Whats going on with him? Does he still play in a version of Greyhawk or does he even discuss it anymore?
Gygax's too busy promoting his Lejendary Adventures line.
Never heard of it or seen it....
Never heard of it or seen it....
Well, it's not exactly hurting D&D sales. :evillaugh
But, he is our original creator of GH. (I'm making a best effort not to have pity on him.)
Wake me up when he finally wants to commit to Greyhawk again.
Gygax is to Greyhawk as Greenwood is to the Realms except in a bitter way. IMO
I belive that you are slightly wrong here.
Realms may have Greenwood as their sole person in charge. But Greyhawk has incarnations of Greyhawk, some of which people are willing to accept and others ignore. Everybody accepts EGG's Greyhawk up to a point. Usually people's acceptance of EGG's Greyhawk ends somewhere around the Gord Novels and his issues with TSR. This includes several modules as well.
For those that still accept Greyhawk, it continues with Carl Sargent. Carl did most of the work here, after the board game/ sourcebook-boxset Greyhawk Wars by someone I can't recall. This usually starts with From the Ashes.
Then there is a dark time from the end of Carl's involvement until just before year 2000. This saw the begining of the 3rd edition of D&D, and Eric Mona providing the RPGA with Greyhawk and the Living Greyhawk Journal. This came with the Living Greyhawk Gazeetter.
And now people claim a third era of Greyhawk heralded by Erik Mona and Gary Holian with partners such as Stephen Greer in their current Adventure Path, but also by Creighton Broadhurst (and another person, a decent fellow, something Stein in his name, and he'll be mad I can't remember it.) that is working on the RPGA's stuff.
This third era has its nay-sayers as well. But as always, there has been a 1.5 and 2.5, 3.2 and 3.7 version of people working on Greyhawk (1.5 = between EGG and CS, 2.5 between CS and EM/GLH, 3.2 between EM/GLH 3.0 DnD, and 3.7 same but for 3.5 DnD) with the OerthJournal and The Thursday Group's CanonFire and GreyTalk message system.
There will always, so long as we teach our children and it's not just us folks that are growing older, a group furthering Greyhawk, so even with it's founders no longer looking to Greyhawk with a happy heart, someone will.
Be Well. Be Well Read, post your Greyhawk site on GreyhawkOnline.com.
Theocrat Issak
His current projects include the Lejendary Adventures line of rules and sourcebooks as well as working on the Castle Zagyg stuff for another small press game company. He's getting up there in age, though, and isn't always in the best of health. He's done a few minor things with WotC, mainly magazine articles and such. But he's not willing to do serious work for them on the financial terms they offer to contract authors, from what I understand from Eric Mona's comments. Besides which, his tastes in game mechanics have gone increasingly in the direction of streamlined,skill based systems. Which is rather the opposite direction 3.5 D&D has gone.
Aside from some health issues, he seems to be doing quite well and anyone holding their breath for him to return to GH publishing is likely to have health problems of their own...
Its also worth noting that his original campaign and the published WoG are more like cousins than siblings or clones. The WoG map was made expressly for the published version and much of the material we consider 'classic' Greyhawk was not part of his campaign at all. Blackmoor and Tenh were from Dave Arneson's campaign. Lendore Isle and all the Suel gods and such were from Len Lakofka's campaign. Other stuff is Frank Metzger's or Rob Kuntz's. They all contributed to the published campaign and often deliberately changed or obscured stuff that went in print so as to not affect their home campaigns. No published stats for Mordenkainen (even the earliest), for instance, are based on his actual character sheet.
You may never wake a gain.
*snores LOUDER*(FWIW, at least Arneson & Co. are currently doing something for his Blackmoor setting, which Gygax "borrowed" from him.)
(FWIW, at least Arneson & Co. are currently doing something for his Blackmoor setting, which Gygax "borrowed" from him.)
Considering his name is on the Blackmoor products that TSR produced, I don't think the "" marks are exactly justified. Yeah, Arneson got treated as a contract writer rather than co developer, but then he didn't put up the money that founded TSR either. If DA got shafted, it wasn't over Blackmoor. It was over the extent he should have been credited as a co designer of the D&D rules. But then, all that stuff was copyrighted by the company, not the individuals anyway. Which is how they all came to dissociated with the product in the long run.
You forgot Roger Moore and SKR...
If you're attending GenCon this year, you can meet Gygax in person, and inform your own opinion based on the experience. He's a guest of honor to celebrate GenCon's 40th anniversary.
(And, yes, I do recognize that some folks in the thread are simply making outlandish statements to generate a laugh or two :D ).
If you're attending GenCon this year, you can meet Gygax in person, and inform your own opinion based on the experience. He's a guest of honor to celebrate GenCon's 40th anniversary.
(And, yes, I do recognize that some folks in the thread are simply making outlandish statements to generate a laugh or two :D ).
Well, I won't be going to GenCon this year, so ask him, why won't he take the initiative to revive Greyhawk? His "buddy" and D&D co-creator Dave Arneson got his Blackmoor updated to 3e.
