Good bye old friend...
One of the great influences and creative sparks passed from this world on this past Tuesday. I define a creative spark as someone who can, through what may, in some ways, seem only a limited influence, zap something, light a tiny flame, that like in a real wild fire, is usually one of many smaller flames...but once it all comes together...well, what an inferno!
Gary Gygax, one of the original creator's of Dungeons & Dragons passed away....
Now, it's easy to make geek and nerd jokes, especially as so many of the jokes are so appropriate. But I would challenge folks to consider a greater influence to the act of storytelling and inspirations. Perhaps the world would be a very different and more dreary place were it not for Gary. I know I was affected, but then...I am a geek...and the geek shall inherit the Earth.
Perhaps you wish to explore, learn some ancient secrets, wonder how a wizard named Gygax might have influenced a generation....
It has taken me some time to write this, as I have been trying to wrap my head around it and get some words together. I just had to write about this. I don't have time for D&D anymore, although this may inspire me to find a little. But my son has an interest. I have passed on to him all my original edition books. Which in of itself is a bit weird. I was born in 1971, the same year that Gary Gygax published the one of the predecessors to D&D, a miniatures based combat system called, Chainmail.
It may surprise you that D&D has it's roots in even older and important backgrounds. Military Simulations have been part of tactical training for centuries. Chess is a tactical game whose roots are grounded in military training. The primary pieces were originally the "four divisions of the military" in India. Infantry, cavalry, elephants, and chariots, represented respectively by pawn, knight, bishop, and rook, and the game was taught to nobles and young knights throughout the Middle Ages.
Later, other games with more details specific to the battlefield were developed. To directly quote a Wikipedia entry:
"The stunning Prussian victory over the Second French Empire in the Franco-Prussian War 1870-1871 is sometimes partly credited to the training of Prussian officers with the game Kriegspiel, which was invented around 1811 and gained popularity with many officers in the Prussian army. These first wargames were played with dice which represented "friction", or the intrusion of less than ideal circumstances during a real war (including morale, weather, the fog of war, etc.), though this was usually replaced by an umpire who used his own combat experience to determine the results."
The rules for regular folks to explore tactics and wargaming with "minatuares", that is toy soldiers, were ultimately developed. Including a set by the famous author of "War of the Worlds", H.G. Wells. Wells wrote it in a humorous manner, intending the rules for both children and adults, knowing that the idea of grown men playing with toy soldiers would draw some derision. But it sure looks like fun...
And here is a video about the history aspect. This is one part of a fabulous documentary about it all called, The Dungeons and Dragons Experience. It's entirely available on YouTube, and if you have the slightest interest in D&D, I suggest watching it all.
So from such illustrious roots we get not only the modern war games played by the military of the world, which is boys with their big, expensive, dangerous, toys, but we also get the first edition of D&D, published in 1974. Taking the rules for miniature units and allowing play of individuals and heroes. It caught on as a college craze and pop culture phenomenon. Hitting the world during the same periods as Star Wars and the burgeoning fantasy market, a vast group of kids, began to play it in the late 70's and 80's. Which is where I came into the story.
During the early 1980's, my family was living at Sunlight Mountain Ski Resort, in mountains above Glenwood Springs, Colorado. My mother helped manage the Inn on the resort, and I, along with the children of the other workers, got to goof off alot. It was...amazing. We had this awesome mountain to roam around all year. My older brother got interested in D&D briefly, introduced by other kids. Soon, we were pretending we were playing live D&D in the woods above the site. Being the littlest, I was assigned as a 1st Level wizard, and giving one spell. Shield, which I would diligently sweep across myself with a staff everytime anyone got to close. The funny thing was, that within a couple of years, I was Dungeon Master for the older kids. As soon as I got a hold of the rule books I read them all the way through. Absorbed really. I never really wanted to do anything else but Dungeon Master. I loved it. I could shape and sculpt a world in amazing ways. Others were players, but I loved to tell stories. Here is a picture of me many years later than that. I am as about 24, in 1995, gesturing madly, behind my DM Screens...what a geek.
