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Message: <blockquote data-quote="T. Foster" data-source="post: 3286308" data-attributes="member: 16574">I played with Gary twice at the same con (Glathricon '88 in Evansville, Indiana), running a pre-Mythus version of Necropolis. For the first session (Friday evening) there were 4 players, and we were all instructed (by an intermediary -- Frank Mentzer, IIRC) to create new 18th level characters on the spot, with whatever stats and magic items we wanted ("because if you don't play smart, they're not going to help you"). After a half-hour or so we sat down at the table with Gary who asked us if we wanted more of an action-oriented adventure (the Temple of Osiris) or a problem-solving adventure (the Tomb of Rahotep). We chose the latter. He gave us a short run-down of the parts of the adventure we'd skipped over, allowed us to purchase figurine idols (something specific to the adventure), and cut straight to the tomb entrance. The remainder of that session was spent exploring the outer tomb. We didn't do very well, and managed to fall for all the red-herrings and traps (and were only saved from certain death by the use of at least one (possibly two) wish). When we finally found the entrance to the actual tomb Gary called the session for the night and we agreed to meet again the next afternoon.Apparently word had gotten out before the second session, because there were a lot more players there (9 or 10 total), most of whom had brought their own high-level characters. Gary repeated the summary from the previous night (and let us glance at the maps of Aartuat village and the Temple of Osiris), gave the new guys the chance to purchase figurine idols, and then straight back to the tomb. Despite the number of players, the game was very fluid and fast-moving -- we had an epic combat with the 12 iron skeletons, weren't fooled by the false Rahotep tomb, and were in that section where the party gets hit by the repeated Curses of Rahotep by the time Gary called it a day and gave us a quick summary of how the rest of the adventure would've gone (and an even-briefer glance at the full tomb map). Nobody died, but Gary assured us that at least one character (the guy who'd been hit by the Curses) was ultimately doomed, and that we would've had a very tough time of it.Ruleswise the game was AD&D-lite with a couple bits and pieces of what eventually became Mythus -- natural 20 to hit rolls did max damage, money was based on the BUC system, and all the characters had "joss points" to mitigate bad rolls (or enhance good ones). Gary never once looked at a rulebook (I don't think he even had rulebooks with him), and all his dice rolls were made in the open (but not in the middle of the table or with the results announced -- only the players sitting right next to him would be able to see if he was actually being honest or just rolling the dice for show and ignoring the results). No minis (or mini-substitutes -- dice, coins, etc.) were used in either session and all distances, areas of effect, etc. were either calculated in Gary's head (or, more likely, just fudged). We didn't make a map in either session (and lucky for us one of the players had a good enough memory to get us out of the maze we stumbled into in the first session). We didn't talk to any NPCs (but this was surely an artifact of the scenario we were playing and not an indication of Gygax's GMing style in general -- there are no NPCs to talk to in Rahotep's tomb (at least the parts of it we explored)) and there was precious little "role-playing" (in the playacting sense) of any kind -- pretty much all player-on-player interaction occured on a player level. No mention was made of tracking supplies like water, arrows, torches, etc. (but again that's probably more an artifact of the adventure than any indication of his GMing style -- we were all very high level characters). There was no designated "caller" -- in the first (exploration-oriented) session we the players de facto allowed one guy (the guy with the good memory) to do most of the speaking for the group since he seemed the most on-the-ball, but the others of us would chime in with specific actions/questions as appropriate. In the second session where there was more combat he'd go around the table quickly asking what you were planning to do that round. No dilly-dallying was allowed -- if you didn't know you got skipped over.The main things that stick out in my memory about both sessions is 1) how personable Gary was, and 2) how fast-moving the game was. Having previously played in lots of RPGA-type tournaments, I'd had it ingrained in my mind that D&D was at least somewhat "serious business," that out-of-character talk was to be discouraged and out-of-game talk avoided entirely. Gary's games were the opposite -- he was constantly "breaking character" to relate various real-life anecdotes -- about favorite (and least-favorite) books and movies, about living in Hollywood, about office-politics at TSR, etc. In total I'd guess that a least half the table-talk at both sessions was completely out-of-game, and even the in-game talk went off on tangents -- we were given a running commentary on our play, things we could've done differently and what would've happened (for better or worse) if we had, etc. But none of that dragged the game down, because it moved lightning-fast -- there was no stopping to look things up in books, no discussion of rules-matters, everything was completely transparent, as if Gary were making it all up as he went (which, in retrospect, he probably was). Both of these factors profoundly affected my own GMing style ever since.</blockquote>

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