If you’re trying to figure out what the credit line should read as next to “Creator of Roleplaying Games” you’ve got two options:
(1) Dave Arneson, for creating the fundamental gameplay in his Blackmoor campaign
(2) Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax, for co-authoring D&D
You’ll notice that neither one of these is “Gary Gygax all by himself”. That’s because there is no functional argument or logic by which Gary Gygax gets that title to himself.
What about Dave Wesely?
@ John,
Major Wesely gets credit for being the first inadvertent Dungeon Master. At Ars Ludi, there’s a good article about Braunstein, and the roles of Dave Arneson and Dave Wesely.
arsludi.lamemage.com “Braunstein: the Roots of Roleplaying Games”, August 6, 2008.
@ John,
Major Wesely, also gets credit for coming back on leave from the army and seeing that all the wargamers he was playing with, had mutated into dungeoncrawling nerds fighting orcs, and being the first person to say something along the lines of: “This fantasy roleplaying junk you people are doing is a total waste of time!”
I am not sure that joint credit between Gygax and Arneson is a bad place to leave it. Gary did a lot to popularize the game (like Claremont did with the X-men) and develop it. Arneson was critical to the foundations of the game.
Why would joint credit be at all arguable?
Clearly both GG and DA were key figures, but I bet there were a bunch of other people around who also contributed to the initial creation of RPGs. Sure would be interesting to know more about the experiences of the unnamed players in those earliest days.
@ d47,
The industry was very different in the early days. A lot of the original play testers talk about their experiences in various blogs they write, or youtube interviews. Following, are a few to get you started, if you are interested.
As an aside, there is also speculation that there were other groups working on similar ideas to roleplaying games, and Gygax was rushing to ‘be the first’ to get to market, and be at least ‘co-father.’ If that’s true, then roleplaying was a meme that was being born, whether Arneson’s ideas generated them for Gygax to elaborate on, or not. It may have been a cultural phenomenon in the making and somebody else would have innovated from fantasy books to board games to roleplaying games. Maybe Greg Stafford’s “White Bear and Red Moon,” and Steve Perrin and the Society for Creative Anachronism? That would be my best bet.
Rob Kuntz talks about his experiences as co-DM for Gary Gygax on his
blog “Lord of the Green Dragons.blog.”
There’s also an interview of Kuntz on YouTube: by Grognard Games…”Rob Kuntz: Conversations, Part 1″.
At about 32:00 into the interview, he talks about how the industry had changed at that point from a hobbyist’s game scene to a bottom line industry that doesn’t respect game players. That there’s a “Cycle of Disposability,” where Sales & Market managers “nurse their models until the bottom line moves.” Basically, they sell you ‘broken’ rule systems for as long as people buy them, then announce after four years, they’ve got a new and improved fix for all problems. And start selling you all new adventures to go with it, cause nothing’s compatible, anymore.
Justin talked about just this sort of thing in his post on this site, back on 8/20/07 “Thoughts on 4th Edition.” Where he mentions WotC “has now established a lengthy track record of lying through its teeth…”
Hill Cantons blog, has another interview with Rob Kuntz, “No Borders: A Conversation With Rob Kuntz” 8/15/11. Where he talks about his ideas of ‘Dissenting Creatives’ and ‘Eager Dependents,’ and his aversion to corporate-made modules, instead of home made adventures.
Other early commentators on the industry are definitely out there. Just looked through my notes and can’t seem to find them at the moment. If I find some links, I’ll post them.
