RIP Gary Gygax, 1938-2008

As I'm sure most of you are aware, the world lost a great geek on March 4th, 2008. Gary Gygax, creator of Dungeons and Dragons failed his save against death magic and passed into a higher plane (he's probably flexing his newly found psionics as we speak!) I saw that Dodge over at MOKB relayed a tale of his youth, and I'm sure across the internet D&D nerds are coming out of the woodwork, so I'd like to toss my hat into the ring and share my own story of Dungeons and Dragons and childhood.

When I was in High School the group of friends that I had played Magic: The Gathering with started to slowly migrate to the realm of Dungeons and Dragons. This move was precipitated by the new computer teacher at school, I can't remember his name, but he gave us all a place to get together after school once a week and be ourselves. At this point we weren't outcasts, and no one really knew much about our weekly meetings in the computer labs, but it was a great thing to be a part of. I think I still have that first character, Eben Randall, I believe :-D. Our teacher ran a few campaigns and printed out a booklet of amended rules explaining the system of Combat and Tactics that we would use throughout our high school career, even as we moved onto our own games.

Those games that we graduated to, usually taking up an entire weekend at someone's house, were something we all looked forward to. No one had jobs or obligations, just a plan once a month or so to meet at Chris' house or Mike's or Josh's or Grant's, playing in a basement or a garage or even a re-purposed army tent for Chris' graduation party. We would all bring a pop and chips, Grant would have his own 2-liter of Mountain Dew or Dr. Pepper and a bag of Cheetos. We would sit on shitty folding chairs, get too loud in the middle of the night, stay up until the sun peeked through the basement windows and sleep until noon, when the parents would jostle us awake, and the whole thing would start anew.

We had the same group all through high school, playing through a lengthy Dragonlance campaign, and even dabbling in Ravenloft. As the older of us graduated and moved on to college our group fell apart. I think we got together a few times after that, but those were few and far between. I've run into a few of them over the years, but it's almost as if that time was locked away in a capsule, never to be retrieved, buried forever. I tried to get into the Miniature Gaming club at OSU, to no avail (I didn't know anyone, and I was a shy freshman kid...plus those guys were WEIRD!). While I am comfortable with my Fantasy Geekiness (can't go wrong with a great High Fantasy Series. I'll take Goodkind over Fitzgerald any day), I've always felt like I straddled that line of uber-geek and normal guy. Sure I loved playing D&D and painting miniatures and collecting dice, but I was also on the high school baseball team, a lead actor in the drama department and on the quiz bowl team (I know, all dork pursuits, but least they didn't involve dragons). So when I was in College, I couldn't really commit to it like these gaming club kids could.

I tried again to get into gaming after I moved back to Ohio (after college). I got in touch with a great group of folks from Marysville (about 35 minutes NW of Columbus), and played for about a year out there. Steve and Erin had a great house and we all met over there every Saturday from 7PM to Midnight. I loved playing out there and we had a lot of fun. They had to teach me how to play 3.5 ed and refresh me how to do pretty much everything. I'd been out of the game for about 5 years, and a lot had changed. But these strangers took me in and showed me the ropes and when I was finally unable to fit D&D (and subsequently, Shadowrun) into my life, it was with a heavy heart that I had to call it quits. The drive was too far and I would be forced to cancel more and more often.

I don't think I'll ever lose the desire to play D&D and it's many iterations (and even many of it's bastard offspring), it's just something that I find incredibly fun. It's a completely different environment and challenge than you get with video games. Sure, my Wii is a blast and the XBOX360 is awesome, but give me a set of polyhedral dice (has anyone else ever used a d12 in their life? I swear I have never ever rolled one...) and a pencil and a mat with pewter figures on it any day. If you've always scoffed at the smelly kids in the basement playing D&D and blasting 2112 from the turntable, take a minute and realize that these kids are just having fun, and for that matter, they're probably using more brain cells and honing more life skills than that meathead on the football team that will probably shove them into a locker tomorrow morning between second and third period.

Thank you Gary Gygax, for creating a game that was so instrumental in my formative years, and is still a fantastic hobby and an enjoyable enterprise here in my early adulthood, you will be missed. You'll always roll a 00 strength in my stat book.

-Harry Smith, D&D Geek

Gary Gygax on WikiPedia
Dungeons and Dragons on WikiPedia
Gary Gygax comic on Penny Arcade
GREAT Gary Gygax interview on BoingBoing Gadgets

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