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Building a Gary Gygax Memorial
An anonymous reader writes "It looks like approval to build a memorial to E. Gary Gygax has been granted in Lake Geneva City, Wisconsin. The Gygax Memorial Fund is still taking donations for the memorial that may begin construction as early as later this year. I (like many on Slashdot) spent many years of my youth using Gygax inspired creations as an excuse to socialize, roll dice, and eat chips at impromptu gatherings before computers intruded on the RPG realms."
http://laughingsquid.com/mit-hackers-pay-tribute-to-gary-gygax-with-giant-20-sided-die/
Don't forget that gas spores look just like beholders.
Will the map be on plain square graph paper or since it's outdoors, will it be on hexagonal graph paper?
...be underground.
...have traps leading up to it.
...have someone narrating your way.
...involve a strength check to open the door.
...force you to roll dice constantly.
If the memorial isn't a 10-foot, bronze D20, I'm going to be very upset.
My sister opened a computer store in Hawaii. She sells C shells by the seashore.
Would it have been so hard to use the summary to reveal who Gary Gygax is? It's not like he's a famous geek like John Bardeen.
I'm sorry, but I'll have to ask you to turn in your geek card. You... (rolls dice) ...disgust me.
Demanding constant attention will only lead to attention.
That it is
a maze of twisty little passages, all alike
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
Put a sphere of annihilation in the statue's mouth.
Nerd card revoked, get the fuck out of here.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Would it have been so hard to use the summary to reveal who Gary Gygax is? It's not like he's a famous geek like John Bardeen.
Unless you are under 25, you must turn in your geek card...Gary Gygax was the founder of TSR, which produced the RPG Dungeons and Dragons, now owned by Wizards of the Coast.
"If stupid things work...then they are not stupid."
No. Let Hasbro build a frickin' monument. I 'paid' for it over the years by buying D&D and AD&D stuff. He was a businessman. Now that he is dead, our business is concluded.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
I'd endorse and support memorials for all 3.
Gary Gygax: For giving geeks and nerds something to do while all the popular kids were out drinking and having sex.
John Wayne: For not taking shit from anybody (his bronze statue needs to be electrified so he doesn't even take crap from pigeons).
You know, forget the memorial.... We just need to clone the Duke.
Madonna: For the "Like a Virgin" years....when she was still hot....I want to remember the hot Madonna.
"Lame" - Galaxar
Not "Lake Geneva City"
Incidentally, it's a 503(c) organization -- tax-deductible in the US.
Sure you were, cool guy. Now please go away.
Oh, that.
I was out having sex while my geek friends were playing D&D.
Presumably with an image of John Bardeen.
Should it be a dragon in a dungeon?
People can build memorials to whomever they want. Towns can choose to commemorate notable citizens in whatever way they see fit. No offense, but honestly who cares what you feel "comfortable" with?
I was out having sex AND playing D&D - you loser
I hope the memorial succeeds. I believe Gary Gygas deserves one. I also believe Dave Arneson should get one. It is often glossed over that Dave Arneson was the co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons. I have read different postings concerning the origins of Dungeons & Dragons, and many of them point to the main idea of it was created by Dave Arneson, and Gary came along and said that it could be made into a product. Then Garry spent a long time categorizing the rules and expanding them. What a great game it was!
Gary Gygax is of the original creators of Dungeons and Dragons (the pioneering fantasy role playing game) along with many other games via his company TSR and others.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
Maybe I have to turn in my nerd card now, but I'm no more comfortable with memorializing Gary Gygax than I am with a marble statue of John Wayne or Madonna.
Thinking that Gygax doesn't deserve a memorial doesn't disqualify you from geekhood any more than hating BSG and Babylon 5 would, or thinking that VB is the ultimate programming language would. Not knowing who he is (or any of the other things I mentioned) on the other hand, barring relative youth, definitely would disqualify you.
William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
We just need to clone the Duke.
It would take forever to make, and it would not be as cool as the original anyway.
Circumcision is child abuse.
