• New here? Register here now for access to all the forums, download game torrents, private messages, polls, Sportsbook, etc. Plus, stay connected and follow BP on Instagram @buckeyeplanet and Facebook.

Gary Gygax, 1938-2008: Rest in Peace, Dungeon Master

Jump to latest Follow Reply
Sort by date Sort by votes
OCBuckWife;1112856; said:
ultimategame2024a24zj7.jpg


XKCD illustrates "Gary Gygax loses his saving throw"
Click to expand...

:slappy:
 
Upvote 0
Hilary Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain as D&D "Monsters" as imagined on this website.

John McCain (Demon Prince of Republicans.) (Lesser God.) FREQUENCY: Very rare
NO APPEARING: 1
ARMOUR CLASS: -7
MOVE: 3" (72" per flight sector on the campaign jet)
HIT DICE: 200 hit points (But first you have to defeat 4d8 Secret Service Agents)
% IN LAIR: 0%
TREASURE TYPE: All your NATO base are belong to us!
NO. OF ATTACKS: 1
DAMAGE/ATTACK: Invades Iran. Takes 100d20 casualties in first strike while inflicting 20 x 100d20 civilian casualties. Followed by war of attrition, economic collapse, recrimination.
SPECIAL ATTACKS: 5% chance of 30,000 Megaton nuclear first strike on Upper Volta.
SPECIAL DEFENSES: +3 or better weapon to hit. In event of combat, 20% chance of heart attack per round, followed by the swearing in of President Santorum. You wouldn't want that, would you?)
MAGIC RESISTANCE: 80% (10% vs. mind control spells by Cheney.)
INTELLIGENCE: Normal.
CHARISMA: 12 (16 to neocons)
ALIGNMENT: Chaotic evil if under control of Cheney; otherwise Chaotic neutral.
SIZE: M
LEVEL/X.P. VALUE: X/29,950* (* for impeachment)
A huge, ancient, carnivorous dinosaur from the swamps at the heart of Republican country, not unlike Godzilla in appearance and wrinkled integument, McCain has seen better years. Nevertheless he can breathe fire and threaten to stomp flat the capital city of any country that Fox News disapproves of with the best of them.
The biggest danger in facing off against a McCain is that he might be under the mind control of the Svengali-like Cheney, Prince of Darkness. In this case, he is likely to be lethally aggressive and even more unpredictable than usual.
Click to expand...
 
Upvote 0
The Economist: Gary Gygax obit

Interesting tribute...

Gary Gygax

Mar 13th 2008
From The Economist print edition

Ernest Gary Gygax, a dungeon master, died on March 4th, aged 69

1108OB.jpg

FOR most people, ?role-playing? conjures up dreary afternoons at management retreats, pretending to be an irate customer or a difficult employee. But if you are under 45 and possibly something of a nerd, more evocative memories may surface. You are Jozan, adventurer-cleric of the sun-god Pelor, travelling the world of Greyhawk, battling orcs and evil wizards, righting wrongs and seeking treasure?at least until you and your friends run out of beer and crisps and stagger off to bed. This is Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), the first of the role-playing games and the reason for thousands of misspent youths.

Gary Gygax was perfectly equipped to bring this fantastic world to basements and dining-room tables all over the world. As a boy he was fascinated by games of all sorts, from pinochle to chess. His father, a violinist, read him countless pulp novels featuring dragons, wizards and elves. Even the family name, he once said, had fantastic origins, proving that the Gygaxes were descended from Goliath.

cont'd...
Click to expand...
 
Upvote 0
shetuck;1115231; said:
The Economist: Gary Gygax obit

Interesting tribute...
Click to expand...


Good article. I liked this bit.

The game was spreading beyond basements, particularly influencing the nascent computer-games industry. Mr Gygax didn't like that either; he thought computer graphics cheapened the experience by substituting an artist's imagination for the player's. And while computers were ideal for streamlining tedious dice rolls and arithmetic, those, for him, were never the point. He considered role-playing a social thing, a form of group storytelling. Nevertheless, his impact was enormous. One gaming website voted him the joint 18th-most-influential person in computer games, quite an honour for someone who hardly played them.
His influence extends even to people who have never conjured a fireball in anger. Today's world is a nerd's world, and Mr Gygax did much to shape it. Blockbuster fantasy films like ?The Lord of the Rings? are produced and directed by people who grew up with the game. Computer games are part of mainstream culture; ?World of Warcraft?, an internet-based D&D clone, boasts 10m subscribers. Many of the people who built the internet (and their fortunes) spent their childhoods playing the game.
Click to expand...

As well as the bit where they go into how the game co. was wrested from him finally and how he never approved of the "commercialism" of it after that. :wink2:
 
Upvote 0
Many of the people who built the internet (and their fortunes) spent their childhoods playing the game.
Click to expand...
Yeah, their childhoods ... because they certainly don't ever spend any of their adulthood playing D&D! :nerd:

I think this reporter needs to troll around the trade show floor at Origins or GenCon sometime. You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone under the age of 16. Kids might dabble in D&D or Magic: the Gathering a little, but you gotta be 20+ w/ a good job and LOTS of disposable income to even afford to play any of these games.
 
Upvote 0
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top