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.)

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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.”

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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.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I think we should take a step back and assume good faith here. I brought this up because a poster said something to the effect 'but a historian of D&D said' and that prompted me to raise a question I have long had about people we label as historians of D&D in these discussions. I see it as more of a side point and not especially connecting to how I feel about this particular discussion.

Why should I assume good faith here? I want to, I genuinely do, but this thread has been utterly filled to the brim with people who are not speaking in good faith. We had someone bring up the fears of cancel culture, with the evidence of a jailed and convicted serial rapist, then attempt to defend that example with the idea that it used to be easier to perpetrate rape against people in the past. Other examples have included people all but demanding that we must prove Gygax was worse than any other person in the 70's before we can call him sexist.

Plenty of people in this thread have not been acting in good faith.

So, it is difficult to look at your posts, whose main thrust seems to be "these might not be historians and their book might contain falsehoods, but I've never read it and have no specific examples of any problems with it" and assume a good faith effort, rather than yet another attempt to discredit the disclaimer and paint their words as a political attack on the soul of DnD. Heck, because of this "not really a history book" claim, we had yet another poster come in, and claim that this really can't be a history book, because it doesn't talk about WoTC's business practices. WoTC, who was not incorporated as a business until 1990, not being covered in a book about 1970 until 1977. And that seemed to be yet another attempt to cast doubt on the evidence of Gygax's wrong doings, because if WoTC is hiding their own crimes, and emphasizing someone elses... well, maybe those are lies right? After all, this isn't a history book, it wasn't peer reviewed, it wasn't published by an academy, so why should believe it?

This is why we keep pressing you on any specific issues you have, because if I take this in good faith, you would be satisfied with us stating that it is not an "Academic history book" just so things are properly categorized. But once it becomes a discussion on whether or not the information in the book is reliable, then we are back on "this is a witch hunt against Gygax as WoTC tries to destroy the game we love and cast out all of us old fans because they hate us with a burning passion"

In terms of what I have read and my thoughts on this discussion, I read the preface that @Steampunkette posted, and like I have said a million times, I am not interested in defending things Gygax has said. But I also can see how a preface like that is going to generate controversy and debate because it hits on a lot of issues we have debated in D&D. In terms of the quotes by Riggs in the opening of this thread. A lot of what is here certainly looks like sexist language. I do have some reservations about context (for example I couldn't track down the issue where he said the particularly egregious thing, and that made it hard for me to know if there was any broader context to the statement that might alter my sense of the tone.....but it is obviously a pretty inflammatory statement). I think there can be a more nuanced discussion around what that means, what tropes in D&D necessarily stem from that, if said tropes need to be removed because of their history and who wrote them, etc. I tend to take less of a 'tropes need to purified' approach than some of the posters in this thread I think.

No one in this entire thread has once talked about "purifying" tropes. We haven't talked about modern DnD almost at all. The entire purpose of this thread has been to point out that the people attacking Peterson and Tondro for the disclaimer are wrong, and Gygax was a sexist. There are no calls to DO anything with that information, simply acknowledge it was true. So if you don't have any interest in defending Gygax... then that's the end of it.

There is also the question of whether you can pin a person as complicated as Gygax to his worst moments in print (I don't know if that particular statement was him fully expressing the complexity of his views on sex and gender, if it was somewhat that but also him venting frustration, or if it was an attempt to be witty gone wrong: I think there are a number of angles this stuff can be examined from, and I think you have to be a little cautious when attributing motives to people who have died). Honestly I don't take any issue with peopel finding what he said sexist, or feeling the game is. And personally, based on what I know about Gary's politics, I don't think I share many of his views at all. But I also think people are taking a very hard line here insisting everyone has to agree with one interpretation, one particularly take away or lesson in regards to the content of the game itself. Like I said, I find the quoted section from that European Gaming Journal to look pretty sexist, I am not as bothered by something like the Brazen Strumpet entry on the table as I can see the humor of it (not saying they ought to include that in a modern version of D&D, but those kinds of things are what gave early D&D a lot of its flare and charm). The women's lib remark certainly isn't something I would expect to hear today, it isn't shocking when I see it in a book from the 70s though. My view is this can be nuanced, complicated, and people can look at the same information and reach different conclusions about what is in a person's soul. But Gary always did seem a little bristly to me. I think that is part of what made his writing interesting. I would rather defend his actual D&D writing than him as a human being

I'm not interested in Gygax's soul either. He was a sexist. His entry in the European Gaming Journal is him stating proudly that he was a sexist. The "Brazen Strumpet" entry was also sexist and in poor taste. I don't think it offers any "flare" or "charm" to the game that I want to associate with. You can call that a hardline stance if you want, but since it isn't in the game anymore and won't be added back, I don't particularly care if you think I am a hardliner. I also don't think not being surprised by seeing sexism in something from the 70's means anything. I'm not terribly surprised by sexism that I encounter in the 2020's. There was a particularly egregious example I encountered on youtube once, where a creator I follow reacted to a man who posted a tiktok about how he tests any woman he brings home by having her squeeze past this bar in the hall to his apartment, and if she can't fit through the space she is too fat and he sends her home. And there is far worse than that out there as advice to young men on how to treat women.

What was in the soul of Gygax? Couldn't care less. My position is perfectly in line with Gygax's own stated position about himself. He was a sexist. He co-authored D&D. I don't need more than those two facts and don't care much beyond that.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I think people have very different cultures around this stuff. I was raised where it is unthinkable to turn against your own family, even your friends. Doesn't mean you support what a person says or does if they say or do something objectionable, but you put personal relationships before online and social optics. I have family members who support political causes I strongly disagree with. But I am not going to let that impact my love for them or come out swinging against them publicly

As Thomas points out, there is a difference between attacking them publicly, and defending them against legitimate criticism.

