Gary Gygax

Gary Gygax, best known as the co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons and father of roleplaying games, passed away today. He was probably only known to the most extreme geeks by name but you would be hard pressed to find anyone remotely interested in gaming who hasn’t been impacted by Mr. Gygax in some way. While D&D probably remains his largest accomplishment to date, he left his mark on the gaming industry as a whole in many ways.

It was in the basement of his own home that Gary Gygax held the very first Gen Con. Gary’s involvement with gaming as a hobbyist and creative genius continued on for the rest of his life. But he deserves far more credit than listing his accomplishments. His creative ideas paved the way for video games as we know them today.

“I’m very fond of the Medieval period, the Dark Ages in particular. We started playing in the period because I had found appropriate miniatures. I started devising rules where what the plastic figure was wearing was what he had. If he had a shield and no armor, then he just has a shield. Shields and half-armor = half-armor rules; full-armor figure = full armor rules. I did rules for weapons as well.”

It was ideas like these which opened the doors for RPGs like Baldur’s Gate and possible every mmorpg ever enjoyed by a gamer. Everquest, The Realm, Dark Age of Camelot, Lord of the Rings Online, and Asheron’s Call are just a sampling of the games that I feel benefit heavily from Gary’s ideas. These games, although many of us would rather deny it, have shaped our world and our lives. I’ve spent a great deal of my life being dedicated to gaming and I can only imagine how much of that is because of Gary Gygax.

“I would like the world to remember me as the guy who really enjoyed playing games and sharing his knowledge and his fun pastimes with everybody else.” – Gary Gygax