Planesdragon said:
As to the content of your post: Gary and Dave got more than their fair share of respect in the form of dollars and historical accalaim by roleplayers. OTOH, Mr. Gygax's actions since he left TSR nearly twenty years ago are suffiicent to give some cause to disrespect him, his original contribution to the hobby notwithstanding.
In fact, his recent comments about the OGL betray a certain lack of understanding and arrogance the hobby that has arisen from his work so many years ago. My personal preference is that Gary not be shown any exceptional reverence--Zeb Cook, Monte Cook, John Tweet, Steve Weick, Skip Williams, and Ryan Dancy all deserve just as much reverance as Gary, if not more.
Well, when I see bowing, I don't think of gods more than think of kings. And in my opinion, they are the kings of D&D. Why? First, without their development of the game, the others would not have the basis for their accomplishments. Yes, I have heard of the argument, "Others were development RPG games so the industry would have exploded anyways." However, at best, this is still just speculation. Others may have developed a fantasy RPG, but there's no guarantee that it would have been successful as D&D. Furthermore, you don't have to speculate on the accomplishments of Arneson and Gygax - they actually did it. There's plenty of thinker in the world and very few doers.
Second, let's look at three of the people in list above - John Tweet, Monte Cook, and Skip Williams. Easily, their biggest accomplishment was the development of the 3rd edition core books. Now, review the 3rd edition core rule books versus the 1st edition AD&D core rule books. Just running to what comes to me right now, for the PHB the attribute development, most hit dice, base damage for weapons, base races, most classes (all except sorcerer), and spells are pretty much the same as 1st edition AD&D. For saving throws turning, and armor class, they're the same concept with a new set of rules. For monsters, they're pretty much the same monsters from the 1st edition AD&D Monster Manual with many of the special qualities being the same.
Now let's look at what Arneson and Gygax had to fall back on - basic mythology and fantasy literature. They basically made the framework for the gaming system which we have today. Tweet, Cook, and Williams had this framework to base their creations upon which is a sizeable advantage, and in fact their book are still the works of Arneson and Gygax due o the framework involved in the books. As for module andcampaign settings, they are easily the pioneers with everyone providing theirs after these trailblazers.
They are not gods, but they are kings in this industry. They are kings indeed.
