Look who made the big time

[Silver Moon]

I do suppose Gygax must have answered questions on these topics several times before... so do please start posting links to information about why and when.

Well, for the whole Gygax/Arneson debate and background you can start with this current thread over on the Dragonsfoot board:

http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=240

And a number of other threads in the "General Discussion", "Classic D&D", and "1st Edition AD&D" forums have also hit upon the history of the game.
For those of you unfamiliar with that board, www.dragonsfoot.org is the top internet board for earlier editions of the game. Several ENWorld regulars post there regularly as well, including Piratecat, Henry, MerricB and myself. Mr. Gygax is a regular poster there, and moderates a forum there for the Legendary Adventures game, and the board also has a Gary Gygax's "World of Greyhawk" forum.

Dragonsfoot also has forums for "3rd Edition" and "Edition Wars" for those who wish to debate the merits of a particular version. The "Campaign Journals" forum like the "Story Hour" forum here, and is a great place for Story Hour addicts like myself to go whenever ENWorld is down.

 

[Vurt]

Gygax actively encouraged a vindictive and adversarial relationship between the DM and the players.

OMG!!! I didn't realize he was responsible for Paranoia too! ;D

On a more serious note, I started playing the game as a young'un with the red box and the very occasional Dragon magazine, and maybe I was just too young at the time, but all of this is news to me!

Cheers,
Vurt

 

[Dinkeldog]

1) No personal attacks, please.

2) If someone makes a personal attack, report the post rather than responding to it, which just makes it more difficult to take care of the original problem.

Thanks.

 

[jgbrowning]

I think this thread shows that Gary can still stir things up. I'm sure he's just like the rest off us. Done good, Done bad. Proud of the good, not so proud at the bad.

Surviving in this industry, hell, pretty much creating the industry to begin with has my respects and If I ever get to meet him (still haven't!) I'd gladly buy him a scotch if the timing was right. I'd even let him smoke at the table.

joe b.

 

[Christian]

In the AD&D DMG, this was his methodology for the dreaded "Monster as a Player Character" question:

1> Allow the player to start with full monster powers, hit dice, natural attacks, everything. And a class level. At first level. Example monsters include: Gold Dragons and Titans (!)

2> Allow the player to rampage across the campaign for awhile, as he will be massively more powerful than any of the other characters. Allow this to continue until you feel that the player should be getting tired of completely dominating the game and hogging all the glory from all the other players.

3> Send the party into combats so overwhelmingly lopsided that the monstrous character is bound to be killed. If that doesn't work - send more powerful monsters until the overpowered character dies.

---

I'm not even making that up!

Well, somebody did, then. I don't tend towards reflexive EGG defending, but blatant lying (I can't even bring myself to call this a 'misrepresentation') really gets my goat ...

From the AD&D DMG, revised edition (December 1979), p.21, The Monster as a Player Character:

The environment for adventuring will be built around humans and demi-humans for the most part. Similarly, the majority of participants in the campaign will be human. So unless the player desires a character which will lurk alone somewhere and be hunted by adventurers, there are only a few options open to him or her. A gold dragon can assume human shape, so this is a common choice for monster characters. If alignment is stressed, this might discourage the would-be gold dragon. If it is also pointed out that he or she must begin at the lowest possible value, and only time and the accumulation and retention of wealth will allow any increase in level (age), the idea should be poperly squelched. [Note: Gygax nowhere suggests, here or in any of his other D&D material, giving class levels to monsters. The starting PC will be a very young gold dragon, and will advance per the dragon aging guidelines in the MM. Nor will this character 'rampage across the campaign for awhile, as he will be massively more powerful than any of the other characters'. Its power level will be mostly static (over the typical time-frame of a campaign), while it won't take too long for the rest of the group to heavily overpower a very young dragon. And I don't see any mention of titans anywhere in this section.) ...

As to other sorts of monsters as player characters, you as the DM must decide inlight of your aims and the style of your campaign. The considered opinion of this writer is that such characters are not beneficial to the game and should be excluded. Note that exclusion is best handled by restriction and not by refusal. Enumeration of the limits and drawbacks which are attendant upon the monster character will always be sufficient to steer the intelligent player away from the monster approach, for in most cases it was only thought of as a likely manner of game domination. The truly experimental-type player might be allowed to play such a monster character for a time so as to satisfy curiosity, and it can then be moved to non-player status and still be an interesting part of the campaign ...

So you are virtually on your own with regard to monsters as player characters. You have advice as to why they are not featured, why no details of monster character clases are given herein. The rest is up to you, for when all is said and done, it is your world, and your players must live in it with their characters. Be good to yourself as well as them [note: what a radical concept!], and everyone concerned will benefit from a well-conceived, well-ordered, fairly-judged campaign built upon the best of imaginative and creative thinking.

 

[Staffan]

Considering D&D was the only roleplaying game for most of that decade and a half that he worked at TSR, I think this claim is highly dubious.

Point of order: D&D was first published in 1973. Other games, even non-TSR RPGs, have been around since at least 1975 (Tunnels & Trolls from Flying Buffalo, En Garde from GDW). By 1980 there had been over 60 RPGs released.

Source: http://www.darkshire.org/~jhkim/rpg/encyclopedia/

 

[Piratecat]

Christian, thank you for coming up with the cite. I think that clarifies things quite a bit.

 

[Squire James]

I think Gary's bad reputation was due mostly to a smear job that TSR was pushing at the time, and partially to Gary's poor reaction to it. All that water's so far under the bridge that it's probably in the sea by now.

As for today, well, Gary's still around and TSR isn't! He won the trial-by-combat, I'd say.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Different game my man

That may be, but Dangerous Journeys convinced me never to buy a game book by him again - unless someone hires a very competent editor for him.

Preferably one with a club.

A club with a nail in it.

 

[Christian]

Christian, thank you for coming up with the cite. I think that clarifies things quite a bit.

Welcome!