I was out having sex AND playing D&D - you loser
Sounds fun! I put on my robe and wizard hat.
They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett
When I was in junior high I went to a gaming convention where I played D&D with Gary Gygax, Tracy Hickman (author of the Dragonlance series), and Larry Niven. It was the Ravenloft module that Tracy had written, so naturally he was the DM. Watching those guys spin the fable was an amazing experience I've never forgotten, and it set a bar for fantasy gaming that no computer game has ever come close to surpassing. Maybe it's because in a computer game no one ever gets into character and brings pathos to the role. Sure, the mechanics and special effects of computers are great, but nobody really gets emotionally attached to their character (beyond how much time they spend levelling up) and...the storytelling just isn't there.
All these years later I realize that that evening with Gary, Larry, and Tracy and the other players was like our generation's equivalent of hanging out with Jack Kerouac and Allan Ginsberg at the height of the Beat era.
I hope they build Gary a monument that pays proper homage all the young imaginations he fired and lives he influenced. RIP, Gary.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
...exhume his skull, embed gems into it, and put it on a table. That would really screw with those in the know.
"I'm an old-fashioned type of guy. I worship the Sun and Moon as gods. And fear them."
you got pussy they got, well, they know who gary gygax is. I'll take the pussy 7 days a week.
Clearly you've never played DnD.
My sister opened a computer store in Hawaii. She sells C shells by the seashore.
Maybe I have to turn in my nerd card now, but I'm no more comfortable with memorializing Gary Gygax than I am with a marble statue of John Wayne or Madonna. Prima facie, I don't see this as anything but another example of going too far in deifying celebrities and glorifying entertainment at the expense of more important things.
You're probably also against the Robocop statue in Detroit, aren't you? Philistine.
My sister opened a computer store in Hawaii. She sells C shells by the seashore.
statue of John Wayne
You mean that famous one at the John Wayne Airport in California? Or the one of him on horseback on Wilshire Blvd, Beverly Hills? Or the one in the Cowboy Musuem? Or the one at the future $5.5m John Wayne Birthplace Museum And Learning Centre?
[statue of] Madonna.
Then never visit a catholic country.
and glorifying entertainment at the expense of more important things.
Dude, they're taking public donations. It's not like they're somehow taking statues out of the mouths of starving children in Africa. I promise you people piss their money away on stupider things than a bunch of geeks memorialising someone who did something they spent a lot of time on when they were kids.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
I wrote about the Gygax Memorial effort last year in the online gaming magazine The Escapist, Issue 251 (April 27, 2010): "The Tower of Gygax : Honoring the man who started everything."
While I semi-agree...a part of me thinks we should probably start admitting we're just getting old and haven't done our jobs in passing the torch down to the younger generations. Alienating some poor lad isn't going to help them on their epic quest. /diplomacy.
You can build your statue now
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
How am I supposed to know who the hell he was?
Futurama. Duh.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
I grew up playing plenty of DnD in the 1980s.
One of the neatest things in my lifetime was when I got my first "computer-related" job in a small industrial park a few doors down from the old TSR Hobbies. They still had a sign out on the end of the road.
I don't expect anyone to be impressed by that, but I sure found it to be cool.
do() || do_not();
>>I was out having sex while my geek friends were playing D&D.
Some of my geek friends in the area are married and have at least one kid each, so the odds are pretty good they've had sex along the way, while maintaining weekly D&D games since they were in middle school.
To each his own. I'd recommend giving it a shot, though, if you've never played it. Forget 4th edition D&D - it's for kindergarteners. Go with either 1st or 2nd edition if you want to get a feel for the game how Gygax designed it (lots of random tables for everything - want to know what sort of artwork you just looted? There's a table for that), but it can be rather arbitrarily lethal, too. I'd recommend 3rd edition really as the high point of the system. You need a few house rules to fix the broken stuff (wizards, clerics, and druids outshine all the other classes in the game past 11th level or so if you allow shapechanging magic and improved metamagic), but it's a very powerful system that really lets you turn loose your inner nerd on creating an optimized character.
