Dungeons & Dragons Creator Gary Gygax Remembered

E. Gary Gygax, often called the father of role-playing, died in early March at his home in Geneva, Wisconsin. As a gamer, I have reveled in his creations, attempted to attract him to a local gaming convention, laughed at him on Futurama and on occasion, riled against him for his seeming ambivalence to the game he created.

Now, like so many others I mourn his loss, though not in the weird hero-worship sort of sense that I felt on many of the tribute sites, most noticeably the message boards at Troll Lord Games. Instead, I mourn the loss of a creative soul who like the game system was neither perfect nor evil; he just was.

I was 22 before I ever picked up the dice to play Dungeons and Dragons, Gygax's best known and most lasting contribution to the gaming world. Actually, I first started playing Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, the second edition of the game system while it was still under the control of TSR, Inc.

Though others came before it and many would come later, it was the Dungeons & Dragons system that would become the model for role-playing games and video games to follow. The worldwide phenomenon that is World of Warcraft is essentially a high-resolution interactive D&D game.

My first exposure to the game had come years earlier when the geeks who were even more geeky than my straight-A high school self talked about killing their characters and resurrecting them. I didn't see the appeal and thought they were a bit weird.

When I started playing, even though I was a college graduate with a good job, my mother was immediately convinced that Dungeons and Dragons equated to devil worship. Here in the Bible belt, some people still think that way. It was probably the influence of too much Mazes & Monsters on the general public. The really bad made-for-television movie starring Tom Hanks features a college student going crazy because of his involvement in the game and made headlines when some opponents claimed the game did drive people to murder and suicide.