Gary Gygax

Has Passed. That is all.

I have crossed paths with Gary Gygax just twice in my life. In 1982, I attended my first GenCon and went to a lecture by Gary Gygax about AD&D. I asked him a challenging question about the messy grappling and pummeling tables in the DM's Guide, but he was still very nice when I got his autograph on my convention booklet afterwards. He signed it "Best wishes, Gary Gygax."

Twenty years later, I was attending the last GenCon in Wisconsin, and I saw this extremely old man with a long beard. I nudged one of my friends and said, "it looks like somebody brought their grandpa." My friend said, "you idiot, that's Gary Gygax."

I used to play D&D quite alot in my youth and through college and a few years after college. I haven't played again in a long time. I love the game but it takes too much effort to try to run a campaign and keep people interested in playing. It's much easier to just pull out a game and play that.

He will be missed though.

Wow.

I just heard through the grapevine on this one. Between he and Dave Arneson, they put pencil and paper RPGs on the map. From there, the RPG morphed into the computer/console version, but this was the beginning.

Considering I started playing back before the AD&D (hardcover) and D&D (red box) split, the RPG genre is an old friend.

R.I.P. Gary.

--Mike L.

MWChapel wrote:

Has Passed. That is all.

Oh, no. I kind of figured that when I saw the title. He will be missed.

Now then, which realm will he go to? Happy Hunting Grounds? Nirvana? Positive Material Plane?

R.I.P. Gary

Man, going to a toy store to buy the 1st edition AD&D DMs Guide because it was just released. We were stoked to get it, better than Christmas. Then abusing the whole rules set horribly after that. Haven't played D&D in about 10 years but some good memories.

Here's the notice on CNN:

www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/03/04/obit.gygax.ap/index.html

--Mike L.

mikoyan wrote:

I used to play D&D quite alot in my youth and through college and a few years after college. I haven't played again in a long time. I love the game but it takes too much effort to try to run a campaign and keep people interested in playing. It's much easier to just pull out a game and play that.

He will be missed though.

But isn't one of the central tenets of AT that one long, emotionally-involved game is better than a bunch of shorter, less involving games? I can't think of a game more emotionally-involving than an RPG....

(Not to deny the logistical difficulty of extended campaigns when you get old/married/etc. I'm just sayin'.)

dysjunct wrote:

mikoyan wrote:

I used to play D&D quite alot in my youth and through college and a few years after college. I haven't played again in a long time. I love the game but it takes too much effort to try to run a campaign and keep people interested in playing. It's much easier to just pull out a game and play that.

He will be missed though.

But isn't one of the central tenets of AT that one long, emotionally-involved game is better than a bunch of shorter, less involving games? I can't think of a game more emotionally-involving than an RPG....

(Not to deny the logistical difficulty of extended campaigns when you get old/married/etc. I'm just sayin'.)

Playing a game is no problem, but any sort of campaign is almost out of the question.