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D&D Co-Creator Gary Gygax Has Passed Away
Mearlus writes "In the recent past co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons Gary Gygax has worked with Troll Lord Games, a small tabletop RPG publisher. Their forums have up a post noting that Mr. Gygax has apparently passed away. Gygax was known, along with Dave Arneson, as the Father of Roleplaying." Saddened reactions from well-known designers have already begun to appear online. Consider this is an in-memoriam Ask Slashdot question: How has D&D (and tabletop roleplaying) touched/improved your life? Update: 03/04 23:16 GMT by Z : With more time, official announcements have had time to appear. Many sites are featuring posts on Gygax's impact on gaming, including touching entries on Salon and CNet.
Its too bad, since his influence goes well beyond D&D. The impact on videogames is very far reaching too.
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How has D&D (and tabletop roleplaying) touched/improved your life?
It's almost cliched now but as a Dungeon Master in my early teen years, Gary Gygax's work helped to refine creativity, learning, communication, strategy and logic in a way that few other tools or experiences (including school) were able to accomplish. The rule sets were were a revolution to me at the time that helped inspire an understanding of how to engineer environments, social interactions and most of all communicate in conventional and unconventional fashions. All of these tools have certainly helped in my personal and academic lives.
I will forever be grateful to Gary Gygax and the team at TSR.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
I had the opportunity to talk with Gary at a GenCon (when it was still hosted in Milwaukee) back in the 90's. I was a teen and full of questions having played rpgs for many of my years growing up.
He was friendly, and a fun guy to talk to. I was actually quite amazed at how interested he was at talking to my friends and I about the game and actually was very interested in what we thought of the 2nd Generation of D&D.
I only had the chance to meet him once, but I was glad I had the opportunity.
Farewell, Gary. Thanks for the great games and entertainment.
I remember playing a round of D&D once in the cargo bay of a C-141, on the way to a TDY exercise... beat the hell out of playing the same card games over and over again, and you're right - it led to meeting a lot of great people overall.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
While I wasn't a big D&D fan, I loved the idea and always enjoyed tinkering and making up stories. When Bioware put out Neverwinter Nights, I started my own campaign, which was received quite well. When Neverwinter Nights 2 came along, I started yet another and don't plan on stopping.
At one level, it's simply a hobby that combines a lot of skills I enjoy practicing. The scripting language is C-like, which probably helped me get over a long habit of programming in Basic-like languages. Modding is also something I can share with my kids, as my son enjoys tinkering around with the toolset and putting together simple modules.
On another level, I'm in awe of the people who have played my modules and how I've touched their lives. I remember getting an e-mail from a woman who was dying of cancer and how a particular moment in my game made her husband laugh for the first time in a long while. I got another letter from a young man in the Israeli army, talking about how my games were a bright moment in an otherwise terrifying life.
I think Dungeons and Dragons has ended up being something larger than it was originally envisioned. My kids make up these elaborate "playing pretend" stories. D&D has turned this instinct for adventure into something adults can do without too many funny looks. We all need to play the hero and live a life bigger than ourselves. Gary helped give that to us, and for that I am most grateful.
I met the woman who would later be (and still is, to be clear) my wife through my gaming friends.
Other friends of mine have changed careers and gotten much better jobs through friends they met gaming.
Clearly D&D is a gift to the world that's touched a lot of lives, and not just those of parents'-basement-dwelling pasty teenagers.
I might not have been become a computer journalism without his influence. Some of the first stories I ever published were 'tech analysis' D&D stories. You wouldn't believe how much a volume a D&D fireball actually takes up in an enclosed area. Well, not until you've been fried by one anyway, or the fine art of bouncing lighting bolts off obstacles.
Beyond that, I can't begin to count the number of hours I spend enjoying first D&D in 1975 and then all the other RPGs that followed it.
Good-bye Gary.
Steven
I've made a similar post once before, but it seems appropriate now.
;) love of video games and computer graphics.
D&D was my entire reason for becoming interested in programming computers. In the early 80's what I realized is that D&D is the "software" of games. Modules expand the original game in new ways that nobody thought of before. They expand the core system in new and interesting ways.