D&D taught me to be creative. To study. And that an interest that I felt passionately, I could teach myself just as well outside of schooling as within. Which has served me very well, as I am self educated and dropped out of high school. It gave me cognitive thinking in ways I can't really describe. And when I learned of the death of Gary, I had to reflect to understand what it really meant to me. And I realized alot. You see, although lots of the kids who were avid players were very socially lacking, they were good people. They would have found another hobby to occupy their time. Me, I was a bit of a ruffian. I caused and got into alot of trouble. But since I loved to go to games as much as running around, when the rest of my high school friends, outside of my gaming group, where doing hard drugs, I was doing D&D.
D&D gave me a creative outlet for years that lead me to so much. Acting, performing, renaissance festivals, at which at make my entire living now, supporting myself and a family, most of the literature and art I love and admire. I could even say that D&D lead me to my wife, Leah. You see, I hadn't ever read the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, by Douglas Adams, until I was introduced to them at a gaming convention. Then, because I read them and became a fan, when I visited my first "Rainbow Gathering", (Which is a story unto itself, Oh boy is it!), I followed signs leading me a theme camp of "Milliways, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe", where I met her.
In all, I could wax on about how much I have realized that D&D affected me for sometime. But it is hard to put it all into words. Others have done better, with thousands of comments flooding the blogosphere and forums, so I have to quote a few.
From the ever insightful, maugorn, who put it just magically and very well,
"Thanks to D&D, everything I own is a magic item with special powers and everything I know is a spell that I can employ to re-shape my little piece of Reality. And the more problems I solve, the more experienced and powerful I become. And even tho this world is HUGE and not always friendly, I've managed to survive so far, and as long as I continue to do so, the Quest will continue- especially if I'm in a good party. And I've been to and had an awful lot of good parties thanks to D&D.
The tributes on video, blogs, forums, and images are really pouring out. Hundreds of them. I particularly like this one, a sad dragon.
I read another forum that pointed out that D&D was, more than anything else, a form of thinking. A way of understanding and developing cognitive thinking, through a game system. And Role Playing Games, are more than just a throwing around a set of dice shaped like "Platonic Solids", of which I learned about originally from D&D. On the contrary, RPG's are about thinking. Imagining. One of my favorite things to do is teach kids to role play, myself as a game master, using only a few coins and heads/tails decisions. I have done rather vast adventures this way, just to teach the theory. Yet within them, we have the varied richness of "Jungian Archetypes" to explore our psyches. I know that through my passion for D&D I found mythology, psychology, classical studies, cartography, architecture, philosophy, anthropology, sociology, astronomy, graphic design, economics, linguistics, military studies, and on and on and on, the list goes on.
I said to Leah, "think of this as if one of the great influences in other areas of popular culture died. Say, George Lucas, Bob Dylan, or when Jerry Garcia passed". Garcia made the cover of People Magazine when he went. I doubt that Gary Gygax will. Yet I might argue for Gary's over all effect on culture. For, you are reading this over the Internet, and using technology developed by the geek culture. Chances are, daily, you touch and use a device or software that was developed by a D&D player. And they, like myself, may owe much of there experiential problem solving and "thinking outside the box" skills to D&D.
Another forum poster commented on how D&D had been one of the first things that every taught him that the most powerful tool he had, was his mind. And that he felt sorry for the today's gamer who will sit a video game console or cpu and follow in the "ruts that a designer had plowed for them". With D&D, it is always your mind that does the first work. I remember explaining it to folks as the rules are a set of software, but your brain is the processor and rendering machine that implements the rules.
And perhaps, one of the most telling and important comments from a forum, was that if you view a person's life by how much joy they have given others...well...Gary sure did that alot. Millions of hours of fun, helping kids grow up, and find their original selves.
Beyond all the jokes, of saving throws and dice rolls, and comments of how he is "playing in a basement in the sky" or gone to "join the gods", (it wasn't commonly know, Gary became a devoted Christian in his later years, but still a gamer. The two, despite the delusional scares of the 80's, weren't mutual exclusive), a man died. And may each and ever one of us hope to be remember so fondly by a tiny fraction of the millions who are remembering him.
So, as so many have said, Thank you Gary, you did so much for me.
