Comments on Gary Gygax, RIP

Gygax taught a whole generation to gratuitously add the Latin abbreviations et al, ie and eg to everything they write, including shopping lists and their own signatures.

Where would Harry Potter be without Gary Gygax?

I am in shock, Owlbears across the globe are crying, none of us ever imagined Gary Gygax could have failed his saving throw.

+5 RIP

When I was 4, a trucker who lived with me and my dad taught me to play the original Chainmail rules for gaming with lead figures. Then a few years later I got into the original Basic set -- then Expert and so on.

Dude had a huge impact on my life, mostly surprisingly good, considering what a douche he was.

Ah well.

Goodnight, Funnyman.

Raise Dead! Somebody cast Raise Dead!...

Farewell to a true original. Haven't played in 20 years or so, but I still crack open my Player's Handbook once in a while. Gave me something great to do with my mates until if figured out how to talk to girls.

Brett Favre retires.

Gary Gygax dies.

It's a sad, sad day in Dairyland.

pg--(Cheesehead, born & bred)

Shit, there's never a high-level cleric around when you really, really need one.

A big chunk of our generation's imagination died today. I think I'll go get drunk on mead and start a bar fight with half orcs.

RIP Gary.

Gary Gygax saved my whole family from freezing, that one winter when my mother burned all of my D&D books...

Gary Gygax saved my whole family from freezing, that one winter when my mother burned all of my D&D books...

Oops. Too much coffee today.

(aside)

He actually was a nice guy in person. And a great guy to have on gaming panels. I still have some signed copies of games from him.

He'll be missed.

Good night, sweet wizard.

Oh, sad.
Safe voyage.

Damn this day Gary botched his Save vs. Death. I'm going to have a few drinks in memory and look over some old books.

I couldn't care less about D&D, but I think it's cool that he invented polyhedral dice (other than six, that is). According to Troll Lord Games, quoted in Boing Boing, "I found sets of the five platonic solids for sale in a school supply catalog back in 1972".
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/03/04/dungeons-dragons-cre.html

This man had a more profound, over-arcing and powerful influence on pop culture than anyone who has died in many many years.

He will never get credit for it, but without gygax, we wouldn't have george lucas, stephen colbert or neil gaiman.

I played D&D one time. My friend said he knew how to play. My character was a thief. I had like 4 hit points.

3 rolls into the game there was a lake with a fisherman sitting in front of the lake. I killed him. Turns out the fisherman was frikking Zeus. I got 10,000 hit points and an armada - after 3 rolls of playing.

I was invincible that day. Till my brother told me it was bullshit.

RIP, Gary.

Hm. Even aftere I figured out how to talk to girls, I still played games like D&D. I just got some of those girls to play with me. :)

Mind Flayers and Drows celebrate... those elusive bastards.

Expedition to the Barrier Peaks was my favorite AD&D module. I used to spend hours reading them at Waldenbooks

Man, that must have been an Epic drop. When they posting teh lewts?

Paul La Farge did a great piece on Gygax in The Believer a while back.

http://www.believermag.com/issues/200609/?read=article_lafarge

Geek.

without gygax, we wouldn't have george lucas, stephen colbert or neil gaiman.

That's a risk I'd have been willing to take.

I used to sit alone, reading the campaigns and pretending to play, because none of my friends were into it.

viva Black Pudding!

@24

I don't mind being a geek.

Gygax, while being a bit of a tool on the few occasions I met him, created something that would chnage the lives of millions upon millions of people. He leaves a pretty good legacy behind.

The game genre he created led me to my longest term group of friends. It gave us a reason to get together through decades. The gaming culture that rose around D&D lead to me having a variety of jobs, bought me a car and paid for a nine week European vacation. Most importantly it gave me a wife and kids.

Rest in peace E.G.G.

I remember turning to Punk rock in the hopes that it would save my social life from the nerd-dom D&D had brought me to. Other teenagers do stop laughing at you quite as much when you spike your hair and draw lots of skulls on things, but I found that singing the praises of the Circle Jerks and the Butthole Surfers didn't really get me laid any better than the chromatic dragons and the rare and valuable magic items did. But it did give me good tunes to roll up new characters by.

It's good to know that punk rock worked out for someone else though.

RIP Gary.