For those gamers that somehow are not connected to the Internet (and then you’re not reading this in any case), Gary Gygax died this week. It happened after our regular Monday game, where we completed a year long campaign that Kelly ran, so we have not had a chance to talk about it in person but Matt wrote a good email about it:
“I know that all this has made me look back to when I started and thank those that put me on this wonderful geek path. Sure it is a game that we play but it was really a learning experience for me in my pre/post teenage years. How to puzzle things out, how a man should act when called upon to do great deeds, how to think threw troubles and situations that you could not just fight out of. Above all that, my strongest friends have always been those that I have thrown dice with. It is funny to me that playing a game can put you so close to friends, but I guess behind those pages of characters and mounds of dice we get to see all the parts of who we really are and share those with the others around the table. I feel sorry for those that always bashed on us for being the geeks and D&D nerds, and thankful that we held strong and saw this for what it was.
Matt
D&D player since 1981″
I myself started in 1978 when I got the Monster Manual for Christmas. I wish I still had that book, and all the black and white monster art I lovingly colored, but I lost it at some point. Maybe to one of my many college moves, or more likely to one of my younger brothers who also got sucked into D&D. I think I owe just about everything good in my life to playing D&D, certainly without D&D I would never have seen the SCA at a D&D Convention and without the SCA I’d never have met my wife Sarah. There you go. Thanks D&D.
The death of an RPG icon like this has provoked nostalgia in myself and other gamers I know, but as great as those old days were they pale in comparison to the ZitT gang and the great times we have had over the last 6 years. Thanks guys.
For links to a number of great stories about EGG and D&D, see this article at GameSpy and a host of links ENWorld