Gary Gygax passed away today

[freebird]

Gary Gygax died today at age 69. For those of you geeks wearing pocket protectors, you might know who he was....

Everyone else probably has no idea....

[Matt308]

A pocket protector geek giving a salute to a man who has provided me much entertainment in my life. Poor bastard died a bitter man with the way D&D went once he left TSR.

Good for you, Freebird.

There are a lot of wacko extreme religious folks dancing on his grave today. Little do they know how much he influenced gaming. Both role playing and todays electronic games. He truly does deserve a place in history for his methodical development of gaming rules which serve as the basis for which virtually everything is developed these days.

[magnocain]

[macdknife]

sorry to hear that iv been playing DnD sence it came out that was 36 years now in 1972 he will be mised







war is the mother of invention more things have been made or impoved
for war

[Njaco]

Ok, didn't know about him but found this on Wiki.

Gary Gygax - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ernest Gary Gygax (July 27, 1938 – March 4, 200 was an American writer and game designer, best known for co-creating the pioneering role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) with Dave Arneson, and co-founding the company Tactical Studies Rules (TSR, Inc.) with Don Kaye in 1974. Gygax is generally acknowledged as the father of the role-playing game.

Gygax was the son of Swiss immigrant Martin Gygax and an American mother. His love of gaming began at the age of five, playing pinochle and chess as well as the imaginative games of any child, similar to live action role-playing. He played with Jim Rasch as referee/game master and John Rasch and Don Kaye as fellow participants. It was during this timeframe that Gygax began exploring science fiction with Ray Bradbury's "The Veldt" in Bluebook and Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Conqueror.

In 1953 Gygax began playing miniature war games with Kaye. The game Gettysburg from the Avalon Hill company captured Gygax's attention. It was from Avalon Hill that he ordered the first blank hexagon mapping sheets that were available. He began looking for innovative ways to generate random numbers, and used not only common dice (with six sides), but dice of all five platonic solid shapes.

In 1966, the International Federation of Wargamers (IFW) was created with the assistance of Gygax.

Gygax organized a 20-person gaming meet in 1967. It was held in the basement of his home and later became known as "Gen Con 0" as this meet birthed the annual Gen Con gaming convention in 1968. Gen Con is now the world's largest annual hobby-game gathering. Gen Con is also where Gary Gygax would meet Brian Blume and Dave Arneson. Brian Blume later entered into TSR as partner with Don Kaye and Gary.

Together with Don Kaye, Mike Reese and Leon Tucker, Gygax created a military miniatures society, Lake Geneva Tactical Studies Association (LGTSA), with its first headquarters in Gygax's basement.

In 1971, Gygax and Jeff Perren wrote Chainmail, a miniatures wargame from which the role-playing game (RPG) Dungeons & Dragons (aka D&D) was developed. Gygax and Kaye founded the publishing company Tactical Studies Rules and published the first version of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) in 1974. Gygax was inspired by Jack Vance while developing the spell systems and also drew upon the work of such renowned fantasy authors as Robert E. Howard, L. Sprague de Camp and Fritz Leiber. The hand-assembled print run of 1000 copies sold out within nine months. In the same year, Gygax hired Tim Kask to assist in the transition of the magazine The Strategic Review into the fantasy periodical, The Dragon, with Gygax as author and later as columnist.

After the death of Kaye in 1976, his widow sold her shares to Gygax. Gygax, now controlling the whole of Tactical Studies Rules, created TSR Hobbies, Inc. Gygax, coming into financial troubles soon after, sold TSR Hobbies to Brian Blume and his brother Kevin. The Blume family would own roughly two-thirds of TSR Hobbies by late 1976.

Tactical Studies Rules published the two first printings of the original D&D and TSR Hobbies, Inc. continued on with the game.

Beginning in 1977, a new version of D&D was created, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D). The Monster Manual would be the first rule book of the new system, with many books to follow. The AD&D rules were not compatible with those of D&D and as a result, D&D and AD&D would have distinct product lines and expansions.

Gary Gygax left TSR in 1985 during changes in TSR's management.

After leaving TSR, Gygax created Dangerous Journeys, an advanced RPG spanning multiple genres. He began work in 1995 on a major new RPG, originally intended for a computer game however it was released in 1999 as Lejendary Adventure which some consider to be his best work. A key part of its design was to keep the gaming rules as simple as possible, as Gygax felt that role playing games were becoming too complex and thus discouraged new users.

In 2005, Gygax returned to the Dungeons & Dragons RPG with his involvement in the creation of the Castles & Crusades system with Troll Lord Games. Troll Lord Games has published Castle Zagyg, the previously unreleased, original version of Gygax's Castle Greyhawk with the original dungeon setting for D&D.

