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

[KYRON45]

I work with a Gary. He's a nice guy but I'm not sure that he ever published any game rules. So were probably not talking about the same Gary.

 

[dave2008]

I am not sure I agree, it is an attempt to circumscribe language, state what is and is not legitimate way to use words. I see that as a attempt to police language and most people in the modern world who attempt such things have no actual authority.

I see your perspective, I just disagree with your viewpoint. I don't see it has an attempt to do anything. It is asking people to do something though, that is very different to me. I have often been described as weird or odd though!

 

[dave2008]

I work with a Gary. He's a nice guy but I'm not sure that he ever published any game rules. So were probably not talking about the same Gary.

Damn! I work with two Garys, never thought we might be talking about them! I should stop talking behind people's back!

 

[KYRON45]

Also the wrong Gary?

 

[TiQuinn]

I don’t have a problem with this per se, but then I see people quote him by name as if they’re quoting the writ of God, and well…

 

[Mercurius]

Can we name-drop Xagyg?

 

[Zustiur]

Gygax is the god of luck and trickery in my world. I trust that is allowed?

 

[Distracted DM]

6. When referring to Gygaxian problem solving.

Gygaxian Problem Solving - The Only True RPG Design Principle
1. Can the problem be solved be solved by a table and a percentile roll?
2. If yes, stop here. If no, go to 3.
3. KREATE MOAR TABLEZ. Go to 1.


The High Gygaxian Table of Tables to Determine the Number of Tables for Your RPG Game
Roll to see how many tables you need for your RPG rulebook.

00 – 10 The number of tables you wanted, doubled.
11 – 25 Hyperlinks to even moar tablez.
26 – 35 More tables than Ikea has meatballs, or tables.
36 – 50 A table for every awesome name in Greyhawk. Melf went to Verbobonc.*
51 – 65 Sixteen appendices, full of tables.
66 – 75 Every table has four legs, and each leg is a table. Tables, all the way down.
76 – 85 You know the story by Borges? Library of Babel? Yeah, like that. But tables instead of books.
86 – 90 One table, that is a meta-table, that contains all tables. Let's Godel up this joint!
91 – 92 Only one table, but that table is actually another copy of the rulebook in its entirety.
93 – 94 Nine tables for Mortal Players doomed to die. No, never read Tolkien. Who is he?
95 – 98 No tables, because you're busy in LA.
99 – 00 Roll twice, add the results.

*Names based on actual people, including Gary's friends and kids, are worth 3.75 tables each. Unless he didn't personally know them in which case you must take the total number of those names, divide by .6, and multiply that total as described previously. That total tables is then given an adjustment number of 1, 2, 3, or 4 based on your discretion of how "bard-y" your game is, with higher numbers being more bard-y. Multiply the total table by the bard-y number, and then if your game is actually bardy multiple by 0 to get the Final Total Table Number.

I directly imported Verbobonc into my setting, largely because it's so fun to say.

Also, someone mentioned Gygax as a god of luck and trickery, and another name-dropping Xagyg... Sounds like my setting might have a new deity.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

I work with a Gary. He's a nice guy but I'm not sure that he ever published any game rules. So were probably not talking about the same Gary.

Let's focus on the really import part here. How are his cobbling skills?

Can we name-drop Xagyg?

How about Gygax Dragonlord?

I directly imported Verbobonc into my setting, largely because it's so fun to say.

That's right next door to Verbosh, right? Verbosh, Verbosh, Verbosh. Also fun to say.

I'd forgotten about that Different Worlds review hating on Kevin Siembieda's artwork. Harsh. Everybody has to start somewhere.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Gary unfortunately gets used as the Creator/authority for D&D the same way Lucas or Roddenberry are invoked for Star Wars and Star Trek, respectively. It's an appeal to authority, an original intent, and Word of God when debating certain points. It's a rhetorical tool, not an accurate assessment of the man or his work..

I mean, if one is trying to use Gary as some sort of "I win" button--other than to point out pure historical facts, I guess?--then they've made a self-defeating argument. It is trivially true that D&D is not exclusively what Gygax personally created, because so many versions of it have been written by other people. Gygax is no more the sole arbiter of what is or could be D&D than, say, H.P. Lovecraft is the sole arbiter of what is or could be Cthulhu stories and cosmic horror generally. Yes, the genre owes an enormous debt to him, but even during his lifetime other people were already writing stories about Cthulhu and Nyarlathotep, and he himself "borrowed" Hastur/The King in Yellow too.

Hence why, as I said above, I use him only as a point of comparison or contrast, not as a point of unimpeachable victory. For example, the passage about how to "teach" players that playing anything other than a human (and especially anything particularly unusual), is a pretty clear demonstration that things I consider to be hostile DM behavior have in fact been with us since literally the beginning--because Gygax advocated there, even if that was not always his position, that the DM should be a passive-aggressive bellend, manipulating players, refusing to speak honestly with them but instead punishing them and assuming they'll be "smart enough" to figure it out on their own.

That's not a slam-dunk about what D&D inherently is. It's simply a demonstration of a historical fact: D&D has had bad, harmful DM behaviors going all the way back to its very roots--and sometimes those behaviors were actually enshrined in the rules themselves. Different rules, different advice, can produce better outcomes.