Posted on 03/04/2008 10:59:48 AM PST by steve-b
MILWAUKEE (AP) - The man who co-created the game Dungeons & Dragons and helped start the role-playing phenomenon is dead.
Gary Gygax (GEYE'-gaks) died this morning at his home in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, about 55 miles southwest of Milwaukee.
His wife, Gail Gygax, says he had been suffering from health problems for several years, including an abdominal aneurysm.
Gygax and co-creator Dave Arneson developed the role-playing game in 1974 and it went on to become 1 of the best-selling games ever. Dungeons & Dragons is considered the grandfather of fantasy role-playing games and has influenced video games, books, movies and inspired legions of adoring fans.
Gygax' wife says he always enjoyed hearing from the game's devoted fans about how the game influenced their lives.
What is that site?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_ekugPKqFw
It wasn’t a lightning bolt?
R.I.P. Gary, had lots of fun playing that game in younger days.
Ah man, that guy gave me and my friends hours of fun! My mother balked at us playing it, but I told her it kept us out of trouble, and she never complained again.
The first gift I gave my wife was a clear d100. No kidding.
Dude, you are a total geek. :) My wife got a full sized gold rose.
I met her at a church dance and she asked what my hobbies were. Saying ‘computers’ was less geeky than saying ‘D&D’ so I said computers. She then told me she liked playing D&D and asked if I ever heard of it. She had never seen a d100 before, so I gave her mine the next day. She still has it and we are coming up to our 19th anniversary.
Never did get into the board/book D&D. But boy did I spend hours playing NetHack on the puter.
Back in the day, d10’s were icosahedra numbered 0 to 9 twice. A good one had the two sets of digits in two colors, so it could be used as a d20 by interpreting one color as +10 (of course 0 counted as 10 except when using them as halves of a pair of percentile dice).
I played AD & D in high-school and when home from college, though hex-grid wargames were and are my chief vice. I DM a v. 3.5 campaign for my son and his friends. Personally I think the game system is too baroque: no need for tables was a good innovation, but feats and skills and prestige classes clutter the thing up.
Memory eternal, Gary G.
“I played an Advanced D&D game for my Commodore 64 back then and ran into a room full of Beholders and had my whole group get destroyed before I could manage to exit.”
If memory serves the game was “Curse of the Azure Bonds”, the second of the Pool of Radiance series of AD&D “Gold Box” games (the 4 game series consisting of Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, Secret of the Silver Blades and Pools of Darkness).
Hello, fellow nerd.
RIP, Gary, you will be remembered as helping to bring about RPG’s. May your journey to the outer planes be a safe one.
One thing I do like after Wizards of the Coast took over TSR was using the D&D game to pioneer the revolutionary d20 open gaming rules, which made it possible to more or less use a core set of role-playing rules to play multiple genres of RPG's, something that Steve Jackson Games tried to do with their General Universal Role Playing System (GURPS) with not much success.
Gaygax's game has basically given me pleasure and entertainment for nearly 30 years. I met my first serious girlfriend playing D&D. D&D got me interested in miniatures and wargaming, and vastly increased my reading, writing and imagination abilities.
God Speed Dungeon Master Gygax!
Old school D&D is still the best, from what I’ve seen of this new stuff. Don’t tell me an Orthodox Christian digs this johnny-come-lately malarky!!?? Have you ever seen Dragonsfoot.org? Tons of folks still rollin’ dice like it was 1979, including free fan written modules that can kick the butt of a party of adventurers level 9-12 slicker’n a huge red dragon with surprise. Heck, Gary Gygax was a regular poster, as well as other early D&D scions.
Freegards, you Orthodox on FR rule!
Dig? Nope, ‘baroque’ is a criticism. If it was complicated and I liked it, I’d have called it ‘byzantine’.
[:-)====
(Orthodox monastic smiley)
I met Gary Gygax on Enworld.org and he was a regular poster there also. I found him to be a good and devout man. Actually, he probably would have liked this website. I was planning to go to the Troll Lords convention that he was a central part of last year, but didn’t make it. I then was determined to go this summer so I could at least get one game in with the man running as Dungeon Master and me as a player. I guess I missed my chance... :( Rest in peace, Gary.
I see! Just wanted to make sure you were aware the old stuff still gets some love from bunches of folks.
Freegards
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