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

Over the past several days, I've reached out to several people and looked back at those who knew him best. Most everyone agrees. Gary was a sexist. Even for the times. He was not a misogynist (a lot of folks seem to think misogynist and sexist are the same thing and freely intermix the two, they're not). There isn't any evidence he actively hated women (David C Sutherland, OTOH...). There are several examples of him actually trying not to be a racist. That is, he signed off on things we certainly consider racist today, but when editors came up to him and said, "Hey, you might want to change this because it might come off as bad." he actually listened and made the changes. Personally, I judge someone who is an accidental racist differently than someone who is an intentional racist, while knowing that the impact to those can often be the same. These things are really complex and include a lot of nuance.

And I think that's the key. Recognizing that someone tried to avoid problems but just didn't know better at the time while also acknowledging that even if someone tried, they still had an impact to those marginalized groups. It's about realizing nuance while holding accountability. It's the difference between "You're a horrible human being" and "You made some mistakes that had this impact on people." On these internet forums, I see too much "He was horrible in every context" and too much "He did nothing wrong so you're offended by nothing."

It seems the racism in D&D from Gary's side was accidental while the sexism was intentional, if that makes sense. Any racism was embedded into cultural norms that weren't recognized or thought of as racist. Take orcs for instance. Evil orcs are racist because they are dark skinned? D&D pulled orcs directly from Tolkien, so Gary nor anyone else would even think they are racist. However, at the same time, putting most of the dark skinned humanoids as evil did have a real impact to people of color who noticed that trend. Both can be correct. I cannot overstate enough how just because someone didn't intentionally mean to do harm, harm wasn't done. Listen to those folks who are saying harm was done. Ignoring or invalidating them is more often not coming from a position of privilege.

I don't think it's really debatable re: sexism. That's pretty clear, even by his own words.

All this means is that Gary was X, but not necessarily Y or Z. People seem to jump to "if he was bad here, then he was obviously meant to be bad there too!" On the other side, I hear a lot of "Gary wasn't really bad here, so he wasn't bad at all! Sign of the times! You're just getting too offended!" Gary could be a sexist and also be sarcastic in another statement. Gary could be influenced by the sign of the times and also be accountable. These conversations seem to embrace mutual exclusion when the reality is not.

But really, the important question is, why does it matter? I understand why WoTC has disclaimers on products that reproduce old material because they want to avoid the impression they are endorsing that material that includes problematic themes. But for the rest of us, what does it matter? Too many people assume those disclaimers are calling them racists or sexists and it doesn't. Outrage over made-up offenses. Like I said the other day, if Universal Studios said that 16 Candles had racism and sexism that wouldn't be appropriate today, that doesn't mean Universal Studios is calling John Hughes or people who enjoyed the movie back then all racists and sexists. Throwing fits by saying they are is immature and irresponsible IMO.

On the same note, Gary is dead. Why is it important to keep pointing out, every couple months, that he was sexist. What does that do? Who are you convincing that doesn't already have an opinion? Like I said, I get why WoTC does it, but why do we do it? Gary isn't here, but his kids are. Has anyone asked how they feel to keep having this argument over and over and over again? Is hurting them (of who most are good people) worth proving to someone rando on the internet that Gary was sexist?

That's the question I think we need to ask before we have this conversation again.
Been meaning to address this so I'm gonna do it in two real sections:

First, thank you for reaching out to old friends and connections who knew Gary directly and can confirm he was, actually, sexist. Intentionally sexist rather than just incidentally sexist. And specifically -even for his time-. It means a lot to me to have that information and cultural context. If you've got names you'd like to add to it, I'd happily take them, too.

Second, good to know he was only ever unintentionally racist. That's nice to hear, honestly. I totally respect that he worked to deal with it in his life! End of section 1...

Now for the difficult part: Because it's hard to get people to recognize or even acknowledge sexism in the world around them unless it's literally screaming in their face.

Even on these forums you can see people coming out of the woodwork any time this issue comes up that he's not sexist because:

1) He was right (the worst possible answer which usually leads to a ban)
2) He wasn't that sexist for the era (minimizing and deflecting criticism)
3) He was only joking (minimizing and deflecting criticism)
4) What he said wasn't sexist (talking over marginalized voices)
5) You shouldn't say bad things about the dead (minimizing and deflecting criticism)
6) Shouldn't you worry about -REAL- sexism? (minimizing and deflecting criticism)
7) Aren't you the real bigot? (DARVO)

And permutations on the above.

We continue to speak out against the above comments and other BS that gets rolled out every time the issue comes up because we have to fight back against these ideas. Why? Because otherwise they're accepted as the truth or correct answer or whatever.