If you consider historical re-enactment a form of a Live Role Playing Game, then Ancient Romans used to e-enact Ancient Greeks, namely Spartans. With regards to modern role-playing, I go with Steve Perrin and see how early the San Francisco Society for Creative Anachronism was paying the game that would become published as Rune Quest. The possible start date for RuneQuest is 1966 in San Francisco, the possible start date for Major Wesely’s Braunstein Game is listed in 1967. In actuality, neither of them were doing anything original. One of the varieties of military wargaming, is an exercise, where staff officers work on imaginary information (messages and reports coming in), as if it was real. Game master is the title of the military officer, who runs that type of stimulation. There is documented evidenced that Pentagon/State Department was running that type of a game in the 1950’s/1960’s, and the guy, who did this sort of work for a Washington DC Consultant (maybe Rand Corp), published the game, called Diplomacy (by Avalon Hill). In 1960’s role playing was also used in psychotherapy. Role playing is also widely used to train police, but I don’t know how far back. I saw photos of the undercover gestapo officers in WW2 dressed up and trained to act like the Polish men they were supposed to pose as. Even migration of role-playing from the professional world to the gaming is not new, afore mentioned Diplomacy, and Kipling’s Small Wars miniatures (based on military staff war-games) predate it.
If you’re really interested in the history of roleplaying games, especially as concerns their growth out of table-top wargames and LARPing, I highly recommend Jon Peterson’s book Playing at the World:
http://www.amazon.com/Playing-at-World-Jon-Peterson/dp/0615642047
cheers.
Got that book. Better book than others written on the topic. Problem with it, it concerns itself mainly and primarily with the evolution of Dungeons and Dragons and its roots. Stay away from the Evolution of Fantasy Role Playing Games by Michael Tresca. It is a puff piece polishing job for the Wizards of the Coast, akin to the book on role playing games written by Gary Gygax, that should have been titled: The World According to TSR. Stephen King did a much better job on horror fiction with his early book, Danse Macabre.
@ Broozer Bear,
Re: *”In actuality, neither of them were doing anything original. One of the varieties of military wargaming, is an exercise, where staff officers work on imaginary information (messages and reports coming in), as if it was real. Game master is the title of the military officer, who runs that type of stimulation. There is documented evidenced that Pentagon/State Department was running that type of a game in the 1950′s/1960′s, and the guy, who did this sort of work for a Washington DC Consultant (maybe Rand Corp), published the game, called Diplomacy (by Avalon Hill).”*
That’s Fascinating! I’d never heard of any of that stuff. I gotta get that Jon Peterson book. I’ve seen it mentioned as a good one to look at from some site, don’t recall where. Didn’t know that Gygax’s book is a puff piece, but it’s right in line with everything else I see about him.
There are other YouTube interviews where he makes clearly absurd claims about protecting Christianity from being tainted by his connections to D&D, as if that’s why he wasn’t upfront about his born-again issues. Yeah, right. Maybe it had a bit more to do with the Satanic panic quadrupled TSR sales in a single year, and putting demonic looking ‘Efreets’ on DM’s Guide covers, and demon idols on Player’s Handbook covers… Sells product. Which is perfectly fine, just don’t present yourself as a pious character who is worried about tainting religion. Or his absurd claims about ‘family lore,’ and his family name comes from Gigantus/ Goliath, and permission from the king of Crete for his ancestors to go wandering, eventually ending up in Switzerland. Or, in talking about justifications for Lawful Good PCs to kill prisoners who’d surrendered, Gygax justified it with this quote on Dragonsfoot: *”The Anglo-Saxon punishment for rape and/or murder of a woman was as follows: tearing off of the scalp, cutting off of the ears and nose, blinding, chopping off of the feet and hands, and leaving the criminal beside the road for all bypassers to see. I don’t know if they cauterized the limb stumps or not before doing that. It was said that a woman and child could walk the length and breadth of England without fear of molestation then… “* Posted: June 22, 2005 8:28 PM, Dragonsfoot. Col_Pladoh (Gary Gygax).
I’ve looked for any kind of data to support that pretty incredible and detailed claim, and found nothing remotely like it. What I did find was this:
The laws of AEthelberht (601-04 C.E.), forbid adultery and abduction, and also mention a specific crime against virgins (it’s in Old Saxon, followed by a translation into modern English, I’ll leave out the direct Saxon quote):
“The compensation for (injury to) a maiden is to be as for a freeman.”
“(Breach of) guardianship over a noble-born widow of the highest class is to be compensated fro with 50 shillings; that over one of the second class, with 20 shillings; over one of the third class, with 12 shillings; over one of the fourth, with six shillings.”
