D&D General The Human Side of D&D History - From Gary Gygax to Temple of Elemental Evil

[OptionalRule]

I wrote something today after watching Tim Cain's (Fallout, Troika) recent video about Temple of Elemental Evil being left out of Art & Arcana. Between that and our ongoing discussions about Gary's legacy, and given a lot of the discussions online and on EN World, I've been thinking a lot about how we remember the actual people who built this hobby.

The Human Side of D&D History: Reflecting on How We Remember Our Creators

Quick TLDR highlights:

• Tim's story about literally cutting up his personal ToEE module to share with his dev team
• How Gary was less "internet celebrity" and more "D&D fan's pen pal" in the early days
• The contrast between creators as real people vs. internet talking points
• Why veteran gamers might be defensive of Gary (hint: we actually met him!)
• The irony of defending creators against AI while reducing them to memes

Not trying to start another flame war about Gary or WotC - just hoping we can talk about the human side of our hobby's history. Some of you oldtimers probably have great convention stories about meeting these folks - would love to hear them.

What do you think? How do we balance honest criticism while remembering these are real people who helped build our hobby?

 

[Rabbitbait]

I had a discussion with Gary on this very forum. I had some ideas about Greyhawk that I was discussing with the group and Gary came on, adding to the discussion with a bunch of back and forth as we fleshed it all out. I was, I have to say, a bit starstruck.

 

[billd91]

I think when it comes to balancing honest criticism while remembering real people, it helps to remember they are/were real people. And that means that they often have flaws, may have treated others badly, or even spread their own malicious stories all while being creative, fun to talk to at conventions, and contributing to a hobby we love to participate in. And the more prominent they are or were, the more some of those stories will come out because they will probably also have had more of an impact both in depth and breadth.
Eventually, you have to step back and assess whether the criticism is appropriate, the defensiveness is appropriate, and whether either is in reasonably correct proportion.

 

[Maxperson]

I had a discussion with Gary on this very forum. I had some ideas about Greyhawk that I was discussing with the group and Gary came on, adding to the discussion with a bunch of back and forth as we fleshed it all out. I was, I have to say, a bit starstruck.

Do you have a link to that thread? I'd love to see it.

 

[Voadam]

I only interacted with Gary here in his big discussion thread where I asked about the rakshasa blessed crossbow bolt vulnerability origin and found it originated in a Kolchak the Night Slayer episode.

From my end it was a really cool experience to interact directly even if not in person.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I wrote something today after watching Tim Cain's (Fallout, Troika) recent video about Temple of Elemental Evil being left out of Art & Arcana. Between that and our ongoing discussions about Gary's legacy, and given a lot of the discussions online and on EN World, I've been thinking a lot about how we remember the actual people who built this hobby.

The Human Side of D&D History: Reflecting on How We Remember Our Creators

Quick TLDR highlights:

• Tim's story about literally cutting up his personal ToEE module to share with his dev team
• How Gary was less "internet celebrity" and more "D&D fan's pen pal" in the early days
• The contrast between creators as real people vs. internet talking points
• Why veteran gamers might be defensive of Gary (hint: we actually met him!)
• The irony of defending creators against AI while reducing them to memes

Not trying to start another flame war about Gary or WotC - just hoping we can talk about the human side of our hobby's history. Some of you oldtimers probably have great convention stories about meeting these folks - would love to hear them.

What do you think? How do we balance honest criticism while remembering these are real people who helped build our hobby?

