I will be honest, I have a really, really hard time celebrating Gygax, given his, shall we say “complicated” legacy.
For starters, this post contains a myth created by Gygax himself - that Gygax is the creator of D&D. He was the co-creator, and created the less important half of the game. Gygax created the rudimentary d20 combat system, which he used for collaborative wargaming (think games like Warhammer, where the gameplay is very mechanical focused) against a single controller of the enemies. Dave Arneson, another game developer, liked Gygax’s system and decided to expand on it, adding the entire concept of roleplaying.
At the time, wargames were a dime a dozen (they dare back to the 1800s, where even HG Wells wrote a war game manual), but no one had really done what Arneson proposed - focusing on something other than combat. It was in that very first proto-D&D game where something new was born - Arneson DMed a game for Gygax and some others where the party met in a tavern. The tavern itself, the Comeback Inn, was not a combat location, it was a puzzle. The name was a pun - you tried to leave the inn and you would “come back in” as reality shifted, causing you to walk in through the door you just tried leaving by.
It was this addition of puzzles and roleplaying - Arneson’s contribution - that made D&D the success it was, setting it apart from an otherwise crowded field.
So, why is Gygax a household name, but Arneson is not? Gygax forced Arneson out of the company (though Arneson would come back to write sometimes after Gygax left - including writing City of the Gods, a precursor to the original Spelljammer which will be the next 5e setting release). With Gygax in control of the company, he began to push the narrative e that HE was the true creator of D&D, downplaying or ignoring that his system would have never been successful without Arneson.
Beyond just creating a misleading narrative about his own creation of D&D, Gygax also had a number of really, really problematic views on race and gender which infected the early game (ex. Female characters had lower strength caps than male characters in first edition; a lot of racism in race depictions or depictions of other human cultures) and still have some vestigial remains in 5e.
While his birthday may be a fine day to celebrate his role in creating D&D, it also is a good day to reflect upon a man who often held back D&D through his problematic ideals and egotistical desire to be the hero of his own narrative, forcing out anyone who he saw as challenging the myth of Gygax he desired to create.
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Howdy there internet people;
Today is the Birthday of E. Gary Gygax the creator of D&D born July 27th 1938.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKT7p_h1SP4
I will be honest, I have a really, really hard time celebrating Gygax, given his, shall we say “complicated” legacy.
For starters, this post contains a myth created by Gygax himself - that Gygax is the creator of D&D. He was the co-creator, and created the less important half of the game. Gygax created the rudimentary d20 combat system, which he used for collaborative wargaming (think games like Warhammer, where the gameplay is very mechanical focused) against a single controller of the enemies. Dave Arneson, another game developer, liked Gygax’s system and decided to expand on it, adding the entire concept of roleplaying.
At the time, wargames were a dime a dozen (they dare back to the 1800s, where even HG Wells wrote a war game manual), but no one had really done what Arneson proposed - focusing on something other than combat. It was in that very first proto-D&D game where something new was born - Arneson DMed a game for Gygax and some others where the party met in a tavern. The tavern itself, the Comeback Inn, was not a combat location, it was a puzzle. The name was a pun - you tried to leave the inn and you would “come back in” as reality shifted, causing you to walk in through the door you just tried leaving by.
It was this addition of puzzles and roleplaying - Arneson’s contribution - that made D&D the success it was, setting it apart from an otherwise crowded field.
So, why is Gygax a household name, but Arneson is not? Gygax forced Arneson out of the company (though Arneson would come back to write sometimes after Gygax left - including writing City of the Gods, a precursor to the original Spelljammer which will be the next 5e setting release). With Gygax in control of the company, he began to push the narrative e that HE was the true creator of D&D, downplaying or ignoring that his system would have never been successful without Arneson.
Beyond just creating a misleading narrative about his own creation of D&D, Gygax also had a number of really, really problematic views on race and gender which infected the early game (ex. Female characters had lower strength caps than male characters in first edition; a lot of racism in race depictions or depictions of other human cultures) and still have some vestigial remains in 5e.
While his birthday may be a fine day to celebrate his role in creating D&D, it also is a good day to reflect upon a man who often held back D&D through his problematic ideals and egotistical desire to be the hero of his own narrative, forcing out anyone who he saw as challenging the myth of Gygax he desired to create.