There’s more, but all these Saxon laws talk about money to be paid by a rapist, not mutilations to be suffered, and clearly Saxon women were not “walking the length and breadth of England.” The source is “Rape and Ravishment in the Literature of Medieval England” Corinne J. Saunders. I’ve seen other quotes in other sites for shilling payments, too. There isn’t anything I could find with the horrible punishments Gygax is so very specifically naming, and any quotes about how safe England was for women. He didn’t misremember any of this, he just lied. Again.
He was a back-stabbing pathological liar and cult-of-personality-builder: for profit, power, and ego. And people like his product so they mistakenly equate his value as a human being to that product.
Neal,
I think you give Gygax too much credit, he was not that educated, and his lack of charm, namely his ogrish chauvinism towards women have contributed to his downfall, namely he so alienated the wife of late Don Kaye, perhaps his one genuine friend among his business partners, that she withheld the money Kaye earmarked for the publishing of the white box D&D. Gygax was not formally educated, and further dropped out of the mainstream by becoming a shoe-maker seeking freedom from the financial system (i.e. the bankers) that he didn’t trust by brcomng a small businessman as way to finance entrepreneurship. In 1972 he needed a 2 or 3 grand loan to start the TSR. About ten grand in todays money. Less than the price of a late model used car! Rather than borrowing money via a business loan or by any other means, he brought in the Blumes, who had no connection to gaming, and they ended up with the 2/3 controlling interest. Apparently, Don Kaye was a CPA with money to bankroll Gygax’s enterprise. He died of a heart attack and meant to give some of his money to Gygax. Instead of borrowing money, he went in as 1/3 partners with Kaye’s widow, the Blumes, who whom Kaye knew from golfing, and himself. Gygax clashed with Kaye’s wife, and out of spite, she sold her share to the Blumes, thereby screwing Gygax and sowing the seeds of his destruction as the artist in control of his creation.
People often confuse artist the person with his or her artistic creation. Whatever Gygax’ political chauvinism, those, who met him in person, describe him as a friendly and gregarious chain smoking man, who was a visionary DM. DMing, of course, inflates Egos, and Gygax must have been a better artist than a businessman or judge of character, if we look at his choice of allies, who ended stabbing him in the back, as he himself muscled out Arneson once the smell of money became apparent. I don’t know about his Ancient Greek roots, we should all draw strength from out ancestors, real and imagined. General Patton fully believed that he was a Norman knight in his past life.
One last thing about Evangelical Christian critique of D&D. I am a life-long gamer and I believe that there is something in that critique. It is not about thinking that D&D involves dark magic based on the demonic illustrations. It has more to do with the belief that playing D&D allows you to withdraw into a fantasy world thereby dodging reality and that it encourages magical thinking. I.e.: I have an exam tomorrow night. I should pull an all-nighter and try to pass it. A person who believes in supernatural, will spend a restless night, trying to sleep, hoping for a miracle, or, if the person believes in magic, they will try to cast a spell and go to sleep believing that they are guaranteed an A. That is the essence of the most salient criticism of D&D that came from the religious right. Incidentally, same criticism can be found in the Arthurian legends retelling of The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights by John Steinbeck. Upon reading him, my impression was that these legends were a handbook of emotional and psychological survival for the medieval knights. There is a complex and negative portrayal of magic and magicians, including Merlin, showing magic as a corrupting influence, much like a woman becomes corrupt, when she starts relying on her looks and sexuality as a shortcut to hard work in getting that passing grade.