There are a number of issues with criticism, we live in an age where there are many vested interest that was us to be mad, angry and not willing to take things like criticism as an honest opinion or to that it in good faith because if we regard a message, a posting, blog or video as that persons honest assessment we may, if we disagree with it, just dismiss it as some dude on the internet and not engage. They want us engaging, to linger on their platform so they can collect data and drive ads our way.
Another issue, is that we live in a society where a lot of money is spent to persuade people to invest in a personal relationship with a brand or personality. I do not believe that is a healthy thing to do because it is one sided and there is an excellent change that the personality or brand owner will let you down. It may something as simple as Dylan going electric or actual criminal behaviour.
People are complex and make mistakes and often things we love are flawed and perhaps flawed in ways that we did not realize at the time. I remember watching some old movies and some of the less obvious sexism stood out to me in ways that did not when I first watched them because those elements were more common in society and movies/tv at the time I first watched them.
The thing there is not to take those criticisms personally and liking a dated piece of media, does not make one a bad person nor does it imply that one endorses its more problematic aspects.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I've met and spoken with a lot of the old TSR employees. Ironically, Gary wasn't one of them. Yes, humans are complex, and there are a lot of layers. I tend to see a lot of absolutes being taken, a lot of embracing mutual exclusiveness. Especially online. Like Gary couldn't be sarcastic in this example because he said these other things other times. When it's actually more likely Gary could have said and done all those other things and also be sarcastic for this one thing. The one example doesn't take away from the others. I can't tell you how many people I know who act like jerks and when confronted on something bad they said or did, react in defensive sarcasm, "If I were really X, I'd say this, so you see, I can't be X."

Instead we spend 100 pages arguing about if it was sarcasm or not.

I'm not asking anyone to change their opinion on their judgements of people. We all do it. I've made my opinions pretty clear by now. I'm just agreeing with others here when realizing that we are all just people. It's why I've been arguing against deifying anyone for years. After Eddings, Jimmy Page, and others, I'm starting to feel like don't be a fan of anyone because it will just lead to disappointment lol.

I will say, and I stress this strongly, be careful of saying "Person X was nice to me, so they must be nice" when you don't belong to the demographic who that person hasn't been nice to. Of course your experience was good. I'm sure a straight white man would have a much better interaction with a Proud Boy than a transgender black woman. That's an extreme example, but I hope you get the point.

I admit my bias. Good lord, if you pulled quotes from me when I was a teenager (I grew up in a rural religious family that was pretty racist and homophobic), or even from things I had posted online 25 years ago, I'm sure you'd have some harsh judgements of me as well. I'm frankly embarrassed. So for me personally, I'm less concerned about a bad thing someone said years ago, and instead see if they've learned from it. I know this is just me, and I don't judge others who feel that approach isn't for them. Especially if they've been targeted in the past a lot more than I have.

Anyway, the TL;DR version is that I'd like to see more grace for recognizing the complexities of a person as mentioned in the OP and also see more grace and listening to those folks who aren't like us who had different experiences rather than immediately dismiss them because we didn't experience the same.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

....

I admit my bias. Good lord, if you pulled quotes from me when I was a teenager (I grew up in a rural religious family that was pretty racist and homophobic), or even from things I had posted online 25 years ago, I'm sure you'd have some harsh judgements of me as well. I'm frankly embarrassed. So for me personally, I'm less concerned about a bad thing someone said years ago, and instead see if they've learned from it. I know this is just me, and I don't judge others who feel that approach isn't for them. Especially if they've been targeted in the past a lot more than I have.

When I was young, we believed and said homophobic things without even an understanding of what a homosexual even was.

Anyway, the TL;DR version is that I'd like to see more grace for recognizing the complexities of a person as mentioned in the OP and also see more grace and listening to those folks who aren't like us who had different experiences rather than immediately dismiss them because we didn't experience the same.

Totally agree.

 

[OptionalRule]

When I was young, we believed and said homophobic things without even an understanding of what a homosexual even was.

Totally agree.

Though I am not religious, it brings to mind the quote "When I was a child, I spoke as a child, understood as a child, and thought as a child. When I became a man, I put away childish things."

 

[billd91]

Though I am not religious, it brings to mind the quote "When I was a child, I spoke as a child, understood as a child, and thought as a child. When I became a man, I put away childish things."

I like this quote from Maya Angelou better, since it can apply to any time frame:
“I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.”