This is the obituary thread for the co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons, the game what started it all. Anyone who wants to share any thoughts on his passing with the rest of the board can put them here.
For my part, I've already written out my response here, in my own sporadically-updated journal. (I also link to the AP story that broke the news to me.) Feel free to read if you like.
May the God or Gods of his faith welcome him home. He was the first and best of us, and he will be sorely missed. Since Tolkien, no one has so influenced modern speculative fiction, nor contributed so much to what is, perhaps, one of our last forms of oral tradition. May his memory and inspiration be with us always, and may he know in the next life the joy and wonder he gave us in this. Blessed be.
I mentioned it, too, in the Blogless Lepolt, today's entry entitled I Am Not Sick. Earlier today, though, I posted this to the Christian Gamers Guild list:
E. Gary Gygax: The Passing of a LegendBy now I expect most of you have heard that E. Gary Gygax passed away sometime overnight last night or this morning.
His contribution to role play gaming is immeasurable. In some ways, for better or worse, he defined and set the parameters for our hobby. Others can eulogize him for this. I can say that his impact on my life through Dungeons & Dragons and other TSR role playing games has been significant.
I twice corresponded with him, once in connection with my work on alignment and more recently in connection with his own faith. It is a very positive thing to me, on several levels, that he appeared on our panel last year sharing his faith. He was not what we would call orthodox, but he was a sincere believer in and student of scripture. In the past year I offered answers to a few of his questions concerning various texts which troubled him, and got the sense of a man who loved and trusted God and wished to know Him better. I will not presume to know who is in heaven, but I have reason to hope that the meeting with him of which I was deprived here will be fulfilled there.
Requiem aeternum, et lux perpetua luceat eis.
--M. J. Young
Chaplain, Christian Gamers Guild
MJYoung@mjyoung.net
--M. J. Young
My hat's off to the man who defined my favorite hobbies. He will be missed by those who knew him far better than I did.