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.

 

[Joël of the FoS]

Happy Bday to you Gary!

*holds a Boréale rousse beer to your health*

---

The last issue of Dragon mag has a wonderful image of the Demogorgon.

May I ask where the imagery of this splendid demon comes from?

Joël

 

[Odnasept]

Oh my, that is an excellent idea!

In the same vein as the last question, I myself am very curious as to how you came up with the (A)D&D versions of various classical and mythological figures such as Orcus and Demogorgon (both mentioned in Milton's Paradise Lost as I recall), Asmodeus ('the destroyer' in Hebrew?), Bahamut (something Indian about a turtle which carried the world on its back?) and my all-time favourite, TIAMAT ('Salt Water', the Babylonian mother goddess described in the Enuma Elish tablets)!

If the latter's appearance was at all inspired by a certain prominent character in the book of Revelation, don't worry; we won't tell anyone!

EDIT: Oh, and I am also rather curious as to how you came up with such creative concepts for the good and evil dragons, particularly Draco Rigidus Frigidus and Draco Nobilis Argentum!

 

[Wolv0rine]

EDIT: Oh, and I am also rather curious as to how you came up with such creative concepts for the good and evil dragons, particularly Draco Rigidus Frigidus and Draco Nobilis Argentum!

That Draco Rigidus Frigidus, he's a real hard ice I hear tell...

 

[Col_Pladoh]

Whoa!

Naturally the auto notice for a post here failed to reach me--if one was ever sent--the server here seems to enjoy shorting me thus at times, so there are a spate of new posts that that I need to respond to.

First, my sincere thanks for the good wishes for my birthday anniversary last Friday. I really enjoyed the 10 things list and special gifts tables too

Four of six kinder and five of eight grandchildren were at our place on Friday, and eight of us went out for dinner at a good restaurant near to Lake Geneva. All enjoyed the occasion, and the food was near four star quality. I enjoyed a Wiener Schnitzel ala Holstien, but the Warsteiner beer was not on par with the locally brewed New Glarus Blonde, for example, iot also being a pale pilsner.

I received some very nice gifts, including eight or 10 imported English and French cheeses from son Luke, and I sampled five of them as a light supper last evening, having the cheeses with French bread and an indifferent Australian red wine. Amongst an assortment of goodies in a gift basket, daughter Elise gave me a great-looking bottle of rum that I have yet to uncork. So many potables, so little time for such libations :\ As a continuation of the fun, grandson Joey is bringing a couple of very fine cigars to me soon along with the DVD of 300. I'll furnish us with some 17-year-old single malt Scotch whiskey and a tot of 70-year-old Armagnac as we watch the movie on our big-screen telly.


There's a bit more, but hat should siffice, as I do not want to bore all readers to tears.

Colonel Hardisson, your comments regarding available magic items are quite relavant. I also do indeed allow petty things such as you note, faux items, and sometimes even something that heals a bit of damage to be rooted out by dilligent scouring of all the odd shops in town.

The many monsters I devised for the A/D&D games came from a variety of sources including mythology, legends, medieval bestiaries, folklore, fairy tales, and authored fiction. The demon names were dug up form medieval sources in the main. The various colors and metallic-hued dragons I made up mainly on my own, the other bad ones being permutations of the red, fire-breathing drake, the metallic dragons coming from. Of course Bahamut was based off of the Biblical name Behemoth, but Tiamut's five-heads were inspired only by the five colors of Evil dragon. not the beast with seven heads and 10 horns that the Scarlet Whore of Babylon rode on before she was devoured by it from the Book of Revelation.

I made up the Latin names for the dragons with much huffing and puffing.

The silver dragon was not difficult to cobble together using the gold and blur dragon stats for reference.

If I have missed any post that needs a special answer, just holler at me, and I''ll gladly respond accordingly.

Cheerio,
Gary

P.S. As to the song lyrics: After all these years about the worst that happens when I am attacked is that I grow bored with the topic or else become irritated and drop the whole matter (if I am in an otherwise bad mood). In a worst case scenario I find the exchange stimulating, begin a series of sarcastic, caustic, and/or japing responses that bring no benefit to anyone concerned....

 

[Col_Pladoh]

I hope this is the right place to post this. I was referred to here by someone who was encouraging us to wish Happy Birthday to a man who has brought many a happy birthday present into the lives of others. Thank you, sir. Yeah, I can be shmucky but I'll, uhm, blame my newbieness.

In honour of the Great Zagyg, my Top 10 Ways to Celebrate Gary Gygax's birthday:

10. Go to GenCon and convince the people that, no, really, WotC respects JRR Tolkien more because their Halflings aren't so similar to Hobbits.

9. Gather 500,000 Egyptian army war-gaming miniatures and shape them into the words "Happy Birthday!" in hieroglyphic form.

