Dungeon Master: The Life and Legacy of Gary Gygax

[Ian David]

Dungeon Master: The Life and Legacy of Gary Gygax

Editor's note: Wired contributing editor David Kushner visited Gary Gygax at the Lake Geneva Convention last June. We were preparing a package of articles about the father of Dungeons & Dragons and the upcoming revised edition of the game he created when we received the sad news of his death. We are running this story now in remembrance of Gygax and in celebration of his staggering achievements. Later this month, we will run the additional articles about D&D as well as excerpts from the extensive interviews used in reporting this story. We extend our deepest condolences to Gygax's family.

<snip>

As you approach, however, something catches your attention: a strange buzzing sound in the air. It's coming from the tiny winged beasts that are hanging from the trees, crawling along the ground, and crashing clumsily against you. "Cicadas," explains your host, a heavyset man with a gray ponytail and thick glasses that magnify his eyes. "It's a good thing they don't have mandibles." Then, quite cordially, he invites you inside his house to play a game.

The host is Gary Gygax, and the occasion is a game convention in his hometown of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, this past June. Gygax, 68. is a cocreator and popularizer of the most influential game ever made. Dungeons & Dragons — D&D to fans — isn't a straightforward board game like Monopoly or Clue. It's more like an operating system, an elaborate framework on which players can build their own scenarios: Anyone with creativity and imagination can become a game designer.

D&D players create an alter ego and guide it through a virtual world, gradually upgrading abilities as they battle monsters and gather loot. The game allows teenage misfits to become mythic superheroes and face epic adventures and harrowing challenges. "It's written in every man's heart — we want to feel like warriors," Gygax's grandson tells me inside the family home. "That's what Gramps let people do."

<snip>

Gygax forged an industry around D&D and made a small fortune in the process. His home-brew publishing company, Tactical Studies Rules, went from a basement enterprise to a thriving corporation with 600 employees in less than a decade. D&D sold millions of copies and has been translated into more than a dozen languages in at least 50 countries.

His creation is the cornerstone of geek culture, but it's also had a profound and far-reaching impact on people who have never touched a 20-sided die.


Gary Gygax was photographed during GenCon 2007.
Image: Rainer Hosch

More:
http://www.wired.com/gaming/virtualworlds/news/2008/03/ff_gygax


See prior thread:

Gary Gygax, Co-Creator of Dungeons and Dragons, Dies at Age 69
Topic started by FVZA_Colonel on Mar-04-08 03:00 PM (92 replies)
Last modified by sofa king on Mar-06-08 07:49 AM
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=3209494

[tridim]

1. And he starred with Al Gore in Futurama.

"It's a.. (rolls dice).. pleasure to meet you!"

[eShirl]

6. he was in an episode of another animated series, Code Monkeys

He lived in a giant d20!
http://www.g4tv.com/codemonkeys/videos/20585/Todds_Quest_.html

[KingOfLostSouls]

2. you know what I think is funny

is Vin Diesel is a die hard D&D fan. like, ballistic about it.

this buffed up shaved head macho action star...is a D&D dork

wonders sometimes will never cease...

[semillama]

10. On a somewhat related note, loads of servicemen are into RPGs

RPGs are well-suited to alleviating boredom for military personnel while stationed in a foreign country. A couple books, some dice, pens and paper, and your imagination, and poof! you're no longer in some crappy FOB in Afghanistan but in some dank dungeon, sending your hapless NPC torch bearer ahead of you to spring traps...

[NeedleCast]

11. Yup

As a veteran I can confirm that. Funny related note...we have a retired Marine officer that plays in our online game and he was talking with a much younger player about the geek stigma of RPGs. The Marine said "Son, I'm 62 years old, fought in two wars, married, loved and lost my wife and have two grown kids. At this point in my life I could give two shits on toast about what people think of the things I do in my leisure time."

Good guy.

[BoneDaddy]

14. Why is it surprising

to know that he is multidimensional? Alot of young creative men (and women for that note) loved D and D as it gave them a creative outlet. I loved it and plan on playing it with my sons. I am a martial artist of over 24 years and am a teacher of Bagua and Tai Chi. Shaved head too. Not all D and D folks are geeks.

[Chovexani]

18. There's nothing wrong with being a geek.

Please keep in mind when you defend your hobby that the only reason you're able to type this is because of "geeks".

[BoneDaddy]

26. Who said I was disparaging geeks?

I just do not want the mislabeling. I know it is "cool" to be a geek, but I treat that with the same measure as I do "it's cool to be a jock" or ______________(fit in your label.) I am many things. If playing D and D means I am a geek, I am a geek then... but I am also a jock, a reader, a tai chi instructor, a teacher, a student etc..

[NeedleCast]

3. Dungeons and Dragons is the Devil!

It leads to satanism, pre-maritial sex, drugs, cultism and suicide...and I've loved every minute of it.

