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]

Note that I did not say the movie was bad. In fact, I have a really hard time saying whether I liked it or not because its REH veneer created expectations for me that the film didn't deliver. If it'd been called "Gronan" or "Korgoth", I'd've had a much easier time judging it on its own merits.

Well I say it was stinko, as it pretended to be based on RRH's Conan, and there is was an utter failure.

As a fantasy flick it was passable as a grade B motion picture.

Cheers,
Gary

 

[Col_Pladoh]

Have you guys read the John Crichton book they based 13th Warrior off of, Eaters of the Dead? Significantly more fun to read and its short under 200 pgs. Told as the diary or thoughts of the Arabian man as he deals with all this brutal and crazy viking culture.

Sounds to be rather a PC revision of the historical achievements of the Vikings...as if all the vital cultues of the period were not brutal.


Gary

 

[Storm Raven]

Sounds to be rather a PC revision of the historical achievements of the Vikings...as if all the vital cultues of the period were not brutal.

When I read Eaters of the Dead I didn't get that vibe at all - just that the narrator was taken aback by the, to his mind, unfamiliar (and in his opinion uncouth) customs and practices of the Rus he was traveling with - while blithely accepting the (to our minds) pretty nasty elements of his own. He also pretty much thinks this about just about every non-Arab he deals with.

Side note: the term "Eaters of the Dead" does not refer to the Rus or the Vikings in the story.

 

[Storm Raven]

The problem I had with the movie is that it was such a lame ripoff of The Seven Samurai.

Interesting. I wonder which came first The Seven Samurai or Beowulf?

 

[haakon1]

For me that was my first experiences with Conan. I had gotten into Fantasy gaming a year or so before that and Conan was just killer.

Me too. Also, it seemed to introduce the D&D culture to a wider audience, which was very cool with me. I read one of the Conan books a few years later and thought "eh". It might have been a lamer one, though.

 

[haakon1]

If the group is playing cooperatively, the others protect the low-level m-u most assiduously knowing that later on he will be the one that will carry the day for them/ Thus the viabillity if such a character should be high when part of a thoughtful player group

Cheers,
Gary

A kind DM also helps. I've seen the M-U taken out by area effect spells the rest of the party survived in two different campaigns I've run now. (In the second one, I allowed a second saving throw, which worked and counted. In the first, I allowed Raise Dead to be acquired in a plot-coolness way.)

Normally, I don't "nerf" anything, but for the M-U (or Wizard/Sorcerer in later editions) caught in a Fireball at 4th-5th level, a special break seems fair.

 

[Marshal Lucky]

assuming this is not a joke, walk we through this one slowly. Aside from group of people go to protect village, and some of the group of people die, how is The Thirteenth Warrior anything like The Seven Samurai?

The way the group is assembled one by one (the best scene in 13th Warrior, by the way), the way the group has to deal with discord inside the village, one of the heroes has a fling with the local girl, the leader who seldom speaks, the way each memeber of the group has his own specialty...

... but the clincher has to be a final battle in slow motion, in a downpour, between a few men on foot (with all the traps they set up in the village) and the bad guys on horseback.

Interesting. I wonder which came first The Seven Samurai or Beowulf?

13th Warrior (the movie at least) owes a lot more to Kurosawa's film than it does to Beowulf.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I'd say its more 50-50.

 

[HolyGrenadeFrenzy]

Hello

Hello Gary! Happy belated Birthday!

I just had to say it. I have been reading your threads for awhile now and thought I should say something before I asked any questions or anything like that.

I have been playing D&D through out its many forms since 1979 and like you rarely get to play unless it is with another dear friend of mine that switches off with me occasionally yet the duty of Dming/Gming is oft cast to myself.

While I have been given the duty of DMing, mostly since 1987, I too relish a good game from the player position and it adds life to my own DM/GM abilities like water is refreshing to the thirsty.

Now I am sure through the many threads you have written here I have missed the question I feel I must ask...Displacer Beast inspiration? = The Space Beagle, perhaps?

And off topic with Big Yellow Flags!

Thank you for your work Gary! The rhapsodic may depend on your work in the current and future generations more than you may even realize. So I thank you again

For without the use of the mind and imagination in abstract ways and symbols to represent the concrete and further abstractions the human mind can easily get lost in an information society unless you have the tools to push things aside and then draw them in, when and if needed.

RPGs do develop such skills. If then applied to other things then great and wonderful changes could and can occur.

There is no current understanding to what could develop for the human species except for some of the-brainiacs-whom-should-not-be-named, sadly they do not enjoy giving anyone else much credit and are a wee bit high on their thrones of intellectual superiority. This does apply to RPGs in IMO because it is being overlooked as an academic resource.

In short; it is a revelation that you created, a vehicle if you will, that can give others a chance to take their imaginations and creativity back from those whom would dominate it or see it wasted. I am eternally grateful and thank God for allowing you to impart the possibility of this wisdom to us.

Believe this I do and I am very sad about the multitude whom miss the oppurtunity to grow from a game and shared experience that this area of expertise provides. If used by school systems it could cause an educational revolution and open a new golden age...and I am not being over optimistic.

I have found another wonderful thing to do with RPG's and I have some work in an area that you might find interesting involving mnemonics.


(whispering)-I appologize if my entrance is too large. ..If I am not making sense please tell me. Thanks.

-HGF

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Sounds to be rather a PC revision of the historical achievements of the Vikings...as if all the vital cultues of the period were not brutal.

Its portrayed as brutal since its entirely told from the perspective of the Arab, who has never encountered anything like this and is used to the royal courts of his King. Its not a retrospective on Viking culture, just shows some of the culture shock this Arab has as he is thrust into it. They move through a couple different settlements, the first is pretty rough, especially on the wenches. The final one where they stay with the King was not very brutal at all, unless you were used to be pampered by harems at the Caliph's court. The onion soup test they used on injured warriors there was pretty nifty.

Anyway here is some more info http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eaters_of_the_Dead