What Happened to Gygax Games?

[Mr. Darke]

I was going to check Gygax Games to see if there was anything new. When I got there I found that the website had been temporarily removed. Anybody know what's up?



Link

[thegreyelf]

That's a new development. The site was there a few days ago, though it hadn't been updated in almost a year.

[delve]

You think they actually might start putting up info about upcoming products?.. Aren't they supposed to be a getting Lejendary Adventure republished? or some other works of Mr. Gygax's.

[Finarvyn]

The early word was that Mongoose games was going to publish Lejendary Adventure, but then the MG boards indicated that the project wasn't going to happen after all.

Perhaps Gygax Games are finding out that their best customers are slowly growing old and dying off, and that the new generation doesn't know anything about Gary at all. They really need to start advertising and selling product or eventually there may not be a market anymore.

[grodog]

Some additional info in the ENWorld thread @ www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/268791-gygax-games-something-afoot-2.html#post5016931

[sham]

Dec 3, 2009 19:50:39 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

They really need to start advertising and selling product or eventually there may not be a market anymore.

I think that ship sailed a very, very long time ago. The gold coins that were once in the hands of TSR have slipped into the pockets of hangers-on who have captured an audience that will never, ever respect or revere the names of Gygax & Arneson. Sad but true.

[thegreyelf]

Yep. We just had a conversation about that over at RPGNet in relation to Blackmoor. Now that Code Monkey has possibly lost the license for it (even they don't seem sure at this point), a few posters hoped that WotC would start putting it out, arguing that anything with Dave or Gary's name on it would automatically sell. I was forced to point out that there are more young gamers out there who have no idea who those two are nowadays, than there are gamers who know and revere the names.

[aldarron]

Dec 4, 2009 6:48:30 GMT -6 thegreyelf said:

Yep. We just had a conversation about that over at RPGNet in relation to Blackmoor. Now that Code Monkey has possibly lost the license for it (even they don't seem sure at this point), a few posters hoped that WotC would start putting it out, arguing that anything with Dave or Gary's name on it would automatically sell. I was forced to point out that there are more young gamers out there who have no idea who those two are nowadays, than there are gamers who know and revere the names.

Yep, Arneson triply so. What's more, the old guard who are interested in Gygaxian products are not going to want to buy new stuff from unknown writers who happen to be using the Greyhawk or Blackmoor setting. If the material wasn't at least outlined by Gygax or Arneson why should it be any different than the bazillion other products out there? The had a pretty good and marketable thing with Lejendary Adventures but it seems like they are really dropping the ball. Everybody losses.

[thegreyelf]

Right. Of course, that conversation went downhill fast and I bowed out after I mentioned that Hasbro doesn't care about Gygax, Arneson, or Blackmoor, and someone accused me of melding Hasbro and WotC because I was a "4e hater"...but that's RPGNet for you.

[geoffrey]

I'm hoping Gygax Games hits it out of the park with its releases. Sadly, I'm not optimistic, but I genuinely wish them well.

[delve]

If they get better promotion, advertising and distribution, It may go better than the first launch of Lejendary Adventure, not many local hobby shops could get a hold of it due to their distributers. I had to go online to order it. Something about picking it up at a store, flipping through it, getting an idea of the concept seems more appealing. If they give his work the promotion it deserves, then it may gain momentum. It's been very calm before the storm, but what will they plan to present along with the game. It would be nice if they launched side game accessories, dice, figures, and so on. Its creates a fuller product line for the fans.

[Mr. Darke]

Honestly, I hope there is something new with other projects like King of England, King of France or even CZ. Gord reprints would also be a welcome item. However, I am not a fan of LA. I tried it once and really didn't like it but would try it again if ran by someone else. As it is I am just not interested if anything is done with LA.

[delve]

yeah the game wasn't all that amazing, since there is an open licence and small companies like pied piper publishing are putting out stuff for 1st ed, why can't gygax games reprint first ed?. Since 4th ed is no longer the same game, what would it matter?

[thegreyelf]

They couldn't call it Dungeons & Dragons. First ed is already in print again, called OSRIC, and you can download it for free to check out, then buy the hard copy through Lulu:

stores.lulu.com/firsteditionsociety

Personally, were I running Gygax Games, I'd work out a deal with the First Edition Society to repackage and publish OSRIC under the GG line, and continue to put out first ed stuff that way. But that's me, and I'm surely not Gail Gygax or her advisors.

[geoffrey]

Truth to tell, I long felt bad for Gary.

Imagine being a professional designer, and people pretty much ignoring your more recent designs in favor of stuff you did decades ago when you were a young whippersnapper. Or imagine people yawning at your current campaign, but eagerly interested in stuff you were doing in the 1970s. It'd be pretty depressing.