Finally, TSR was behaving like any other large corporation dodging any legal liability and responsibility. Eager to avoid offending the parents, they dropped any and all references to occult, and removed the demonic imagery, and to avoid paying royalties, they dropped from their sourcebooks all the materials pertaining to fantasy worlds from fantasy literature – Tolkien’s Middle Earth, was the first, but then they cut out HP Lovecraft, Jack Vance, Lankhmar (world of Grey Mouser), and I think the world of Conan the Barbarian, thus the Deities and Demigods were reprinted as the much tamer Legends and Lore. I don’t think that for this one we can blame Gygax as much as we should blame endless corporate accomodationism in search of the bigger profits. I am not sure, if the occult imagery was used deliberately to boost the initial sales. The pity in all this, is that the deeply flawed and children’s entertainment like D&D is still used as a standard for the role playing games, pushing aside, far more experimental and serious indie role playing games, written by adults for adults, such as Dogs in Vineyard, Dust Devils, and there is a bunch I forgot, there is one about being inside a child’s nightmare, Ars Magicka caught my eye, but for me, the ideal of my role playing campaign SHOULD be is Hermann Hesse’s The Glass Bead Game.
@ Broozer Bear,
Gygax managed to get a college degree by going to night school, I think. Before he started being a shoe repairer he was in Insurance Adjustor for a few years. I knew Don Kaye’s wife hated him, but not any of the reasons why. As far as Gygax being Ogrish and sexist, I don’t know that he was any different than men from the midwest born in 1939. Besides approving some cheesecake illustrations for his books, what was sexist in his behavior? On that note, for all the generations of feminism, very few women have a problem with sexually objectifying themselves to get attention and power over men. My family would be a huge exception, and it’s a mystery why so many women aren’t more interested in getting rid of those old “tried and true” behaviors. I have some theories about the biology behind it, but for another time.
From what I’ve read, Gygax, Don Kaye, and Brian Blume, each putting in $1,000 for 1/3 shares from the start. Don Kaye was overweight and had been diagnosed with a heart condition that he didn’t tell anyone about. He was scheduled to go in for an operation to treat it in a few months, and died very unexpectedly beforehand of a heart attack at something like age 39.
Don Kaye’s wife hated the whole business, and maybe hated Gygax, too. Who doesn’t? 😉 Gygax realized she would be impossible to work with. She dumped all of Don Kaye’s boxes of TSR stuff on Gygax’s front porch. I think Gygax wanted to buy her out, but didn’t have the $1,000 to spare. Brian Blume said he’d talk to his dad, Melvin Blume, and they agreed to bring him in as a third partner. The Blumes now controlled the business. Later, the Blumes asked to sell Melvin’s shares to the other brother, Kevin. They agreed and the brothers now were in effective control of the business.
I’ve read Gygax saying he “loved to smoke,” and was a chain smoker. I’ve never seen any pictures of him with a cigarette, though. Also that in spite of being a life-long smoker, he at times claimed he was a Jehovah’s Witness.
I don’t know if it was some kind of joke on his part, or not. He’s either that, or a Catholic, which is what I’ve found listed for his religion. He did have six kids, which suggests some kind of religious adherence to some catechism. Regardless, J.W.’s don’t smoke, so people have written commentaries on that aspect of his personality. He also, himself, wrote some comments you can find online about religion, as far as nothing in the bible supports celebrating Joshua of Nazareth’s birthday, which is something the J.W.’s strongly adhere to (not celebrating christmas, or birthdays, because it puts you above god, they believe).
There’s nothing Greek in his past, his family are from Switzerland. Those people are the landlocked antithesis of a seafaring race. Heck, the Swiss were getting neck goiters from a lack of iodine in their diets for thousands of years! I have the movie Patton, and it’s a great one. George C. Scott did a terrific portrayal. Patton was convinced, that in a previous life he was Hannibal, and he convinced the Germans that he would imitate the previous battles of the ancient general. He also thought he had other past lives, I think pretty much he was a soldier in all of them, or at least that’s how he liked to think of it.
All those stories about Goliath, Gigantus, etc, are glib lies. That’s pathological behavior. A lot could be said about Gygax having all the hallmarks of a certain kind of garden variety malignant personality disfunction.
If he was a genial guy at conventions, he had reasons to be charming to people: he was selling himself and the products of his imagination to customers. Amway salespeople do financially better, if they are genial, too. All salespeople do financially better in life by following the ‘win friends and influence people’ approach.
