I was a sad man yesterday. Gary Gygax, a man who had helped shape my childhood, had passed away. For a long time, D&D was my life. I still have my original Monster Manual and Dungeon Master's Guide. I started playing in 1975 from photocopied versions of manuals and rules that were constantly shifting. I wrote adventures, played my friends through them, and spent endless hours making characters. I was a D&D junkie. I eventually played with Gygax himself at one of the many conventions I attended. He was a nice guy - A little weird (considering the crowd, I do not know how I can really call him weird), but a gifted dreamer who made millions of young men and the odd girl or two, very happy. I found out about his death in Information Week.
Sadly, today marks the passing of Gary Gygax, co-creator of the popular role-playing system. He was 69. According to his wife, he had been suffering from health issues for some time now. By the sound of it, Gary was blessed to have made it as far as he did. Despite poor health, he was still entertaining fans at his home and hosting weekly dungeon crawls as recently as January
Yes - I am an IT geek as well as a D&D geek. You can always tell a true believer by comparing the first programs they ever wrote. My first computer program was in Basic on the Apple II. It was a character generator of course. It could generate a character in just a few seconds - but what fun was that?
Farewell Gary Gygax, and thanks for the wonderful memories. I have passed the love for gaming on to my children.
3 comments:
oh heck- I didn't know he had died :(- I remember your post about D&D - which triggered my memories of it.
I didn't know he'd died, either. Thanks for the notice!
Carolyn Ann
Yeah, I was deeply saddened by it. I learned for Digg.com but two of my favorite comics: Xkcd did a tribute here: http://xkcd.com/393/ and Order of the stick (which I recommend you read being a D&D fan) here http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0536.html
I never had the chance to meet the man, but I am sure he would have been great. I no longer have any original books. I remember my first time. I was in a park with 2 of my best friends and these 4 guys were playing a game. So we went to find out and they introduced us to AD&D. That day I created my first character. A Half-Elf Rouge named Blade (can't remember the last name though). Man I had so much fun... Soon I bought some books, borrowed others, photocopied some and started to actually create my own games. I remember me and my friend create a world with its own language and races that it just became what we did. Sigh, I miss those days. I haven't played in a few years, but was asked to DM recently and started creating a Crawl for Forgotten realms, but work got busy and I had to crap those plans.
Anywho... Gary will be missed by many in the gaming world, by those who knew him, and those who didn't.
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