What is Gygaxian?

[kenobi65]

3) Lots of cool names. Sure, some of you may scoff at "friend's name spelled backwards" but thinking of a character's name is one of the hardest things for me. Drawmij and Zagyg are perfect D&D names; perhaps Ekul the Gnome would work.

Sometimes backwards-words can make good names; far too often, I look at those and the first thing I think is, "that's some word spelled backwards." And, I think Gary was often egregious in using variations of his own name here, there, and everywhere (heck, if you look at the map for "Expedition to the Barrier Peaks", it even has his initials in it as walls).

(slight thread hijack) I, too, used to have a terrible time with naming characters (and places). My solution was to find a name-generating program. Sami Pyorre's Everchanging Book of Names has proven to be a godsend to me. It's shareware, so you need to pony up a few bucks for a fully-functional version, but it's a great program. And, I know there are several other similar programs out there.

 

[Fedaric_the_Axe]

Do you

You talking about playing deep motivation characterizations, or whatever it is you're saying you played in a "Gygaxian" game mean that you don't understand the usage of the word Gygaxian. You may have been playing a game written by Gary Gygax, but that's not Gygaxian style play.

I think that many groups ( including mine who play AD&D1E ), play with deep motivation charcterizations. Are we playing AD&D in an "unGygaxian" manner?. So Gygaxian means little or no character development?!

 

[turbo]

1. Stakes in Combat…such as Character Sheets
2. Player ingenuity versus Dungeon Master ingenuity, to the end of sport
3. Style: unabashed egotism and self-promotion, wit, flair, bluster
4. Unfettered curiosity
5. Game over campaign, campaign over players
6. Authoritarianism
7. Game mechanics to facilitate, not constitute, a tactical challenge
8. Aesthetic dogma: not pulp, but modernist: make it new

 

[ThirdWizard]

So Gygaxian means little or no character development?!

Simplistically, yes. Or at least, in a Gygaxian game, character development will be incidental, rather than intentional. It doesn't mean character driven or Gygaxian style are bad. They're just different.

 

[The Shaman]

Game mechanics to facilitate, not constitute, a tactical challenge

That's a very interesting observation.

 

[Desdichado]

I think that many groups ( including mine who play AD&D1E ), play with deep motivation charcterizations. Are we playing AD&D in an "unGygaxian" manner?. So Gygaxian means little or no character development?!

Yes, I think it most certainly does. In Gary's column in Dragon, "On the Soapbox" or whatever it's called, he very clearly talks about his gaming style, and the types of games he used to run (still does?) and what he sees the game of D&D as being all about. It's fundamentally at odds, IMO, with the type of game you describe, despite the fact that you use a Gygax-written system to play it.

And I agree that many people do play that way; I certainly always have, yet in my case, that cognitive dissonance between my preferred playstyle and that clearly espoused by Gary Gygax drove me away from D&D for many years. You've obviously made the system work for you, and I say to that: "Good for you!" But that doesn't mean that your game is Gygaxian, at least not how I understand the word.

 

[haakon1]

Now that's a first I never heard that one before. What makes Sunless Citadel, Return to the Temple of Elmental Evil, The Forge of Fury, etc. so different in this regard?

Those are good enough for me to use, so they must be Gygaxian!

 

[haakon1]

I think a steady diet of "morally-complex plotlines" is suitable only for anemic, angsty navel-gazers - give me red-blooded, flash-seared adventure, thank you, and serve it with a frosty-cold mug of ale carried by a blond-and-buxom wench before I trash the common room.

That's Gygaxian to me, not badly written adventures or shallow characters or inconsistent game worlds.

Hoo-yah! Gygaxian is D&D for Marine wannabes (or real Marines). Non-Gygaxian is D&D for Broadway actor wannabes (or real English majors).

 

[Faraer]

As soon as something happened that wasn't, and people needed a way to explain the difference.

Right, so what seems Gygaxian to someone depends on what their norms are and how Gary's differ.

Of course, Gary's have been mispresented here quite a bit, but most of that has been pointed out.

 

[Masquerade]

Hoo-yah! Gygaxian is D&D for Marine wannabes (or real Marines). Non-Gygaxian is D&D for Broadway actor wannabes (or real English majors).

Could you explain this comment further?