TSR Q&A with Gary Gygax

This is the multi-year Q&A sessions held by D&D co-creator Gary Gygax here at EN World, beginning in 2002 and running up until his sad pasing in 2008. Gary's username in the thread below is Col_Pladoh, and his first post in this long thread is Post #39.

 

[Sir Elton]

OH what the fork, I one more question, Gary.

Looking at Eosin's thread on starting an E-Publishing company, and I'm getting a degree to back it up , I thought that maybe it is time to seriously think about starting my own. Now that I have been thoroughly "corrupted" into actually thinking that I can be successful.

Someone said he'd help me out with my Argonautica module in getting it published. I could use more help. Got any advice for somebody crazy enough to go down this road, like me?

 

[Col_Pladoh]

...

Someone said he'd help me out with my Argonautica module in getting it published. I could use more help. Got any advice for somebody crazy enough to go down this road, like me?

Heh,

While I do professional consulting, I really established the charge in order to not have to spend my time answering questions like that.

The obvious: The hobby gaming market is a small, niche one, and it is not growing. The advent of the D20 license had brought a flood of new publishers into the field, and with the established companies they have glutted the module market.

The result: Sales of a given module will be in the low thousands if published by a company with good distribution. Otherwise, they will likely be in the hundreds.

What more can I say?

Cheers,
Gary

 

[ScottGLXIX]

Hey Col.
Can you let me know if my estimation of illusion/phantasm spells is correct?
If a group of characters encountered a phantasmal force pit. The illusionist is hidden nearby and maintaining concentration on the spell. All of the players believe the pit is real. One player believes he falls into the pit and takes falling damage. At this point, the phantasm aspect of the spell takes over, the effects of this being similar to the effects of hallucinatory insanity. The player that fell into the pit believes he’s in a pit. His companions believe he is in the pit. Their conviction is so strong that they would go through the actions of lowering a rope into the pit to help their comrade out. The party then goes on their way, never knowing the encounter was a phantasmal force spell, and one character down the hit points suffered from the fall.
If on the other hand, one of the party members realized the pit was an illusion, and conveyed this information to the rest of the party, the fellow in the pit would realize he was just sitting on the floor in the hall, and the hit points would be recovered.
Sound correct?
Thanks.
Scott

 

[Col_Pladoh]

Hey Col.
Can you let me know if my estimation of illusion/phantasm spells is correct?
If a group of characters encountered a phantasmal force pit. The illusionist is hidden nearby and maintaining concentration on the spell. All of the players believe the pit is real. One player believes he falls into the pit and takes falling damage. At this point, the phantasm aspect of the spell takes over, the effects of this being similar to the effects of hallucinatory insanity. The player that fell into the pit believes he’s in a pit. His companions believe he is in the pit. Their conviction is so strong that they would go through the actions of lowering a rope into the pit to help their comrade out. The party then goes on their way, never knowing the encounter was a phantasmal force spell, and one character down the hit points suffered from the fall.
If on the other hand, one of the party members realized the pit was an illusion, and conveyed this information to the rest of the party, the fellow in the pit would realize he was just sitting on the floor in the hall, and the hit points would be recovered.
Sound correct?
Thanks.
Scott

Ho Scott!

We are in total accors save for the last part.

Any damage believed to have been suffered is actual, caused by the mind of the victim--think of stgamta for an example. So disbelief after the fact does NOT mean automatic recovery. The harm done is actual, and it must be healed as any other damage

Cheers,
Gary

 

[Col_Pladoh]

Hey Col.
Can you let me know if my estimation of illusion/phantasm spells is correct?
If a group of characters encountered a phantasmal force pit. The illusionist is hidden nearby and maintaining concentration on the spell. All of the players believe the pit is real. One player believes he falls into the pit and takes falling damage. At this point, the phantasm aspect of the spell takes over, the effects of this being similar to the effects of hallucinatory insanity. The player that fell into the pit believes he’s in a pit. His companions believe he is in the pit. Their conviction is so strong that they would go through the actions of lowering a rope into the pit to help their comrade out. The party then goes on their way, never knowing the encounter was a phantasmal force spell, and one character down the hit points suffered from the fall.
If on the other hand, one of the party members realized the pit was an illusion, and conveyed this information to the rest of the party, the fellow in the pit would realize he was just sitting on the floor in the hall, and the hit points would be recovered.
Sound correct?
Thanks.
Scott

Ho Scott!

We are in total accord save for the last part.

Any damage believed to have been suffered is actual, caused by the mind of the victim--think of stgamta for an example. So disbelief after the fact does NOT mean automatic recovery. The harm done is actual, and it must be healed as any other damage

Cheers,
Gary

 

[Piratecat]

Hey, all -- Gary has asked us to let folks know that he's going to be away from the internet for a while. He's not ignoring us, but he has asked that we close the Q&A thread for the time being. We'll reopen it once he's back.

More info when we have it!

EDIT - the new thread can be found here:

http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=104817

Thanks to Grodog for reminding us to post a link.

 

[grodog]

Gary Gygax Q&A: part VII

Continued from http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=76849&page=11&pp=20 (which should be added to the Archive if one of the moderators would be so kind).

PirateCat gave approval after checking with EGG awhile ago to reopen these threads and discussions, so I'm doing so since I have a new Q that only Gary can answer

Hi Gary---

In a discussion at http://www.acaeum.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=806&start=40 Paul Stormberg mentions that Dave Sutherland was asked by you to paint specific heraldry for the fighter on the cover of the 1e DMG. For anyone who doesn't recall the fighter's shield devices off the top of their head, go to http://www.acaeum.com/DDIndexes/SetPages/SetScans/DMG.html

I thought that image looked very familiar, and it is very similar to the image of the heraldry for the City of Fax in the Wild Coast, per the World of Greyhawk folio---basically it's the same, except that the DMG shield features the blue line between the red diamonds. To see the Greyhawk Fax crest, go to http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Realm/5037/atlas/heraldry.html

Relatedly, I've wondered if the other coats of arms displayed on the 1983 Greyhawk box set and the one knight's pennant are also suppposed to represent specific crests/characters/etc.? For an image, see http://home.flash.net/~brenfrow/gh/gh-wogbox.htm

Thanks!

 

[Col_Pladoh]

Howdy Grodog and All!

The armorial bearings displayed on the fighter's shield shown on the original DMG book are those of a Gygax who fought in French service sometime in the 15th century. As I devized all of the armorial bearings for the states of the World of Greyhawk, it is likely that when I did that for Fax I unconsciously borrowed from memory.

BTW, the actual Gygax Family arms are a white goose passant on a green field with a gold star (mullet) in the dexter canton and a bison horn in base, IIRR. The goose, "ganse" in Switzer Deutsche, sounds a bit like the ending of the family name, and it is also alert to danger. The star was supposedly awarded for the bravery of some ancestor, and the bison horn likewise, for calling attention to some enemy threat.

Cheers,
Gary

 

[mythusmage]

...As I devized all of the armorial bearings for the states of the World of Greyhawk, it is likely that when I did that for Fax I unconsciously borrowed from memory.

Most authors merely write themselves into a story, but our Gary has to include the family.

 

[BOZ]

hey, nothing wrong with that, i base fictional family trees off of genealogical research i have done on my own family.