Gary clearly preferred LA to any of his earlier games, and I imagine that his will expressed to his wife was to continue with LA.

Where I am puzzled is Gygax Games pulling away from C&C. Gary championed C&C as against OSRIC or other ways of doing pretty much the same thing. When Gary was practically begged to do Castle Zagyg using a clone of the old A/D&D rules, he flatly rejected the notion in favor of C&C.

If I had to bet a dollar, I'd bet he essentially told Gail, "To be done right, Castle Zagyg needs my supervision. If I die before Castle Zagyg is completed, just scrap it. Focus instead on supporting the LA line."

Of course, I could be 100% mistaken.

[philotomy]

Dec 4, 2009 23:44:28 GMT -6 geoffrey said:

Gary clearly preferred LA to any of his earlier games…

Probably. However, I get the impression that Gary always had his "businessman hat" on, too. That is, he no longer had any control over his earlier designs, so he had no business interest in promoting them. Also he'd been burned, legally, by producing a second design that was deemed too close to D&D, so it's no surprise that he lined up behind something quite different (even in terminology). Lastly, even when he *did* have control of D&D, back in the day, he didn't necessarily play by the rules that were being published.

This isn't really a rebuttal of what you said; I'm just muddying the waters a bit.

If I had to bet a dollar, I'd bet he essentially told Gail, "To be done right, Castle Zagyg needs my supervision.

I'd be inclined to agree with him. I think Gygax Games's best course for the Castle Zagyg line would be something like RJK has done with his old Greyhawk levels. That is, publish the original notes and maps along with only minor editing and annotation, treating the whole thing as a piece of history -- and one that people would fall all over to purchase. I know that such a product would be a must-buy, for me. But a "redone Castle without Gary, without original levels or notes, and maybe for a different system" wouldn't light my fire. :shrugs:

Focus instead on supporting the LA line.

If that's the case, I doubt the company will gain much traction. I think LA is a decent game. But there are a lot of decent games out there, and I don't think LA is a breakout hit. And running with LA does nothing to capitalize on the Gygax name, which still has huge value when associated with D&D/Greyhawk/Zagyg.

[geoffrey]

Thanks, philotomy, for your insights.

I've been thinking about this thread for awhile now, and here are some thoughts I'd like to throw-out, fully aware that they are purely speculative (and could therefore be completely wrong):

If Gary's wife, Gail, is anywhere near as protective of Gary as my wife is of me, then Gail is very protective indeed. I can imagine Gail being miffed that the majority of self-proclaimed "Gygaxian" gamers preferred A/D&D to LA. I imagine she saw her husband pouring his energies into LA, only to have LA be relatively ignored. Instead, Gary would be bombarded with questions (most asked and answered for the umpteenth time) such as: Who played Vecna in your campaign? What would A/D&D Spell X do in Situation Y? Tell us more about Greyhawk! Publish the Castle Greyhawk dungeons! And do it in X format instead of how you're doing it! Etc.

I can imagine Gail worrying that Gary's feelings were getting hurt by all that sort of thing.

Then, when Gary died, Gail inherited Gary's imaginative properties. With the above feelings in mind, she cut Gygax Games loose from those elements which were focused on Gary's decades-old stuff, rather than on his latest pride and joy. Thus she severed ties with the Troll Lords and put an end to more Castle Zagyg.

Thus an LA-focused Gygax Games was born. The operating philosophy is something like this: "LA was Gary's favorite creation. If you want to be Gygaxian, get on board and quit rooting through the ashes of the decades-ago past of A/D&D."

Pure speculation, but it feels right to my intuition.

Please note that I am not criticizing anyone for preferring A/D&D to LA. (Heck, I'd be criticizing myself!) Nor am I criticizing Gygax Games, the Troll Lords, or anyone whatsoever. I'm simply trying to understand the motivations behind the course that Gygax Games has taken thus far. I wish us all luck in getting what we want out of Gary's immense imaginative creations.

[korgoth]

It would be pretty strange if Gygax Games tries to base its business model on LA. You can't have a very profitable business model based on... what, a few dozen fans at most?

Regardless of the system that the great Mr. Gygax preferred, his fans prefer D&D and that's obviously where the market is for the material. Even if Henry Ford's last and favorite design was of a submarine, it would be crazy of Ford to stop selling cars so that it could sell Ford submarines instead... most of their potential customers would have no use for such a thing.

[Haldo Bramwise]

Nobody loves LA.
(Hey, it is a OD&D board, after all)

I got to know Gary in the last two years of his life by working with him on a couple of LA projects. In my experience, LA plays exactly the way most of us want OD&D to play ("sandboxy"), but with a much easier, universal mechanic and skill bundles. It is idea for swords & sorcery gaming. Of course, it takes a "personal gaming conversion" (which happens by actually playing LA and not just reading the rules) to get the full genius of the system.

