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]

Hello Col_Pladoh,

A "Boot Hill" question for you. In the first Dungeon Masters Guide there are guidelines for Boot Hill/AD&D crossover games. My question is, Did you or Buckshot Blume ever play or DM one? I ask because my group is currently playing our third module in a D&D/Boot Hill hybrid campaign and we are having a great time with it.

Well, Pilgrim...

The short answer is no. While we did some testing to see that the suggestions actually worked all right, we never did get to a real campaign. That was due to Brian being involved in other things and not having time to devise the basis for a mixed D&D-BH setting.

I really like the idea of mixing magic and Wild West play, and it is great to learn you and your group have done it and are enjoying the result I don't know if this is the proper form for a recounting of your campaign, but I'd sure like to hear more! Maybe an email to me at ggygax@genevaonline.com if you have time and inclination.

Cheers,
Gary

 

[redwing00]

Gary- I'm not quite sure if this question has been asked before as it seems to be a fairly simple one, but how did you pick the races for D&D? In 1ed only dwarves, elves, "hobbits", and humans were PC races. I'm guessing this was drawn from LotR. But in 2ed gnomes came in. What source did you draw these creatures from.

 

[johnsemlak]

If I may, I'd like to humbly add one more detail about DJ--The rights to those products are now owned by Wizards of the Coast (like all other TSR material). PDF versions of three of the products are on sale at www.svgames.com. I wish they'd put out the Epic of Aerth. That's the one I'd really like.

 

[Whitey]

Let's rewind time to 1986 - I was eight years old at the time. My friend's older brother was playing D&D [Palace of Silver Princes, IIRC] and I've been fascinated ever since. Thanks for fifteen + years of entertainment, and for your contributions to the RPG community as a whole. I have just one question to pose here, out of the thousands that've come up since then, and have been the root of great RP experiences - it's a tricky epistemological one, and may not have a simple answer. Do evil Outsiders or creatures listed as 'always evil' think of themselves as doing wrong? Or do they think everyone else is being naive or weak? I suppose Good subtyped beings raise a similar issue.

Thanks again,
Whitey

 

[Col_Pladoh]

Gary- I'm not quite sure if this question has been asked before as it seems to be a fairly simple one, but how did you pick the races for D&D? In 1ed only dwarves, elves, "hobbits", and humans were PC races. I'm guessing this was drawn from LotR. But in 2ed gnomes came in. What source did you draw these creatures from.

Howdy!

Fact is that dwarves and elves came from mythology and folklore, the hobbit from JRRT's work. That mix was selected to attract readers of the "Rings Trilogy," of course. Later on I added gnomes to D&D to broaden the choices for non-human PCs, as I did in AD&D. This was done because a number of players, myself included, were tired of having so many dwarves, elves, and halflings in the group of adventurers. In my campaign a party of 12 would have three front rank halflings, a second rank of dwarves, elves in the third rank, and the fourth rank the humans--mainly magic-users and clerics.

Cheers,
Gary








'

 

[Col_Pladoh]

Let's rewind time to 1986 - I was eight years old at the time. My friend's older brother was playing D&D [Palace of Silver Princes, IIRC] and I've been fascinated ever since. Thanks for fifteen + years of entertainment, and for your contributions to the RPG community as a whole. I have just one question to pose here, out of the thousands that've come up since then, and have been the root of great RP experiences - it's a tricky epistemological one, and may not have a simple answer. Do evil Outsiders or creatures listed as 'always evil' think of themselves as doing wrong? Or do they think everyone else is being naive or weak? I suppose Good subtyped beings raise a similar issue.

Thanks again,
Whitey

Salut!

Semantics can be a problem. "Outsiders" is a prooblem term with me, as I don't think it appropos in describing creatures and entities of unusual sort. Ah well, that aside, semantics is a problem in regards to defining "evil" and "wrong."

In my view those wholly evil creatures are malign and purposefully wicked. To their way of thinking, "wrong" is desirable, mainly when they are doing it to others, not being done themselves. Of course they consider all others not of the same mindset as naive, weak, foolish, and gullible. "Wrong" is subjective, something the non-evil creatures have invented, and a weakness connected to conscience, something the evil ones do not have.

A W.C. Fields line is a working axiom for evil: "Never give a sucker an even break."

That's how I see it

Gary

 

[mistere29]

Gary, i didn't know you worked in the CRPG field. What games did you work own.

Did you ever play much DJ before you created LA, or did you kind of give up on it when TSR got the rights?

 

[Col_Pladoh]

Gary, i didn't know you worked in the CRPG field. What games did you work own.

Did you ever play much DJ before you created LA, or did you kind of give up on it when TSR got the rights?

There was a DJ/Mythus CRPG being done by NEC-JVC that I was inputing on, and had written a comic book introduction for. that was killed when TSR files its bogus lawsuit. I then did about 30 computer game proposals, two got optioned and were going forward. The first was killed by us when new management demanded contract changes that were impossible. The second was axed when the developer was sold off. That is when I returned to paper RPGs.

The development of the DJ game system went on for about five years. During that time I played the horror game for about two years and the fantasy game for about the same period. It got so that I could turn out a dozen completed Heroic Personas in a day's time When we took TSR's settlement money I did indeed cease playing the DJ system and begin on new ones for the CRPGs. As I mentioned, that exercise convinced me that I really preferred a rules-light system with skill-bundles, so the LA game system was born.

Cheers,
Gary

 

[grodog]

attn Moderators!

Hey someone with Moderator status----

A moderator was kind enough to place Part IV of this series in the archive meta-forum; would someone please do the same for parts 1-3 as well (you can back-track through the links from 4 to 3 to 2 to 1).

 

[Henry]

Allan, I've moved them for you. As a note, I also changed the titles of the first two to include the words, "Part I" and "Part II" to make searching easier.

Can't lose these babies to obscurity! That'd be like losing Louis Armstrong's jam tracks!