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]

Here's an interview with Charles Stross about the origins of the Gith races.

http://www.planewalker.com/loz/mi_stross.shtml

Thanks for the URL.

Interesting that he has become a pro SF author, and too bad he has left gaming.

Mr. Stross' observations in regards to what inspired him to create the various monsters he did is pretty much the same as how I have done a number of them.

Although I know Larry Niven, I most certainly wasn't reading his material for monster ideas, then or now. As noted, the inspiration for the mind flayers came from a piece of cover art on a book in the Lovecraftian Cycle, Lumley's THE BURROWERS BENEATH. I still have that paperback in my libreay, too

Gary

 

[CrusaderX]

Gary, I'm curious about your thoughts on the D&D (or AD&D) Paladin class. Many gamers see the Paladin's Lawful Good alignment restriction as an essential part of this class. Other players, however, have no problem with allowing Chaotic Good Paladins, Lawful Evil Paladins, and Paladins of any and all alignments.

Do you think that the Paladin's Lawful Good alignment restriction is an appropriate, or even an essential, element of this class? I myself am all for having "Holy Warriors" of all alignments, but I've always viewed the "Paladin" title as being uniquely bound to the service of both Law and Goodness. Maybe I'm just a traditionalist.

Also, from where did the class concept originate? Is it true that Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions story is one of the main influences of the AD&D Paladin?

Thank you for your time, good sir! This is indeed a wonderful thread.

 

[Col_Pladoh]

Gary, I'm curious about your thoughts on the D&D (or AD&D) Paladin class. Many gamers see the Paladin's Lawful Good alignment restriction as an essential part of this class. Other players, however, have no problem with allowing Chaotic Good Paladins, Lawful Evil Paladins, and Paladins of any and all alignments.

Do you think that the Paladin's Lawful Good alignment restriction is an appropriate, or even an essential, element of this class? I myself am all for having "Holy Warriors" of all alignments, but I've always viewed the "Paladin" title as being uniquely bound to the service of both Law and Goodness. Maybe I'm just a traditionalist.

Also, from where did the class concept originate? Is it true that Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions story is one of the main influences of the AD&D Paladin?

Thank you for your time, good sir! This is indeed a wonderful thread.

Welcome CrusaderX. Pleased to be of service...and to have a bit of fun in so doing.

As far as I am concerned, the Paladin is Lawful Good--perior. The class takes vows, swears an oath, and then follows it. The concept is drawn from some legend--Authurian--and some quasi-legend--the paladins of Charlemaine plus the code of chivalry as it was written, more honored in the breach than the keeping. As described in the game system, any characyer that was of paladin class would cease being so immediately his vows were broken.

Playing a proper paladin is often mishandled also. They are not stupid per se, only bound by oaths. For example I did allow paladins to slay dangerous prisoners if those individuals renounced Evil. In such a state of grace, killing them is actually a Good act, for they will then go on to a better life in another world instead of being sent to some dark and dismal plane to suffer for their ways after death. While a paladin will fight to the death if necessary, they are not usually bound to suicidal valor for no pirpose.

Anyway, while Poul Anderson in his excellent THREE HEARTS & THREE LIONS was treating Oiger the Dane as his protagonist, that work was not the source for the paladin class. I did borrow a good deal from the troll he had in the yarn though

Cheers,
Gary

 

[ColonelHardisson]

Three Hearts and Three Lions didn't inspire the paladin? Wow. I always thought it did. Another urban legend dispelled.

On the subject of the origins of familiar tropes in the game...from what I've read, Gary, D&D was originally an outgrowth of war games, in which the party was, basically, a small unit of what one could call "commandos" that infiltrated a besieged fortress. Is that accurate? If so, then what's surprising to me is that I can't think of very many adventures ever set in such a situation. That is, while some adventures feature infiltration of fortresses - such as the "Giants" series - few ever feature a beleaguering army outside. I guess it surprises me because of how much potential such a situation has - PCs could either be from the besieging army, or they could be from the within the fortress, trying to make a sally of sorts. I'm just surprised we never saw more adventures about such a situation, given D&D's wargame origins.

 

[Skarp Hedin]

Hi Gary,

It's very nice of you to be sitting around answering question after question here.. and when I saw this:

The FIEND FOLIO was compiled by those two, then the owners of GW, from submissions published in WHITE DWARD MAGAZINE, and brought to TSR as material for an additional book of monsters. I culled some, saw that other creatures were added, and then Lawrence Shick, the man in charge of project left in the monsters I'd said must be cut--he was leaving the company so...

I just had to ask: So, then, what monsters did you designate as "must be cut" from the Fiend Folio?

 

[Rel]

Although I know Larry Niven...

Do me a favor and next time you see him tell him thanks for being the best hard-sci-fi writer I've ever read and that I wouldn't mind seeing another Dream Park novel when he gets a chance.

Do you also know Jimmy Buffett? If so, we can just call this thread "All Rel's Greatest Heroes" and be done with it.

 

[The Sigil]

(Lighthearted) Would you?

I have to ask, because some of the posters on another thread were afraid to... and I figure that since I thought of it, I should bring it up...

This comes from the 1,000 Ways to Freak out your players thread... would you be willing to do this one, Colonel? It's way #1,000.

http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=14010&perpage=40&pagenumber=17#post387575

--The Sigil

 

[Bjorn Doneerson]

Hello. I don't know what to say so I guess just thanks, and I'll get on to asking you annoying questions:

You came up with all the planes, right? And the planes have their little mysteries, like what's in Chronias. Do/did you have an answer in mind for any of these and would you be willing to tell us such things?

And on a dare I ask you: Will you be my friend?

 

[ScottGLXIX]

Greetings,
A question on some of the undead creatures. Did you originally see wights and wraiths as having corporeal forms or not? Early on wights and wraiths were very similar, the wraith was just the more powerful of the two. Over the years they’ve developed into very different critters with a wight having a physical form, and wraiths not.
Scott

 

[Col_Pladoh]

Three Hearts and Three Lions didn't inspire the paladin? Wow. I always thought it did. Another urban legend dispelled.

Well that's the way it goes

In truth I was using the older sources for the model of the paladin, and the 12 Paladins of Charlemaigne was my main inspiration. Of course it didn't hurt that I had been told the story of Roland at about age three...

[On the subject of the origins of familiar tropes in the game...from what I've read, Gary, D&D was originally an outgrowth of war games, in which the party was, basically, a small unit of what one could call "commandos" that infiltrated a besieged fortress. Is that accurate? If so, then what's surprising to me is that I can't think of very many adventures ever set in such a situation. That is, while some adventures feature infiltration of fortresses - such as the "Giants" series - few ever feature a beleaguering army outside. I guess it surprises me because of how much potential such a situation has - PCs could either be from the besieging army, or they could be from the within the fortress, trying to make a sally of sorts. I'm just surprised we never saw more adventures about such a situation, given D&D's wargame origins.

The D&D game grew out of wargaming on the table top uning the original CHAINMAIL Fantasy Supplement thereto. In that rules set there is a suggestion that when digging mines and counter mines graph paper be used, but as you note no actual D&D game module I've ever seen has taken the base, seiges, to the "commando" raid stage, either in infiltrating a fortress of for breaking out of one to wreak havoc on the besiegers lines.

As a matter of fact, though, in the HALL OF MANY PANES module I do have a scenario in which the team is sent from a besieged castle to seek help to break the encirclement.

Cheerio,
Gary