Gary Gygax Dead @ 69

Man, news travels fast and bad news travels faster. I just learned that Gary Gygax has passed away. For those that do not know, he helped create the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. Together with Don Kaye, Gary published the first D&D books for TSR (Tactical Studies Rules) in 1974. The rest as they say, is history.

I have such fond memories of playing D&D with friends as a kid. My first game was in 1979, I was 10 years old at the time. The neighborhood kids use to gather at each other's homes for a game session, though most of the time we ended up at my friend TC's house. We played about every weekend, every free moment we had as kids. My first ruthless DM was Vincent, and he looked a lot like Tom Hanks in the CBS movie Mazes & Monsters. I use to save every scrap of my allowance and visit the neighborhood book store (Little Professor) almost daily, just waiting to see if they had anything new from TSR. Memories now, all good.

I owe a lot to D&D. I improved my math and reading skills, and my imagination and comprehension. I also learned a lot too, about friendship, lost acquaintances, anger, fear, betrayal, love, forgiveness.
Twenty-nine years later, I find I am still involved with D&D. I manage an online community of gamers (http://www.gathis.com). I'm sure if nothing else, our love for the game that Gary built unites us all across race, sex, politics and national boundaries.

If you haven't played in a long time, you'll find the rules have changed, but the fun is still there.