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.

 

[Tav_Behemoth]

BTW, the drow were inspired by no more than a dictionaly listing for the name as "dark elves," and i made up the kuo-toa out of whole cloth so as to have another underground race on distinctly non-human sort.

Three monster origins for the price of one! Many thanks.

 

[Col_Pladoh]

I'm a big HPL fan as well. And speaking of that circle of writers, I know that often times HP and friends would insert slightly altered versions of each other's names into their stories as the protagonists. For instance, one of Lovecraft's stories has "Robert Blake". Naturally, I can't remember offhand which one it is.

I just about plotzed when the Deities and Demigods hardcover book came out with the AD&D stats for the Cthulhu mythos. Every once in a while I just couldn't resist sticking in a Mythos creature in one of my AD&D adventures!

Robert Blake is none other than Robert Bloch, one great guy and a fine writer too who is missed by more persons than me alone.

Cheerio,
Gary

 

[Col_Pladoh]

Robert Bloch?

While we're on the subject of monster origins, where did the Rakshasha come from?

Hindu Mythogy and Kolchak, The Night Stalker in combination

Cheers,
Gary

 

[Bregh]

I wrote a mini-adventure based on the Mountains of Madness that included some of HPL's creations. The party was teleported to a frozen, ruined city from my version of the Greyhawk Dungeons, and had to find a way back before freezing, or being eaten by a shoggoth or some other nasty.
Scott

I did something similar, except that they were Teleported directly to Yuggoth, where, in addition to the mi-go and Nyarlathotep, they could encounter the Walls of Eryx (and fight lizard men with various staves) and go beneath the planet's surface, too (a la Richard Lupoff's HPL homage Discovery of the Ghoric Zone--complete with cyborgs). They had to steal a shantak to ride back to their home planet.

Course, I never would have stumbled to HPL as a kid without the reading lists in the back of the DMG and the second Basic Set. Kudos to you, Gary, and your associates, for thinking to include those. I've been able to seek out a lot of titles and authors I otherwise might never have known were around.

 

[mythusmage]

I wrote a mini-adventure based on the Mountains of Madness that included some of HPL's creations. The party was teleported to a frozen, ruined city from my version of the Greyhawk Dungeons, and had to find a way back before freezing, or being eaten by a shoggoth or some other nasty.
Scott

Have you seen Beyond the Mountains of Madness for Call of Cthulhu? Set in the 1920s, it starts as an expedition to Antarctica to learn the fate of a previous expedition to the Mountains of Madness. The self-same expedition who's tale is told in At the Mountains of Madness

BTW, did you know that The Cliffs of Insanity in A Princess Bride were a homage to At the Mountains of Madness?

 

[VirgilCaine]

Hindu Mythogy and Kolchak, The Night Stalker in combination

Cheers,
Gary

Just as I thought. Great show.

 

[Col_Pladoh]

Just as I thought. Great show.

Cable has a channel that has Kolchak re-runs...Can't recall which it is, naturally

Cheers,
Gary

 

[haakon1]

Being in on the joke helped a lot.

There's a joke? I thought Cthulu really was going to eat everyone.

 

[haakon1]

Have you seen Beyond the Mountains of Madness for Call of Cthulhu? Set in the 1920s, it starts as an expedition to Antarctica to learn the fate of a previous expedition to the Mountains of Madness. The self-same expedition who's tale is told in At the Mountains of Madness

BTW, did you know that The Cliffs of Insanity in A Princess Bride were a homage to At the Mountains of Madness?

BTW, my D20 Call of Cthulhu is sitting next to my D20 Stargate and D20 Blackmoor. Say what you like about 3.0/3.5, but the Open Gaming License idea is pretty cool -- nearly D&D with nearly GURPS variety.

Though some might say there's no reason some kid in the 1980s with Gary's AD&D couldn't have run a single campaign with samurai, an undead King Kong creature that drown in quicksand pulling in the mimes that Karl's kensai hired to annoy Rich's ninja, Gamma World mutants with a "Nixon 5" solar-nuclear rocket that wasn't guarded well-enough to stop samurai from stealing it, an easily-created Indiana Jones cross-over with D&D rules, and an easily-created Vietnam-War-as-seen-in-Magnum-PI-flashbacks crossover. :\

Who needs HPL to get madness going.

 

[StupidSmurf]

BTW, my D20 Call of Cthulhu is sitting next to my D20 Stargate and D20 Blackmoor. Say what you like about 3.0/3.5, but the Open Gaming License idea is pretty cool -- nearly D&D with nearly GURPS variety.

Though some might say there's no reason some kid in the 1980s with Gary's AD&D couldn't have run a single campaign with samurai, an undead King Kong creature that drown in quicksand pulling in the mimes that Karl's kensai hired to annoy Rich's ninja, Gamma World mutants with a "Nixon 5" solar-nuclear rocket that wasn't guarded well-enough to stop samurai from stealing it, an easily-created Indiana Jones cross-over with D&D rules, and an easily-created Vietnam-War-as-seen-in-Magnum-PI-flashbacks crossover. :\

Who needs HPL to get madness going.

Call me a cantankerous specimen of elder flatulence, but Cthulhu d20 does Jack and Diddly for me, and Jack left town. The "classic" Cthulhu system is simple enough that the rules don't get in the way of all that down-home madness and horror that makes the game worth playing. I prefer my madness unfiltered, thank you very much!

And, he says in that "in for a penny, in for a pound" mentality, the idea of Cthulhu Now isn't so hot either, now that I think of it. Cthulhu is something best set in the 1920's-30's, with some notable exceptions taking place in the 1890's. It's far easier to get Investigators into situations of isolation and ignorance when playing "in the old days," as opposed to today's modern information age and cel phones for everyone.

This tangent has been brought to you by Dunkin Donuts coffee and a lovely onion bagel with cream cheese.