Where is the horse and rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?
They have passed like rain on the mountain, like a wind in the meadow.
The days have gone down in the West, behind the hills into shadow.
Gary Gygax, one of the original creator's of Dungeons & Dragons passed away....
Now, it's easy to make geek and nerd jokes, especially as so many of the jokes are so appropriate. But I would challenge folks to consider a greater influence to the act of storytelling and inspirations. Perhaps the world would be a very different and more dreary place were it not for Gary. I know I was affected, but then...I am a geek...and the geek shall inherit the Earth.
Perhaps you wish to explore, learn some ancient secrets, wonder how a wizard named Gygax might have influenced a generation....
It has taken me some time to write this, as I have been trying to wrap my head around it and get some words together. I just had to write about this. I don't have time for D&D anymore, although this may inspire me to find a little. But my son has an interest. I have passed on to him all my original edition books. Which in of itself is a bit weird. I was born in 1971, the same year that Gary Gygax published the one of the predecessors to D&D, a miniatures based combat system called, Chainmail.
It may surprise you that D&D has it's roots in even older and important backgrounds. Military Simulations have been part of tactical training for centuries. Chess is a tactical game whose roots are grounded in military training. The primary pieces were originally the "four divisions of the military" in India. Infantry, cavalry, elephants, and chariots, represented respectively by pawn, knight, bishop, and rook, and the game was taught to nobles and young knights throughout the Middle Ages.
Later, other games with more details specific to the battlefield were developed. To directly quote a Wikipedia entry:
"The stunning Prussian victory over the Second French Empire in the Franco-Prussian War 1870-1871 is sometimes partly credited to the training of Prussian officers with the game Kriegspiel, which was invented around 1811 and gained popularity with many officers in the Prussian army. These first wargames were played with dice which represented "friction", or the intrusion of less than ideal circumstances during a real war (including morale, weather, the fog of war, etc.), though this was usually replaced by an umpire who used his own combat experience to determine the results."
The rules for regular folks to explore tactics and wargaming with "minatuares", that is toy soldiers, were ultimately developed. Including a set by the famous author of "War of the Worlds", H.G. Wells. Wells wrote it in a humorous manner, intending the rules for both children and adults, knowing that the idea of grown men playing with toy soldiers would draw some derision. But it sure looks like fun...
And here is a video about the history aspect. This is one part of a fabulous documentary about it all called, The Dungeons and Dragons Experience. It's entirely available on YouTube, and if you have the slightest interest in D&D, I suggest watching it all.
Click to viewSo from such illustrious roots we get not only the modern war games played by the military of the world, which is boys with their big, expensive, dangerous, toys, but we also get the first edition of D&D, published in 1974. Taking the rules for miniature units and allowing play of individuals and heroes. It caught on as a college craze and pop culture phenomenon. Hitting the world during the same periods as Star Wars and the burgeoning fantasy market, a vast group of kids, began to play it in the late 70's and 80's. Which is where I came into the story.
During the early 1980's, my family was living at Sunlight Mountain Ski Resort, in mountains above Glenwood Springs, Colorado. My mother helped manage the Inn on the resort, and I, along with the children of the other workers, got to goof off alot. It was...amazing. We had this awesome mountain to roam around all year. My older brother got interested in D&D briefly, introduced by other kids. Soon, we were pretending we were playing live D&D in the woods above the site. Being the littlest, I was assigned as a 1st Level wizard, and giving one spell. Shield, which I would diligently sweep across myself with a staff everytime anyone got to close. The funny thing was, that within a couple of years, I was Dungeon Master for the older kids. As soon as I got a hold of the rule books I read them all the way through. Absorbed really. I never really wanted to do anything else but Dungeon Master. I loved it. I could shape and sculpt a world in amazing ways. Others were players, but I loved to tell stories. Here is a picture of me many years later than that. I am as about 24, in 1995, gesturing madly, behind my DM Screens...what a geek.
