TSR Q&A with Gary Gygax

This is the multi-year Q&A sessions held by D&D co-creator Gary Gygax here at EN World, beginning in 2002 and running up until his sad pasing in 2008. Gary's username in the thread below is Col_Pladoh, and his first post in this long thread is Post #39.

 

[Col_Pladoh]

Hmmmm... Now you've got me thinking about making up some other dragons using other elements from the Periodic Table.

[snip]

Sorry Gary, I just couldn't resist!

As for metallic dragons, wouldn't a Chromium Dragon be flashy? The real shifty and heavy-weight one would be the Mercury Dragon, of course

Actually, there are some serious chromatic hybrids covered in the Slayer's Guide to Dragons book from Mongoose...although some folks might find a pink (red-white cross) dragon somewhat hard to take seriously

Cheers,
Gary

 

[Col_Pladoh]

... I'd like your view on the Paladin class and the features that make is supposedly "Unplayable".

Thank you so much for your input Gary.

First, many a Paladin PC has been played, and that done successfully generally following the rules for the class as written.

Lawful Good does not equate to stupid or foolish, It means the PC must follow the Law as determined by the deity the Paladin acknowledges, and thus promote Good according to that Law.

As I have pointed out at times, a Paladin might well execute a group of captives after they have converted from their former (Evil) alignment to Lawful Good, for that act saves their sould, prevents them from slipping back into error.

A Paladin will not normally sacrifice himself, fight needlessly, unless it is a situation where honor and duty demand that. Such sacrifice would have to be demonstrably for the betterment of his deity, or else based on anoath the character made prior to the dire situation.

While in general a Paladin can not lie, that does not mean he must say anything, or can not answer evasively or mislead--if that is according to the tenents of his avowed LG deity.

A Paladin played by someone that doen not understand the basis of the Code of Chivalry taken to the extreme and attached to religion is likely unplayable, but that's the fault of the player, not the class.

Yes, I have played a Paladin character, but not for long, as I don't enjoy Lwaful Good characters much--too restrictive for a Chaotic sort of person such as I am

Cheers,
Gary

 

[blackshirt5]

Mr Gygax,

Why do you think it is that gamers have gotten such a bad rep in the general media as stalkers and freaks?

 

[Joe123]

Gary,

You said here once before that you believe people who play D&D have above-average intelligence. I’m wondering, what makes you say this?

 

[Col_Pladoh]

Mr Gygax,

Why do you think it is that gamers have gotten such a bad rep in the general media as stalkers and freaks?

News media seeks the sensational in order to attract viewers, sell air-time ads, make money. Initial publicity for the D&D game, that pre-1981, was not broad, but several newspapers of good repute, such as the St. Louis Post Dispatch wrote articles about the game that were informative and positive.

The James Dallas Egbert III case was the turning point. Thanks to the publicity-seeking DI brought in, and the following ill-informed news media coverage--sensationalist to the extreme--there was a barrage of inaccurate stories and further biased charges of baseless sort. These in toto brought forth suicide, Satanism, and mind-control as supposed dangers of the game. Add to that the difficulty of the ignorant in understanding the RPG form, and what can one expect? Certainly the mass of people are not motivated to put forth any effort to discover the truth. Coupled with the nature of the people playing RPGs--generally above-average intelligence, given to imnaginative literature, creative and non-conformist, interested in technology such as computers, and often not concerned with social "norms"--that making for an easy target for cheap shots from "reporters" (you know, that group of intellectual giants who talk about "honing in" on something, and "ratchet up" rather than raise; the group that doesn't know that "enormity" isn't synonomus with wonderful or considerabe and think "momentarily" means in a moment)--expressions of ignorance can be expected to come from the news media,

Again, given all that, what can one expect from the general populace? Certainly not an informed and reasonable view of the RPG!

Cheers,
Gary

 

[Col_Pladoh]

Gary,

You said here once before that you believe people who play D&D have above-average intelligence. I’m wondering, what makes you say this?

