For Any Nerds Out There: Gary Gygax has passed away

[one...two...tree 2,762]

He was certainly influenced by JR Tolkien and folklore. Most people probably will never realize what an influence he has had on modern gaming.

True that, and "gaming" in all its forms. Certainly modern tabletop roleplaying has a direct link. But every single MMORPG also owes its heritage to D&D, and in fact the very earliest MUD's were mostly just imported D&D'ish rules. Name a video game where there is melee combat, and you are almost certain to see hit points, armor class, and other D&D concepts. They may be called something different, but they're essentially the same thing.

I have a t-shirt that says "Jesus Saves...and takes half damage."

FWIW I always hated the concept of alignment, since the concept of good and evil is relative. We would consider Al Queda Chaotic Evil, but they would consider themselves Chaotic Good. We consider Nazi's as Lawful Evil, but they would have considered themselves Lawful Good. King Richard's crusaders would have considered themselves Lawful Good, but the "infidels" would have considered them Chaotic Evil. So I never ken'd alignment much.

LOL at your t-shirt.

I understand what you are saying about alignment, but I think it served the purpose of keeping a character consistent in terms of their behavior, which was necessary when you have multiple players in a party and must decide who to trust and so forth.

[DeadPoolX 9]

In honor of Gary Gygax's passing and the current discussion of D&D alignment, I hereby present the Official AD&D Alignment Test from "Wizards of the Coast" for everyone's enjoyment!

I took it and it seems I'm Neutral Good. That sounds about right.

[Ban Hammer 14,800]

In honor of Gary Gygax's passing and the current discussion of D&D alignment, I hereby present the Official AD&D Alignment Test from "Wizards of the Coast" for everyone's enjoyment!

I took it and it seems I'm Neutral Good. That sounds about right.

i make drow elves look like lawful good

really, i got Lawful Neutral, and no, i'm not surprised.

Edited March 5, 2008 by charlesandnessa

[Niels Bohr 72]

My condolences. However, I don't know him.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

My condolences. However, I don't know him.

How can you be the consolemaster and not know who Gary Gygax was? I thought you were the nerd's nerd.

[Niels Bohr 72]

My condolences. However, I don't know him.

How can you be the consolemaster and not know who Gary Gygax was? I thought you were the nerd's nerd.

Yeah, I wish I know everybody.

[Jasman0717 9]

RIP

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

A nice guy by all accounts - though his involvement with D&D was mostly in the early days when it was a cottage industry. When it got taken over by TSR he was forced out - and ended up doing a lot of independent (non D&D) RPGs on his own.

Regarding D&D - I do feel that he tended to overshadow Dave Arneson's contribution to the game (a little like Stan Lee, say, overshadowed Jack Kirby). Sadly I think even Gygax suffered from the increasing commercialism and corporatization of what was once a hobby game.

There's also some question of copyright infringement dating back to the 70's which still haven't been resolved - that's not just TSR (AD&D) but also Chaosium, White Wolf Games and Games Workshop. In a nutshell a number of established SF/Fantasy authors were approached in the 70's (before D&D got corporatized) to develop sourcebooks based on actual published works. What happened of course was that informal rights agreements made allowing individual D&D writers to use established characters and settings in their games were taken as ironclad legal agreements by corporate lawyers. Its been a bone of contension for nearly 30 years.

Also those companies are notorious at underpaying, not paying or otherwise stiffing authors who write those prose mass market novels based on their products.

[SMB x2 0]