DiscussMormonism.com

Gary Gygax obituary





As you use this thread to express your thankfulness and respect for this great man... Feel free to compare and contrast the two fantasists: Joseph Smith and Gray Gygax. Who has had a greater impact on the world and it's people? On your life?

As I stand before you today, I proudly declare that I have spent far more hours of my life playing Dungeons & Dragons than doing Mormon stuff (even when I was ostensibly doing church stuff, my mind was usually thinking about the game). It's been a wonderful experience, brothers and sisters. My life wouldn't have been the same without it and I probably wouldn't be here today. THIS is the tradition I am passing on to my children.

I even brought my Dungeon Master's Guide (the one with the Efreet on the front cover) and other manuals to Church. Those were the days when I cast a spell on one of my fellow teachers that made him put Sprite in the sacrament cups.......

Sorry, couldn't vote in the poll. Not the right questions.

Where's the option for 'neither'? lol.

Nah, i'm sure if i had friends into D&D, i would have gotten into it as well. Just one of those things i never have really come across in my life.

RIP.

I voted D&D! :)

I'm not sure I'm proud of the sheer amount of time I plowed into AD&D, but I sure as hell enjoyed it.
I was much more the 'DM' kinda bloke. I'd spend literally hours on end just making up worlds, with 'Tolkien'-like precision. Or at least that's what I liked to think I was going for! (Maps, characters, histories etc.)

Then - after all that time spent and I'd run a campaign, nobody appreciated the effort I'd put into the details. All they cared about are what monster they get to fight next, and what magic item they're gonna win for it. *sigh* :D

The guy was a legend amongst nerds. Long may he be remembered.

I tried playing D&D with my friends in high school (the pen and paper, 20-sided dice, what's your THACO kind). This was before the big PC RPG craze. I couldn't really get into it. Spent most of my moves saying "my chaotic evil elf ranger needs to take a dump" and stuff like that. Oh well. I kind of got into Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale on the computer. I thought those were fun. So I voted for the D&D option. I'm a semi-nerd. Please don't hold this against me. I don't play WoW, yet. ;)

Hey Who Knows and SilentKid, if you don't have a good Dungeon Master then you won't appreciate the experience. A good DM makes or breaks the game. I've always been the DM for my campaigns (like RoP, I guess).

Lately I've been playing D&D with my son who is in 5th grade. We play the current edition of AD&D but I've been going back and collecting the old 1st edition adventures I used to play when I was young. You can buy scanned PDFs at RPG Now. One of my favorites is a series called Desert of Desolation, which offers the following magical treasure to adventurers who brave the Lost Tomb of Martek:

A young woman kneels inside the crystal cylinder, her face turned upward, a tear half-way down her cheek. At her knee sits a brass ball of curious and intricate workmanship.

The brass ball is a Liahona, an intelligent compass that will react for Lawfully Good aligned characters only. It uses limited telepathic abilities to give the direction of north to its user. It also works as a locate object spell once per day. It will answer one yes or no question for its user per week. It is worth 10,000 gold pieces.

The Dude wrote:

The brass ball is a Liahona, an intelligent compass that will react for Lawfully Good aligned characters only. It uses limited telepathic abilities to give the direction of north to its user. It also works as a locate object spell once per day. It will answer one yes or no question for its user per week. It is worth 10,000 gold pieces.

LOL. That is awesome.

The Dude wrote:I've always been the DM for my campaigns (like RoP, I guess).

I wasn't 'always' the DM. In our group, it was always me or my brother. We'd take 'shifts'... :)

Gary lost his saving throw.

RIP Mr Gigax

ROFL. That's awesome that someone put the Liahona into a second fantasy concept, outside its original one.

I played D&D a few times when I was in like 8th grade and High School. I liked it, but didn't have the right crew to play with to really keep it going. I was, however, influenced deeply by the D&D genre which opened up. I wasted like 6 years of my life playing Everquest, and a year or so playing Vanguard (including during beta), and have read many novels and played other games that obviously all could be numbered amongst those things ultimately inspired by D&D.

So many games and fantasy concepts and whatnot can ultimately trace their intellectual heritage to D&D it's not even funny. And it's that greater D&D heritage that has probably affected me more than the actual D&D game itself. That said, I did play it, and I did pore over the DM guide, the Monster Manual, the Player's Guide, and whatnot that my brother owned. He also got other books that added new monsters, new gods, etc. I did own a completely self-contained D&D world someone had created, with maps, written material describing the whole context, etc. I forget what it was called, but I bought it at the hobby shop and had intended to play it with others, but it didn't end up happening.