Please, I'm not criticizing anyone, the above is just all my personal opinion (and no one has to agree with me) and it took me more than a year of reading, re-reading and playing LA to come to that position.

I'm just one of the 12 fans of LA.

Incidentally, just out of a love for the game, I submitted an idea on how the LA line could be restarted in the current rpg market to Gygax Games before I saw the note on the GG website.

[Deleted]

I'm going to agree with Coleston: the LA game is a great game. Especially if you're one of those that loves to tinker with classes and such.

[Ghul]

Hi guys,

I know some of you realize that I actively post here at ODD 74 and that I was Gary's co-author of Castle Zagyg until Gygax Games decided to take the product line in another direction. Gary also put me in charge of overseeing the development of several side adventures that branched from Castle Zagyg proper, similar in scope to Isle of the Ape, Dungeonland, and Magic Mirror. We had six such modules in development, these to be released between the CZ boxed sets, as well as the Yggsburgh expansion modules. This was all public knowledge (i.e. Gary spoke about it at some of the forums he frequented).

I understand that Castle Greyhawk/Zagyg was long awaited (by myself included), and I agree that the finest circumstances would have been if Gary and Rob could have resolved their differences and together produced the whole. This did not happen, and I was fortunate enough to be provided an opportunity to work with Gary, who went on to provide me with an enormous amount of resource material so that I could develop the CZ project in a manner consistent with his vision of it. Explicitly, this vision did not include photocopies of his old GH notes. He specifically wanted a complete adventure consistent with his last GH work while at TSR, though with some of the stylistic trappings he came to enjoy afterwards.

Things changed after Gary passed away. I've made it a policy not to air the dirty laundry of it in public, but at the same time I am a peer at this and other forums where this topic is discussed. It puts me in a somewhat peculiar position. If I ignore the discussions, do I seem shady? Snobbish? I don't know. Speculation, such as that which is contained in this thread, is fine, and I don't want to say X is completely wrong, or Y is somewhat close to the truth, because unless I intend to explain _why_ X is this or Y is that, I end up looking like, well, a jerk.

So, I will merely say this: After Gary passed away, there were some professional disagreements and other unfortunate circumstances. But since then, some fences have been mended and well wishes expressed. I sincerely hope Gygax Games has a bright future, and I wish Gail all the best, both personally and professionally, and I look forward to seeing her and the family in March at Gary Con II.

I apologize if I am not able to be more forthcoming, fellows. My reasons are both personal and professional.

Regards,
Jeff T.

PS: There is little doubt in my mind that LA was Gary's cherished baby during his last decade with us. He was also very excited about the future of his game, King of England, King of France. But he was not bitter that most folks preferred good old D&D/AD&D. In fact, I got the impression that in the last 3 or 4 years of his life, playing some sessions of OD&D again, running some levels of his old dungeon for folks at the cons, was like reuniting with an old, best friend. He enjoyed it immensely. Yes, Gary was a business man, and making money to support his family was very important to him, just like any other responsible adult, but he was also a gamer that was very fond of his latest game, LA, and he loved to play it.

[Falconer]

You’re right. I played LA with Gary (the Living the Lejend module) and it felt 90% the same as OD&D with The Keep on the Borderlands. The common denominator, obviously, is Gary Gygax’s refereeing style, which permeates both games. That suggests to me that most OD&D referees would be reasonably happy with LA. But we are creatures of habit, and that extra 10% is part of what makes D&D D&D—the classes, ubiquitous terms like “hit points” and “armor class”. So while I am abstractly “a fan of LA,” I am not so enough to really have a stake in it and to want to abandon D&D. Regards.

[Falconer]

Jeff, as always, I wish to express my opinion that the best case scenario at this point is if you and Gygax Games are able to come to an agreement that restores you as the lead writer in the Castle Zagyg project, which is what Gary had in place. I totally respect the limits of what you are able to say about it in public, so you needn’t respond to this. Just leave the wish to linger! Regards.

[Ghul]

Dec 7, 2009 13:32:38 GMT -6 Falconer said:

Jeff, as always, I wish to express my opinion that the best case scenario at this point is if you and Gygax Games are able to come to an agreement that restores you as the lead writer in the Castle Zagyg project, which is what Gary had in place. I totally respect the limits of what you are able to say about it in public, so you needn’t respond to this. Just leave the wish to linger! Regards.

Thank you for the kind wishes. They sincerely mean a lot to me.

Cheers,
Jeff T.

[chgowiz]

Jeff, that's a really cool way to put it and reflects a lot on your professionalism in handling this. I don't know half the history, but I do know that is a classy thing to do.