Sure, software was already doing this on computers at the time, but it really helped my brain make that leap at a young age - software is extraordinarily powerful.
It also seemed to foster a healthy (or unhealthy of you believe Jack Thompson
Thank you Mr. Gygax. You will be missed.
std::disclaimer<std::legalese> sig=new std::disclaimer; sig->dump(); delete sig;
despite all that the news and religious right were spouting in the 80s when i was a kid, dnd actually saved my life. i was a chronically depressed, suicidal adolescent with no social contacts outside my immediate family. dnd let me open up imagination and share it with likeminded people. taught me invaluable reference skills, story telling, group management, but most importantly it insisted that i interact with others and in doing so provided me with the slow crawl back to reality. i dont know that gary would have understood the seriousness of all that, but what that group created was an invaluable part of my life. goodbye e. gary gygax and thank you.
Really: Ernest Gary Gygax was a god. He turned the wargaming world on its head when he created a fantasy-based game, and did it again with the little supplement in the back that dealt with more individual encounters. His legacy was this new attention to detail, a whole genre, richly inspired by Tolkien's similar work, and spawning universes of imagination to touch generations. ... for this reason, I'd say he was a creation god, having created the world of role-playing games, significantly influencing the Fantasy genre itself, and even brining polyhedral dice to a more mainstream world. Gods don't die; Gygax will live on as only the most significant fathers of ideas do.
D&D has been a part of me since 1986 or so. I've been actively playing and even designing rules for most of that time, even if I had no idea of what I was doing. How did D&D improve my life? It gave me a gateway to my imagination, allowing me to express myself in creative ways that would otherwise have been developed far less aptly. It increased my vocabulary ("what does 'proficiency' mean?), and in triggering my interest in Tolkien, it caused me to learn much of linguistics, etymology, and language, not to mention the reading of fantasy novels including RA Salvatore's Drizzt books. Its limitless possibilities make me laugh at MUDs and MMORPGs for their simplicity ... I can't play CRPGs or the like thanks to having discovered the real thing.
Thanks, Gary. From your days guiding the RPG movement, to your voice-overs on the D&D television show, to your return to the core team with WotC, you had a great run. We always wanted more, but that's only because you always provided so much. You will be missed, and never forgotten. So long and thanks for all the books.
PS: Anybody thinking of DMing or writing about a game or fantasy world (even outside the context of D&D) should take a look at his book Master of the Game, which is sadly out of print.
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
To continue my eulogy...I've been posting this on the all the forums I frequent. Oh, and the official DnD site is changed...
Today Gary Gygax, co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons and one of the main promoters of the RPG industry leading it to its current place as a tabletop, online and video-game staple, has died.
His legacy will live on for eternity...that man touched and helped more lives than any other game developer of the last 40 years (probably yourself included, whether you know it or not).
Kinda weird it'd happen on 3-4, given the current transfer of DnD from 3rd to 4th edition too...
His innovations to gaming are so countless and great that today we see them as such staples that we probably couldn't imagine a current "gaming industry" without his advances. His promotion of Gen-Con and many other conventions to spread the name of DnD helped create modern video games as we knew it by spreading tabletop gaming to colleges that would later develop games like Zorc...which would later go to influence such known franchises as Zelda, Final Fantasy, etc...
Dungeons and Dragons (and Chainmail...long story there) were the first character based roleplaying games of all time (there were some games like...well improvised acting and reinnassiance fair things, but nothing with rules, dice, etc...). Dungeons and Dragons set a fantasy standard that continues to influence RPGs to this day. In fact, if you've ever played a fantasy based RPG, odds are its like that because of Gygax (who adapted Chainmail into Dungeons and Dragons). Gygax can be creditted with inventing the slime monster from things like Ragnorok and Dragon Warrior (he created the first "ooze" monsters in gaming: the gelatenious cube and deadly pudding!). The basic "team" system (The warrior, the caster and the healer) is his design. Although influenced from hundreds of fantasy novels, things like collecting magic items, potions, spells-per-day, a spellcasting system limiting the number of spells a wizard can cast *at all*, hit-points, armor, strength stats, dexterity stats, constituion stats, charisma stats, intelligence stats and wisdom stats on a character can all be attributed to his legacy (even if he didn't directly create them, someone on his epic team did, and he was basically the head of his team and best promoter of the game).
