Honoring, Respecting, and Quoting Gary--Some Concerns (let's make sure we are honest)

[GMforPowergamers]

well I have to say part of the problem is the same problem I have with other famus people...seprating the man and the myth.

I never new gary, but i both love and hate him. first and foremost without him my life would suck (D&D has in many ways improved my life) but I also strongly dissagree wih his ways in alot of what he said and suggested.

I think the main problem is that people can't always remember to seperate the man, who was probley awsome to ahng with and a good friend to many, from the job (D&D forefather), that many of us feel he had some problems with.

OotS showed him at his best and worst in there issue right after his death. talking about how he created the game, and how responcable he is for all of our enjoyment, then talking about the 'hall of heros killed without a saveing throw'

 

[JohnRTroy]

I find your insinuation that I used that quote from Gary as support for piracy and all of that "information wants to be free" quite frankly baffling.

I wasn't trying to insinuate that this was a support for it, and I wasn't particularly implying that you were saying that. I apologize if it looked like I was targeting you or attempting to criticize you. I was trying to target the quote, which is why I didn't talk about who used it. I think I can also blame my tiredness. Yours was the most recent that came to mind.

But ironically, Bill, this kind of shows just how quoting can really confuse things. Until you explained why you put the quote you did, how many others who saw the quote would have understood the message you were trying to say? Would other people have thought just like me? Is there a better quote that could have been used?

The reduction of Gary to sound bites is something that I think we all need to be very careful of. Sound bites are the kind of thing that ruins true discussion and reflection. (See, already there's a misunderstanding! ;-))

I was kind of trying to point out that people should take the totality of his sayings when discussing his opinions--for instance, if a single quote from 1977 is contracted by 5 quotes from 1990-2008, which has more relevant weight on his feelings or beliefs? I guess my message got a little lost there.

 

[maddman75]

The quote about pirates made me think of an article I read the other day by Ron Edwards on The Forge (Don't worry, no GNS stuff here)

The Forge :: A Hard Look at Dungeons and Dragons

Here's a snippet that I believe is what Gary was talking about.

I think that the available discussions, interesting as they are, about Arneson's and Gygax's relative contributions (a) to the hobby activity and (b) to the actual publication of Dungeons & Dragons is overlooking a crucial issue regarding late 1970s role-playing. Prior to AD&D2, the available texts were reflective, not prescriptive, of actual play. Their content was filtered through authors' priorities which were very diverse. Furthermore, any particular area or group had only piecemeal combinations of the texts. In 1978, one might find a group with Chainmail, ten issues of Dragon, and a copy of the Monster Manual; as well as a group with the 1977 boxed set and three or four volumes of Arduin's Grimoire. No one, or very few people, had all of it, and as I recall anyway, hardly anyone knew much about what books "went" when, or made much distinction between TSR products and anything else.

Rob MacDougall stated it best: we are talking about Cargo Cults. Everyone knew about "this new great game." Everyone had on hand a hodgepodge of several texts, which in retrospect seem to me to be almost archeological in their fragmentary, semi-compatible but not-quite, layered-in-time-of-publication nature. Also, although newly-available texts obviously modified local oral traditions, they also arose from them, generating a seething hotbed of how-to-play instructions in print in other locations. Everyone had to shape, socially and procedurally, just what the hell you did such that "role-playing" happened. How did you know it worked? What did you do it for? All of it, from Social Contract* right down to Stance*, had to be created in the faith that it worked "out there" somewhere, and somehow, some way, it was supposed to work here.

So everyone just did it locally. I consider role-playing to have been constructed independently in a vast number of instances across the landscape, sometimes in parallel, sometimes very differently. Over time, further unifications or contact-compromises occurred, whether through tournament standards, military bases, conventions, or APAs, or simply by people meeting when they converged on college campuses. Full unification never occurred. There never existed a single, original D&D.

A very interesting idea, and makes sense with the comment from EGG. Early roleplaying, as described here, wasn't someone deciding an edition and running out of that, it was a collection of various books, word of mouth, and making it up around the idea of doing this roleplaying thing. And in that context, if someone had some photocopied pages from their brother's uncle's second cousin amoungst their materials no one probably paid any attention.

I don't think its very informative about the situation today, where rules are seperate and distinct games, and a large number of small press companies publish over PDF. Heck, there were no PDFs at that time, nor any real way to distribute them.

Still, this look at early gaming history is fascinating.


Edit - There is some controversial stuff toward the end, but I take that as the author's personal experiences. Not really going to defend them.

* A bit of Forge-Speak. Social contract isn't a physical contract, but an agreed-to set of rules that people play by. Stuff like 'don't argue with the GM' and 'don't kill other PCs'. Can vary from group to group.

** More forge-speak. Stance is how you approach your character, as I understand it. Actor, author, etc.

 

[thedungeondelver]

I wasn't trying to insinuate that this was a support for it, and I wasn't particularly implying that you were saying that. I apologize if it looked like I was targeting you or attempting to criticize you. I was trying to target the quote, which is why I didn't talk about who used it. I think I can also blame my tiredness. Yours was the most recent that came to mind.

