Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Gary Gygax Achieves Ascendance to Seven Heavens from Material Plane

Gary Gygax, whom you all better know, died yesterday in Lake Geneva. I was lucky enough to meet the guy who inspired basically every role-playing game out there when I was in college. He was nice and totally cool with all of the fanboys and fangirls at the local convention. I was online last night in one of the many fantasy worlds descended from gary Gygax's imagination and a lot of kids didn't even recognize his name. I felt sorry for those kids. I am not going to bore you with tales of how many systems and versions of D&D I have played and currently own, but I will tell you about this totally bitchin' cavalier/monk multiclass character concept I had: an absinthe addicted Don Quixote with paranoid schizophrenia and a specialization in Tai Chi to combat his dementia. Awesome, huh?

Order of the Stick and Penny Arcade both have nice tributes up.

12 comments:

Brando said...

Really sad. D&D is still the most creative game I've ever played. I haven't touched it in 20 years and I still know so much of it by heart.

Anonymous said...

There's a site that had 25 euphemisms for his death. I think the best was #25, Got screwed by the DM.

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

I like Sadly, No's "Ran out of hit points"

Chuckles said...

The "failed saving throw" has been everywhere, so I thought I would go a different route.

Got screwed by the DM is brilliant.

Chuckles said...

8) Is pushing up shriekers.

HAHAHAHAHAHHA!

Jenny said...

There isn't any news at all about that over here. How sad. Chuckles, do you know if any of the old gang still in touch with Luke Gygax? How odd is it that I was just thinking of him this morning before I signed on and read your post.

Chuckles said...

I haven't heard from any of the old gang besides you, Marty and Mark (through his wife). Brad and the others who knew Luke...I don't even know what part of the world they are in now.

Anonymous said...

Read in the Express this morning: "I can't tell you how important this death is to geeks. It's like their Gandhi died."

Kathleen said...

I thought I would go a different route

and nicely done indeed.

Anonymous said...

my favorite is stolen from the comments at the 25 Euphemisms - "He will be critically missed"

Kathleen said...

for chuckles

I think it will make him happy.

Anonymous said...

Haha, xkcd does it right.