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.

 

[Respectabiggle]

Not even those dreadful "Conan" flicks have any merit in regards Sowrds & Sorcery theming. So...

I'd love to see a Solomon Kane film. There's more meat in those stories than half of a Barnes and Noble. Unlikely to happen, I know...

 

[Particle_Man]

Actually, I think one is in the works. Don't know about quality, of course.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0970452/

 

[Col_Pladoh]

It's a good answer.

It's interesting that your first response is the Conan movie(s). I presume that's because, over the years, people with affection for the movie ask you what you thought of it, expecting the answer to be positive. Certainly there's a lot to be disappointed in.

I've noticed you say, and the evidence bears out, that you like some SF thrown in with your Fantasy. Would a "Gygaxian" fantasy movie be Swords & Sorcery, or more genre-bending stuff? I remember Krull had not only a group of adventurers, but some SF elements kinda casually tossed in.

The 13th Warrior often tops lists on message board forums of "best fantasy movie." That always struck me as a very low-fantasy (indeed, strictly speaking, no-fantasy) gaming-movie. I know it's John Zinzer at AEG's favorite movie for precisely that reason.

Do you ever watch a movie and find yourself inspired to include elements from it in one of your adventures?

Happy that you were satisfied, as I was not quite that myself but couldn';t think of more examples off hand...

Conan is not a brown-eyes, brown-haired fellow with an Austrian accent, and he does not run away from a bozo with a wooden circus mallet

A pure S&S film would be fine with me, but yes, a fantasy with some advanced technology included is great fun--Hiero's Journey, The Broken Lands, the Black Flame by Lanier, Saberhagen, and Weinbaum respectively are favorites of mine...made so from my old days of devouring pulp zines.

13th Warrior could have been 12th Warrior if I had been directing it, but the underground-dwelling bear-slayer troglodytes were pretty much thge stuff of fantasy, no?

Of late I find my inspiration more from historical sources than from motion picture or TV fiction sources, although I surely enjoy the latter.

Cheerio,
Gary

 

[Col_Pladoh]

I think that in many ways, the sci-fi/fantasy dichotomy is a false one. Many of the most influential stories in the "fantasy" genre have a healthy dose of "sci-fi" in them as well. In fact, it is this quality that serves as the primary difference between that genre that began in the 20th century that separated it from the "fairy tales" that preceded it.

I think Gary's preference, like mine, isn't necessarily for "sword and sorcery" but for "pulp adventure" and the "well wrought tale" genre. This view is comfortable with running a pseudo-medieval campaign setting that has crashed space ships, side treks to Barsoom, guargantuan carnivorous apes, and cowboys.

Actually, REH's and Leiber's tales are amongst my very favorites, and they are pure pure S&S. OTOH, I enjoy fairy tales and fantasy yarns with some technology/scoience fantasy included, as noted above.

So yes, my taste in fantasy is surely eclecticm and includes MArgater St. Claire's The Secret People

Cheerio,
Gary

 

[Col_Pladoh]

Hisssss! You have displeased Tiamat! Dragons must be all-powerful! Curse the giants! Cuurrrssssse themmm!!!


Seriously though, I have often found that smaller, more cunning dragons could present an especially well-played challenge to PCs (this October will mark the ten-year anniversary of my players' lamentation of the power and strategy of a 28-hit-point Young Adult Black Dragon and her 8-hit-point hatchling, for example) without having to be restricted to the status of 'unkillable gods' as one DM I know has done. Your statements also remind us of the fact that your game predates the video game RPG and had instead traditional and classical mythology as inspiration, which (at least in the West) does not require dragonkind to be at all all-powerful.

Which leads me to another somewhat dragon-related question, though I promise it will be the last at least until I come up with the next one. I recall the appearance of 1st Edition AD&D stats for the characters of the Arthurian Legends (I believe that Merlin was 23rd Level ), and as I read more of them I have become curious to what extent they may have inspired/influenced any aspect of AD&D (I am thinking also of various chromatic colours of dragon that appear therein).

Once again, thank you for all your insightful replies,

A fellow gamer and designer,

Odnasept

Mileus never did a decent motion picture in his life as far as I am concerned

What you say about small dragons is quite so IMO. One of my toughest encounters was with a young red one that had both spider climb and invisibility spells... A surprise breath attack from above, then a plummeting one with fang and claw wrought a lot of havoc.

Can't say who did the Arthurian Legend sa=tats--surely in The Dragon magazine. Although I am a fan of Celtic myth and John Boorman films, I do not care for Authurian Legend at all. If you have read my short story, "Duty," written from Excaliber's POV, you'll note just how little I enjoy the story.

May inspiration never desert you,
Gary

 

[Col_Pladoh]

I kept expecting this to end with:

Now, now...

Play nicely! (And remember to do as I say, not as I do )

Cheerio,
Gary

 

[Col_Pladoh]

When I finally got around to seeing the Conan the Barbarian movie recently, I was shocked. I can't understand why Melius didn't want to take full credit for his own work. Why bother with the hassle of licensing just to wipe his own names off his characters & substitute the names of Howard's characters?

Can it be true that there has really never been a sword & sorcery film in the tradition of Howard & Lieber? I have to admit that none comes to mind. Some Hong Kong films & Big Trouble in Little China do indeed seem like the closest thing.

I do believe that Arthur Lieberman had as much to do with the low quality of the Conan films as Milieus did. He wanted me to design a special weapon for Kull and assist with the storyline...all for the right to licence thr ptoperty for an RPG :\

I told him union minimum would work, and he could shop the license.

Thus ended those talks.

About the closest to an S&S film dine to date is Ladyhawk, and that was not particularly good, eh?


Gary

 

[Col_Pladoh]

I really love the first Conan movie. Don't care how faithful to the source material it is. Fun movie.

Gald someone enjoyed it, and I have no quarrel with your take on the flick although it is diametrically opposed to my own.

Cheerio,
Gary

 

[Col_Pladoh]

I'd love to see a Solomon Kane film. There's more meat in those stories than half of a Barnes and Noble. Unlikely to happen, I know...

Unlikely indeed after the two Conan pocs followed by the Red Sojna disaster.

Cheerio,
Gary

 

[Col_Pladoh]

Actually, I think one is in the works. Don't know about quality, of course.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0970452/

I'll be hornswaggled!

Let us see if it actually goes into production for theatrical release or goes straight to DVD.

Cheerio,
Gary (who is finally going to see 300 tonight on his big screen TV...hooray )