Well, it seems overstating things to think that D&D is going to influence too many people to believe in the power of spells to help them get passing grades, or whatever, they know they should study for. Gygax, to his credit, stated that the magic in the D&D books is as real as the gold is. As far as any 13 year olds believing the spells will get him passing grades, none of the spells are actually laid out in any kind of useable fashion! I think there was ONE supplement written by some heavy duty San Francisco Warlock (they hate that word, but Male Wiccan) and the spells were total bunk, anyways. Nothing in the AD&D canon shows how to use the spells for any purpose. They’re all made up. Many of the material components were obvious Gygax-jokes to me, when I started playing at 13.
Once Lorraine Williams took over TSR, she was another fundamentalist, and she removed all the occult stuff from D&D. Plus, you’re right… it was a corporatist attempt to dodge angry fundamentalist parents-groups, and maximize profits. Gygax, also got threatened with a lawsuit from the estate of Tolkien for stealing ideas/terms like Hobbits, Ents, etc. So, he changed the names to Halflings, and Treents. He also claimed that Wood Elves and Grey Elves had nothing more in common with Tolkien, than merely the name. Yeah, total accident you named all these creatures just like Tolkien did. Disingenuous to the end, decades after the issue was blown over.
I was out of D&D for the whole period, so I didn’t know any of this was going on, and was amazed at the whole insanity of it, when I read about it about 2 years ago. Re: your comment that TSR removed Vance, H.P. Lovecraft, Fritz Leiber, I never knew any of that, till just now. Sure, they were afraid of the occult, so by that logic, get rid of H.P. Lovecraft (I love the guy, but that’s me). But, the other authors? Talk about a good way to kill off the flavor of your game, and create pablum. No wonder so many people talk about the early 90s being such a dismal period for D&D. Of course, now 4th edition is going the way of the dodo, too. The cycle of disposability never ends. Kuntz was right.
About D&D being children’s entertainment pushing aside the indie games, that sounds interesting. I haven’t played any of those games yet. I’m still catching up on what I’ve missed, and writing my own ideas down. Dogs in the Vinyard looked very interesting, in a few months, I’m gonna buy all these things. Right now my cashflow is too tight. What ideas do you have in that department, i.e. why all these indie games are so worthwhile?
By the way, you’ve got some very insightful observations and it’s refreshing to compare notes on these gaming issues. This is a good site. Most of the columns are on subjects that interest me, have depth and breadth, and were clearly well researched. The commentators are well mannered for the most part, and you get the feeling you’re dealing with a majority of educated thoughtful people who’ve read a lot and have a sense of comradery about their favorite hobby.
http://paizo.com/image/content/Conventions/GaryGygax_180.jpeg
Ok, I stand corrected. Proof Gygax, was actually a Satanist. But, at least I can’t find any pictures of him smoking cigarettes, so he won’t corrupt any kids.
Wow. You guys sure care a lot about the personal qualities of dead writers.
Most of the diabolic and occult imagery used in early D&D wasn’t a marketing ploy, it was because Gygax LOVED the Sword & Sorcerery genre, which were the primary inspirations for his game. See Appendix N in the 1st Edition DMG to understand the literary sources that he drew inspiration from.
I’m also not suprised he claimed Wood and Grey Elves were different, considering Gygax loathed all things Tolkien. It’s pretty common knowledge that he only included Tolkien material because his playtesters kept demanding it. I’ve also heard it theorized that the reason Halflings (originally called Hobbits :P) have such low level limits is because Gygax hated them.
I highly doubt Gygax was being a pathological liar about his ancestry or about the medieval laws. Gygax got most of his information prior to advent of the internet, so more than likely he read some book on Anglo Saxon law that included a passage to that effect and he assumed it was true. For his ancestry if he was able to trace any connection to royalty then he probably would have found claims he was descended from ancient figures. The kings of medieval and renaissance Europe were notrious for finding dubious links to ancient and biblical characters. As an example my co-workers wife has distant connections to the English royal family, and as a result was able to trace her lineage back to Noah. She doesn’t believe it, but there it is.
