RIP Gary Gygax

[laura_seabrook]

July 27, 1938 - March 4, 2008

Just in case you forgot, Gary Gygax was co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons with Dave Arneson.

Though I used to have an original edition of this (three small books and some dice in a box) I seldom played it. I did however play games that were derived from it, including Traveller (which 1st edition matched the format of D&D), Tunnels & Trolls (a Flying Buffalo knock-off), En Garde! (which I ran postal games of) and Dungeon. Those were all in my "war gaming days".

Apart from D&D, Gygax also wrote other role playing games such as Boot Hill, various rules for miniatures, board games (I used to own a copy of the Avalon Hill edition of Alexander the Great - cool game), a chess variant,  fantasy novels and other books, and edited contributed to various magazines (most notably Dragon Magazine ). He was a co-founder of Tactical Studies Rules (original publishers of D&D) in 1973 and and stayed with the company until 1985.

Now it may be that some of the above might have happened without him, or happened later. However, it would have been entirely different without his involvement. I always had a sneaking suspicion that Dumbledore was somehow based on him (not sure why).

Comments

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Ahh, En Garde!. Now there was a game. Apparently there was a unbeatable method to the fencing rules, but I've never bothered to work it out...

It'd make a great turn-based computer game, imo...

[laura-seabrook.livejournal.com]

I agree. I ran a postal version of it for four years with about 30-40 players at its peek (and wrote numerous expansion rules). It would make a good online game - time for a revival.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... I've been on the French revolution recently. It might make a good choice for setting.

I mean, who wouldn't want to meet Danton?

[laura-seabrook.livejournal.com]

Robespierre?

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Haha!