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

[makovette]

that was interesting to read, TY for the link. EGG has a mixed reputation and frankly he earned it. It's sad he didn't team up w/Arneson and the others vs. going into red dragon avarice mode. D&D would have been a far far larger thing that it was if he had done so...

I still have my AD&D books from back in the day :D

[thewayne]

I’m glad you enjoyed it, I found it quite fascinating. Myself, a friend bought the original D&D back in the mid ‘70s and I got Tunnels & Trolls, and just preferred the latter, not just for its simplicity, but because I thought D&D was needlessly complicated. I actually have two of the three original D&D books! I’d really have something if I knew where the third was, but it’s probably lost.

I find it interesting to look at D&D and Tunnels & Trolls. I personally know pretty much everyone who was involved in T&T, and when they did the Deluxe T&T rewrite a couple of years ago, most everyone was involved. They even dragged Bear Peters out to either GenCon or Origins and had him running the game.

T&T will always be a distant second to D&D, but Flying Buffalo is still around whereas TSR is not. Whether or not that is significant, I do not know.

Currently I’m working on a Python program for generating T&T characters: it shouldn’t be difficult, but for some reason the math conversion for height and weight between the various races is proving to be a PITA. I don’t know why but I’m getting incorrect results trying to use modulo and remainder, very weird.

[motodraconis]

Check out this article about a chap introducing his Grandma to D&D. I brought a tear to my eye!

[silveradept]

That's illuminating! Of course it's miniatures wargames that the rules are being developed from. I've played enough of them that I should have recognized it immediately.

I also feel that the story of Saint Gygax can't be completety true because it's the story of a saint. So this is helpful for showing the other parts that definitely contributed, but were eventually written out in favor of a unified narrative.

[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!