Gygax certainly had his problems, but I really don’t believe that he was a pathological liar or a terrible person. He had his problems certainly and in some ways he was screwed over as much as he screwed over other people (good ole Karma), but most reports of him generally describe him as a pretty friendly and fun guy. Even long after he didn’t really have any products to sell.
feralw01f,
I agree, just because someone confabulates about his or her ancestry, does not make one a pathological liar. Gygax’s Anglophilia given his background as a child of Swiss immigrants is both a significant and telling biographical detail. Have you seen the 1st Edition Deities and Demigods? Gygax pulled mythological pantheons from all over the sword and sorcery literature, and these were later dropped for legal reasons. Gygax D&D bestiaries and spell lists are a syncretism of what was mentioned in fantasy literature, folklore, Hollywood and alleged in medieval history. To compile his list of magic spells, he scoured medieval church records and accounts of medieval magic, there was quite a bit of historic research in it. In the end I chose Gygax’s 1st Ed AD&D as a ruleset for my own homegrown, precisely because I liked Gygax as a thinker. I LIKED, where he took the game with the Oriental Adventures and I liked the deeper thinking about the adventure and setting design that appeared in the Dungeoneer’s Survival Guide. THAT line of thought was gone with the paradigm shift towards DM’s role as the adventure designer, that took place when TSR went Second Edition, and removed all of the Gygax’s dungeon design tables from the new edition of Monster Manual.
Neal,
The account that told of the animosity between Gygax and Kaye’s Wife, mentioned that Gygax behavior as a gamer and a male chauvinist really turned her against him. Must have been his off the cuff remarks he used to make around the gaming table, and it must have been more so than other gamers she knew. Gygax’s background as an insurance adjuster has influenced him as a game designer. Ironic, how his exposure to corporate culture has turned him on to the corporate excesses of the 1980’s, but did not help him raise the relatively small sum that he needed to get the TSR off the ground, or to even be aware of the need to maintain artistic control. Probably it was over his head when he really needed to be aware, though he circled the wagons soon enough, and kept Arneson out. Not that he shouldn’t have, but he did give Arneson a job, and as Peterson mentions, Arneson did not produce anything, Peterson guesses that Arneson wasn’t interested and withdrew into his personal projects.
There was a written account of the visit to Gygax in Lake Geneva in 2009 or so. It describes Gygax DMing a 4 hour session for the two reporters, and chain smoking.
I started out believing that just because someone prostitutes themselves, does not make them a bad person, having encountered dozens of people, including those that marry for money or green cards, or model themselves as sex objects. It changes a person. I am not going to say good or bad. The mere act of getting together with someone, talking some of what the have, and then dumping the other person, leaves something behind. The way magic users were described in John Steinbeck’s edition of the Arthurian legends cycle, it was something similar. The part about D&D turning players into “magical thinkers” may be part of the religious right’s fear of D&D, but that “magical thinking” person who prays and hopes instead of studying, was established as a result of a psychological study of self-described occultists and Satanists in the late 1980’s. It blew my socks off, when I realized that the same kind of a person was being described as a magician in the Arthurian Legends. For whatever reasons, Steinbeck pulled it out. Steinbeck wrote an adult and an uncensored version of the text, and he set it in an easy to understand modern prose, but what he did, was pull out selected stories from the original text, and not the whole text.
The reason that the obvious literary influences (i.e. sword and sorcery pantheons that were removed), were so that the TSR will avoid paying royalties to the other authors’ estates, same reason that the purged Gygax’s writing from subsequent editions.
Patton was very much a product of his time. Both good and bad. Just before he died, he wrote a memoir, War as I Knew It. A worthwhile read, and a short book too. George Scott’s portrayal of Patton is actually off, and it shows either the talent of the actor or the casting director. Scott was a pacifist and abhorred war and Patton (good reasons to love or hate him, see that book), and he wanted to portray Patton in such as way, as to make him unsympathetic. Obviously that either backfired, or was lost in the viewers. Patton did have one very major achievement that is overlooked by most if not all: He was born severely dyslexic and with knowledge retention issues. His parents discovered when Patton was very small. Patton’s father was a very rich lawyer in California. EVERY DAY, since Patton was five or six, his father would spend about four hours with young Patton reading to him, making him read, making him read, memorize, and discuss the material. Patton overcame his learning disability and passed the entrance exams into West Point. In his formative years as an army officer, he built a library, and he evolved a system to keep track of the books that he read, and also to be able to retrieve pertinent information from those books, when he needed it, since he had problems remembering it.
