Rest In Peace, Gary

Soundtrack: Pablo Honey by Radiohead

By now the news of Gary Gygax’ death has spread wide and far across the internet. If you do not know who Gary Gygax is, he is one of the original creators of the most popular pen and paper roleplaying game in the world, also known as Dungeons and Dragons. As a self-described geek I am more than familiar with D&D. My years in junior high and high school were spent crawling dungeons and killing monsters with my friends, and that has extended into my years in college. Lately I have been doing less pen-and-paper and more video-based dungeon raiding, but the concept is still the same. So I wanted to say some words in Gary’s honor.

The thing that appealed to me most about D&D was the imagination. Gary and Dave Arneson created something so simple yet so vast in it’s breadth. The concept is thus: you take on the persona of an adventurer in a medieval fantsy setting and join other adventurers in quests to find treasure or complete an objective or just kill monsters. Adventurers start with a specific set of skills and attributes and as you progress and gain experience your skills and attributes are augmented. Although it was not the first table-top roleplaying game; there had been table-top wargames for years when Dave and Gary introduced D&D in the 70’s, it was a new way of looking at wargames which has since spawned an entire gaming industry.

Gary had a great career that had ups and down like any career. He worked on game design all the way through to his death. He is definitely an inspiration to me, I hope to be so lucky to do what I love to do through my last days. Farewell Gary, I'm pouring out a 40 for you.