Dungeons & Dragons Cocreator Dies at 69
SLJ Staff -- School Library Journal, 3/5/2008 10:22:00 AM
Gary Gygax, who put the "G" in "geek" as cocreator of the fantasy game Dungeons & Dragons and was the author of dozens of fantasy books popular with young adults, died March 4 at 69 after suffering from an abdominal aneurysm and other health problems.
Gygax first got hooked on the fantasy genre as a boy, when his father, a Swiss immigrant who played violin with the Chicago Sympathy Orchestra, would often read fantasy books to him. Gygax says he was inspired by Jack Vance, Robert E. Howard, L. Sprague de Camp,
and Fritz Leiber.
While working as an insurance underwriter in the 1960s, Gygax began playing war-themed board games and decided to create one that combined both the war and fantasy themes. Along with Don Kaye, Gygax cofounded the publishing company Tactical Studies Rules in 1973. In 1974 he and partner Dave Arneson then created the Dungeons & Dragons board game, and their initial print run of 1,000 copies sold out in less than a year.
The game involves fictional characters and complex rules. A roll of the dice and orders from a "dungeon master" control the movements of trolls, elves, orcs, and all manner of fantasy creatures.
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons followed in 1977, as did a CBS cartoon of the same name in the mid-1980s. And along with the many board games and rule books he created, Gygax became a fantasy novelist, writing the Greyhawk (TSR) and Gord the Rogue (Infinities) series, among other books.
Sync magazine named him number one on the list of "The 50 Biggest Nerds of All Time".And, beginning in 2003, Gygax was listed under the entry "Dungeons and Dragons" in the Oxford English Dictionary. In 2002 he was tied with J. R. R. Tolkien for #18 on GameSpy magazine's 30 Most Influential People in Gaming"
Dungeons & Dragons books and products have earned an estimated $1 billion over the years, and some estimate that more than 20 million have played the game. Although Gygax recognized the impact of computers on games, he never supported it. “There is no intimacy; it’s not live,” he once said of the transition to online gaming.
Gygax, a father of six and resident of Lake Geneva, WS, was married twice. He leaves behind a widow, Gail Gygax, along with a child from their marriage and five from his first marriage.
"I would like the world to remember me as the guy who really enjoyed playing games and sharing his knowledge and his fun pastimes with everybody else," Gygax told Gamespy in an interview.