With regards to indie role playing games, there is a good article in Wikipedia that covers them. There are three aspects of these games that I love. Original game and meta-game mechanics to run the gameplay. Dust Devils uses decks of cards and poker style hands, whoever has the higher hand, takes over the story and narrates it the way the player wants these events to play out for his or her character. Second, some of the settings and stories are highly original, never seen before. There several games based on real occult and the world of fairies, vampires and werewolves (not the Vampire Masquarade!), there is a game that takes place in a child’s nightmare, there is a game that takes place in the afterlife. Finally, these games borrow a lot from experimental writing and theater to advance paper and pencil role playing, and all of it creates potentially interesting, illuminating, relevant and enlightening game play for adults.
As you would expect, the cutting edge of pencil and paper role-playing has moved on since D&D came about in 1973 or so, however, D&D did not grow with the progress. Successive generations of D&D have made it more appealing, more dynamic, more marketable, more videogame oriented, anything, but more modern as to its game scope and design, if anything, the Wizards of the Coast appeals to a much younger audience than Gygax’s original D&D players, who were in their twenties, and unfortunately, WoTC D&D dominates the market. There were a lot more pencil and paper role playing games competing in 1985 and getting adequate exposure, than there are today, with Wizards of the Coast dominating the scene.
@ feralw01f,
Re: *”I highly doubt Gygax was being a pathological liar about his ancestry or about the medieval laws. Gygax got most of his information prior to advent of the internet, so more than likely he read some book on Anglo Saxon law that included a passage to that effect and he assumed it was true. For his ancestry if he was able to trace any connection to royalty then he probably would have found claims he was descended from ancient figures. The kings of medieval and renaissance Europe were notrious for finding dubious links to ancient and biblical characters.”*
Gygax started off by promising people that he would never assume to tell DMs how to run their own games. As Rob Kuntz states in his multiple written and video interviews, when Gygax figured out you could sell modules for big bucks, and you needed standardization of rules to do that, all promises were broken. That isn’t all, Gygax Bullied and degraded people that were in the way of his quest for money and ego. Read the link I gave above:
“Gary Gygax: Gamer, Designer, Pompous Ass, Legend… Wait, what?” – Anthony Pryor’s Homepage.
Here’s a few more of Gygax’s promises he broke (Alarums & Excursions #2, July 1975):
” I desire variance in interpretation and, as long as I am editor of the TSR line and its magazine, I will do my utmost to see that there is as little trend toward standardization as possible. Each campaign should be a “variant,” and there is no “official interpretation” from me or anyone else.”
“My answer is, and has always been, if you don’t like the way I do it, change the bloody rules to suit yourself and your players. DandD enthusiasts are far too individualistic and imaginative a bunch to be in agreement, and I certainly refuse to play god for them – – except as referee in my own campaign where they jolly well better toe the mark.”
…”Dave and I disagree on how to handle any number of things, and both of our campaigns differ from the “rules” found in DandD. If the time ever comes when all aspects of fantasy are covered and the vast majority of its players agree on how the game should be played, DandD will have become staid and boring indeed. Sorry, but I don’t believe there is anything desirable in having various campaigns playing similarly to one another.”
By 1978, Gygax had completely reneged on those supportive, friendly, benign promises. He was a friendly guy, remember… Gygax came out with this famous article: “Role-Playing: Realism vs. Game Logic; Spell Points, Vanity Press and Rip-offs” in Dragon Magazine #16 July 1978. In the article he denounces variants, and those who think they can come up with changes that improve on his ‘balanced’ system. Kuntz identifies Gygax’s real financial motivations. Anthony Pryor describes these as ‘venemous rants.’ I’d agree. Read the article.