D&D taught me to be creative. To study. And that an interest that I felt passionately, I could teach myself just as well outside of schooling as within. Which has served me very well, as I am self educated and dropped out of high school. It gave me cognitive thinking in ways I can't really describe. And when I learned of the death of Gary, I had to reflect to understand what it really meant to me. And I realized alot. You see, although lots of the kids who were avid players were very socially lacking, they were good people. They would have found another hobby to occupy their time. Me, I was a bit of a ruffian. I caused and got into alot of trouble. But since I loved to go to games as much as running around, when the rest of my high school friends, outside of my gaming group, where doing hard drugs, I was doing D&D.
D&D gave me a creative outlet for years that lead me to so much. Acting, performing, renaissance festivals, at which at make my entire living now, supporting myself and a family, most of the literature and art I love and admire. I could even say that D&D lead me to my wife, Leah. You see, I hadn't ever read the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, by Douglas Adams, until I was introduced to them at a gaming convention. Then, because I read them and became a fan, when I visited my first "Rainbow Gathering", (Which is a story unto itself, Oh boy is it!), I followed signs leading me a theme camp of "Milliways, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe", where I met her.
In all, I could wax on about how much I have realized that D&D affected me for sometime. But it is hard to put it all into words. Others have done better, with thousands of comments flooding the blogosphere and forums, so I have to quote a few.
From the ever insightful, maugorn, who put it just magically and very well,
"Thanks to D&D, everything I own is a magic item with special powers and everything I know is a spell that I can employ to re-shape my little piece of Reality. And the more problems I solve, the more experienced and powerful I become. And even tho this world is HUGE and not always friendly, I've managed to survive so far, and as long as I continue to do so, the Quest will continue- especially if I'm in a good party. And I've been to and had an awful lot of good parties thanks to D&D.
The tributes on video, blogs, forums, and images are really pouring out. Hundreds of them. I particularly like this one, a sad dragon.
I read another forum that pointed out that D&D was, more than anything else, a form of thinking. A way of understanding and developing cognitive thinking, through a game system. And Role Playing Games, are more than just a throwing around a set of dice shaped like "Platonic Solids", of which I learned about originally from D&D. On the contrary, RPG's are about thinking. Imagining. One of my favorite things to do is teach kids to role play, myself as a game master, using only a few coins and heads/tails decisions. I have done rather vast adventures this way, just to teach the theory. Yet within them, we have the varied richness of "Jungian Archetypes" to explore our psyches. I know that through my passion for D&D I found mythology, psychology, classical studies, cartography, architecture, philosophy, anthropology, sociology, astronomy, graphic design, economics, linguistics, military studies, and on and on and on, the list goes on.
I said to Leah, "think of this as if one of the great influences in other areas of popular culture died. Say, George Lucas, Bob Dylan, or when Jerry Garcia passed". Garcia made the cover of People Magazine when he went. I doubt that Gary Gygax will. Yet I might argue for Gary's over all effect on culture. For, you are reading this over the Internet, and using technology developed by the geek culture. Chances are, daily, you touch and use a device or software that was developed by a D&D player. And they, like myself, may owe much of there experiential problem solving and "thinking outside the box" skills to D&D.
Another forum poster commented on how D&D had been one of the first things that every taught him that the most powerful tool he had, was his mind. And that he felt sorry for the today's gamer who will sit a video game console or cpu and follow in the "ruts that a designer had plowed for them". With D&D, it is always your mind that does the first work. I remember explaining it to folks as the rules are a set of software, but your brain is the processor and rendering machine that implements the rules.
And perhaps, one of the most telling and important comments from a forum, was that if you view a person's life by how much joy they have given others...well...Gary sure did that alot. Millions of hours of fun, helping kids grow up, and find their original selves.
Beyond all the jokes, of saving throws and dice rolls, and comments of how he is "playing in a basement in the sky" or gone to "join the gods", (it wasn't commonly know, Gary became a devoted Christian in his later years, but still a gamer. The two, despite the delusional scares of the 80's, weren't mutual exclusive), a man died. And may each and ever one of us hope to be remember so fondly by a tiny fraction of the millions who are remembering him.
So, as so many have said, Thank you Gary, you did so much for me.
Where is the horse and rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?
They have passed like rain on the mountain, like a wind in the meadow.
The days have gone down in the West, behind the hills into shadow.