8. Send Gary 69 +2 Flaming Candles for his birthday cake.

7. Get Brendan Frasier to assist you in taking over your local radio station so you can play songs from Pitcheblend's album, "Gygax!".

6. Broker the Broadway premiere of the Dead Alewives' "Take Down the Grand Master" and then secretly replace the Cheetos with a generic brand and see if anyone notices..

5. Call DC Comics and ask Dan Didio how those little mini-D&D-comic advertisements from the late 70's/early 80's ended (seriously, does anyone know or is that poor band of elf, magician and fighter still stuck in that darned dungeon?).

4. Get Ralph the Mouth and Adam Rich to dress in one of those two-person horses outfits as "Uni" and "bah" the Happy Birthday theme. (You could use Willie Aames but I think he's still stuck in Baldur's Gate).

3. Create documentary called "Bowling for Mazes and Monsters". Use the millions you make to buy Gary a nicer birthday present.

2. Replace Jack-in-the-Box's E. Coli with Arthronema gygaxiana sp nov UTCC393 for the day

1. Call your wife Tipper and ask if you can go over to Gary's house for a quick game of D&D. Pester her by pointing out that Deep Blue and Stephen Hawkings have already gotten permission.

Happy Birthday E.G.G.

LOL!

I think that playing some wargames with the ancient Egyptian miniatures would be more fun.

Funny thing, I never heard of the math-rock quartet Pitcheblende, only the mineral of that name, until you mentioned it here. I see that it has gone by the wayside, as has the rock group Gygax, Gygax, Gygax.

I hope that the head of the Swiss Airforce, Lt. General Gygax is not disheartened by those events.

Cheerio,
Gary

 

[the black knight]

Hey Gary,

Thanks for the replies. I have enjoyed reading your thoughts.

One last question on Castle Zagyg, if I may. Are you satisfied with the way it turned out? I know it must have been a long road for you, but what about the project surprised you?

Were there any moments where creativity took over as a force of its own?

Lastly, how would you rate it in its overall difficulty? Is it another Tomb of Horrors?


Sincerely,

the black knight


P.S. happy belated birthday!

 

[Col_Pladoh]

I am never satisfied with a worrk in progress. Heh-heh-heh! I expect the final part of the CZ castle and dungeon levels to be completed by the end of this year...or maybe early in 2008. These sorts of projects take time to get right for a general audience

So far I am liking all that has been outlined and completed, though.

And the b'day good wishes are appreciated.

Cheerio,
Gary

 

[mattcolville]

Gary-

Not sure if anyone's asked this before, but if there were a canonical Gygaxian campaign, and you wanted to communicate the tone and style of play to a newbie, what movies would you have them watch as reference?

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

Hey there. Happy Birthday, Gary Gygax.

Yours Sincerely
Edena_of_Neith

 

[Odnasept]

P.S. As to the song lyrics: After all these years about the worst that happens when I am attacked is that I grow bored with the topic or else become irritated and drop the whole matter (if I am in an otherwise bad mood). In a worst case scenario I find the exchange stimulating, begin a series of sarcastic, caustic, and/or japing responses that bring no benefit to anyone concerned....

Hmmm....Intriguing, but considerably more difficult to rhyme-synch with Stan Bush's '80s-'90s rock lyrics....

With regards to the job of designing dragonkind (if you will pardon my penchance for punnery) your answers provided quite a revelation! The idea of a dragon/wyvern/hydra is a very cool concept for the Babylonian dragon goddess in and of itself, and I shall thus assume that the reason for her originally being classified as a devil of the Nine Hells was simply due to her being both lawful and a progenitor of evil (my Bachelor's degree in English provides me with ample opportunity to draw connections where none exist ). After all, such makes the cosmology of my own campaign more original than I had initially assumed!

I was however somewhat baffled by the origins of my favourite non-unique dragon, the aforementioned Draco Nobilis Argentum a.k.a. the Silver Dragon. I had never heard of the 'Blur Dragon', but swift and fruitless searches of Wikipedia and Google led me to the consideration that it may in fact have been a typo for 'Blue Dragon'.

I now have two more dragon-related questions:

Firstly, is there any reason why the other Metallic dragons (the Silver in particular) look somewhat- to considerably less oriental in design than the Gold Dragon, or was it simply so that they would fit better into a game which tends to focus largely on a mediaeval Western world-style milieu?

Secondly, what is your stance on the increase in power dragons received upon the release of the 2nd Edition AD&D game? They were always beings of great power, but the non-unique dragons went from being inferior to the most powerful of giants to being able to surpass them and perhaps even Titans as well once they reached the eldest age categories (I persynally almost always supported this change, though my reason is primarily due to an inherent love of dragonkind and ambivalence toward giantkind).