Gary Gygax thread

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rusty_shackleford
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Post by rusty_shackleford »

https://grognardia.blogspot.com/2008/09 ... alism.html
The intention behind Gygaxian Naturalism is to paint a picture of a "real" world, which is to say, a world that exists for reasons other than purely gaming ones. The implication is that monsters have lives of their own and thus go about their business doing various things until they encounter the player characters. Exactly what they do is described by reference to game mechanics, whether it be the numbers of non-combatants in a lair or spell-like abilities that help the monster do whatever it naturally does when it's not facing off against an adventuring party.

A consequence of Gygaxian Naturalism is that it grounds D&D a bit more in a pseudo-reality. I don't mean to imply that it's realistic in any meaningful sense, only that its fantasy follows "natural" laws of a sort, much in the way that, for example, I know that there are squirrels and raccoons and rabbits in my neighborhood who go about their business when I'm not seeing them in my yard or chasing them away from my recycling bins. That's one reason why AD&D has stats for so many kinds of "ordinary" animals: you can't build a "real" world without stats for sheep and cows and horses and such, because you never know when the PCs might need to kill one.
Games that lack this fall in two directions: Either they become much more like a fairytale with no grounding, or they become overly sterile — a collection of ideas with no collective whole, created piecemeal. You can see this in many cRPGs: Pillars of Eternity completely lacks this and falls into the sterile camp. Games that have made race/species & sex merely a cosmetic fall into the former.

The later Ultima games and games such as Ultima Underworld are obvious counterexamples.
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aeternalis
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Post by aeternalis »

rusty_shackleford wrote: February 27th, 2023, 22:57
Games that lack this fall in two directions: Either they become much more like a fairytale with no grounding, or they become overly sterile — a collection of ideas with no collective whole, created piecemeal. You can see this in many cRPGs: Pillars of Eternity completely lacks this and falls into the sterile camp. Games that have made race/species & sex merely a cosmetic fall into the former.

The later Ultima games and games such as Ultima Underworld are obvious counterexamples.
I think it's okay to let the game become more like an "ungrounded" fairytale if you're consciously deciding to go in that direction. In that case, it's probably more likely to be going in a "thematic/symbolic" direction. There needs to be some sort of grounding, an "internal consistency", even if the world as presented appears implausible. Planescape comes immediately to my mind (of course, lol storyfag) because it's quite internally consistent; it just plays by different rules.

I think the sterility "option" is obviously to be avoided at all costs; in fact, it feels like a non-option, like letting everything fall to the whims of bureaucracy... such games feel like they were just bashed together by committee with no clear creative direction, which is what I personally see in the current state of AAA and with tabletop games like D&D 5e.

I don't have an opinion on Pillars in particular. The story and world seemed like they had promise, but the gameplay and systems felt sterile as heck, and RTwP didn't help, so it didn't hold my attention. Maybe wrong place/wrong time for me as a player. I agree about Ultima, Ultima 7 in particular nailed that Gygaxian naturalism.
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Post by Tweed »

aeternalis wrote: February 27th, 2023, 23:15
I think it's okay to let the game become more like an "ungrounded" fairytale if you're consciously deciding to go in that direction. In that case, it's probably more likely to be going in a "thematic/symbolic" direction. There needs to be some sort of grounding, an "internal consistency", even if the world as presented appears implausible. Planescape comes immediately to my mind (of course, lol storyfag) because it's quite internally consistent; it just plays by different rules.

I think the sterility "option" is obviously to be avoided at all costs; in fact, it feels like a non-option, like letting everything fall to the whims of bureaucracy... such games feel like they were just bashed together by committee with no clear creative direction, which is what I personally see in the current state of AAA and with tabletop games like D&D 5e.

I don't have an opinion on Pillars in particular. The story and world seemed like they had promise, but the gameplay and systems felt sterile as heck, and RTwP didn't help, so it didn't hold my attention. Maybe wrong place/wrong time for me as a player. I agree about Ultima, Ultima 7 in particular nailed that Gygaxian naturalism.
Yeah, too bad about the combat.

