Inset of Clyde Caldwell’s cover for D&D creator Gary Gygax’s first Greyhawk novel, Saga of Old City. Image: Clyde Caldwell/Wizards of the Coast First, Gary Gygax created Dungeons & Dragons . Then, he created the fantasy world of Oerth and its greatest city, Greyhawk . Then, he set his mind to writing a D&D novel set in Greyhawk—the tale of Gord, a young street urchin who rises from poverty and imprisonment to become one of the greatest thieves on the planet. And in writing Greyhawk: Saga of Old City , Gary Gygax created something quite dreadful. First things first: We need to separate Gygax the role-playing game pioneer and Gygax the novelist. One can be the creator of the most popular RPG ever and the author of a very bad book; the two are not mutually exclusive. And it’s definitely worth noting that 1985's Saga of Old City is Gygax’s first-ever novel, (although of course, he wrote a million D&D adventure modules before creating Gord the Rogue) but that do...