I got into role playing games when I was in 5th grade and despite some extended breaks from it have been gaming for 25 years, with Dungeons and Dragons always being at the fore-front. The very first adventure I played, from the Dungeons and Dragons basic kit, The Keep on the Borderlands, was written by Gary Gygax. It's an adventure that my friends and I played through so many times the booklet came apart and was eventually almost reduced to dust through wear and tear, Mountain Dew stains (the choice of gamers everywhere!), and grease from potato chips, pop corn and dozens of other snacks.

Now, at age 34, I still reguarly play or master my friends from around the country through material written by Mr. Gygax. We've come a loooooooong way from mechanical pencils and notebook paper. Now our Tuesday night game takes place over a software map, uses a typed-chat feature similar to IRC with 100's of dice macros and we sit around our laptops in four different time zones using Ventrill to facilitate voice chat. It's still every bit as fun as it used to be. Our Tuesday night game includes an IT Software Trainer, a Firefighter, a grad student, a software engineer, a freelance writer and regular contributor to Piazo Publishing a nurse and a retire marine officer.

I prefer to think that in the spirit of Dungeons and Dragons, Gary has just moved on to a new plane of existance. I'm sure some of us will encounter him again as a wandering monster.

[KingOfLostSouls]

4. WHERE ARE THE CHEETOS???

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsyT4uYZj0E



:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:



look familiar? reminds me of 8th grade

[NeedleCast]

5. I honestly dont think a session every goes by

without that video being referenced. Attacking the darkness with magic missile never gets old.

[Lex Talionis]

20. That was damn funny. I knew 40 year olds who acted like that.

[Ian David]

23. OMG! I never saw that before! Where is it from? n/t

[LondonReign2]

21. Hey NeedleCast

What software mapping tool do you use?

[Terran]

7. I started playing in 1976

Back then there were just three paperback "Supplements" to the "Chainmail" rules that came in the D&D boxed set with some really crappy dice. In high school I played with kids who had connections with CalTech, and some students there had made these huge sets of their own supplemental combat and spell rules, printed out on that old green and white computer paper that predated dot matrix printers. I still have my original Monster Manual, bought in the summer of '78, along with the heavy pile of other hardback rulebooks and reams of self-generated character material. D&D was 90% of my social life all through college; it sort of delayed my introduction to sex, but it was still more fun that anyone should reasonably have, and I made many great friends. And now I'm a complete WoW geek (epic'ed-out 70 Troll Shammy on Aerie Peak, among others). My oh my, how time flies when you're having fun. Sigh.

[NeedleCast]

9. I had some of those green and white printouts as well

Mine were dungeon room encounters in no more detail than

1. Empty
2. 2 Chimeras, 2000 GP, 1000 SP, 2 Potions
3. Empty
4. 8 Skeletons
5. Lab
6. Empty

and so on for 1000's and 1000's of lines. My friends and I built huge dungeons around these encounter lists, fleshed them out and create a sense of realism. I still have no idea where the original sheets came from. My dad was an avid war gamer and when I started playing DnD he gave them to me. I wonder if they were from the same source at CalTech or if it was just a coincidence?

[Terran]

13. That sounds right, lol

I remember seeing dungeons described in just that bare-bones way. While your stuff could have originated at Caltech, there were probably lots of other universities at the same time where students were making up their own rules to flesh out the few that governed D&D at the time, and printing them out on printers the size of washing machines. Early computer geeks.

A lot of the stuff I had was based on Tolkein; unlike Gygax, all those Techers had grown up loving LOTR and The Hobbit, and there wasn't much else available back then. We were actually playing "Hobbits", even though Gygax's human-centered D&D universe had outlawed that term.

[Lex Talionis]

8. I salute Lord Gygax! May he wander the Ethereal plane in peace.

Oh yea, Death to the Orcs of the white hand!

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

12. Gary Gygax is rolling in his grave.

DM bless him.

[Chovexani]

19. No, that's not until 4th Edition comes out

:P

[Ichingcarpenter]

15. My son was an avid player since he was 11

What a nerd!!!! LOL




Here is a Dragon and Dungeons flash game for the elections
Wait for it to load

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

17. That's a brilliant gif.

[Ichingcarpenter]

22. It even plays like an accurate Gygax game

[Fireweed247]

16. Fabulous game for creativity

My children are avid readers of mythical novels and my family has been playing this most nights for months. The kids make their own maps and plan out elaborate stories.

Unfortunately we have been missing hannah montana and reality TV shows.
I guess we are all geeks.

[ZombieHorde]

24. K & R for the one true God!

[Irreverend IX]

25. The impact of RPGs

Although Gygax only got mildly wealthy from D&D, he probably had a bigger impact on popular culture and entertainment than most entertainers and celebrities could ever hope to. Computer games and video games would be much different if not for him, and pen-and-paper RPGs have also influenced lots books, comics, movies and music.