EGG Moves On

[subplotkudzu]

Gary Gygax, co creator os Dungeons and Dragons, passed away last night. 

I never met the man, but the hobby he helped found shaped who I am in a number of ways, and for that I owe him a lot. It's easy to look at the games he wrote and tear them apart for bad design, strange concepts and his Gygaxian prose, but much of that is with hindsight, standing on the shoulders of people who stood on his shoulders. RPGs might not be here at all if not for the efforts he and his fellows took to champion them.

And I forgive his prose as being an over-saturation of Jack Vance's Dying Earth stories. There are worse things.

Comments

[40yearsagotoday.livejournal.com]

Let us imagine the Platonic ideal of the EGG tribute concert.

It would include:

The Dead playing Mountains of the Moon (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jf9v86ix8QY)

Zeppelin playing "Battle of Evermore" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6pQrZPwoOU) and "Over the Hills and Far Away" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bS6yINg22w).

What else? Who can suggest the right Hawkmoon and Arkangel tunes?

[doc-mystery.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's pretty craptastic news.

Many of my friends ARE my friends because his co-invention of D&D created an entirely new hobby that brought us kindred spirits together.

::B::

[mylescorcoran]

So true. I count some of the people I've met through A&E, for example, as good friends and true, and I'm pretty sure I'd never have met them without that funny little game Gygax and Arneson created.

[brianrogers.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. Much of my social circle is built around my gaming groups, and the hobby is the glue that keeps us getting together on a regular basis. We have other interests and other gatherings but gaming is the core of it.

I don't know who or where I'd be without gaming, and I knew I needed to do it from the moment I read about D&D.

[mylescorcoran]

With the fantastic hobby he created on one side of the scales, it's hard to think that the details of his game designs are worth tearing apart.

Whatever about the specifics of his work, the hobby he kick-started has made me a happier, better person, I have no doubt. Thanks, Gary.

[brianrogers.livejournal.com]

I absolutely agree. It was odd looking back on my recent discussions about Gygax's work that they were primarily negative: the overburdened prose, the incomprehensable chapter placements, the unnecessary complexity of the systems. "Gygaxian" is not a positive adjective when it comes to prose style.

His death makes it clear that this was all picking around the edges. Other people were able to take his brilliant core ideas and build on them with the benefits of millions of hours of playtesting and study. They may be improving on his work, but they are doing so by widening the trail he and his co-creators blazed. If they can see more clearly, it is only because they are standing on his shoulders.

Thanks Gary, indeed, for giving me the tools to become who I am.