By now, we all know -- Gary Gygax, co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons and, by extension, every dang thing that came after it, has died.
He have expressed our shock, we have mourned, we have wept...we've all done what we have been moved to do.
As an agnostic, I'm only certain of one type of afterlife: What you leave for others to experience. By this measure, E. Gary Gygax is pretty well assured immortality, and as others will derive joy from what he made, I guess that puts him in the, what? Neutral Good pantheon?
For my own part, I observed his passing by playing Castles & Crusades with my wife last night, and using his Castle Zagyg encounter tables to boot. Nothing fancy, nothing epic; just a dungeon crawl with some clever kobolds and insidious ancient traps of elven make. It was her character's third attempt to finish the dungeon, and she decided to make a tactical retreat for now. There's plenty of other world for her to explore outside of those dungeon walls, anyway, and at the moment, a missing cleric to track down and possibly rescue.
So here's how I will pay tribute to E. Gary Gygax: by doing what he did. By playing a fantasy game and sharing the joy it brings me and making stuff up and looking at everything as a possible adventure, a tale not yet told, by happily using anagrams and generally being master of the fun dungeon.
My world has no name yet, but it will have a few anagram-named NPCs. I don't know who Sire Cauvo is, yet; I just came up with the name a few minutes ago.
But the ladies will love him, or at least, he'll think they do.
Rest In Peace, Mr Gygax. I will treasure what you left me and honor your memory by sharing the joy.
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
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2 comments:
Another cool thing to do. Leave a donation in his name. Child's Play http://www.childsplaycharity.org/ seems particularly fitting.
Drew- I mean to post here last night but had other things going on. You were the first person I thought of when I got word of Gary's death from a gamer geek in Chitown (I've been playing since the early 80's - I can call him Gary). While others have credited him with getting them through junior high and/or high school I think I would have made it without D&D, but it would have been a much darker place without marathon crawl session involving Mountain Dew and Doritos lasting well after midnight. And much of my vocabulary, diction and even writing style I owe to reading at length all of the old school AD&D hardback books countless times.
The gamut of rpg's owes Gary and Dave Arneson a huge debt. They were the prime movers, the two of them started it all. Even if you never played D&D, if you ever played an rpg you have the two of them to thank.
The best suggestion I heard about a "donation" in Gary's name was posted by someone on BoadGameGeek.com, someone suggested teaching a child to game.
I can't think of a better legacy.
Now where is my copy of Keep on the Borderlands?
-A-
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