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Gary, If I recall correctly, the "real" Greyhawk campaign you ran in Lake Geneva was based (at least originally) on a variant map of the North American continent, with the City of Greyhawk located more or less where Chicago now stands. (Please correct me if this is mistaken) How much of the...

I think you are too modest, but will not argue against you. Still, I find it regrettable that RPG products in general are not as "quirky" stylistically as they once were. The writing nowadays feels flat and aspires to be little more than technical writing. I think much of the feel of D&D stemmed...

Gary, Your writing style is very unique and I miss reading such marvelously grandiloquent prose in D&D products. I'm curious: how did you develop your style? It reminds me a bit of Jack Vance's authorial voice. Were you influenced by any particular authors or is it simply the way you've always...

That's a shame. To this day, I look back on those forgotten Oriental lands of Oerth as one of the great mysteries of gaming. I recall reading that, back in the day, players in your Greyhawk campaign occasionally visited Far Eastern lands and wondered if they had any peculiarities of their own or...

Ah, so there was a plan to map and detail the rest of Oerth as well? That might well explain my dim recollection of hearing of "Oriental" lands for the World of Greyhawk setting around the time that Oriental Adventures was being published. When said book was released, I was surprised that the...

You are very kind to place me in the same category as yourself. My younger self would have been ecstatic to have been told by the creator of D&D to call him Gary :) So long as you don't mind the steady stream of questions, I have another for you. I still consider the original World of...

Classy.

Has anyone on this board reacted in an over the top, high emotional, and irrational way to these changes? Not on Glleemax, not on some other forum, but here? If not, direct the disdain there, please.

That's fine and it's not an invalid concern on WotC's part, but I noticed that Chris Perkins didn't list this as an explanation for what's being done to the Realms. Instead, we get all sorts of other explanations, right down to the implication that these changes will make the Realms more like...

I haven't seen evidence that anyone is suffering a nervous breakdown over the changes to the Realms. What I have seen is people who've enjoyed a particular creative work concerned that its current stewards aren't thinking through the decisions they've made or are acting in a way that will impact...

Agreed. I also don't understand how, logically, the claim can be made that the Realms has to account for the changes to the way magic works under 4E while Eberron doesn't.

Indeed. The perception problem the Realms possesses is a self-inflicted wound, owing to the popularity of the FR novels and the way WotC (and TSR before it) insists on making epic events with overly powerful characters the be-all and end-all of the setting. They do this, of course, because such...

Another question, if I might, Mr Gygax. Appendix E of the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide is the "Alphabetical Recapitulation of Monsters (With Experience Point Values)." It's here that we first see certain names associated with the various types of demons. So, we get "vrock" associated with Type I...

This is absolutely true. Unfortunately, it does little to help D&D itself and indeed counts as a strike against the tabletop game, since there's really no way to compete with CRPGs when it comes to prep time, rules complexity, and beautiful graphics. My feeling remains that traditional RPGs...

Am I the only one who sees these two statements as working at cross purposes? The reason the Realms gets the (partially undeserved) reputation for being a setting where the PCs don't matter is because of the FR novels, where "high-level NPCs run around" and do impressive things. Now maybe the 4E...

That he does and I think it highlights one of the biggest divides in the community of D&D fans: the low-level experience and to what extent that experience encapsulates the D&D experience. From what I can tell, players seem to fall into one of two camps (with fuzziness around the edges): those...

Mr. Gygax, You've spoken at length over the years about the literary inspirations for D&D, but I'm not sure I recall your ever having specified a story or two (by an author other than yourself) that you felt really captured the spirit of the game better than any other. What I mean to ask is...

These are close to my biggest concerns as well. From what we have seen so far, it really does look like 4E is predicated on the notion that no one enjoys playing an incompetent boob from the sticks who leaves his farming community behind and sets out for Adventure. For me, that pretty much...

If it's not the case, why do you think the false perception persists?

I think it's truer to say that late 1E material, including the boring WSG and DSG, represent a new phase in the development of the game, with the introduction and proliferation of non-weapon proficiencies. This marks the beginning of greater player empowerment, with the introduction of...