Pillars is completely sterile and spends a good deal of its time trying not to be DND or Baldur's Gate and does it in the most obvious and stupidest of ways with all their "not-creatures" like Xaurips, Ghuls, and Fampyrs. Along with other funny names like Ducs and Biawics. The only interesting species in their list of totally not DND monsters are the not-illithid spider things. Potentially interesting things are never given their due, the game claims you're going insane and suffering from lack of sleep, but you never see any evidence of this other than some crappy ghosts, dreams, and flashbacks.

The big reveal at the end has to be the weakest baby fart in the history of writing and its obvious that the writers couldn't even be arsed to think contextually within their own lore. I seem to recall Fenstermaker complaining about how people saw the world as nihilistic. People see the world as nihilistic because the writers and developers never gave the player any reason to give a shit about it, by the time the game was nearing its end I couldn't have cared less about the fate of the Dyrwood or my companions or really anything else other than killing big bad just because the game told me to do it.
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Post by Ranselknulf »

I watched parts of a documentary years ago that said Gary Gygax was a giga-chad who threw cocaine sex party D&D games or some shit like that.

I don't remember the narrative arc of the documentary, but I think it was something about how Gary Gigax was a bad steward of D&D and it was a good thing that WOTC purchased it from him.

Fast forward to today, I'm not sure which would have been better. D&D being owned by a cocaine sex party fiend, or the woke stazi penning thousands of gender queer story arcs.
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Post by rusty_shackleford »

I believe this is the first published material written by Gygax — a letter to the editor complaining, stating he will not renew his subscription. Very Gygaxian.
https://archive.org/details/Fantasy_Sci ... 5/mode/2up
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Post by Acrux »

Interesting page. There's a letter there from James Blish complaining about the phrase "science fantasy", which also sounds very typical for him.
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Post by Klerik »

The idea of "fantasy" or "myth" is an outdated catagorization because even the most fanciful and abstract fiction is based off of some aspect of reality that follows some sort of ruleset. Videogames in their illuminated form as just different definitions of reality creating a pre-selected dynamo of variables.
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Post by WhiteShark »

Klerik wrote: March 10th, 2023, 06:04
The idea of "fantasy" or "myth" is an outdated catagorization because even the most fanciful and abstract fiction is based off of some aspect of reality that follows some sort of ruleset.
But myth is exactly this. Myth has always been an explanation for reality, not something separate from it.
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Post by Klerik »

Indeed, that is a new awareness. Not the typical materialist notion that was accepted when I was in my younger years.
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Post by aeternalis »

WhiteShark wrote: March 10th, 2023, 06:35
But myth is exactly this. Myth has always been an explanation for reality, not something separate from it.
Klerik wrote: March 10th, 2023, 06:37
Indeed, that is a new awareness. Not the typical materialist notion that was accepted when I was in my younger years.
You two are on some big-brain thoughts. Please accept a brofist from me because I can't give one on this forum.
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Post by Emphyrio »

Klerik wrote: March 10th, 2023, 06:04
The idea of "fantasy" or "myth" is an outdated catagorization because even the most fanciful and abstract fiction is based off of some aspect of reality that follows some sort of ruleset.
The idea of "realist" fiction is also outdated, as realism exists in a fantasy world where there is nothing beyond mundane human understanding.
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Emphyrio
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Post by Emphyrio »

How come guys who claim to be Gygax fans still play D&D instead of Lejendary Adventures?
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rusty_shackleford
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Post by rusty_shackleford »

Emphyrio wrote: April 6th, 2023, 22:00
How come guys who claim to be Gygax fans still play D&D instead of Lejendary Adventures?
Probably because it's impossible to acquire LA material without pirating due to Gail Gygax pulling everything he worked on from Troll Lord Games.
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Post by Luckmann »

Ranselknulf wrote: March 3rd, 2023, 14:58
Fast forward to today, I'm not sure which would have been better. D&D being owned by a cocaine sex party fiend, or the woke stazi penning thousands of gender queer story arcs.
Definitely Gygax. Every time I see him or learn anything new about him I like him more.
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