Now that Gary Gygax, the creator of D&D, has passed away, I am forced to revisit my past as a total role playing gaming geek. All of my best childhood and “pre-grownup with kids” friends are in some way connected to me through role playing games. The fellowship and good times we had will always be remembered fondly. Playing and moderating role playing games helped sharpen my intellect. I learned how to harness my creative spirit, the art of story telling, and how to think fast and improvise. But more importantly, gaming provided common ground for establishing friendships and incredible fellowship. Truly the best of times.
Although Gary’s career, post-Dungeons & Dragons, was not as successful, the entire role playing game industry owes it’s existence to Gary’s vision. I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Gygax many years ago at a local gaming convention in Atlanta. Gary was promoting one his new creations post-Dungeons & Dragons. Okay, so I didn’t pass out and I didn’t scream like a lovesick Beatles fan, but meeting the creator of D&D was certainly a unique honor.
So, after spending countless hours throwing oddly shaped dice, erasing holes through dog-eared character sheets, and having a blast imagining and exploring worlds that never existed, I salute the creative spirit of the recently departed E. Gary Gygax.
Gary resided in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. He described his studio in his typical narrative fashion as, “a small but sunny upper room—cluttered with books, magazines, papers, and who-knows-what else. Right now, pending the redecorating of that room, I am lodged in the downstairs dining room at a long table that holds two computers and a scanner, with the printer hiding to one side below it. The radio there in the studio was usually tuned to a classical music station, but the station was sold, programming changed, so now I work sans music, or now and then with a CD playing through the computer. While there are bookcases in the upper studio, elsewhere on the second floor, and on the first floor, the main repository of printed lore (other than that piled here and there) is my basement library which includes thousands of reference works, maps, magazines, and works of fiction.” – wikipedia
-A lifelong RPG geek
Here’s a couple of interesting articles published at the time of Gary’s passing:
