D&D General I wish people would avoid name-dropping Gary Gygax

[kayakingpoodle]

He’s not “just someone listed in the credits,” no, but he’s also not the sole creative contributor. The reality is much more nuanced.

True, but what would TTRPG'S and everything that has spun off of D&D look like had he stuck with cobbling shoes? For better or worse he was the reason we got D&D. Leadership matters.

 

[billd91]

True, but what would TTRPG'S and everything that has spun off of D&D look like had he stuck with cobbling shoes? For better or worse he was the reason we got D&D. Leadership matters.

Sure, and so does abdication of leadership, which also describes Gygax when he pretty much left running TSR to the Blumes.

Gygax came along and made D&D a commercial concern, starting the role playing game revolution in hobby gaming. That's a huge accomplishment. But so much has occurred since then, so many different ways of looking at these games has been discussed and developed, that nobody's really beholden to his views on games, how they should be run, or how they should be designed. On that topic, he's just one voice among many.

 

[TiQuinn]

True, but what would TTRPG'S and everything that has spun off of D&D look like had he stuck with cobbling shoes? For better or worse he was the reason we got D&D. Leadership matters.

We’d be playing Greg Stafford’s games. Or Dave Megarry’s. Or Sandy Petersen’s.

 

[kayakingpoodle]

We’d be playing Greg Stafford’s games. Or Dave Megarry’s. Or Sandy Petersen’s.

And what would their games look like?

 

[Staffan]

And what would their games look like?

Runequest?

 

[kayakingpoodle]

Runequest?

I think it came out after D&D didn't it?

 

[Autumnal]

It’s one of several games that were evolving in parallel to D&D - they started before D&D. They’d look less like D&D than they do in reality, but probably not radically different. More or fewer stats, different fundamental qualities, different score ranges, but likely recognizable. They were all drawing on the same or similar influences as Gygax and Armeson, along with their own distinctive legacies (like White Bear, Red Moon and Barker’s wargame-ish campaigns).

 

[TiQuinn]

And what would their games look like?

You can easily find them.

Point is, the hobby wouldn’t have lived or died on the back of Gary Gygax.

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

Like it or not, Gygax wasn't Daniel Shipstone and proto-RPGs had been around long before him or Arneson. There's a sheaf of universes where some literary type put together Glass Town and Little Wars...

 

[kayakingpoodle]

You can easily find them.

LOL's, not getting sucked into a circular debate with you again.

Good Day.