ended up in a car accident, and needed physical therapy, so she bowed out of the game. If that had happened AFTER we were using her information to learn important plot points... oops that's gone? The villain plot meant to focus on her backstory is either going to go on without having any impact on the party, or need to be completely scrapped.

I definitely understand a game where the plot doesn't extend much beyond "Let us rob the tomb of Acerak" that the PCs can be treated like the boards of a ship, because none of them have personal stakes or personal story beats. But when I run, I tie people into the story. I find the reason that YOUR character cares about the ongoing events and wants to do something and find chances for you to further YOUR goals, with the help of the party. And that planning and design dies when the party member does.

If the DM/game doesn't follow through now and then on the threats presented then sooner or later they aren't really seen as threats any more, and once this happens play can degenerate in a real hurry.

Never had that experience. You are talking about players being bad actors, and essentially trying to force themselves to lose. But no one I have ever gamed with has done that.

Maybe I should put it a bit differently: it's the players' job to try to win the game; it's the DM's job to win the at-table arguments.

Which, again, isn't really how I see it working. You can't "win" DnD. And there shouldn't be arguments happening at the table that you are trying to win.

The first adventure in my current game was Keep on the Borderlands. Four players (all experienced players but two of them new to our crew at the time), two PCs each most of the time.

Over 20-odd sessions they lost 22 characters (!) in that disaster of an adventure and I don't think any of us stopped laughing the whole time. Crazy, gonzo, anything-goes adventuring by a party who collectively didn't have a clue but kept banging away regardless. Wonderful stuff!

Stories from that mess (which was 16 years ago, now) still get told and laughed about. And to me, that's what's important: the fun in the moment and the stories that last for years later.

And everyone I have ever played with would have started a new campaign after the first or second major loss. None of us would have been invested anymore. Sure, it sounds like you guys had a blast and some gonzo silly fun, but we don't play that style of game. WE aren't going to be laughing at character death hijinks.

We have fun in the moment. We have stories that last for years later. But we don't accomplish that by having characters die in funny ways. Those aren't the stories that interest anyone I play with.

 

[Chaosmancer]

TSR drew a number of its ideas about monsters in the mid-late 1970s from the Lehners' Fantastic Bestiary. It identifies Tiamat (on page 189) as a "serpent-monster of chaos." Not gendered, and possibly not a direct inspiration for the account in 1975 Greyhawk, but still might be a factor in how the name got attached to a chaotic monster.

View attachment 373163

Sure, but how he found the name is rather irrelevant.

1) He clearly decided that the evil and chaotic figure was a woman before he went looking for the name.
2) He clearly decided to say "suck it feminists" after giving her a historical name, because he knew point 1 would be contentious with some people.

And as much as someone might want to try and argue that Gygax calling out easily offended people for a laugh, and "it wasn't serious" remember we still have ALL OF THE OTHER EVIDENCE. We know he called himself a sexist, we know he didn't believe in women's equality, we know he believed that women were biologically incapable of enjoying his work, we know he believed that any woman joining any tabletop game was a recipe for disaster... he told us all of that.