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Ironically, I just watched that very episode the other day. As a child, it was one of my favorites and certainly colored the way I used rakshasas in my old AD&D campaign. Nice to hear you obviously derived as much inspiration from it as I did. :)

In English, it is. "Octopi," as others have pointed out, is simply incorrect, whereas "octopodes" strikes me as pedantic.

This really is remarkable to hear, both because of the slowness of leveling and the longevity of these characters. Nowadays, I read constantly about the notion that most D&D campaigns last about 18 months, during which time the PCs reach higher levels than yours did in 10 years. Not to sound...

Lots of people labor under the mistaken impression that, in English, we continue to use foreign plurals for foreign words. This is mostly untrue. When it is done, it's either because the foreign plural is so strongly associated with the word that a more typical English plural seems odd or...

That's interesting. I take it then that, in your Greyhawk campaign, characters didn't tend to reach very high levels of experience? One of the things I always liked and appreciated about AD&D was the difficulty of achieving levels above 9th or so. This ensured that even long-played characters...

Gary, If my memory does not fail me, the original write-up for Iuz in Dragon was vague about his demonic parentage, theorizing that he might be "a by-blow of Orcus." Later, it was revealed that Graz'zt was the Old One's demonic sire. Was there any reason for this change (if change it be) and...

Strategic Review #6 (Volume II, No. 1) of February 1976.

That's interesting. Would you mind expanding a bit on the level limits issue? I must admit that, while I had no problems with the demihuman level limits in AD&D and indeed would like to see them return to more common use, I'd always assumed you introduced them as a counter to the special...

Fair enough. What I actually meant, though -- and the answer is probably the same at any rate -- is why did you make demihumans and demihuman states rare in the Greyhawk setting? Was this simply a consequence of their being difficult to describe in anything other than broad/stereotypical terms...

Gary, I can't help but notice that, among the many PCs from your old Greyhawk campaign, comparatively few of them are demihumans. Likewise, Oerth, while possessing a few demihuman states like Celene, is clearly a world where humanity holds the upper hand. I presume this was done intentionally...

I assumed that was your intention. I ask mostly because there are some differences between the D&D cleric archetype and the more usual priestly one, specifically the combat puissance of the cleric. I shall keep an eye out for it, but it does not seem to have made its way into my neck of the woods.

That's interesting; I don't believe I've ever heard mention of the Odo of Bayeaux connection. It makes sense in retrospect, although Odo doesn't have the best reputation historically, being something of a schemer, even against his own kin. I take it then, from published sources such as Greyhawk...

Gary, Perhaps you can shed some light on what you see as the quintessential differences between the cleric and the paladin. Somewhere or other you once stated that the cleric was modeled on religious knights from the Middle Ages, like the Templars and Hospitallers, (correct me if I'm mistaken)...

I think so. Do you prefer the smaller scale approach of Yggsburgh/East Mark or do you prefer the larger swaths of territory described by Greyhawk? I see distinct advantages to both, so you may not have a preference. Thanks.

I'll see if I can find them, although I suspect most are out of print. It's damnably hard to find older fantasy authors nowadays. This raises another question I'd intended to ask: do you view your work on Castle Zagyg as being better or at least more well considered than your older creative...

This is what gaming is missing nowadays: vocabulary higher than that of a fifth grader! When I was a boy, D&D enriched my vocabulary like no other entertainment did. I can't begin to tell you how indebted I am to you for the new words you introduced to me through the game. I regret to say that...

Gary, Do you have any recollection of what Shadowland would have contained? I noticed that you produced quite a few Plane of Shadow-related monsters, spells, and items over a certain period back in the TSR days. Were these in any way related to or derived from the work you did on this...

Gary, Early roleplaying, much like the stories which were its primary inspirations, didn't always draw hard and fast distinctions between "fantasy" and "science fiction," as we're likely to do nowadays. Was this the case in your home campaign as well? I've often wondered if the conversion rules...

I also have a recollection that, once upon a time, the "map" of the area surrounding the City of Greyhawk was represented by the map of the old Avalon Hill game Outdoor Survival. I may be confusing the issue, because I remember that volume 3 of OD&D recommended this method of quickly generating...

You have a flair for names -- Beek Gwenders, Philotomy Jurament, Ycore Rixle, etc. I know that names of this sort aren't the fashion in fantasy these days, but, as I've probably said too much already, they have a certain panache to them that I wish we'd see more of. Instead, we get either faux...