If you choose to defend them, while there is still a lack of evidence, then that is different as well. But when the truth is out, and you are just denying reality for them? Then you should expect to get blowback.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I think there's a difference between "I'm not going to hop on the wagon of attacking my family member even though I know something they expressed is noxious" and "I'm going to defend them against the shots the got for that noxious opinion". The former is a hard line about loyalty to walk sometimes (I'll do it to a degree but there are limits), but the latter is basically joining your fate to theirs and in practice, associating yourself with the same noxious opinion, and Chaosmancer says, when you do that you should not be surprised if you're treated the same.

But that is one of my issues with how we behave online these days. I do think there is a difference I do not think the latter equates to association yourself with their opinions. I think if someone is a dear friend or family, your reading of what they say will be more charitable, you might even be blind to certain sentiments they express, but ultimately, in cases like this one it seems more of an effort to defend a friend than full throated agreement with everything that person has expressed (and even if they veer into defending what they said, I would tend to see it as stemming more from loyalty than reflecting what the person actually believes)

At the end of the day, I dont' have an issue with people taking Gygax to task for things he said or with people disagreeing with Kask's arguments about what Gygax said. I am far less comfortable with people just writing him off as a bad person or seeing him as a legitimate target for cruelty online (this sort of thing can veer into that very quickly). I also wouldn't want to reduce either man to this one issue.

 

[Umbran]

You are correct that "need" was too strong of a word. However, the burden of proof is on those making the claim.

Sure, as far as there is a burden of proof at all. As often happens, saying there is a "burden of proof" is an incomplete statement.

The burden is that required to expect some particular result. For example, in a court, there's a burden of proof required to have something established as legal fact - there's different burdens for establishing truth in criminal and civil courts, and so on....

This is an internet discussion space. The desired "particular result" is not specified. What's the speaker's desired result?

And while I am not the "100% proof" police, what is certain(100%) is that nothing yet posted in this thread shows that it's certain that Gygax created the dragon rulers with sexism in mind.

...to your satisfaction. Because, again, you aren't personally the arbiter of certainty for anyone but yourself.

If their goal was to persuade Maxperson, then your certainty is important. If not... then your certainty is not really relevant.

 

[Azzy]

And there is also no evidence showing that it is certain that he created the dragon rulers with sexism in mind.

That's a distinction without a difference because Gygax put the Women's Lib jab in there. He made it about sexism when he printed that.

 

[Bedrockgames]

No one in this entire thread has once talked about "purifying" tropes.

This absolutely has come up in this thread, but more than that, it is has been at the heart of the debates surrounding these issues on virtually every thread we have them on (and we have seen the results of this in the game itself)

 

[Bedrockgames]

Why should I assume good faith here?

Unfortunately I don't have time this morning to weigh in on every point you made here (though I think we are kind of running in circles around this stuff). But I can tell you point blank I am arguing in good faith. That doesn't mean I am arguing well or that I don't get things wrong (I acknowledged when I was pointed to the MIT press that I was wrong about Peterson's book for example, which I think suggests a degree of good faith on my part). I am assuming good faith from you, and from others taking positions similar to yours. We can disagree, we can disagree even with each other's rhetorical style and still believe there is good faith. People might just be divided deeply enough at a foundational level that they won't be persuaded (it is hard to persuade people, takes time, and often takes more than simply making good points).

 

[Umbran]

Plenty of people in this thread have not been acting in good faith.

Why are you choosing to interact with people who you feel are not acting in good faith?

 

[Bedrockgames]

His entry in the European Gaming Journal is him stating proudly that he was a sexist. The "Brazen Strumpet" entry was also sexist and in poor taste. I don't think it offers any "flare" or "charm" to the game that I want to associate with.

Yes he does say he is sexist. My point is simply that this statement could be read by reasonable people a number of different ways (as humor, as a sincere stated expression of sexism, as a statement of frustration, etc).

On the brazen strumpet thing.I never said it was in good taste, but humor often is in poor taste. One of the things that makes the old DMG works is how bristly his voice is. I think it adds something interesting to the book. I just don't think we are going to agree on this one

You can call that a hardline stance if you want, but since it isn't in the game anymore and won't be added back, I don't particularly care if you think I am a hardliner.

The hardline stance I was talking about wasn't you saying you think he was sexist or you think teh strumpet entry was sexist. Lots of people feel that way and it is totally fine. The hardline stance is about people not allowing for different viewpoints around it (i.e. saying "you have to agree with me about this and if you don't you are just as sexist as I think Gary was")

I also don't think not being surprised by seeing sexism in something from the 70's means anything. I'm not terribly surprised by sexism that I encounter in the 2020's.

For me this is relevant in terms of content warnings.

 

[Mannahnin]

At the end of the day, I dont' have an issue with people taking Gygax to task for things he said or with people disagreeing with Kask's arguments about what Gygax said. I am far less comfortable with people just writing him off as a bad person or seeing him as a legitimate target for cruelty online (this sort of thing can veer into that very quickly). I also wouldn't want to reduce either man to this one issue.

What does Tim Kask have to do with anything?

Was that a typo for (Rob) Kuntz, who started this kurfuffle by taking personal offense to the texts being criticized for having sketchy content (without naming names) and accusing the writers of lying?

I don't think anyone in this thread is reducing any of these men to this one issue. As I pointed out last week, Gary and the original creators are still being celebrated to this day with conventions in their names, memorial projects, their books being reissued for sale...

Despite Gary making frankly gross comments up into the 2000s, on Q&A threads right here on ENworld, with zero pushback because he was still too revered.