Fireball? His. Magic misisle. You bet your ass. Feats are from Dungeons and Dragons, although not a gygaxian creation. *Classes* are derived from RTS-style tabletop war games and first appeared in Chainmail and Dungeons and Dragons. Although in 1.0 you could only choose between non-human races OR classes (so no elf-thieves until 2.0).
Anyways Gygax, to you I pour out the remaining contents of my Health Pot and tip my +2 cap of intellect. May more great developers forever learn from your innovation and may we meet someday in the afterlife. I'll bring my dice if you have a campaign ready by then.
Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
There were alot of us D&D geeks in the Navy too, used to play on the aircraft carrier while out on a cruise. Everyday after that 12 hr shift you head down to the forward galley and there were at least 2 games going on, sometimes more. You didn't even have to really be a part of the campaign you could just sit down, roll up a char and play for a couple hours. Played with alot of great people, we even had some officers who played.
Gary will be missed, he gave us geeks hidden down in the basement hours and hours of enjoyment.
I will always remember Mr. Gygax as the man who, while villified by many, was responsible for introducing me to a world of unlimited imaginations where grand adventures took form. The doorway of imagination he opened through his game allowed me to dream bigger dreams and to imagine entire worlds within my own mind. More than any English teacher, Mr. Gygax, albeit indirectly, moved me to write stories of epic scale. Without Dungeons & Dragons, neither would I have known so many great friends.
Now he has passed from the game we call life. I don't think Mr. Gygax failed his last saving throw, but rather that the Great DM determined that it was time for his character to be retired. He will be missed.
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
Indeed. I remember being at college, my first time away from home, very intimidated because everyone seemed so much more ready for college than I. I walked into the commons and in the midst of all of the cool people, some soon-to-be dear friends were playing AD&D unaffected by the stares and questions they received as people walked by. Gygax's own eulogy of himself from an interview: "I would like the world to remember me as the guy who really enjoyed playing games and sharing his knowledge and his fun pastimes with everybody else." Vaya Con Dios.
As most people that game and grew up in the `80's D&D was my first RPG so, even though I moved away from it to other games, I still get nostalgic thinking about "the good old days".
I don't remember the site, but several years ago some people were ripping Gygax because, apparently, it was the popular thing to do. I posted, saying that just because you don't like the product that the guy was currently involved with was no reason to slam him personally or to take away from the contribution that he'd made to a hobby that so many of us share. He read it and got back to me, basically saying that it was good to know that there are still some decent people out there. He seemed like a pretty nice guy from the few e-mails that we sent back and forth.
I work for a pretty huge company now, and I need to communicate with people of diverse backgrounds at all levels of the organization. My gaming experience has helped me do that effectively. Learning to look at things from someone else's perspective is an invaluable skill. Gaming also taught me that not every situation calls for a leader, but sometimes it's definitely helpful.
Thank you Mr. Gygax for all you've done,
From Forgotten Realms to Grayhawk, and even Darksun.
Thank you for hit-points, ability scores and class.
Thank you for oozes and drow (who frequently kick my ass).
You've inspired so much, from Sephiroth to Warcraft,
and yet you were still designing more even when you left.
Yet very few can Knowledge (gaming) your name (a pox upon their fumble!),
A man who's inspired and made multiple industries, and yet so humble.
Who forged the greatest gaming convention to last until this day.
Who gave us such joy with his games t'was like dancing with fey.
Who brought together so many friends who grieve for you this morn.
Who made such diabolical adventures I'm suprised you don't have more scorn. (:3)
Who inadvertently birthed and slayed more dragons than any other man,
or at least the dragon slayers who adventure across the land.
