GT
Wizard
Duke of Indiana, Knight Commander
Posts: 2,032
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Post by GT on Mar 6, 2008 22:09:16 GMT -5
Heh!! I have nothing bad to say about Gary at all, and obviously this isn't biased... like some defenses we could name!
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Post by geneweigel on Mar 7, 2008 0:21:24 GMT -5
For all those reading: I'm just reminiscing out loud. He would have joked that I was more on his side than he was!
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Post by geneweigel on Mar 7, 2008 11:08:32 GMT -5
Last night I went through through old e-mail printouts that aren't on disk. It was wrenching going through the entirety. Like a double mourning since they're all about searching for the real Greyhawk. Weird. What a trip though. The TSR tales straight from the horse's mouth are the coolest. However, the information that he spoke of on D&D and World of Greyhawk are some of the best things that I ever read. Especially for a hardcore knowledgeable fan to be able to interact for the first time. You can almost say that I was shellshocked as if I was talking to the fictional "Pluffet Smedger" or directly to a talking Dungeon Masters Guide! Treasured memories all.
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Post by Scott on Mar 7, 2008 14:26:52 GMT -5
I moved this thread to General, since I can't think of any reason to keep it private.
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Post by Scott on Mar 7, 2008 14:28:02 GMT -5
Here's some of my Gary thoughts/memories: After the first time I played D&D, I incorrectly pronounced his last name GUY-axe. I did this for a while, maybe two years until I got my own books.
At Gen Con, I think it was 1984, a TSR employee/executive, whose name I cannot remember, was running some D&D demos. I ended up striking up a conversation with him and he shared some of his gaming with Gary stories. The only one I remember was the one describing his first time gaming with him. I guess he brought his character to a game Gary was running, and his character had a vorpal sword. Gary told him he couldn’t bring the sword, and when the guy protested, Gary told him something like, ‘there are only two vorpal swords in Greyhawk, and you don’t have one of them’.
I gave Gary a bottle of Bombay Sapphire gin as a gift. I handed him the plain brown bag, and he instantly knew what it was. We had many ‘spirit’ed discussions, and he knew his drink.
I remember watching him run a game, and noting he still had the mischievous grin and imaginative eyes of a boy.
He once shared the recipes for Zagig’s Summer Cooler and Zagyg’s Summer Cooler. One was a gin drink, the other vodka. If I make it to LGGC, I’ll definitely bring the ingredients needed to make a few.
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Falconer
Enchanter
Knight Bachelor
AD&D, Middle-earth, Star Trek TOS
Posts: 330
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Post by Falconer on Mar 7, 2008 14:44:15 GMT -5
I played in a session of Living the Lejend with Gary at LGGC '06 I guess. Just for the record, he used the original LA rulebooks published by Hekaforge, not the TLG quick-start version. Even though the module was published by TLG. Just thought you might want to know.
The module FELT exactly like The Keep on the Borderlands.
The game rules FELT exactly like OAD&D.
Except that he had kobold as one of the available races. I couldn’t pass up that opportunity. I hammed it up with an outrageous French accent that Gary just LOVED, and soon he was running the whole session in a French accent, too!
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Post by stranger on Mar 7, 2008 15:26:06 GMT -5
I only had the chance to meet Gary once. In 03' he was at the Higgins Armory Museum in Worcester about 2 hours drive from my home. I must say after the seminar I had a chance to meet and talk with him and he was far more approachable than I anticipated. The funny thing is in all the time I was speaking with him gaming never came up other than me making a broad compliment about his work before I left.
I might just have to make a trip out to the Armory for their Festival of Ale this year in honor of Gary.
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ghul
Enchanter
Posts: 272
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Post by ghul on Mar 7, 2008 16:06:45 GMT -5
I played in a session of Living the Lejend with Gary at LGGC '06 I guess. Just for the record, he used the original LA rulebooks published by Hekaforge, not the TLG quick-start version. Even though the module was published by TLG. Just thought you might want to know. The module FELT exactly like The Keep on the Borderlands.The game rules FELT exactly like OAD&D. Except that he had kobold as one of the available races. I couldn’t pass up that opportunity. I hammed it up with an outrageous French accent that Gary just LOVED, and soon he was running the whole session in a French accent, too! Great story! Yeah, that was the same place and time for me, except I must have played in a different session than you, because I would've remembered that. He ran the adventure not from the published book, but from his printed out ms., as I recall.
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ghul
Enchanter
Posts: 272
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Post by ghul on Mar 7, 2008 16:10:39 GMT -5
I only had the chance to meet Gary once. In 03' he was at the Higgins Armory Museum in Worcester about 2 hours drive from my home. I must say after the seminar I had a chance to meet and talk with him and he was far more approachable than I anticipated. The funny thing is in all the time I was speaking with him gaming never came up other than me making a broad compliment about his work before I left. I might just have to make a trip out to the Armory for their Festival of Ale this year in honor of Gary. *sighs* I found out about that event e few months after it happened. I live an hour away from that place! I would've definitely raised my hand and asked him the relative merits between a glaive-guisarme versus a voulge-guisarme, but that's just me. At that LGGC gaming session mentioned above, I had Gary sign my DMG which I'd bought with my paper route money when I was 11. I asked him to sketch me a pole-arm in it, and he did. It's a bardiche.