Find an experienced DM who is not a dick, and you should have a great time. No computer RPGs can capture the experience of pen and paper roleplaying when you have a good group together, though the Baldur's Gate games gave it a good try.
...Gary is to be reanimated into a 12 foot tall iron statue with a poisonous breath attack.
He died as he lived - immune to most magical attacks (except lightning, which acts as a Slow) and to weapons less than +3.
John Fucking Wayne. Our family would build our own memorial to that man.
Every family reunion for as long as I can remember... there would be a fight over John Wayne. The rest of us had bettintg pools over him.
One relative was a real Macho tough SOB. The Duke? You don't insult the Duke and walk away.. you crawl away.
One relative was a flaming gay man. With conspiracy theories.
I won the pot one year by guessing how many glasses of wine and at what time the Duke would be accused of being gay and part of the grand homosexual conspiracy in Hollywood and how many minutes it would take for us to have to hold the first relative back from killing the latter relative.
We had first aid kits handy :)
Ahhh.... the memories. Thank you Duke.
I would have preferred a 21 Arquebus salute but my GM won't allow it.
Please put his statue on a giant dodecahedral plinth
That better be a crotchless robe.
I hope it has a water feature with a reasonable chance to turn a sword into excalibur upon dipping.
Roleplaying and computer games are not the same thing. Sure a lot of computer games and MMORPGs bill themsleves as roleplaying games but that's not the reality, since there is practically no roleplaying in them. Many people play these games and think they are getting the next generation of roleplaying - they are not, they are getting computer gaming. The two experiences are as different as chalk and cheese, although many computer games are built on roleplaying game foundations, WoW is basically the Dungeons and Dragons rules set to code.
Now I enjoy computer gaming as much as anyone else, but I recognise that the enjoyment I get from computer games is of a different variety to the experience I get from tabletop games. The amateur theatre, the sense of community, the bad accents, the ability of players to introduce completely arbitrary actions on the spur of the moment, these are all things that differentiate between the two hobbies.
This whole "George M. Howell is a troll" meme is getting kinda old. Yes, he does say some odd things..but..
.. is not news
"Someone is trolling teh interwebs! zOMG!"
Hmm, maybe I scrambled my words a little.
I meant that it was RPG's that introduced me to the problem of what happens when the GM *is* unskilled, as in a classic pitfall to be avoided each and every campaign.
Then later, musing on it, I saw some IRL connections at the symbolic level. Monty Haul caught up with the car companies in the form of the SUV craze. SUV's are "leveled up cars". Why own some stinkin' compact when you can have your own civillian tank? Except ... other factors sent gas to $4 a gallon, and then those 35 gallon tanks weren't so much fun anymore.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
I agree. That hawguy .... (fails saving throw) ... makes me sick.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
If it wasn't for Gary Gygax, Steve Jackson would never had made Car Wars (or any of the other games he made). For that matter, Lucasarts Games would probably have never existed. D&D is the original RPG. On the other hand, the point at which you were not a geek if you were not at least familiar with the history of D&D is far enough in the past that they probably should have at least given a link to his Wikipedia page.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
* Rolls d20 *
Ooh, sorry, you're still a virgin.
Mod parent +1d10, exploding
Well, at least I'm not designing it. There'd be at least one grue involved.
Though it definitely paved the way for PC role playing games, Zork has F-All to do with Dungeons & Dragons.
There are probably Priests and a myriad other religious leaders around at the time that would lump any RPG in as tools of the devil, but they were wrong about it all. I'm surprised they are rallying against this proposed monument to Gygax.
I went to battle M.C. Escher, but drew a blank.
The memorial needs at least 10 folding card tables and a refrigerator of Mountain Dew.
"I wanna cast Magic Missile!!!"
You know it should =)
I didn't think the house band in Hell would play this badly.