Because when sexism is accepted as normal, bad things happen to women. And as a woman I have a sincere interest in combating that sexism anywhere I can. Even if it is 'Innocuous' or 'Not Serious' it gets serious pretty quick.
 

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you did not answer or address any of the post 112 questions
I believe I answered the questions, I considered that diatribe to be gaslighting. I am not going to give it more attention by pretending that tweet should be taken seriously

You obviously care deeply about making sure that everyone knows that "gygax was a sexist",
no, I did not start this by posting about him being a sexist, this was started by people denying it and being offended by anyone insinuating it. If that hadn’t happened I still would not have mentioned it once

you undercut the credibility of your own message with all this twisting & evasion when prompted for specifics on how that was relevant to his creations.
not sure why everyone individually has to explain the same things to you over and over again, nor do I see it making any difference. His sexism is reflected in his work, what more do you need…
 

I believe I answered the questions, I considered that diatribe to be gaslighting. I am not going to give it more attention by pretending that tweet should be taken seriously


no, I did not start this by posting about him being a sexist, this was started by people denying it and being offended by anyone insinuating it. If that hadn’t happened I still would not have mentioned it once


not sure why everyone individually has to explain the same things to you over and over again, nor do I see it making any difference. His sexism is reflected in his work, what more do you need…
I'm sorry, I thought this was the dungeons &dragons forum and we were talking about d&d history. Please show relevance between gygax as a person & his work. Maybe admit your claim is irrelevant & stop claiming that is an unreasonable burden too.
 


After reading the whole topic, I can say that we can admire the person, Gary Gygax, while admitting he was flawed. And I think that trying to hide or negate his flaws is a great disservice to him, because we get an idolized version of him instead of the real Gary Gygax. And I prefer the real thing, with all his ugly flaws, than an artificially pretty but fake, idolized version of him.

Does that mean that I like his flaws? No. I can criticise what he did without denying him his due. I'm going to still criticise his sexism, his unintentional (but still real) racism, and what I consider to be a bad choice in storytelling (his humanocentrist setting), while still being grateful to him for giving us D&D and the RPG genre as a whole. Hate the sin, not the sinner, as they say.

Because when sexism is accepted as normal, bad things happen to women. And as a woman I have a sincere interest in combating that sexism anywhere I can. Even if it is 'Innocuous' or 'Not Serious' it gets serious pretty quick.

And I'm not a woman, but I support this, as well.
 

After reading the whole topic, I can say that we can admire the person, Gary Gygax, while admitting he was flawed. And I think that trying to hide or negate his flaws is a great disservice to him, because we get an idolized version of him instead of the real Gary Gygax. And I prefer the real thing, with all his ugly flaws, than an artificially pretty but fake, idolized version of him.

Does that mean that I like his flaws? No. I can criticise what he did without denying him his due. I'm going to still criticise his sexism, his unintentional (but still real) racism, and what I consider to be a bad choice in storytelling (his humanocentrist setting), while still being grateful to him for giving us D&D and the RPG genre as a whole. Hate the sin, not the sinner, as they say.



And I'm not a woman, but I support this, as well.
Okay but some people are inventing flaws, exaggerating, etc.
 


Okay but some people are inventing flaws, exaggerating, etc.
Which people? Feel free to quote/link. You've made such general statements before and then failed to support them when asked.

Let's remember the context and history.

1. Wizards publishes enormous book celebrating the original game and its creation and creators. Includes in the foreword and preface some content warning/brief commentary on objectionable content in the old materials.
2. Rob Kuntz and various reactionaries attack, belittle, and personally insult writers Jon Peterson and Jason Tondro, and claim they are lying and slandering Gary.
3. Ben Riggs produces receipts substantiating sexism/misogyny, including Gary proudly proclaiming himself a sexist and demeaning women and their involvement in gaming. Despite this, Ben calls Gary "a genius" who "moved the world forward", maintaining, like Peterson and Tondro, a nuanced stance celebrating Gary's achievements without whitewashing.
4. Big arguments ensue in which various parties insist that Gary was never sexist, or that if he was it was no worse than anyone else of his time, and that who are these guys to claim they're historians, or how dare they speak ill of the dead, etc.
5. A reactionary clickbait YouTuber brings the book to Elon Musk's attention 4 months later and we have another round of the argument, with Elon of course setting a calm tone by calling for people to "burn in hell".

Who's exaggerating or inventing flaws? Who's attacking whom? Who's refusing to allow for nuance?
 

Okay but some people are inventing flaws, exaggerating, etc.

Sure. Inventing flaws is a bad thing, the people doing that is consciously damaging someone's reputation. But one thing is inventing flaws, and another is exposing said flaws.

The thing is that we still need to know what happened, even if it was an ugly thing we rather prefer it hadn't happened. If only to understand why things are like they are today.
 


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