Because everyone else is...
I figured I should post something about E. Gary Gygax's passing. But I'm not a D&D player--I never really was, to be honest, I owned the basic red box set as a kid but plunged straight into Cthulhu in high school and soon after, Runequest and the Morrow Project all rolled into one. I met him once--which is to say we literally bumped into one another on the dealer floor at GenCon, and I kid you not my first thought was "dear god who let that dude in here?" He looked kind of filthy, had a noticable odor, and there was dried mustard in his beard. When I caught a glimpse of his nametag as we both recovered and parted ways, I was stunned and repulsed. *
But I do realize this was not all there was to E. Gary Gygax. :) I saw him at a subsequent Gencon and he seemed to have pulled himself together--I think he must have just gone through a rough patch sometime around 1997 or so. And while D&D is not "my game," I know that his creative energy, plus that of Greg Stafford and Sandy Petersen, has had a profound influence on my life. I did read the hell out of Keep on the Borderlands when I was 12, even though I never did play it. The pioneers of roleplaying games in the 1970's made my life a richer place in the 80's, 90's, and now, and I was sorry to hear of Gygax's passing. Gencon will be a little dimmer without him there.
* To be fair, I've met my own RPG idol, Greg Stafford, a couple of times at Gencon and he always smells like a combination of pot and B.O.
But I do realize this was not all there was to E. Gary Gygax. :) I saw him at a subsequent Gencon and he seemed to have pulled himself together--I think he must have just gone through a rough patch sometime around 1997 or so. And while D&D is not "my game," I know that his creative energy, plus that of Greg Stafford and Sandy Petersen, has had a profound influence on my life. I did read the hell out of Keep on the Borderlands when I was 12, even though I never did play it. The pioneers of roleplaying games in the 1970's made my life a richer place in the 80's, 90's, and now, and I was sorry to hear of Gygax's passing. Gencon will be a little dimmer without him there.
* To be fair, I've met my own RPG idol, Greg Stafford, a couple of times at Gencon and he always smells like a combination of pot and B.O.