Of course now our adventures will miss you and your gray bearded face.
And all some may have as a momento is a feather token or +2 mace.
And while your up in the plane of epic designers of great fame,
I beseech you to prepare yourself and later meet me for a game.
I probably won't get to play with your group (the trinity and Wilde to name a few),
I hope you'll visit me in regular heaven (I'll bring the pizza and the dew).
Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
...and his Little Wars: A game for boys from twelve years of age to 150, and for that more intelligent sort of girl who likes boy's games and books. (Dig the not-so-veiled sexism of that title!) Yes, his rule set for gaming has passed into the Public Domain, so you can use them for free if you want to.
Little Wars was initially released in 1913. A 2004 printed edition of the work comes with a foreword...by Gary Gygax.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
[ I know it's late, but trying to write even a half-decent eulogy and
restrospective of a person like Gary Gygax this takes a bit of time
to think about. Mea culpa. ]
To the rest of the world world, Gary Gygax was the guy who created D&D
(Dungeons and Dragons) back in Lake Geneva, WI, and who started the company
there called TSR Hobbies, which produced it.
To me, though, Gary was just my neighbor down the ways a bit along Center
Street. I lived down the street and around the corner from from him,
*worked* for him at TSR for about 4 years, played games with him, on and
off the job. Hung out with his son Ernie and pal Skip (Ralph) Williams a
good bit in high school, since the other kids of my own age I found--um,
boring and slow. I'd sub for Skip on his paper route at times, and once
Ernie dragged Skip into D&D, I wasn't far behind, even thought I was like
five years younger than they were.
Gary was from my folks' generation--actually a little older even. Gary was
smoething of a nobody for the longest time, our semi-employed town cobbler,
whose flame-haired wife, Mary, a fervent Jehovah's Witness, was the mother
of their 6 children (2m+4f) who lived in the only sesquistoried house I'd
ever been in. His dad was a violinist down in the Chicago Symphony, but
Gary never got the hang of the instrument.
I also seem to recall Gary may only gotten a college degree later in life,
if then, but even so, it was something like a BA-English and may have been
of the honorary or over-the-net or mail-in variety, Gary initially being
one of those bored-with-school drop-out sorts. People around town really
didn't think much of him--*UNTIL* he became rich.
But before then, the talk of the town wasn't very good about him. "All
those kids, and all you did was shoe repair with maybe a little insurance
on the side? And your wife has nothing better to do than to be knocking on
our doors passing out Watchtower pamphlets? What kind of a way to raise a
family is that?" You know how critical some small-town people can be of
others, especially when they just don't know the people their bad-mouthing.
But I did, and I never thought that. It was especially fun to go over to
Gary's house, not just because of his jokes and stories, not to mention the
virtual library books and comics he had littered about everywhere, but also
because that extra half-story was kidsville, since only we kids could get
around standing up straight in it and the adults were crippled. I always
enjoyed Gary's first wife, Mary, even if she did have funny pamphlets.
I got into D&D just after Don Kaye died, which would be in 1975. I
remember stopping off at 542 Sage Street with Skip (Ralph) Williams to get
some D&D books or supplements from Don's widow. This was just across from
the street from Eastview, the grade school I'd only just then completed the
6th grade at, and barely half a block from my home.
Later when Gary and Brian Blume moved the business to the corner house a
couple blocks to the north, called the "Dungeon Hobby Shop" then. The
downstairs was retail, the upstairs games-design. I helped out in the
store and in shipping and mailing. By the time I was old enough to be
hirable, TSR had moved down to the choicest of spots in town: the old
hotel property at corner of Broad and Main, which at that time was Lake
Geneva's only stop-light. We didn't even have 5k inhabitants at the
time. There were well under 2 dozen employees when I first went on the
payroll; I think my employee number, if you counted extant employees was
13, or 19 if you didn't.
I'd work in the retail hobby shop under Ernie, or upstairs in mailing, or
eventually in the GenCon (Geneva Convention) department itself under Joe
Orlowski (R.I.P.) and Skip Williams. GenCon started out in Lake Geneva