(lots of random tables for everything - want to know what sort of artwork you just looted? There's a table for that),
I think the best example of this is the 1E DMG's random whore encounter table, where you can discover whether you've run into a brazen strumpet or an opportunistic doxy or a sly pimp or what have you.
Yes, you have that right: Not only can you randomly encounter prostitutes, but you then roll on another table to find out what kind.
I think YHBT....
"What kind of music do pirates listen to?" -Paul Maud'dib
"Yeeeaaarrrrr n' Bee!!" -Stilgar, Leader of Sietch Tabr
SUVs were a logical reaction to increasing CAFE standards that didn't include small trucks. They allowed car companies to offer full-size vehicles without having to invest in increasing the milage of their vehicles.
Range Rovers actually were heavy enough to qualify for tax credits as a "work truck" because of their weight, making them very affordable for anyone that was able to claim the car as a business expense...
Ken
Having played AD&D 2nd ed., and loved it at the time... I'd recommened holding onto those fond memories tightly and never letting go... but don't ever go back.
3rd was good, 3.5 obviated some of the need for house rules and was generally a minor improvement (which is as billed, so my only criticism was that it seemed a bit cash-grabby). 4th ed. is a steaming pile of goblin poo.
Personally, I recommend switching to Pathfinder. It's essentially a fork of 3.5, possible because of the open gaming license and fair-use. It even has some former TSR personnel involved, so it can even trace it's lineage back to Gygax and Arneson, albeit indirectly. It's by Paizo, who, as you may recall, were one of the bigger 3rd party OGL publishers, and one that actually had a decent reputation and product line (let's be honest, most 3rd party OGL stuff was crap).
But yeah, for new players, I recommend using something fromt he OGL era. 1st and 2nd are wonderful pieces of gaming history, but the rules are pretty convoluted and restrictive compared to more modern fare. Probably better that they just start with something a bit more intuitive (ie. high numbers always being better than low numbers, skills and feats instead of non-weapon proficiencies and weapon proficiencies, BAB instead of THAC0, etc.).
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
>>Having played AD&D 2nd ed., and loved it at the time... I'd recommened holding onto those fond memories tightly and never letting go... but don't ever go back.
You make a good point about Pathfinder. I was involved in the beta testing process for it, and it's a really well designed system by Jason Buhlman (who used to be Iuz in the Living Greyhawk days).
But just as a bit of historical interest, it could be fun for someone to play AD&D who has never tried it before. The casual brutality, even in the intro mod, is something that I find missing in more recent systems (4th edition in particular making it very difficult to kill PCs):
DM: "You see a dining table, covered with moldy food"
Player: "I loot the silverware!"
DM: "It was yellow mold. Roll a d20, and get a 16 or higher."
Player: "...I didn't".
DM: Ok, you're dead.
there were *MANY* other geeky things to do.
Not in 1978 there wasn't, especially where I was in Northern Michigan. Pretty much the only computer in town ran the local cherry growers' cooperative, good luck even touching that. History of video gaming? Yes, I guess you could have looked up who wrote Space Invaders and Asteroids, and that would have been the end of your hobby. Gary Gygax gave those of us stranded in podunk towns an outlet for our imagination and a way to find other nerds so that we weren't quite so isolated. I'll be forever grateful.
Now get off my lawn . . .
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Are you referring to the dos TSRs?
Nerd card revoked, get the fuck out of here.
It wasn't so much a card as a character sheet.
I may be splitting linguistic hairs here, but for my money full-fledged memorials are reserved for humanitarians or political, scientific, and military heroes.
You mean like Robocop?
Maybe I have to turn in my nerd card now, but I'm no more comfortable with memorializing Gary Gygax than I am with a marble statue of John Wayne or Madonna.
Thinking that Gygax doesn't deserve a memorial doesn't disqualify you from geekhood any more than hating BSG and Babylon 5 would, or thinking that VB is the ultimate programming language would. Not knowing who he is (or any of the other things I mentioned) on the other hand, barring relative youth, definitely would disqualify you.
Of course. No one ever lost a geek card for being argumentative.