The first D&D players push back on the legend of Gary Gygax

[thewayne]

Very interesting article, and a lengthy one at that, interviewing Roy Kuntz. Roy was a teenager in Lake Geneva, literally living alone in the family house, and got involved with Gary, D&D, and TSR as he grew older. He saw it all happen from an inside perspective, and as the saying goes, "he alone is left to tell the tale" as Gary and Dave Arneson are now both dead.

And it is one heck of a tale!

If you're interested in table top role-playing games, this is pretty much a must-read.

https://kotaku.com/dungeons-deceptions-the-first-d-d-players-push-back-1837516834

Comments

[thewayne]

With Tunnels & Trolls, Ken St. Andre made sure people like Bear Peters and Steve McAllister were given credit for their important contributions, which I think is great - the proverbial 'no man is an island'.  The biggest thing about The Big EGG was his ego?

[silveradept]

I never got into tabletop role-playing games. Didn't have the nearby friends group for it, to be honest. So I've mostly not done them enough to know whether any system is a good one for me. And I'd probably judge it on how catastrophic bad rolls are to the adventure.

[thewayne]

I completely understand! Before I came to work at Flying Buffalo, my main RPG experiences was playing Tunnels & Trolls and their line of solo adventures, which I must admit were a lot of fun. And at that time it was at T&T’s peak, and solos were rolling out almost quarterly. They had their own press, in-house artists, and shipping department, so their ability to do fulfillment was pretty easy.

It wasn’t until I started working there around ’82 that I REALLY got into RPGs.

T&T in their latest incarnation, Deluxe T&T, added the -10 hit points = death rule, so you actually take some time to die and might be saved. I think it was probably a fairly common house rule for lots of campaigns. But when you get down to it, how catastrophic blown rules are is probably a reflection of the cruelty of the game master and how much of a stickler for the rules they are. Me, if someone truly fumbled a critical roll, it would certainly cost the player something, but I would never squish ‘em like a bug: they’d end up with a stupid pratfall or something.

[silveradept]

Based on how things have gone so far in my life with dice rolls, to be useful to a party, I'd have to have taken a feat that basically says "every time I fumble a critical roll, whatever happens only affects me." Or some other thing where I would basically be able to fail with impunity and it wouldn't have any effect at all on the adventure. Because I've rolled a bunch of terrible. If I'm at overkill for dice, they'll roll great, but anything else and I have a mess of ones.

[thewayne]

Now, that’s where you need to play Hero System. In Champions, triple 1’s, or a 3, is a crit! Of course, your damage rolls might suck….

[silveradept]

Yep. I think I played one Hero game and they rolled high when low was needed and low when high was needed. I have bad dice luck a lot of the time, so I tend to end up trying to cover my shortfalls more often than not.

[thewayne]

That’s where role-playing comes in! If you can keep the GM and your fellow players entertained, it will cover a multitude of sins.

[silveradept]

One can hope, but I also tend to get surly if the dice aren't behaving, because I like to believe I'm contributing, and failing things that should be easily doable is a source of immense frustration.

So I'd really have to work on those skills.

[thewayne]

I have had SO MANY nights when the dice did not cooperate!  And Lou Zocchi did research that proved that not all dice are created equal and roll randomly - so there's truth that there are high rolling dice and low rolling dice.  Thus it's not a bad idea to build a collection and know which are which!