Talk:Gord the Rogue

message: Saga of the Old City is also called "City of Hawks".
*No, they are two seperate books, Saga was published by TSR, and City was published by Trigee Enterprises. Gary rewrote Saga into City when he quit TSR.--Azathar 03:05, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Not quite.  COH is a series of short stories set mostly between Saga of Old City and Artifact of Evil Chris.s 21:07, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, Night Arrant is the short story collecion, not CoH. CoH was a rewrite of Saga, with some new bits added in and some bits of Saga removed. But, Saga of Old City is a SEPERATE Book from  City of Hawks. Night Arrant is the collection of short stories, is set inbetween Saga and Artifact of Evil, making it a seperate book published by a seperate company. --Azathar 01:48, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

text: That would be a primary source, not multiple reliable third party sources. Cheers, Jack Merridew 08:54, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Leaving aside the fact Gary Gygax wrote them, the Gord the Rogue books are some of the very first books based off a gaming fantasy world to be written. They broke the ground for all the Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms and other game fantasy novels that followed. Rihtan (talk) 20:42, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Comments

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message: The direct connection made between module WG7 and Gygax's decision to end his Gord series cataclysmically seems spurious. Is there any evidence that he even read that module? There's a lot of failure to maintain a neutral tone there, too; the characterization of Gygax as being "mocked" (as opposed to other, more benign interpretations of Ray Winninger's motives), for example. I vote for removing those paragraphs and simply noting that the Oerth was destroyed in the series. Speculation as to why should be left out, unless someone has a quote from the author explaining it himself. -- Poisonink (talk) 01:44, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I should add, if it was simply included as an example of the "trash releases" TSR ruined the setting with, it still seems an unwarranted move to focus on it so exclusively. It makes an implied connection that the author himself failed to make. -- Poisonink (talk) 01:50, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Gygax was forced out of TSR on Dec 31, 1985. In the time between that date and the publication of the final Gord the Rogue novel, the only Greyhawk modules TSR published were A1-4 Scourge of the Slave Lords, S1-4 Realms of Horror, GDQ1-7 Queen of the Spiders—all compilations of mods previously published by TSR and either written or approved by Gygax—and WG7, the only new Greyhawk material released since Gygax's departure. The connection between the two is not idle speculation. As for motivation, realize that Gygax himself had "invented" Castle Greyhawk, had invested tens of thousands of hours on it over 15 years, had been forced out of the company he had founded by the woman he himself had brought from L.A. to be manager, had lost the rights to his own D&D characters such as Mordenkainen, the D&D characters of his friends such as Robilar, and the characters of his children such as Tenser. And then the company publishes a mod supposedly showing the inside of his castle, and casting him/Mordenkainen as a total moron. Guinness323 (talk) 04:03, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: You're forgetting something that I think should be obvious: Master Wolf by Rose Estes, which was labeled as "Book 3" in the Greyhawk Adventures series of novels as if it were some kind of continuation of the tale Gary Gygax had begun with Saga of Old City and Artifact of Evil, and its sequels. The myriad crimes of that series are well chronicled here. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Mr. Gygax took the continuation of the series he began by an author barely conversant with the setting as an affront. The relevant parts of the Gord the Rogue wikipedia article that you included involves original research and failure to maintain a neutral point of view. The idea that a single parody module "killed" Greyhawk seems odd, considering the original Castle Greyhawk included levels based on Lewis Carroll's children's books, a slide that lead through the center of the Oerth into China, a mad demigod whose areas of concern include humor and eccentricity, and a wizard PC whose magic wands looked like six-shooters. Gary Gygax may or may not have been offended by it, and may or may not have even read it. For my part, I think it's unlikely that Ray Winninger intended "Mordenkainen's Movie Madness" to be offensive, given that he had, at the time, a single AD&D credit to his name and no particular history with the company (I agree with John Ratecliff on that score, though I enjoyed WG7 much more than he did). A more neutral article would call the level an allusion rather than a mockery; a more generous article might call it a homage. Gygax may well have simply thought that, after losing the rights to his work, that any releases at all were "trash," without bothering to read them (and the supermodules, if he ever saw them, had plenty for him to be offended by as well, with the spurious new connective links and massive cuts). Any speculations as to exactly what he meant should be conducted elsewhere (feel free to vent your rage here); Wikipedia has pretty clear guidelines against original research of that sort in articles, however. -- Poisonink (talk) 23:41, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

text: "Worst. Module. Ever. I try very hard not to be hyperbolic on this blog; I know I often don't succeed. But I am hard pressed to think of any module published under the Dungeons & Dragons banner that was worse than 1988's Castle Greyhawk. Consider: Gary Gygax's legendary Castle Greyhawk had never seen publication except in snippets (such as Dungeonland, Land Beyond the Magic Mirror, and Isle of the Ape). There were occasional -- unrealized -- intimations by Gary that TSR might one day published this megadungeon in a more complete form. When module WG7 was released, as part of the World of Greyhawk brand, no less, I am sure many expected it to be the fulfillment of a long-held dream. I know I did. Unfortunately, Castle Greyhawk is more nightmare than dream -- a puerile, unfunny collection of shlock. "The common theme of this dungeon is that no joke is so old, no pun is so bad, and no schtick is so obvious that it can’t be used to confuse and trip up PCs!" That sums it up pretty well in my opinion and, if it hadn't been for the fact that the module was released in the wake of Gygax's ouster from TSR -- an event that shook the industry and the hobby -- I probably wouldn't regard this module with such bile. As it is, the entire thing comes off as a sophomoric attempt to belittle one of the co-creator's of the game and to destroy the game world he created for it. Now, I'm not sure that it was in fact such a thing. Given that its twelve levels were written by a variety of freelancers, some of them extremely talented and well regarded (Paul Jaquays and Steve Perrin being stand-outs), it's quite possible that the whole thing wasn't so much a concerted attack on Gygax as a project that got out of control and took on a ridiculous life of its own. On the other hand, as many on this blog can attest, the late 80s were a time when many at TSR did make a real effort to besmirch Gary's reputation (This is when the ludicrous "Gary was a cokehead" rumor was started, after all). Likewise, Castle Greyhawk's ham-handed use of puns and pop cultural references (to Star Trek, for example) could quite plausibly be interpreted as pointed at Gygax, who both enjoyed humor and often included allusions and outright borrowings from pop culture in his home campaign. My own sympathies lie with those who see WG7 as anti-Gygax, but I can't be certain there's any truth to it. Another possibility might have been that, while its origin wasn't defamation, the fact that it could be read that way tickled some of the higher ups at TSR, knowing they could hide behind plausible deniability should anyone confront them on the matter. Interestingly, this module's implicit criticism of Gary lives on at the Wizards of the Coast website, where an article by John Rateliff blames Gygax himself for laying the groundwork for this terrible module: "the parody element [of Dungeonland and Land Beyond the Magic Mirror] opened the door for the later WG7, Castle Greyhawk (1988)." Since the article contains numerous factual and interpretive errors about the history of the hobby (such as not knowing who Eric Shook was, for example), it's easy to dismiss as errant nonsense, but it speaks volumes about the long shadow Gary casts over this hobby. He was a colossus and it's perhaps unsurprising that so many people wanted to "expose" him as having feet of clay. It's regrettable that Castle Greyhawk was ever published. Whether or not it was intended as a jibe against Gary, few can say, but I think it's certain that this module was ill-conceived, badly done, and a slap in the face of Greyhawk fans, who'd been hoping to see more of the real Castle Greyhawk, a dream that remains unfulfilled over 20 years after the release of this module."
Guinness323 (talk) 03:18, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Castle Greyhawk