RIP Gary Gygax
For those that haven't heard, the PC known as "Gary Gygax" has been retired from this Prime Material Plane. I do hope his Player rolls up an equally brilliant next Character.
I first played D&D in the 3rd grade ('82?) with my best friend. Before too long, I was forced to burn this (along with the Ouija board) shortly thereafter, being as how D&D is Satanic and all. Remember in the 80's how playing D&D led to Demon Worshipping and other Satanic activities? Cut to 1990 when I finally freed myself of that load of shit, I was in high school and basically skipped over half my days of school, meeting my buddies and walking downtown to Game all day long, taking the bus home.
When I did my heavy RPGing during the 90's (with several month-long campaigns sprinkled here and there, since*), we would often complain about the many flaws of the D&D system and try and use another (Heroes, Rifts, Mage: The Ascension), but we'd always come back to D&D because everybody understands it. D&D was the first, and remains the standard by which all others are compared, period.
Gary Gygax created the entire Role Playing Game genre. Without him, there would be no D&D, no Rifts, no World of Darkness, no Final Fantasy Games, no EverQuest, no World of Warcraft, nuthin'. The man was a genius who had his Creation hijacked by others, and tried unsuccessfully to get other games started (of which I have at least one). For the countless hours/days/weeks/months/years of inspiring Creative Geeks like myself to do something infinitely more Creative & Engaging other than watch sports (the "other" thing guys are supposed to do):
I salute you and thank you, Mr. Gygax.
* during which time I did much Experimenting with RPGs and Magick, as one of my classic posts on RPG Magick 101 explains
I first played D&D in the 3rd grade ('82?) with my best friend. Before too long, I was forced to burn this (along with the Ouija board) shortly thereafter, being as how D&D is Satanic and all. Remember in the 80's how playing D&D led to Demon Worshipping and other Satanic activities? Cut to 1990 when I finally freed myself of that load of shit, I was in high school and basically skipped over half my days of school, meeting my buddies and walking downtown to Game all day long, taking the bus home.
When I did my heavy RPGing during the 90's (with several month-long campaigns sprinkled here and there, since*), we would often complain about the many flaws of the D&D system and try and use another (Heroes, Rifts, Mage: The Ascension), but we'd always come back to D&D because everybody understands it. D&D was the first, and remains the standard by which all others are compared, period.
Gary Gygax created the entire Role Playing Game genre. Without him, there would be no D&D, no Rifts, no World of Darkness, no Final Fantasy Games, no EverQuest, no World of Warcraft, nuthin'. The man was a genius who had his Creation hijacked by others, and tried unsuccessfully to get other games started (of which I have at least one). For the countless hours/days/weeks/months/years of inspiring Creative Geeks like myself to do something infinitely more Creative & Engaging other than watch sports (the "other" thing guys are supposed to do):
I salute you and thank you, Mr. Gygax.
* during which time I did much Experimenting with RPGs and Magick, as one of my classic posts on RPG Magick 101 explains