Thank you, Gary, for nearly thirty years of fun and enjoyment. I wouldn't be doing any of this today without you.
I remember the first time that I received an email from Gary Gygax. It wasn't even directly to me, but instead to an industry mailing list that I am a member of. It felt like receiving a letter from a president.
All that I can say is that Gary had been sick for a while and that he is in a much, much better place now than he had been. To paraphrase my business partner, Aren, "I hope that he is received by the gods of his people in the manner that he deserves." It is both ironic and probably deeply appropriate that Gary passed away on GM's Day.
Gary Gygax is gone. You've probably never heard of the guy, but he changed how we play, every one of us, and he brought dwarves and goblins into the mainstream of pop culture. He was co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, author of classics such as The Monster Manual and Dungeon Masters Guide, and a legitimate 20th-level Nerd God.
He died this morning, at the age of 69, in his Lake Geneva, Wisconsin home, and nobody should turn on their XBOX or PS3 today without thinking of him, and thanking him.
Without Gary Gygax, we wouldn't have role playing games, period. Not just D&D, which has been played by more than 20 million people, but the bloated universe of questing elves and ravenous minotaurs that so many of us dwell in, everything from Zelda to World of Warcraft.
In 1974, Gygax and partner Dave Arneson took the fantasy realm best described by J.R.R. Tolkien, and unleashed it in a form that has proved immortal: a game. A game first played with graph paper, dice and most of all, friends and imagination.