[philotomy]

Don't get me wrong, I like LA. However, LA suffers from the same problem that any FRPG does, with me: it has to compete with D&D for prep and play time. Feeling similar to D&D, in play, is a drawback -- not a benefit -- in overcoming that hurdle.

In my school and college days, I'd have been all over LA: I played a much wider variety of games, back then, because I had the time to do it. These days, I have to be more careful with my gaming time. I play D&D. I'm more likely to play a different game if it sets itself apart significantly: a different system, a different genre, a different approach (e.g. storytelling vs. exploration), et cetera. I think LA's system is pretty slick and different from D&D, which is a big plus. However, it's the same genre, and it still definitely has a D&D-ish kind of feel to play. So when it comes down to it, my LA stuff tends stays on the shelf. (Right after I got into LA, I had designed a whole mini-sandbox with some cool concepts in it -- I may need to dust that off and recycle it.)

[philotomy]

Dec 7, 2009 13:26:59 GMT -6 Ghul said:

I understand that Castle Greyhawk/Zagyg was long awaited (by myself included), and I agree that the finest circumstances would have been if Gary and Rob could have resolved their differences and together produced the whole. This did not happen, and I was fortunate enough to be provided an opportunity to work with Gary, who went on to provide me with an enormous amount of resource material so that I could develop the CZ project in a manner consistent with his vision of it. Explicitly, this vision did not include photocopies of his old GH notes. He specifically wanted a complete adventure consistent with his last GH work while at TSR, though with some of the stylistic trappings he came to enjoy afterwards.

I've always thought that an EGG/RJK collaboration which included a lot of historical material (e.g. original maps and notes, like Rob's Bottle City, etc.) would have been the best approach. I know Gary disagreed with that.

Nevertheless, I was happy to have Castle Zagyg product continuing to come out, even if it was reimagined based on the originals, rather than explicitly including the originals. While I think the boxed set had a lot more description and detail than I consider ideal, I was also happy with it. I thought you and Gary did a good job, and I would've loved to have seen more along those lines, including material that had been developed up to that point, but not released, yet.

However, with Gary gone, my interest in CZ material created after his involvement and without his direction goes way down. I have no idea what Gygax Games has planned, but at this point, my interest has reverted back to the idea of the "historical" maps and notes. I know that isn't likely, since it's not what Gary wanted. I think that's too bad.

[Falconer]

Dec 7, 2009 16:11:17 GMT -6 philotomy said:

Don't get me wrong, I like LA. However, LA suffers from the same problem that any FRPG does, with me: it has to compete with D&D for prep and play time. Feeling similar to D&D, in play, is a drawback -- not a benefit -- in overcoming that hurdle.

In my school and college days, I'd have been all over LA: I played a much wider variety of games, back then, because I had the time to do it. These days, I have to be more careful with my gaming time. I play D&D. I'm more likely to play a different game if it sets itself apart significantly: a different system, a different genre, a different approach (e.g. storytelling vs. exploration), et cetera. I think LA's system is pretty slick and different from D&D, which is a big plus. However, it's the same genre, and it still definitely has a D&D-ish kind of feel to play. So when it comes down to it, my LA stuff tends stays on the shelf. (Right after I got into LA, I had designed a whole mini-sandbox with some cool concepts in it -- I may need to dust that off and recycle it.)

Yeah, I agree. I would seriously consider using a “Lejendary” version of Call of Cthulhu or Star Trek. I imagine it might have a good chance at providing the gameplay fun of D&D but with the flexibility needed for these different settings that D&D itself cannot accommodate. Regards.

[Finarvyn]

This is a great discussion. It's nice to have you speak up on this, Jeff, as an "insider" on the whole CZ thing.

Dec 7, 2009 16:11:17 GMT -6 philotomy said:

Don't get me wrong, I like LA. However, LA suffers from the same problem that any FRPG does, with me: it has to compete with D&D for prep and play time. Feeling similar to D&D, in play, is a drawback -- not a benefit -- in overcoming that hurdle.

I have a similar feeling toward LA. It seems like a decent enough game but I prefer OD&D's classes to LA's skills. Maybe I would change my mind if I actually played LA, but in the meantime it doesn't grab me as much as OD&D does.

I would be willing to open up a section of the boards for LA if we thought we'd get enough discussion, but other boards don't seem to generate much, either. However, as LA was one of Gary's games, I'd be willing to open space up. (I'm not, however, planning on opening up space for Cyborg Commando. I have standards. :-) )

[Falconer]

Nah, I suggest you not dilute this board’s focus too much. That is what caused Grognard’s Tavern to die off, as I saw it. Besides, as you say I doubt it would generate much discussion.