Re: Gygax wasn’t claiming he had imaginary Greek/Cretan ancestors. He was claiming that ‘family lore,’ claimed to be descended from Goliath, and that Gygax was a variant on Greek for Gigantus. I can’t find anything like this on the internet, so where did Gary think this story had any validity? Where’d he hear this story he kept repeating? As far as I know, he never specified. He is on record saying his dad made up fairy tales all the time. If that’s the source, then equating that with ‘family lore,’ isn’t honest, either.
There isn’t just one or two incidents of Gygax abusing people in general, ripping off former partners, or coming up with improbable stories as historical fact, telling co-religionists he’s protecting christianity from being tainted, rather than his profits, etc.
His behaviors are repeated episodes of dishonesty well into his senior citizen years before his death. It wasn’t just once or twice in his impressionable youth. Look at the videos on YouTube.
If he set an example of ripping off his buddies, and later business partners looked at that behavior and imitated it against him, that doesn’t exhonerate him.
He’s not a genius or a saint, and the industry keeps portraying him as such. It’s holding things back to put this guy on a pedestal, instead of where he actually belongs.
Check out the Anthony Pryor article on Gygax pompous ass, and Rob Kuntz’s exposes on the cycle of disposability. It’s an eye opener.
@ Brooser Bear,
I hadn’t realized George C. Scott was a pacifist. I see a few claims to that effect online, but I’m skeptical. As far as I knew he was a prodigious alcoholic, extremely competitive bar-brawler, who got his nose repeatedly broken, and very proud of his former U.S. Marine status (1945-1949).
I know he turned down the Academy Award, once or twice, claiming he wasn’t competitive with other actors, but later on he stated he thought it was a “Self-Serving Meat Parade.” That sounds more like his real reason. He also stated that he considered actors competing for awards to be ‘demeaning.’ His wife later stated that the only award he considered worthwhile was the New York Film Critics Award.
Scott also fancied himself a competitive chess player. Kubric knew about his reputation as a domineering presence to everyone he met on stage, but Kubric was a brilliant chess player, and knew he could easily keep Scott in line, by challenging his ego. While filming Dr. Strangelove, by challenging Scott to chess, and proving to be a far more formidable player, with no effort. While Scott would stay up nights analyzing each move they’d play on the set, Kubric would walk over and absently make a move that would set Scott furiously planning his next succession of play, and Kubric would routinely win without effort.
Maybe Scott was a militantly-aggressive competitive brawling-pacifist?
There were a lot of reasons not to like Patton, was Scott an enlisted man? Patton almost got sacked by Roosevelt for slapping a battle fatigued and/or shell-shocked enlisted man, yelling at him to quit being a coward and go fight. This raised such a public uproar (because of his patrician attitudes), that it almost cost him his command. He also made statements to the effect that US fought the war on the wrong side and he was sympathetic to the Germans, being a conservative, in the 1920’s he busted WWI veteran’s demonstrations marchers, who were asking for their disability benefits. You didn’t have to be a pacifist not to like Patton. Did Scott fancy himself a working class hero?
@ Brooser Bear,
Patton’s comment when he slapped that soldier, called him a yellow bellied coward, and was forced to apologize to his troops, and had his career semi-sidelined for a while, yeah I knew about that. The movie has that prominently shown.
*”Scott was a pacifist and abhorred war”*
Patton was clearly an egomaniac, everyone knew that. So was George C. Scott. If Scott didn’t like Patton, that really doesn’t have anything to do with Scott being a pacifist, who abhorred war. Nothing in his behavior was mellow and benign towards other people. Scott was a domineering, violent drunk and control-freak. Pacifists don’t routinely get their noses broken in bar fights.
However, I think he had great talent as an actor. Probably somewhat stilted by today’s standards, but the acting styles that were acceptable back then, were like that.
Dave Arneson created the D&D Game. Gygax created the rule book for D&D.
However, the contract Dave signed was that he was co-creator.