Gary Gygax died on March 4th. I somehow missed it in the flood of oh-so-vital Democratic nomination news pieces plastering our continent, but there it is.

I met Mr. Gygax, briefly, at GenCon last year. He did not strike me as an old man, although I understand from news articles that at age 69, he'd been dealing with heart-related problems for some time.

As the co-author of the original Dungeons and Dragons game, I owe Mr. Gygax many, many hours and weeks and months and years of thanks for the gameplay that I grew to love. I remember the old, hand-stapled manual I received, battered and travel-worn, in the mail. I ordered it from a small ad in some cheap magazine because it offered Dwarves, and Elves and Dragons.

For the first time I was offered an open-ended tabletop game, not the usual roll and move your marker around, but one with deterministic ability, where your thoughts and decisions actually made a difference.

I admit that I had as much fun making up the adventures (and of course drawing elaborate maps) as I did actually playing. Some of my favorite gaming moments occurred when players thought around my devious DM plotting and forced me to adapt on the fly as well.

Many current MMOGs and roleplaying games arose from D&D, with our now familiar stats, hitpoints, damage and encounter resolution. We all owe Mr. Gygax a moment of our thoughts today, and a thank you.


Somewhere in the afterlife, a whole bunch of people are gathering around a table and getting ready to play one hell of a game.

Brasse

Thanks Atherin, for posting about it in our forums.