Dear Dave:

[CrimsonSoul]

Hey Dave, who is this Gary Gygax guy I keep hearing about?

 

[Dave]

Dear Crimson,

He's one of the co-creators of Dungeons and Dragons along with Dave Arneson. Actually, Dave did more for the game and Gygax did marketing. Which is why for years Gary was credited with sole credit in its creation. He died last year.

 

[CrimsonSoul]

I was hoping for nerd rage

 

[Dave]

Gygax was a prick when I met him. He wrote novels which were terrible, modules that were dumb and when he GMed games he always had to have that 1 NPC that was untouchable and a Deus ex machina (the most common were Iggwilv and Baba Yaga - both who were ripped off from Nordic and Finnish mythos and claimed as original by Gygax. The fact that it took years for Dave Arneson to get the recognition he deserved is a tragedy and was only really getting well known when he died last year also.

Let me give you an idea of the level of Gygax's writing.

In the book "Sea of Death" his prose went like this:

"His involvement was a cold and unwanted douche to her carefully laid plans."

A cold and unwanted douche. While I am not clear on the rest of the text, that phrase was immediately etched into my memory. Dude was a fucking hack that only got published because Dave Arneson was a visionary.

(Better?)

 

[CrimsonSoul]

Much better, thank you.