Gary Gygax died last week and the universe did not collapse. This surprises me a little bit, because he built it.
Adam Rogers, senior editor at Wired and contributer to the New York Times, has written a fantastic eulogy to Gary Gygax, co-creator or Dungeons & Dragons, and along with it, an equally fantastic ode on the joy of being a geek. Also make sure to check out Sam Potts’ brilliant accompanying diagram.
I confess: I played role-playing games as a kid. I’ll also confess that I’ve never played Dungeons & Dragons; my parents were of the school that believed it was connected to Satan worship. (While I’m at confession, I might as well also confess that I wore a floor-length cape to my Senior Prom.) But in junior high, I spent many hours in basements with my friends Dean, Kirk, Paul, Gray & Rob, drinking Jolt, eating chips and candy, playing other role-playing games, pretending to be an elf, a dwarf, or a character from the Star Wars universe. And while I never taught myself Pascal (see Sam Potts’ diagram for reference), I did teach myself BASIC on my Apple IIc, checked out BBSs on my 300-baud modem, and later on in life, taught myself enough web programming knowledge to make a career out of it. And anybody who knows me knows that I periodically clear a room with some geeky discussion, more often than not, about music, typography or computers.
In adulthood, role-playing memories showed up in a few favorite scenes of some favorite TV shows and movies. I love the end of Freaks & Geeks when pseudo-tough-guy Daniel Desario joins the geeks for their RPG, and the scene in SLC Punk when the young Heroin Bob breaks up their game to introduce Stevo to punk.
This story brings up a lot of fun memories — things that helped make me who I am today. Dean, Kirk, Paul, Gray & Rob, I hope those days served you as well as they did me. To Gary Gygax: thank you. Long live geeks!