The Gygax 75 Challenge

Recently I came across some articles referencing a thing called the “Gygax ‘75 Challenge.” After reading about it, I decided to give it a shot.

What Is the Gygax 75 Challenge?

The Gygax ’75 Challenge is an exercise in creating a usable roleplaying setting, quickly and creatively. It is based on an article that Gary Gygax wrote back in 1975 for the Europa magazine, just 1 year after D&D was first published. He wrote the article back in a time when few people really understood how roleplaying games worked, and how to start playing.

The way the Challenge works is this: you focus on creating a portion of a campaign setting each week, and by the end of 5 weeks you have a playable setting. The first week, you write up the basic concept for the setting. The second week, you draw a very rough map, with a town and a dungeon. The third week, you create the dungeon. The fourth week, you create the town. Finally, on the fifth week, you rough out the larger world around the basic map.

The best place to read about it is in a free download by Ray Otis. It includes the basic article, but also includes a bit more explanation and lays out the tasks more clearly.

The emphasis here is on quick & dirty, and not too much detail. The reason for the fast timeline is to get something playable to the players, and not get distracted by the worldbuilding process.

The reason this intrigues me so much is that I definitely get bogged down in the worldbuilding, even when I am solo roleplaying. This forces you to be very creative very quickly–and then move on and start gaming.

How I Plan To Do It

I’ve spent the last week thinking a lot about this… Part of me has wanted to jump ahead and start the creative process, but I have had to force myself to really think hard about HOW I will execute the Challenge.

Normally, I do everything on the laptop/iPad. I rarely write anything down with pen and paper. One of the things Ray Otis recommends is reversing that–going Old School and using a hardcopy notebook. Think back to the tools available in 1975… Paper, pens, colors pencils, glue and tape…

So that is what I am going to do… I bought a nice, small leather notebook to write everything in, along with a technical pencil I use when I travel. I am going to capture everything in the notebook, and draw out the maps by hand. That part is particularly hard for me, but it really goes back to my time in high school when that was how I drew my first maps!

I am going to do some things electronically, though. Otis recommends a Pinterest board for gathering inspiration, which is easy enough for me (I use Pinterest to gather food recipes). I am also going to use my to-do app (Todoist) to keep me on track and force me to move ahead each week.

What Next?

Well, I have my notebook and pencil, I set up my tasks in Todoist… time to start the Challenge. And I am ready! I have a couple concepts that I need to choose from–and then I am ready to go…

I do know that I will be using Blades & Black Magic as my basic gaming system, with Wizard for magic. Whichever concept I choose, I do know that the setting will be a low magic one, and Blades fits right in with that.

And oh, yeah–you are supposed to seamlessly steal from others and yourself for ideas for the Challenge. Do not be surprised or think less of me when you see names/ideas/concepts from my other settings in whatever I produce!

So as I go through the Challenge, I will be writing about my progress, and what I have come up with. It will not be perfect. It will not be clean. But it will be fun, and hopefully useful to someone who reads it!

Marko ∞