Wednesday - March 05, 2008

 Rest Well, Gary Gygax

Gary Gygax, the creator of Dungeons and Dragons, and grandfather of all tabletop gaming ... and really roleplaying and tabletop gaming in general, died yesterday at the age of 69.

You can read the full story about his unfortunate passing here.

It's a strange thing, really... I never really payed much attention to Gary Gygax while he was alive. Honestly, of all the games I've played, D&D was the clunkiest and least entertaining system of all of them. A game's rules must work WITH the system to make a complete story-telling experience, and AD&D 2nd Edition never seemed to quite do that, in my opinion. Hence, when the name Gary Gygax came up, I would usually roll my eyes.

After his death yesterday though, I think it really sunk in that Gary was so much more than just "that guy who wrote D&D." Gary gave birth to the entire role-playing genre. Everything from D&D, to 7th Sea (which we played last night, more on that in a moment) to Aberrant... even other fantasy games like Warhammer, and all the way up to video games like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest... all owe in, in some way, their entire existence to Mr. Gygax. I think I know how my father felt when John Lennon died, and most likely felt again when George Harrison followed him Home. It's a bit of an alien feeling to me, too, considering I think this is the first time I've given Mr. Gygax more than a second thought.

Coincidentally, we had our 7th Sea game scheduled for last night at Rob and Vicki's. In honor of Mr. Gygax, and the wonderful things he caused in our lives, we had 1D6 rounds of silence (a round is 6 seconds). We took a moment once everyone was gathered, and shared Cheetos and Mountain Dew, and went around the circle telling about our first role-playing game, and our first experience with D&D. We touched on the fact, also, that were it not for role-playing games, none of us would know one another. In some way, shape, or form, all of us knew almost everyone else in that group through gaming.

So, here's to you, Mr. Gary Gygax. Thank you for giving us the means to tell such wonderful stories of action, adventure, romance, danger, and good triumphing over evil. Thank you for allowing us all to be heroes... if only on pizza-sauce stained paper and a handful of odd shaped dice.

I made a desktop picture in memory of Gary, also. You can download it here.