Heh!

The fact that the entry bar to playing RPGs is above average intelligence. Consider the amount of reading necessary, the reasoning called for in understanding the game and the play of it. If one begins with an audience whose intellect is necessarily above average, the norm for the participant group will be higher than average.

RPG enthusiasts actually read, often broadly. It is also apparent that the creative level of the RPG audience is wel above the average. demonstrable from the output of writing and game creation coming from it.

Finally, most gamers are college graduates, or going to college and will graduate. Most are highly literate in regards to computers too

Cheers,
Gary

 

[RFisher]

Gary,

Yet another question. (Haven't you got tired of this yet. )

What are your thoughts on ability score checks in OD&D or OAD&D? Calling for a roll <= to an ability score on 1d20 or 3d6 or whatever. (Possibly with modifiers based on difficulty.) Or 3e style: Roll 1d20 + ability score modifier >= difficulty class.

(There's a thread over on Dragonsfoot in which nobody has been able to find an occurrance of such a thing in anything you wrote, and at least one person guesses that you thought they are a bad thing.)

 

[Col_Pladoh]

Gary,

Yet another question. (Haven't you got tired of this yet. )

What are your thoughts on ability score checks in OD&D or OAD&D? Calling for a roll <= to an ability score on 1d20 or 3d6 or whatever. (Possibly with modifiers based on difficulty.) Or 3e style: Roll 1d20 + ability score modifier >= difficulty class.

(There's a thread over on Dragonsfoot in which nobody has been able to find an occurrance of such a thing in anything you wrote, and at least one person guesses that you thought they are a bad thing.)

Anyone familiar with my latest RPG, the Lejendary Adventure system will know the answer to this immediately. Ability checks are fine, assuming the likelihood of success or failure in the game environment is approximately the same as one would expect in actuality.

As for their use in my A/D&D material, the Thief and Assassin classes used them all the time. Strength was tested thus too, as in opening doors, bending bars,lifting gates.

Mainly, though, rolling to hit is a test of combat ability, right?

Random chance is a very important factor in the RPG, so using logical checks made with dice conforms to that element of the game form.

Cheers,
Gary

 

[T. Foster]

Hi Gary,

I've seen you around some of the old-school-friendly sites I more commonly frequent (Dragonsfoot, Rob Kuntz's board), but this is my first contribution here:

In stories of the Greyhawk Campaign (which I love reading, btw), the featured characters are almost exclusively human fighters and magic-users (with occasional clerics, but mostly as henchmen/support-types). Examples include Robilar, Tenser, Terik, Yrag, Mordenkainen, Murlynd, Erac and Erac's Cousin, Otto, Bigby, Gronan of Simmerya, Bombadil, and on and on. Characters of other classes are much less frequently mentioned, and when they are it's usually as an oddity or token (i.e. Terry Kuntz's "Monk with No Name"). The seems surprising to me because in every D&D campaign I've ever played in thieves (especially demi-human multi-classed thieves) and rangers at least have been just as popular as ftrs and m-u's. Were such character-types really not popular in Greyhawk, or is it simply that the best and most memorable stories tend to come from the 'early days' before those character types had been developed, and that in Greyhawk's later years (c. 1975+) they were common after all?

Best,

T. Foster

P.S. I played with you in "Necropolis" at Glathricon (in Evansville, IN) in 1988 and am pretty sure I encountered your infamous 'killer' d20 -- it was white, numbered 0-9 twice, and rolled awfully well (for you, badly for us ).

P.P.S. FWIW I'm actually the "one person" mentioned in RFisher's question above who guessed you didn't approve of the universal "roll stat or less on 1d20" stat-check mechanic (since AFAICT that method never appeared in any of your AD&D writing). I didn't mean to suggest that you didn't approve of stat-based rolls at all (the str-based bend bars and open doors rolls certainly prove that's not the case!), merely that I suspected you hadn't much use for the 'one size fits all' universal stat-or-less-on-1d20 mechanic that became much more prevalent once you were no longer at the helm (in the Dragonlance modules and Survival Guides, and eventually in the core 2E rulebooks). My guess is that you prefered a more ad-hoc approach where odds were formulated on the spot based on the specific circumstances of the situation. So, did I guess right?

