I hope you don’t mind if I stray off topic for a little bit. I was saddened to see that Gary Gygax passed away today, at the age of 69.
Gary’s impact on culture — worldwide — can’t be denied. With Dave Arneson, a good portion of what we all now know as role-playing games, computer games, and even the fantasy genres of literature and movies began over a table of paper, pencils and funny dice, almost 35 years ago.
I had the pleasure of speaking to Gary via e-mail a couple of times over the past few years. I would never go so far as to claim to be his friend, but every time I asked a question, he replied politely and never seemed inconvenienced. For someone who grew up hoarding every book and module he wrote (and I still own legitimate electronic versions of all his TSR work), it was a great pleasure.
With that I shall say goodbye. No cheap puns about saving throws here. In the end we are all just people, and Gary was a kind and friendly one, even to a complete stranger asking a question in an e-mail. We should all follow that simple example.
Cheers Gary, and so long.
It’s a sad day in the world. Gygax was one of the most influential people in the world. Not just for role-playing games, but for games in general. He started the gaming phenomenon, in my opinion. He paved the road and led the way.
I didn’t have the pleasure of growing up during the “early days,” but I have been an avid collector of the original books and modules. Gary Gygax was a genius. Thank you for honoring him with your post.
I found myself saddened as well, despite the fact I was never a D&D player; I am however a longtime nerd, frequenter of comic book stores (which almost always had gaming as a sideline or comcis were the gaming store’s sideline), and beneficiary of D&D culture. Gaming is somewhere deep in the blood of the GNU/Linux community, a part of hacking history, and a dominant subculture on the net from the earliest days.
Plus, Gary was a vital part of Al Gore’s Vice Presidential Action Rangers on a great episode of “Futurama.”
Linux users might fire up their terminals and type “adventure” for some Gygax-inspired old-time goodness (it’s part of the default installation on some distros, like slackware, and I think most distros will have it in a package called “bsdgames” — I know ubuntu does).