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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Valiant" data-source="post: 3762491" data-attributes="member: 54792">This is exactly my point.  Gygax doesn't give you every name...but he does give you plenty of examples of names within each adventure that are unusual fantasy names, non of which are "Steve".  That should give the DM a hint.  Those that didn't have the talent to come up with fantasy names were in the greatest need of learning how to come up with names on their own. Anyway, there's nothing wrong with throwing in the occasional "Bob" in a fantasy story.  "Sam" was a pretty lame name I thought in LOTR, yet it worked.  Always remember its the DM's game.  If he wants to use stupid names like that, thats his business.  If it resulted in a sucky game, you'd tell him to think of something better (and he'd listen and learn, thus improve himself), or you'd find a new DM. The thing is, modules were partly created to give DMs valid examples of how to create there own modules and campaigns.  Gygax didn't want to supply the DM with everything, he wanted to supply the DM with just enough to get the DM thinking on his own.  Like a math teacher giving you part of the problem and forcing you to come up with the rest of the answer.  Before you know it, you can do the entire problem yourself.  Modules were teaching tools first and formost (at least in the early days).Presenting the DM with everything would also take away from his ability (as Foster alluded to) to come up with his own stuff.  That was something Gygax was trying to encourage.  Ironically, the more modules the "green" DM read and ran, the less need he had to buy new ones.  Infact, once he found his sea legs, he wanted to go out on his own.  Thats what happened with us circa 1981.  Once we ran enough modules, DMs wanted to do it themselves, create their own dungeons etc....thus reducing the number of sales of future modules.  Gygax was the "real deal" a sincere gamer who wanted to teach people his hobby, and just like any good teacher, wanted that DM to be able to go out on his own.  It wasn't until the marketers came in and saw module sale potential that we got the fluffy eye candy of late 1E and later at full throttle 2E.   These clowns didn't want you to learn how to design your own stuff, just the opposite.  They wanted you to need them and their silly modules so they could make lots of money.  The problem was, by doing this they bread a generation of unimaginative and frankly bored DMs without the permission to create or think.  The "magical spark" that was 1E (which by the way resides in the head of the DM) went out.  2E died because of this.  3E tried to solve this problem (uninspired DMs) by writing them out of the game, and it worked I guess.  At least for a while. So yeah, anyhow, Gygax (and other module writers) were simply "holding the DM's hand"  teaching them to walk....baby steps all DMs must go threw on their own.  By forcing the DM to think like a fantasy writer by leaving blanks (like names) and presenting examples of "fantasy reality" like 10 orcs in one room 10 ghouls in the next (rather then real life reality) Mr. DM was given the freedom to create any world and reality he wanted (and that my friends is what AD&D is all about).  Greyhawk modules were just one example of how it could work (not the final say).  They were teaching tools to show the DM how to do it himself.  They also gave the experianced DM a way to give his players more variaty (as they got used to your design style).</blockquote>

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