 

[Col_Pladoh]

Hi Gary,

I've seen you around some of the old-school-friendly sites I more commonly frequent (Dragonsfoot, Rob Kuntz's board), but this is my first contribution here:

Howdy Amigo

That reminds me, I need to visit Dragonsfoot and the two main LA game websites tomorrow!

In stories of the Greyhawk Campaign (which I love reading, btw), the featured characters are almost exclusively human fighters and magic-users (with occasional clerics, but mostly as henchmen/support-types). Examples include Robilar, Tenser, Terik, Yrag, Mordenkainen, Murlynd, Erac and Erac's Cousin, Otto, Bigby, Gronan of Simmerya, Bombadil, and on and on. Characters of other classes are much less frequently mentioned, and when they are it's usually as an oddity or token (i.e. Terry Kuntz's "Monk with No Name"). The seems surprising to me because in every D&D campaign I've ever played in thieves (especially demi-human multi-classed thieves) and rangers at least have been just as popular as ftrs and m-u's. Were such character-types really not popular in Greyhawk, or is it simply that the best and most memorable stories tend to come from the 'early days' before those character types had been developed, and that in Greyhawk's later years (c. 1975+) they were common after all?

There were in fact numbers of hobbits/halflings, dwarves, elves, a few half-elves, at least one half-orc, Joe Fischer's Ranger, Tim Kask's high-level Druid, Don Arndt's Paladin, and Mark Ratner's too, etc. I even played a half-orc Cleric/Assassin charavter for a short time in a campaign run by Brian Blume. That said, the most interesting adventures seemed to come from the group you mention, mainly becus=use they were the PCs of the most active members of the early group. After they became a classin 1975, relatively few thieves were played because of their guaranteed short life span if caught stealing from a party with a major PC in it.

That cover it?

P.S. I played with you in "Necropolis" at Glathricon (in Evansville, IN) in 1988 and am pretty sure I encountered your infamous 'killer' d20 -- it was white, numbered 0-9 twice, and rolled awfully well (for you, badly for us ).

Heh, and pleased to learn that. It was either my gray or red "killer die," undoubtedly. It has since sent a large number of adventurers to their doom when rolled on behalf of my OD&D game "Old Guard Kobolds." The ninth party of six or more 2nd level characters fell to them at JanCon last month.

Lest some reader think I always seek to kill PCs, rest assured thatit is only at cons, and mainly to prove the point that running away is often a good idea. A second group playing in the original AOD&D dungeons bypassed the kobolds, went down to the third level, slew many a monster in the process, and didn't lost a single member

P.P.S. FWIW I'm actually the "one person" mentioned in RFisher's question above who guessed you didn't approve of the universal "roll stat or less on 1d20" stat-check mechanic (since AFAICT that method never appeared in any of your AD&D writing). I didn't mean to suggest that you didn't approve of stat-based rolls at all (the str-based bend bars and open doors rolls certainly prove that's not the case!), merely that I suspected you hadn't much use for the 'one size fits all' universal stat-or-less-on-1d20 mechanic that became much more prevalent once you were no longer at the helm (in the Dragonlance modules and Survival Guides, and eventually in the core 2nd edition rulebooks).

That I don't believe that one size fits all in regards to ability checks is certainly true. That's why I prefaced my earlier post of approval of the concept as I did. The various checks for thieving abilities and assassination are also examples of how I view the concept.

Early in the developmental stage of OD&D I allowed non-mages to use wands, needing to rolll their Intelligence or less on 3d6 to make the device function. I dropped the concept as being incoingruous with the class-base of the game.

Cheers,
Gary