So Humble is offering a large bundle of Gygax D&D books here.

Two questions:

Are they any good/useful?

Was it his son's company that released really racist garbage disguised as a game a little while ago? TSR.was it called? Just wanted to know if this is financially linked to that at all...I really don't want to be the owner of such stuff, nor do I want to financially support that company in any way either.

A very few of those are actually Gary Gygax works, most are gygax’s name on materials developed by others (including the racist son).

after being forced out of TSR (original, not the son’s attempt), Gygax did a lot of other stuff that wasn’t D&D, but sure seemed like it.

Dangerous Journeys and Lejendary Adventure were two different original games very similar in some ways to D&D.

TSR LLC, which is the company WotC file a C&D against recently for the Star Frontiers stuff, was founded by Ernie Gygax (and some others).

The products in the collection mostly seem to come from Troll Lord Games (which got the rights from the EGG estate), Frog God Games (not sure), and Gaxx Worz (founded by Luke Gygax), and it seems to support the Navy Marine Corps Relief Society. No clear connection to Ernie Gygax.

Necropolis actually had a successful Kickstarter recently, with it being a 5E conversion. 

Thank you for the info on sourcing etc, appreciated!

Quote from Linklite >>

So Humble is offering a large bundle of Gygax D&D books here.

Two questions:

Are they any good/useful?

Was it his son's company that released really racist garbage disguised as a game a little while ago? TSR.was it called? Just wanted to know if this is financially linked to that at all...I really don't want to be the owner of such stuff, nor do I want to financially support that company in any way either.

 I would get the bundle if it weren't for Earnie Gygax having a book bundled in. His twitter use to be nothing but pro-Nazi memes. And his books were filled with racist and misogynistic BS. So sadly that bundle is worthless. 
__

It's driving me a bit nuts honestly, that one  book by Earnie, vs a great deal and a good charity. Maybe I can do it in smaller batches and avoid that book. 

Mark Greenberg is one of the authors of the 5e update of Necropolis. I had the opportunity to play two sessions of Call of Cthulhu Dark Ages at Gamehole Con last year that he had  written for Skeeter Green, and if he has open spots at his table this year I plan to do so again. I would have no problem recommending his work to DM's and players- it was very well researched and prepared. I picked up a copy of the adventure and I'm looking forward to running it for my group.

Quote from gothicshark >>

 I would get the bundle if it weren't for Earnie Gygax having a book bundled in.

 Oh right, he's listed as co-author on lost city of Gaxxmore (which is in there twice), I missed that.

Quote from Linklite >>

So Humble is offering a large bundle of Gygax D&D books here.

Two questions:

Are they any good/useful?

Was it his son's company that released really racist garbage disguised as a game a little while ago? TSR.was it called? Just wanted to know if this is financially linked to that at all...I really don't want to be the owner of such stuff, nor do I want to financially support that company in any way either.

 It is up to you. If I am looking at this offering correctly, there are 46 different PDF's being offered for less than 10 dollars, or more if you choose. Does it matter if some/many are written by someone you find distasteful? At least one is Gary's work. Seems like a fantastic deal, creating a vast reservoir of ideas for future games. And if you realize that one, two, or a bunch are written by someone you don't like, and you can't stomach using such a source, you can delete the source book.

Ask yourself this: If a traditional publishing house, like say, Penguin Random House, publishes books that greatly offend you, do you decide to never buy a book from that publishing house again?

It really depends on the intent.

If it's for historical interest (like, say, Mein Kampf), that's not a problem. If it's to propagate directly harmful concepts (that list is remarkably short with very few entries, but racism of the kind found in Star Frontiers makes it), then yeah, I have a problem. Not only do I not want to have such a game, but I also don't want to give money to them that will help further propagate them, nor give them credit in the form of "we've sold this many copies". I'm also unsure if there is a way to delete stuff off of Humble.

I tend to be the kind of person that actually looks into things rather than just labelling them as racist and dismissing them without verifying it's true. However, I'm firmly against racism and do not want to support it, so when it becomes clear that it is in fact racist, avoiding it is important to me. I'd quite happily let this bundle go if it turned out to have a connection to racism.

Quote from gothicshark >>

Quote from Linklite >>

So Humble is offering a large bundle of Gygax D&D books here.

Two questions:

Are they any good/useful?

Was it his son's company that released really racist garbage disguised as a game a little while ago? TSR.was it called? Just wanted to know if this is financially linked to that at all...I really don't want to be the owner of such stuff, nor do I want to financially support that company in any way either.

 I would get the bundle if it weren't for Earnie Gygax having a book bundled in. His twitter use to be nothing but pro-Nazi memes. And his books were filled with racist and misogynistic BS. So sadly that bundle is worthless. 
__

It's driving me a bit nuts honestly, that one  book by Earnie, vs a great deal and a good charity. Maybe I can do it in smaller batches and avoid that book. 

 That's a shame. Thank you for informing me. The 14 book bundle (and obviously by extension the 4 book bundle) doesn't contain the book mentioned by Pantagruel if that's the one you're referencing, so you could get those? Unfortunately, they have no interest for me.

Quote from Linklite >>

So Humble is offering a large bundle of Gygax D&D books here.

Two questions:

Are they any good/useful?

Was it his son's company that released really racist garbage disguised as a game a little while ago? TSR.was it called? Just wanted to know if this is financially linked to that at all...I really don't want to be the owner of such stuff, nor do I want to financially support that company in any way either.

 I see some Luke Gygax works in there and my understanding of him is that he is nothing like his brother, Ernie. Ernie is the one who was behind the TSR mess. Before 5e, Luke was known for making his culturally diverse world of Okkarim, which was influenced by his military service in Iraq and by asking his Moroccan wife's thoughts on how to best shape it. I have not actually flipped through Luke's works myself, but by reputation, his work seems like a safe bet. Luke is also behind Gary Con, which started as simply a celebration of his late father. I have never seen him address the harmful opinions of his father, either in support of or a condemnation of them. It would be understandable to me if that silence speaks volumes for you.

I do see that Ernie works are also at the high tier that you seem to be looking for. I would avoid the bundle if you are trying to avoid to financially supporting people who hold those kinds of views.

Quote from Erik_Soong>>

 He's also in other tiers as well, but this one right here is his. He is also a massive right wing bigot, who shares antisemitism, anti-lgbt, anti-POC, and pro 1930s German Leader and government memes. 

Good catch. I missed that.