Comments on: Long Live The King

By: Akely

Akely — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 07:42:47 +0000

(Took me a while to find your blog, T. Finally heard the reference in an EP podcast.)

Good tribute! It’s always interesting to hear other peoples RPG background. Myself have never been a very avid D&D player. I’ve always found the system a bit clunky and have preferd systems like Chaosiums General RolePlay. But I digress.

What Gary did was giving us a system to simulate people and creatures in an imaginary world. And more importantly he realised the very idea that one could formulate rules for imaginary worlds.

Personally Gary’s best work was the adventure modules he created. As a matter of fact The Wednesday Nighters – me and some friends who play rpg’s a few hours every wednesday – are waist deep in The Temple of Elemental Evil at the moment (march 27th -08). It is clearly one of the hardest adventures I’ve ever played. It is atmosphereic and very well thought out.

By: hounde

hounde — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 11:45:08 +0000

A very well written tribute indeed!

Reminds me of the Saturday mornings when I would get to the local hobby retailer half an hour before opening time to gaze and drool at all the new RPG gamebooks, dice and other related gadgets displayed in the front window.

Few things since then have given me the thrill I used to get from such a simple, and silly, activity.

With Gary Gygax’s passing I really do realise now how it is someting to be very thankful for.

By: Lucifrank

Lucifrank — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 19:24:39 +0000

What a great tribute, Troy. Hearing the sad new of Gygax’s death conjured up my own personal memories of first playing D&D (in my case, the red box Basic Edition in the early eighties and onto 2nd Edition AD&D shortly thereafter). I too have vivid memories of studying those softcover basic edition handbooks as if they were some religious texts. Many of the great pencil sketches of fighters and elves that graced the pages of the player’s handbook are still burned in my memory.

I also remember going down to the hobby shop each week with my allowance to buy a new module–many of which were penned by Gygax–and reading them cover-to-cover even though I never got to play through many of them.

The way that game empowered players to abandon the mundane everyday for a world of endless possibilities and adventure is artistry to the highest degree–and if not religious in some way–at least spiritual in that it allowed us to transcend the boundaries of corporeal reality for something mythic that has been curiously lost in modern times.

It was Gygax’s D&D that began my imagined adventures through countless other pen-and-paper RPGs, and onto the Ultima series on my parents’ Apple IIe and almost twenty years after that, games like Vanguard and WoW.

With all the different influences that have impacted me since adolescence, from literature and music to history and movies, Gary’s passing really got me thinking about how big an influence his work had on my life as a whole–and how his influence is still felt in this modern age of computer gaming in every fantasy MMO out there.

Rest in peace, Mr. Gygax.