Gary Gygax, an inventor of Dungeons & Dragons, finally ran out of hit points. Boy, did that man's work ever make me happy for a critical period of this chaotic good half-elf's adolescence.
I was a marginalized social misfit, a bookish nerd who kept his head down to keep the preppies from picking on me. One of my friends, Donnie, was a big Tolkien fan, and got me and a few others into D&D. It was, for a couple of years, my social salvation. Can't tell you the fun I had on many a Saturday night with fellow nerds, using our imaginations and having grand adventures together. Eventually I put D&D behind, went on to become a Diplomacy geek, and outgrew (kind of) my nerdliness. I hadn't thought about D&D in, gosh, forever, when the news of Gygax's death reminded me of all the fun I used to have and comfort I used to take in playing the game.
We didn't have computer games in the early 1980s to lose ourselves in. We had each other, and Gygax's game, and our "fellowship of the ring" may have been nothing more than a bunch of pimply fantasy geeks gathered around a dining room table with chips and Cokes, but it was real. There was nothing "virtual" about it. And boy, was it ever great!
Thank you, Gary Gygax, for the memories.
UPDATE: James Poulos makes the necessary point:
D&D will probably go down in history as the perfect example of the tradeoffs involved in moving from analog world-immersive games to digital ones. The internet can do a lot of cool things, but one of the least cool things it can do is replace your imagination.
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No wonder they left their more exposed classmates more shaken than stirred. Had I been there, I'd have flipped 'em the (Gold)finger - no matter how many Moneypennies from Heaven, whether in coin of the realm or realm for the loin, they would carry off, after their fashion, to their fiendish and cavernous lairs...
Let me add myself to the list of teenage D&D players who became Christians. I honestly think D&D had a lot to do with it.
It reminds me of Tolkein's words to C.S. Lewis, that the Christian gospel was a "myth that was true." I think D&D opened me to the possibility of other worlds, and this enabled me to believe in a genuine spiritual one.
I remember very little roleplay in our sessions beyond "are there any girls at the tavern?!". I do remember a lot of arguments over dice and charts. :-)
What little I know about Classical history-- which while meager is still more than most-- grew out of seeds planted by AD&D. Remember the Dieties and Demigods manual? Made me read all the Greek myths.
Gygax's death being so proximate to that of WFB, I am struck at how many count both as being so intellectually formative. Furthermore, I would wager many of the people on this site were/are gamers as well.
What can we learn about the surprising size of the overlapping portions of the Venn diagram including gaming and conservatism (both traditional and political? Is it mere bookishness?
Ah,yes.
I'll probably be thrown into outter-darkness and be broken down to my native element for this...but Jimmy Martinski and I played dungeons and dragons together...in Sunday School...when by some fortunate turn of luck we were not only without a Sunday School teacher, we were without a substitute as well.
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