*turns over
*and the TSR lawsuit that shut down Dangerous Journeys.
It also led to the collaspe of GDW the company that published Dangerous Journeys and Traveller. Damm lawyers
Mike
Well, I won't be going to GenCon this year, so ask him, why won't he take the initiative to revive Greyhawk? His "buddy" and D&D co-creator Dave Arneson got his Blackmoor updated to 3e.
*turns over
I can answer without even needing to ask Gygax. WOTC owns the copyright and IP on Greyhawk. He'd have to license it from WOTC to do what Arneson did, whereas, Arneson controlled the copyright and IP on his old Blackmoor material. Thus, Arneson could exploit the OGL to do Blackmoor without paying licensing fees, whereas, Gygax is not that lucky.
Furthermore, Gygax is in the middle of the giant Castle Zagyg project which is probably going to keep him busy for years. What time isn't spent on that goes to his other projects, all of which bring money directly to him without licensing issues.
Going beyond that, Arneson could pick up Blackmoor where he left off; Gygax would face a Greyhawk with close to 20 years of material deviating from where he left it. So either he'd have to accept a bunch of material that was never his idea or else ignore it all and drive many fans crazy by going back to the old original boxed set material.
And he doesn't like 3E anyway.
So I'm thinking the odds of Mr. Gygax coming back to do Greyhawk stuff on any significant scale is only slightly higher than me ascending to godhood tomorrow.
IME, from meeting him at several cons over the years, as well as personal correspondence, he's very approachable, and certainly over whatever bitterness may have lingered after his ouster from TSR, the failure of New Infinities, and the TSR lawsuit that shut down Dangerous Journeys.
If you're attending GenCon this year, you can meet Gygax in person, and inform your own opinion based on the experience. He's a guest of honor to celebrate GenCon's 40th anniversary.
(And, yes, I do recognize that some folks in the thread are simply making outlandish statements to generate a laugh or two :D ).
No, I'm actually not a big fan of Col. Playdough. I went to the ENworld boards after GenCon 2005 where Ed Greenwood told me that he had heard rumors that Wizards was actively working on or gearing up for 4.0, which would be released without GH as the default setting thus paving the way for GH to be set free for some treatment by an independant game company. I figured Mr. Gygax would be interested to hear about my conversation with Mr. Greenwood so I jumped into his thread and told him about it. He pretty well rebuffed me and said he wasn't all that interested. Then all of his boot lickers turned on me and chased me out of the forum.
So basically: **** Gygax and the Unicorn he rode in on.
I can answer without even needing to ask Gygax. WOTC owns the copyright and IP on Greyhawk. He'd have to license it from WOTC to do what Arneson did, whereas, Arneson controlled the copyright and IP on his old Blackmoor material. Thus, Arneson could exploit the OGL to do Blackmoor without paying licensing fees, whereas, Gygax is not that lucky.
Actually, Arneson had to negotiate with WotC for the use of the Blackmoor trademark, even though his product is not part of the Greyhawk setting.
I should know. I have the Blackmoor book. And I followed up before its release.
I ask again. Why isn't Gygax pounding on WotC's door?
As for Blackmoor,the Arneson published Blackmoor stuff in the first iteration of D&D (the little books) and he published the DA line of modules for the Known World/Mystara thing. The only Blackmoor ties in GH are just some name drops in the north, though later authors have added further material from Blackmoor supplements for other places.
Yeah, he's not at all interested in taking over GH again. His plate is full of things he's happy doing already. As for the enworld posters, well, that's not really his responsibility. Most large forums have jerks in droves.
Well, then the chapter is closed on this one.
Castle Zagyg Vol. 1: Yggsburgh is some of the best RPG material to date in my opinion. Further works in the line *should* be out for GenCon by the trolls. The Castle is Gygax's version of Castle Greyhawk.
Then there's the Lake Geneva Gaming Convention, which Gygax attends. He also posts on a number of message boards and seems to be a pretty classy dude.
Well, I won't be going to GenCon this year, so ask him, why won't he take the initiative to revive Greyhawk? His "buddy" and D&D co-creator Dave Arneson got his Blackmoor updated to 3e.
*turns over
I'd say it has something to do with WOTC OWNING Greyhawk. Besides, unless you live in a rock, Gygax HAS been working on HIS Greyhawk for a couple years now in the Castle Zagyg project, the first book of which is the Yggsburgh sourcebook from Troll Lord Games and published for the EXCELLENT Castles & Crusades system.
I'd say it has something to do with...
*interrupts*
http://boards1.wizards.com/showpost.php?p=12152673&postcount=22
Does he still have his +1 mace since he didn't give it to Fry to defend himself from drunken robots in the future?
He sold it for the bargain price of 2,000 gold pieces at last year's Gen Con.
And he doesn't like 3E anyway.
Well, that's the end of it. Who here is truly surprised by that?
