RIP Gary Gygax
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080304/ap_on_re_us/obit_gygax;_ylt=AmqxlngV0W0PU2lX__2OIA1vzwcF
Wow, very mixed emotions about this. There's no doubt in my mind that Gygax was THE guy to get fantasy gaming in general, and role playing in particular, out there to a mass audience. And to me, he was always a nice guy. In the early days of the hobby, you could write Gary with a rules question and get a personal reply. I also talked briefly with him at two early GenCon's, he was very polite. But one can't ignore a certain amount of ego, hubris and greed also. Gary left a lot of angry people in his wake, as he made increasingly egomaniacal claims. He WAS the main guy in early fantasy role playing, but he wasn't the ONLY one, and ignoring or blacklisting people like Dave Arneson and making grandiose claims that one could only play D&D with HIS rules and HIS miniatures and HIS scenarios just got silly. And while he took the idea of fantasy role playing to a level where it was commercial and wildly successful, he wasn't the first to explore it as a gaming idea, (I was around in those days too, and a little known campaign called Midgard has never gotten its proper place in gaming history, plus there were other scattered and amateurish attempts being made, including one by yours truly). But Gary was the one to get it together enough to start a whole new hobby and subculture, and my hat's off to him. I still love D&D, and while enjoying the many satires of it and the nerdiness around it, still feel it's one of the greatly misunderstood games of our time. At its best, it's like living literature, with players and gamemaster forming an author/character combination that can become quite interesting and downright artistic*. Gygax was aware of that, especially at the beginning before the money got big. He got it right and he got it out to the public. And for that I thank him.
*Someday remind me to write some more on gaming, I think it's a lot more interesting than it's given credit for.
Wow, very mixed emotions about this. There's no doubt in my mind that Gygax was THE guy to get fantasy gaming in general, and role playing in particular, out there to a mass audience. And to me, he was always a nice guy. In the early days of the hobby, you could write Gary with a rules question and get a personal reply. I also talked briefly with him at two early GenCon's, he was very polite. But one can't ignore a certain amount of ego, hubris and greed also. Gary left a lot of angry people in his wake, as he made increasingly egomaniacal claims. He WAS the main guy in early fantasy role playing, but he wasn't the ONLY one, and ignoring or blacklisting people like Dave Arneson and making grandiose claims that one could only play D&D with HIS rules and HIS miniatures and HIS scenarios just got silly. And while he took the idea of fantasy role playing to a level where it was commercial and wildly successful, he wasn't the first to explore it as a gaming idea, (I was around in those days too, and a little known campaign called Midgard has never gotten its proper place in gaming history, plus there were other scattered and amateurish attempts being made, including one by yours truly). But Gary was the one to get it together enough to start a whole new hobby and subculture, and my hat's off to him. I still love D&D, and while enjoying the many satires of it and the nerdiness around it, still feel it's one of the greatly misunderstood games of our time. At its best, it's like living literature, with players and gamemaster forming an author/character combination that can become quite interesting and downright artistic*. Gygax was aware of that, especially at the beginning before the money got big. He got it right and he got it out to the public. And for that I thank him.
*Someday remind me to write some more on gaming, I think it's a lot more interesting than it's given credit for.
posted by mendip at
3:55 PM
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