Gary Gygax Quotes

I would like the world to remember me as the guy who really enjoyed playing games and sharing his knowledge and his fun pastimes with everybody else.

Games give you a chance to excel, and if you're playing in good company you don't even mind if you lose because you had the enjoyment of the company during the course of the game.

I foresee online gaming changing when there are good audio-visual links connecting the participants, thus approximating play in a face-to-face group.

Pen-and-paper role-playing is live theater and computer games are television. People want the convenience and instant gratification of turning on the TV rather than getting dressed up and going out to see a live play. In the same way, the computer is a more immediately accessible way to play games.

Although the masculine form of appellation is typically used when listing the level titles of the various types of characters, these names can easily be changed to the feminine if desired. This is fantasy--what's in a name? In all but a few cases sex makes no difference to ability!

Send anyone claiming that their RPG activity is an art form my way, and I'll gladly stick a pin in their head and deflate it just to have the satisfaction of the popping sound that makes.
One might play a game artfully, but that makes neither the game nor its play art.

I think a lot of what I was taught, gathered, and learned is worth keeping. Heritage and "wisdom" and simply personal family and local history enrich the one able to tap such information. As it is I wish I had garnered more from my grandparents and parents.

One more thing: don't spend too much time merely reading. The best part of this work is the play, so play and enjoy!

The worthy GM never purposely kills players' PCs, He presents opportunities for the rash and unthinking players to do that all on their own.

Gaming in general is a male thing. It isn't that gaming is designed to exclude women. Everybody who's tried to design a game to interest a large female audience has failed. And I think that has to do with the different thinking processes of men and women.

The essence of a role-playing game is that it is a group, cooperative experience.

You are not entering this world in the usual manner, for you are setting forth to be a Dungeon Master. Certainly there are stout fighters, mighty magic-users, wily thieves, and courageous clerics who will make their mark in the magical lands of D&D adventure. You however, are above even the greatest of these, for as DM you are to become the Shaper of the Cosmos. It is you who will give form and content to the all the universe. You will breathe life into the stillness, giving meaning and purpose to all the actions which are to follow.

Somebody said they threw their copy of Dungeons and Dragons into the fire, and it screamed. It's a game! The magic spells in it are as real as the gold. Try retiring on that stuff.

When you master role-playing [gaming], you become immersed in an activity that is peerless among leisure-time pursuits.

Role-playing games are contests in which the players usually cooperate as a group to achieve a common goal rather than compete to eliminate one another from play ... Role games ... bring players together in a mutual effort ...

Games give you a chance to excel ...

If you are an inventor, then you are destined for blood, sweat and tears.

The idea that a game is anything more than a game ... You know, there are people who are basically unbalanced who are going to misuse a game and have bad results. If a golfer who insists on playing during a lightning storm gets hit by a stroke of lightning and is killed nobody says, 'There's golfers dying by the droves being hit by lightning!' You can overdo what you really like, and if you're unbalanced you go overboard.

I'm just a risk taker. I have gut instincts.

Role-playing isn't storytelling. If the dungeon master is directing it, it's not a game.