Knights & Knaves Alehouse

I think it is pretty cool that so many memorial games are going to be played this weekend in honor of Gary. I find even more cool that so many people are going to play 1e AD&D or and equivalent like OSRIC.

What I find disturbing is too many of these tributes and memorial games announcements that are fawning over the memory of THE creator of D&D to be coming from people who many , not even 24 hours before his death, were posting slams about him and the game he created.

What I find the most disgusting is those that have posted their "rest in peace" messages while making sure to get in one last swipe at Gary or 1e AD&D.

If this post is considered in bad taste considering the timing, well to be honest, I don't give a rats butt. As much as the sincere sentiments has brought a tear to my eye in many cases - the insincere and trite - no childish - comments intertwined with the faux sympathy has only brought the taste of bile to my pallet.

I don't care if you loathed 1e or OD&D. I don't care if you didn't like the way Gary wrote editorials or answered questions. Guess what you little nobodies - NO ONE ELSE CARES EITHER.

I thank the gods that no one has posted one of these putrid posts here at K&K - if someone did I just may have to put my Admin hat back on and see just how many bans I could rack up. It makes me sick.

Oh and if I have to read one more "well it was really Dave Arnson that created the games - Gygax just signed his name to it" posts I think I will become completely unglued.

So as this weekend passes and a goodly chunk of those supposed tribute AD&D games go un-played and WoW or some incarnation of the current fantasy rpg from WOTC is played instead - I say thank you to those who still regularly plays GARY's games and those that will actually play one of his games this weekend. Those who are just paying lip service to bump post counts or to sound like a real old schooler I say to hell with you. You bailed on us years ago so don't think you can get back in by some fake sentiments now.

Unfortunately I won't get to play this weekend. There are other commitments that I have to honor. However, on March 15th I will be hosting GYGAXICON I here in Arcadia and the feature game will be by the book tournament style game - just like the old convention days. The tourney module will be the AD&D 1e classic, The Hidden Shrine Of Tamoachan. There will be a few other games played - all OOP, all Old School of course.

Next year we plan on having a GYGAXICON II and will continue to hold it every year thereafter.

Now if anyone reads this and thinks I am trying to come off sounding all uppity and better/holier than thou - well forget it. That isn't the point. The point is simply that the hypocrisies that permeate the RPG industry has yet again proved through the death of it's creator - that it knows no bounds.

There.

I needed to say that.

Now if you will excuse me I have a bit left in my bottle of Bombay Sapphire I want to get back to.


Jerry

Hey Jerry, whereabouts is Arcadia?

Jerry, I am glad you made this post. It needed to be said, and you explained it as well as could be expected.

My gaming group consists of myself, my friends - a farmer and his wife - and five of their seven children, all home-schooled farm kids. I introduced the family to the 1e a couple of years ago and saturdays have become the highlight of the week for us all.

I began this saturday's session by mentioning Gary and what had occured. The boys looked a bit blankly at me (they're all under 13 years old) and I thought to myself one day they'll come to realise what Gary has given to them.

We're playing ToEE at the moment and I had to laugh when our ranger got into a save or die situation after following a giant snake into an oven on the first level and getting bitten, then failing her saving throw (with our druid almost forgetting he'd memorised the neutralise poison spell). The situation made me think "how very Gary". This to me was a far greater tribute to the Father of Roleplaying than any public dedication or declaration.

Arcadia is in the S.E. corner KS.

Aprx.

1.5 Hrs South of Kansas City, KS/MO
2.0 Hrs West of Springfield MO
2.5 Hrs Northeast of Tulsa OK
3.0 Hrs East of Wichita KS
5.0 Hrs Northwest of Little Rock AR
5.0 Hrs Southwest of St. Louis, MO


I found out today that the community center in Arcadia is booked for the 15th of March. I expected as much. So GYGAXICON will be held (at least this year) at my home. So far there are only about 10 people that have confirmed they are coming with a possible 4 others waiting to hear back from.

Looks like I will have to get the family room converted from a temporary storage area into a game room so we can have at least 3 tables running in need be. It's gonna be a tight squeeze between the dining room, kitchen, and family room but we have done it in the past. I just hope all those folding chairs that were supposed to be stored in the attic of the garage are still there! Guess I need to check that out today.

Jerry

Where is our standing ovation emote?

I am not able to play this weekend, however, I will be in a game on Thursday. The rules: the original D&D volumes I-III, with a tad bit of Supplement I, Greyhawk sprinkled in.

Well, I do agree with Jerry, but I have seen a lot of MMO and video game folks over the weekend sincerely acknowledge the influence of Gary on pretty much everything. (I even saw one report that said Myspace and Facebook could be attributed to the social aspect of what D&D introduced in the 1970's.) Doesn't mean they are going to give WoW a break, but at least they know the roots.

At the Wayfarer's Inn, we're planning a memorial game.
1e of course, though most likely not one of the classics revisited,
but a chapter from Hall Of Many Panes.

Anyone wanting to join will be very welcome.

FYI, we are gathering players for a tribute online game:

http://wayfarer.myfreeforum.org/ftopic339-20.php

Everyone who wants to join will be welcome.

here are two "screenshots" of the screen for today's game at a con:

My group is having its own Tribute to Gary Gygax session tomorrow night. We have people flying in from West Virginia to Chicago for this game. I hadn't spoken to one of my players since our last session (some 18+ months ago). He had two words: I'm in.

We are resuming a long suspended foray into the Queen of the Demonweb Pits with some of the strongest characters in the history of my campaigns. We left off over a year and a half ago with a beleaguered party huddled outside of Room 8 (I don't want to give any spoilers here, but can't wait to see them give it a go). To my surprise, they all managed to survive the encounter w/ Lolth's Lieutenants in Room 10.

Here's the party of eight (most of these character were created in the 80s or 90s). It's really a combination of several parties working under an uneasy agreement.

Rancor - Elven Cleric/Magic-User 11/11
Gloucon - Human Fighter 12
Blum - Half-Orc Fighter 10
Asstinus - Human Monk 9
Sumundo of Erin - Human Assassin 9
Glorfindel - Elf Fighter 8
Donar Gramkey - Dwarf Fighter 8
Sir Jared of Alt - Cavalier 6 (it's this player's highest level living character and the only character in the party created after 1995)

I can't wait to get this underway...

I'm currently in the early stages of creating an AD&D adventure to run at a convention later this year. I plan to dedicate the adventure to the memory of Gary Gygax and will say so in the publicity blurb for it.

Better late than never, I'm set to run the Greater Caverns level from "The Lost Caverns of Tsojconth" (original OD&D tournament version of what eventually became AD&D module S4) for the guys next Sunday (4/13) as a Gygax Memorial one-off. I've got 4 player RSVPs which is enough to proceed (though I'm still hoping to get an RSVP from wheggi, and perhaps one more player -- the module is set up for a party of 6). We're using the OD&D rules, but since this module incorporates Supplement I and 2-axis alignments and includes a bunch of "new" monsters that later showed up in the MM it's going to feel more like de facto AD&D than hardcore 3LBB-only OD&D.

Glgnfz wrote:here are two "screenshots" of the screen for today's game at a con:

Very kewl!!

Is that Festung im Grenzland?! I had no idea it was in German!

Is that available in PDF someplace? (I read German pretty well, but don't really speak it.)

i'm afraid there are don't exist any pdfs of the german modules or rulesets. but you could send me a pm...