Bob Collins
The king of the role-playing games is dead at age 69.
Gary Gygax, who created Dungeons and Dragons, lived in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.
Game Spy Magazine’s interview with him in 2004 ended by asking Gygax how he wanted to be remembered:
I was gonna say, “Better here than Philadelphia,” but I think somebody already did that. [Laughs] I would like the world to remember me as the guy who really enjoyed playing games and sharing his knowledge and his fun pastimes with everybody else.
Well, OK, but he’s also the guy who spawned the debate about role playing games. So depending on your point of view, Gary Gygax is either the guy who pushed Western civilization to a new depth of depravity, or the guy who pushed a new generation toward literature, database management, critical thinking, reasoning, and resource management skills.
Your choice.
Photo: Wikimedia
(h/t Julia Schrenkler)