Gygax died the morning of March 4, 2008, at his home in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. He was in semi-retirement, having almost suffered a heart attack after receiving incorrect medication to prevent further strokes after those on April 1 and May 4, 2004. He was diagnosed with an inoperable abdominal aortic aneurysm. Even while his health failed, gaming remained very much a part of his life.Gygax was still active in the gaming community and had active Q & A forums on gaming websites such as Dragonsfoot and EN World.

"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."

Wow, never heard of him before but sure thank him for many good times with D&D and AD&D. Thanks freebird. Anybody else list Bradury's "The Veldt" as inspiration?

[Thorlifter]

If you like DnD or not, Gary was a genious in his genre and should be admired for his vision.

Well said Matt.

As late as January, he still held weekly DnD games at his home with friends.

[DBII]

I heard the sad news this morning. I was late starting only after I finsihed up college in 1984. He made many people happy. My Druid salutes with his flaming +2 sword and says a blessing.

DBII

[Matt308]

Only those who know, DB. Only those who know.

[evangilder]

I spent many hours in high school playing D&D and even attended a Gen Con. Gary truly was a visionary who provided hours of entertainment for a lot of people, of all ages. My Paladin raises his +2 broad sword in salute as well. Good Journey, Gary. You will be missed by everyone who ever rolled a D20.

[freebird]

Originally Posted by Matt308

A pocket protector geek giving a salute to a man who has provided me much entertainment in my life. Poor bastard died a bitter man with the way D&D went once he left TSR.

Judging by your Avatar Matt I didn't figure you for a geek!

Originally Posted by evangilder

I spent many hours in high school playing D&D and even attended a Gen Con. Gary truly was a visionary who provided hours of entertainment for a lot of people, of all ages. My Paladin raises his +2 broad sword in salute as well. Good Journey, Gary. You will be missed by everyone who ever rolled a D20.

Wow even the Admin knows G. Gygax! this thread is starting to get upscale!

I have to say guys, I blame Gygax for a large part of the way my life turned out, all those wasted years of my youth, leaning useless stuff like mathematics, percentages, fractions, probabilities, strategy, geometry, debating, legal training {rules lawyers! }. {but not spelling } Throw in some history, geography, metalurgy, psychology, problem solving, & some chemistry {What the heck is saltpeter? or guano?, anyways?}

And to think I could have been with the cool people, getting drunk, stealing cars, vandalizing schools, B&E's, all that exciting stuff!

I could have been out with the guys impressing the teeny bopper girl with a bra size bigger than her IQ, getting her knocked up, getting the clap or the pox!

Usually on monday mornings we would hear about the great exploits of the latest "cool dude", on Saturday night, getting hammered, driving while suspended, fleeing from the cops, running away into the woods, fighting with the cops, getting bit by some nasty police dog & ending up with a few years in reform or maybe moving all the way up to the "big house"!

I passed all that up for some hex maps & polyhedrons....

Every now and then I see one of the "cool" dudes from my youth, driving from the trailer park to his job at Wal-mart, he's planning to get married to the mother of {one of} his kids, planning to get some more milk crates so that the furniture in the TV room matches that in the kitchen.

And to think that could have been me!

You can often recognize the geeks, even after all these years the stigma is still visible. The ability to understand computers, use logic or string more than 2 coherent sentances together without having to use f**k every second word is usually a givaway.

Sometimes when I am careless I reveal my shame, standing at the cash register, the girl punches in $5.36 + $3.24 less 25% discount, and when she hits the wrong button the other girls look at each other blankly as if they were back in school doing algebra {in Sanskrit}. As I hand her $11.45 and blurt out "5 bucks change please", they all instantly know that here is one of those despised geeks that her jock boyfriend used to laugh at! {before he dumped her for the cheerleader with bigger b***s}

So I raise my Staff of Power to Gary Gygax, & a 12 dice db fireball for the jocks in the locker room.

There are a lot of wacko extreme religious folks dancing on his grave today.

And another fireball for them too. Oops, there goes the alignment...

[evangilder]

Eh, they were chaotic evil anyway.

[Thorlifter]

Good for you Freebird. VERY nice post.

I actually got out my character sheets last night to enjoy a bit of my past. I had a couple very high level guys, 18-21st level fighters and magic users, but my favorite was Farshorn Trechow, a 9/9/8 Fighter/Magic User/Thief with a +3 broad sword of wounding, a displacement cloak, and Psionic powers. Throw him in a den of Beholders and it was a hell of a battle.

Memories...................thank you Gary.

[DBII]

Raise a glass of grog to the great DM.

DBII