Ogre’s Politics and Views

Wow. I had no idea. Gary Gygax passed Tuesday. I’m quite saddened. For those who never heard the name, his passing might mean quite little. However, everyone who has heard his name immediately recognizes it. Mr. Gygax created and shaped thousands, if not millions of lives and literally changed a good portion of the world today.

Gary Gygax, with his friend Dave Arneson, helped thousands of kids learn. He helped them learn social skills. He brought a lot of those who would otherwise still be sheltered out into the open. He helped teach creativity to an entire generation and more. His work helped drive an entertainment industry and opened doors for development and advancements in computer hardware and software. And all he wanted to do was play a game.

You see, Gary Gygax was the co-creator of the game Dungeons and Dragons.

Now I didn’t read about this event in the news. Most major news sites didn’t cover this much. I found out because Kender pointed out a site that has a few euphemisms for his death. If you’ve never seen the game, don’t bother going to that site, you won’t get it.

I guess it’s a sign you’re growing older when people you know start dying. Well, I didn’t actually KNOW Mr. Gygax, but I feel like I did — as I’m sure quite a lot of others did as well. I actually worked with him a little bit, on an video adventure game that never made it to production called “Lejendary Adventures.” I am truly saddened today.

Sure, there are those who really, really misunderstood the game of Dungeons and Dragons, and those who used it to promote their own insane agendas (Chick Tracts, Tipper Gore, et al.) But to those who played it, it was just a game and it was fun. There were campaigns that I was in for years on end. In one, we met every other Friday for over 5 years. All sorts of things in our lives came and went, but that game went on.

The game taught a generation how to relate to one another. It took shy kids and had them maybe not accepted by the mainstream, but it gave them the ability to be and do things. It led people into magical fantasy worlds where the geekiest kid could live the life of a towering knight. In every game I ever saw or played in, good ALWAYS won. The games were always simulating the ongoing battle between good and evil — and there often was no blurring of the lines.

Sure, the evil ones had personality, but they were always unquestionably evil — and the players of the game had one primary goal always: defeat the evil. There was magic and mystery. There were flying dragons and knights galore. It was Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings on steroids. And it was an incredible escape from the drudgery of boring high school life.

I remember the first character I ever made. He was a Paladin — a good knight in shining armor. He was the epitome of good. He had a strong moral code and he lived to defeat evil. He died a half hour later fighting a Xorn (a strange creature made of earth and stone). But when you lost, you created another character and went on!

One of my most powerful characters I ever had was a wizard named Gandar (shut up, it was before the movies came out, so it wasn’t copying). He ventured all over the lands of his world. He saved kings and defeated dragons. He explored haunted ruins and helped win huge battles for the future of the human race. And he had a bad habit of being unable to guess his friends’ moves, so more than once one of his allies got caught in a fireball or ice storm. Sorry about that, Maddox.

So if you’ve heard bad things about this game, please ignore them. The people who claim that this simple game that Gary invented was about the occult or that it made people kill themselves or one another are just insane themselves. These stories come from people who never played the game. The game was just that — a game. But it was a game that opened the eyes and developed the minds of so many people, myself included.

Rest in Peace, Gary Gygax. Your contributions will never be forgotten.

Little Update: this comic reminded me — I DO have all my first edition (and second, and third, and 3.5) stuff, too.

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