But ironically, Bill, this kind of shows just how quoting can really confuse things. Until you explained why you put the quote you did, how many others who saw the quote would have understood the message you were trying to say? Would other people have thought just like me? Is there a better quote that could have been used?

The reduction of Gary to sound bites is something that I think we all need to be very careful of. Sound bites are the kind of thing that ruins true discussion and reflection. (See, already there's a misunderstanding! ;-))

I was kind of trying to point out that people should take the totality of his sayings when discussing his opinions--for instance, if a single quote from 1977 is contracted by 5 quotes from 1990-2008, which has more relevant weight on his feelings or beliefs? I guess my message got a little lost there.

I'm certainly not unaware of the irony in the miscommunication department here; however, I found it the most salient quote to use, hence my use of it. I felt that more quotation in my signature would have bordered on the ridiculous, and that what I'd picked out was direct and to the point.

I think I can take it, at this juncture, in equanimity that you weren't "going after me", so to speak.

More to the point, this misunderstanding aside, I do see things from your perspective: when Gary passed a local member of the regional HMGS chapter mailed me a "Gary horror story", from an encounter in '84 or '85.

It is my observation that most of the "bad things" that Gary said or did to people in the gaming community stem from that time period, and I try to remind people that the company he created and the games he'd created up until that point were being systematically stolen from him by some rather unpleasant people, two of whom had originally been friends. His life was in some turmoil at that period. We, all of us, have probably said or done things in pressure situations that we probably wouldn't have said or done in better times. So when people get in my grill when I say "Well I think Gary was a nice guy," and they respond with comments about "Chess, Poker & D&D" or his dismissiveness at a 'con in 1985 or what have you, I try to point up, again, that it was an incredibly high-stress time for the man.

So on that aspect, I think you and I are probably in agreement.

 

[rogueattorney]

I know Gary would not be pleased with people creating competitive Castle Zagyg's.

You'll calling the fan-made add ons to Castle Zagyg, "competition?" "Competition" with what? Was Gary mad when I created a Cave of the Unknown, named all the npcs in the Keep, and added onto the wilderness map? Isn't the entire point of rpg products coming up with cool adventures and scenarios and sharing them with other people?

 

[JohnRTroy]

You'll calling the fan-made add ons to Castle Zagyg, "competition?" "Competition" with what? Was Gary mad when I created a Cave of the Unknown, named all the npcs in the Keep, and added onto the wilderness map? Isn't the entire point of rpg products coming up with cool adventures and scenarios and sharing them with other people?

That situation is not the same thing. To clarify, here it goes. Let me use the following as a preface:

Before he died, Steve Gerber has stated to other creators that anybody who says that they are doing a "tribute" or "honoring" him if they tried to write Howard the Duck, Omega the Unknown, etc, were not, and he was clear on that. He knew that it was work-for-hire, etc., and wasn't arguing it legally, but he was making sure any author who tried to say that they were "honoring him" would not use that term. It would be hypocritical.

The Castle Zagyg project had similar feelings for Gary. I know as he was working on Yggsburg he was annoyed with both the dissolving of Rob's partnership (he was particularly annoyed with statement from Rob saying "it's not the real castle"), and that WoTC decided to publish a module featuring Castle Greyhawk shortly after the TLG announcement. He wasn't frothing at the mouth angry about the latter, and I know Gary was pretty friendly with Erik Mona, but it did annoy him that WoTC decided to do this after his annoucement.

There are specific reasons for this project being different. Having your own adventures at home, creating them, sharing with friends, even running a tournament, is okay. But this project is a little more. It is being "marketed" as a continuation. It's got covers, being presented as PDF downloads, volunteers making maps, etc. The author has even talked about binding and selling the work at conventions, and now wants donations to continue it. Knowing how Gary felt about his IP, I doubt he'd enjoy seeing that). And it seems to be taking advantage of hard feelings from the fan base towards the cancellation of the official project, based on statements from some fans. It's pretty much a publishing product, so much so that if a similar thing was tried with a more "protected" project (like anything WoTC owns), it might be sued.

But the key thing is not any objection I have, but when I see people using phrases like "you are honoring Gygax", or "you are doing Gary proud" when praising the project. That's really false, because based on statements above it contradicts what I know personally, in some cases publicly on message board, and even the very author of CoTMA, Joe Bloch, admits this.

John, bear in mind that CotMA is not intended to "honor" Gary Gygax. It is to fill a hole he left behind (in my own campaign, originally). I'm sure he would be quite irritated by it, and thus I didn't even consider doing anything like it until he was no longer with us.

So, I'm not debating the existence of this or my own feelings on the matter. I'm not saying don't download it, play it, read it, or even praise it. I'm simply saying that, for that particular project, don't use the phase "honoring Gygax" or "Gary would be proud of you". Say it's honoring the "old school spirit", or "the true Greyhawk", or "the castle", but don't bring EGG into the equation. It would be a little bit hypocritical.