RIP: Gary Gygax

Reports are trickling in through various fan sites and blogs that Gary Gygax passed away last night at the age of 69. I knew he'd been in bad health, but this still feels like it comes out of nowhere.

I never got to meet the man personally, but the game he created impacted my childhood and teenage years in so many ways that I can't even begin to imagine what I'd be like as a person without it. I was an extremely introverted kid, and I've never been the kind of person who makes friends easily. Playing Dungeons and Dragons actually helped me build those interpersonal skills that so many folks take for granted because, really, once you've had to play the role of an elven princess for a group of people you see every day, how much more embarrassment can life really hold for you?

And we're still playing the game he created all these years later (even if it has been updated and altered many times over the decades). And I know it's a game that I'll be playing even into my old age - I plan to be the guy at the Senior Center with the bag of dice and the Player's Handbook trying to get the other old coots to roll up some characters and do some dungeon crawlin'. So I feel like I owe Gary Gygax quite a bit, and I hope he rests in peace with the knowledge that he brought some joy into the world.