What is Gygaxian in terms of D&D ?

What is Gygaxian in terms of D&D is a question that was recently asked over on a forum where I am an active member and poster. The question was framed as being specific to oe and early to mid 1e.

We should first consider the elephant in the room. What do I mean elephant in the room you might say? The big, fat, freaky, elephant is where you consider just which Gygaxian are you referring to.  What does that mean you say? Let me explain.

1. There is the original Gygaxian, where Gygax emulated Arneson in his gaming style. This is the exploration game, open-ended, no modules, no railroads and no murder-hobos. It is important to point out that Arneson considered Gygax to be a Monty Haul DM. Gygax would defend himself on this point by saying that he had to give out all that magic so it could be play tested. If you consider that later on when Gygax was railing against Monty Haul DMs, the examples given made him look extremely stingy.

My comrades preach this, but in practice this is not what they do and if you watch their comments for very long you will see that their commitment to this is lacking in fervor.

2. The second Gygaxian, occurs when he starts to realize that there is money to be made in adventure modules and while it is possible to design an adventure module that is not a railroad that can be integrated into a campaign, it is much easier and quicker to build modules that are completely linear and thus are railroads with a script that the player must follow. So Gygax designs B-2 Keep on the Borderlands, non-linear, but very quickly TSR under his leadership defaults to linear, railroaded modules. This misguided focus irreparably harmed D&D and the whole RPG genre, as this is where the railroaded gaming, rules lawyers, munchkins (not defined by age), powergamers/min-maxers, murder-hobos and BtB zealots got their first foothold.

This what my comrades at the forum truly believe in and practice, watch what they do and not what they say.

3. Then there is the third Gygaxian, this is after the money went to his head and he started preaching that BtB AD&D is the One True AD&D and that any alternations mean you are not playing AD&D. This is the BtB zealotry and OneTrue Wayism. This was where the most damage was done to D&D and the whole RPG genre. 

This is where the railroaded gaming, rules lawyers, munchkins (not defined by age), powergamers/min-maxers, murder-hobos and BtB zealots became the mainstream and continues to be the mainstream to this day. This is when all games moved from open-ended to closed. This was when people where told they had to buy the setting and buy the modules for the setting because DIY is too difficult for ordinary people.

Some of my comrades at the forum fit into this category, this is what they believe and practice.

One is the early oe, two is later oe and early AD&D and three is mid AD&D. Once Gygax degenerated to step three, the later abominations became inevitable. Take 5E and the easy healing of full recovery from wounds with just a nights sleep.

Take some of what my comrades say, there is good stuff to be found there, but please don't do as they do, you and your players deserve better than that.

Let us be clear, mode one is old school, modes two and three are not old school.