I guess his ears were burning from the grave since my sensei and great friend Lester and I had a fantastic conversation last Sunday. Obviously, we revisited the GDW days along with our work on Gygax’s underwhelming comeback. I don’t care to flog a dead horse, Gary just came up in our discussion on who our favorite game designers are; or was it us agreeing on the recent movie being actually good?
Having been one of the few people who edited his raw material alongside Lester, I could see he had a huge imagination but it was cursed with being a prolific writer. The latter was not a blessing, especially when one doesn’t believe they need an editor. Thusly, quantity never equates quality which I feel plagued Prince, Karl Marx and obviously the screeds of Ayn Rand. Now before you interrupt me (as Lester did) about putting Gary in the company of two greats and a wannabe who became the patron god of Libertarians. Hear me out. I’m arguing that the downside to not tempering one’s creative spigot results in the gold getting ignored because it’s covered in excessive crap. For example, if Prince made three albums worth of music and then heeded the advice of his peers. He would have then only released the solid stuff worthy of one record every couple years. Prince’s sales could’ve been strong enough to counter leaving Warner Music.
Gary suffered this fate and in the end I think it’s why as each year passes and Hasbro puts out a new edition of D&D, he fades from the collective memory. He won’t disappear. He’ll just be sidelined as the sole (inaccurately) creator to get matters started and then dozens followed to improve on this, incredibly true. Despite my continued hostility (broke a major rule, never meet your heroes, kill them!) until the day I die (he was an egotistical bullshiter who thought he was an intellectual) I pity him. With a tad more humility gained from his ouster at TSR and the rapid failure of his second company, Gary Gygax might go on to be a name remembered more easily (and positively)…until his MAGA-esque views were outed publicly like JK Rowling.