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Post by Scott on Mar 7, 2008 16:48:09 GMT -5
I'll regret never getting a picture with him, or gaming. He invited me to Lake Geneva once to DM for his PC Nigby (former apprentice of Bigby), and the rest of his regular group. He described Nigby as the type that didn't suffer fools lightly, and told me about the last time he played him, he almost lightening bolted the rest of his party in frustration. I still have those notes, and would like to try to publish that adventure some day.
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ghul
Enchanter
Posts: 272
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Post by ghul on Mar 7, 2008 17:32:07 GMT -5
That's great, thanks for sharing, Scott.
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dcas
Warlock
Duke of Pennsylvania, Knight Commander
Posts: 481
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Post by dcas on Mar 7, 2008 18:06:55 GMT -5
I played in a session of Living the Lejend with Gary at LGGC '06 I guess. Just for the record, he used the original LA rulebooks published by Hekaforge, not the TLG quick-start version. Even though the module was published by TLG. Just thought you might want to know. Well, the quick-start version is hardly a ruleset at all. Maybe you mean the Essentials? But TLG is supposedly bringing out hardbacks of the full LA rules at some point. Very cool. They are definitely infused with the same Gygaxian spirit.
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Rhuvein
Magician
Beware . . Mjolnir
Posts: 228
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Post by Rhuvein on Mar 8, 2008 0:37:05 GMT -5
Excellent stories guys. I just love reading them. I have a few, but I'll just post this one for now, as it relates to what some of you have mentioned.
I had created an LA character (my first and only one) some years back for the online game at the old LA forums.
Hmm, I think David was among some folks who gave some advice in some of my questions for char creation.
Anywho, I ultimately created an ilf archer (scout) that I barely began play with and then the old forum crashed.
So when I attended the LGGC III, I brought the char sheet.
Greg Ellis (Fish for Breakfast) started a game and had pre-gens, so I grabbed one and we were all ready to begin.
And then, Chris Clark (another LA writer/producer) decided to join the game. No sheets left so he took my ilf and played him.
Great game, my char (as ran by Chris) kicked ass as we all did and beat the heck out of Greg's scenario (turns out to be a playtest sequel to Fish).
Next, I sign up for Gary's porch game. He asks everyone to roll up human only chars. I ask him if I can run my char and he says yes!!!
Woohooo!
The game was fabulous and you just couldn't tell that it was LA as opposed to OD&D. It was pure Gygax D&D gaming and it rocked my world. Oh yeah, it was a section of Living the Lejend.
;D
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GT
Wizard
Duke of Indiana, Knight Commander
Posts: 2,032
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Post by GT on Mar 8, 2008 16:17:12 GMT -5
I have quite a few fond memories of time spent with the Gar-Bear... my favorite is probably when I was working on the Babylonian/Persian/Phoenecian mythoi for Mythus, and working on a module to tie in with it all. I needed assistance on guidelines for demons and other supernatural critters for this, and I and a couple of my friends went up to the Gygax residence. While enjoying the hospitality of the household (Thank you, Gail!), Gary and I were going over stats from the then unpublished "Necropolis". At various points, I would exclaim: "Wow!! That's really gonna mess with the HP's!" and then we would both glance over at the guys with me (who all eventually ran through the adventure) and shake our heads. They got really concerned looks on their faces and went "What? WHAT? " And then, Gary and I chuckled evilly and would go to the next page, and do it again. It was a DM/GM blast!! Eventually, they found out what we thought was so funny! ^__^
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Post by geneweigel on Mar 9, 2008 22:16:39 GMT -5
I'll regret never getting a picture with him, or gaming. He invited me to Lake Geneva once to DM for his PC Nigby (former apprentice of Bigby), and the rest of his regular group. He described Nigby as the type that didn't suffer fools lightly, and told me about the last time he played him, he almost lightening bolted the rest of his party in frustration. I still have those notes, and would like to try to publish that adventure some day. Weren't you around when I took this picture: You could make a collage of these pics:
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Post by geneweigel on Mar 19, 2008 8:41:49 GMT -5
Hey, who is the guy in the top picture waiting to talk to Gary?
Wasn't he at Lake Geneva last year or am I bugging out?
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Post by geneweigel on Mar 19, 2008 9:01:05 GMT -5
You know I didn't take a single picture when I went last year. Those pictures that other people took were good though.
The real unfortunate surprise was that I had this bad ass camera (that my wife had bought) too that I didn't even realize that takes video that goes straight to the computer. It was in my "man bag" the whole time. If only I had gotten around to reading the manual, dammit! Now that sucks.
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