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Despite my previous post, I've rarely/never actually used critical hits or fumbles in my own D&D games (though some DMs I played with did) -- 10% chance of a crit or fumble is too often, the alternative (adding additional rolls to confirm) is too cumbersome, plus Gygax railed the entire concept...

Because a monster managing to bite off its own head (and coming up with an explanation for how it happened) is HIGH-larious, especially at 3am when everybody's hopped up on Mountain Dew and Tootsie Rolls :)

I house-ruled in a bunch of stuff from 1E before it finally dawned on me that I should just switch back and play 1E instead (which is what I eventually did)...

Well, most of this meeting (all of it in my case) occured at gaming conventions where the persons in question were wearing nametags identifying them. I probably wouldn't recognize, say, Jonathan Tweet (or really anybody on the list except for Gygax and maybe Ed Greenwood) if I ran into him in...

I voted 6 people (Gygax, Arneson, Zeb Cook, Greenwood, Grubb, Skip). I've undoubtedly "seen" at least a couple more in all the years I was going to GenCon (1988-97) but if I wasn't able to put a name to the face at the time I'm not counting 'em.

I assume the 13th choice in the poll is actually supposed to be the late David Sutherland (TSR artist and cartographer) and not actor Donald Sutherland (M*A*S*H, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, etc.)? ;)

Flint Dille was a friend of Gary Gygax's during his Hollywood exile and they co-wrote the "Sagard the Barbarian" series of Choose Your Own Adventure books and an unproduced D&D Movie screenplay. The story, as I understand it, is that when Gygax returned to Lake Geneva in mid-1985 and was trying...

Flint Dille was a friend of Gary Gygax's during his Hollywood exile and they co-wrote the "Sagard the Barbarian" series of Choose Your Own Adventure books and an unproduced D&D Movie screenplay. The story, as I understand it, is that when Gygax returned to Lake Geneva in mid-1985 and was trying...

I met Erick at GenCon 1993 when I spent pretty much the entire con playing Amber Diceless in the open gaming area on the skybridge (for those who remember MECCA). Extraordinarily cool guy, one of the most interesting and personable of all the "gaming celebrities" I ever met (which, in 10 years...

I never played OD&D in its day (I was an infant at the time...) so I can't attest to what people did or didn't do in actual play. As you mentioned, though, there weren't any rules in the book covering "molotov cocktails" (those didn't show up until the Holmes Basic Set and AD&D) so I don't think...

This may be the best one yet. I've both run and played CoC adventures that matched that description almost verbatim -- especially that group of 2nd characters ("just like my last character, but with a less plausible backstory and more combat skills").

Original D&D (1974): The party intends to make their way to a part of the 1st dungeon level that they haven't previously explored; the southwest quadrant of their map. After a bit of fruitless wandering around in the maze (and running away from some wandering monsters) they finally manage to...

Game Empire Pasadena 2302 E. Colorado Blvd. Pasadena, CA 91107 USA (626) 304-9333 http://www.gameempirepasadena.com/ This is a new store; they've been open about a year, or maybe less. As far as I'm concerned they do pretty much everything right and have made me have little interest in going to...

The late Keith Parkinson also belongs on this list. He did a lot of "iconic" cover pieces in this era including T1-4: Temple of Elemental Evil, DL4: Dragons of Desolation, H2: Mines of Bloodstone, X11: Saga of the Shadow Lord, the Forgotten Realms gray-box, and FR1: Waterdeep and the North, plus...

Off the top of my head: Dave Arneson Rob Kuntz Tim Kask Mike Carr Lawrence Schick David C. Sutherland III David Trampier Tom Wham Erol Otus Tom Moldvay Frank Mentzer Steve Marsh Bob Bledsaw Paul Jaquays Mike Mornard John T. Sapienza Steve Perrin Will Niebling

Even though the whole thing's now being "co-written" by a team of freelancers?

Gygax's last real articles (i.e. not counting his heavily-edited "farewell" article printed in Dragon #122 (June 1987)) were in Dragon #103 (Nov. 1985). Kim Mohan's last issue as editor was, I believe, #115 (Nov. 1986), so they don't line up exactly but in a big-picture era-defining sense it's...

I'm pretty sure I never saw a single half-orc PC in all my AD&D play in the 80s, across multiple groups. However, when I started playing 1E with a new group in 2004-2007, it was half-orc city. This is just one of many seeming paradigm-shifts in the conventional wisdom between the way the game...

The more important point isn't that players shouldn't know what's in the DMG, but rather that they don't need to. The oft-overlooked back section of the PH (pp. 101-107) gives a fairly detailed "player's eye view" of the rules and procedures of the game (exploration, encounters, surprise...

Given Erik's categories, I vote Mohan :)