Peter Suciu

RIP Gary Gygax - Legendary Game Designer Embarks on an Adventure to the After Life
March 10, 2008

Last week Gary Gygax passed away at the age of 69. To video gamers his name might not be as familiar as Shigeru Miyamoto, Sid Meier or Will Wright, but had it not been for Gygax there likely may have never been World of Warcraft, EverQuest or any other role-playing game. The Wisconsin native wasn’t a computer programmer or video game developer, but as co-creator of the paper and dice role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (or D&D) his impact on video games will be surely felt for decades to come.

Having founded Tactical Studies Rules (TSR, Inc.) with Don Kaye in 1973, Gygax can safely be called the father of tabletop role-playing games. And were it not for him, the entire genre of role-playing games — from the online massively multiplayer games including World of Warcraft and of course Dungeons & Dragons Online, as well as the single-player games such as Diablo and Dungeon Siege — might never have been created.

In fact, in the early days of computer games many of the original titles were recreations or adaptations of traditional board games, with major publishers including Avalon Hill leading the way. The concept of the adventure genre was born soon after, and the role-playing game quickly followed. Here players could create a virtual version of the alter ego; one that was customizable and upgradeable — just like those used in the paper and pencil versions.

Whether in paper or computerized form the games typically involved fantastical adventures with a continual battle of good vs. evil. And while Gygax (a fantasy author in own right) liberally borrowed from the mythos of established authors who came before him — notably J.R.R. Tolkien’s "The Lord of the Rings," and H.P. Lovecraft’s "Call of Cthulhu" to name just two — we can credit him for making all this more accessible and mainstream. He may not have invented the armies of the undead led by powerful wizards, but he created a world as detailed as anything ever seen in a game previously.

So much so that we cannot forget that long before anyone railed against the evils of computer games, there were groups that saw real evil in the fantastical "good vs. evil" storylines of D&D. A very few high-profile incidents suggested that the role-playing game was used for everything from a satanic ritual to a recruiting tool for cults. There were even tales (arguably worthy of a game) of players having trouble separating the fantasy of the game from their real lives. These were even fictionalized in the novel, and later TV movie, "Mazes and Monsters" (starring Tom Hanks no less).

But the end of the line with Gygax came not from these attacks — although TSR did remove a number of controversial references in the 2nd Edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. The bigger issue was over distribution of royalties between Gygax and co-creator Dave Arneson. Gygax left TSR in 1985 and worked on the animated series Dungeons & Dragons, which aired on CBS for three seasons.

Gygax would continue to work in the world of fantasy, including a new RPG that was released in 1999 and titled Legendary Adventure. Originally devised as a computer game, the new role system was released as a traditional paper and dice game, one that would be open to multiple settings and be therefore accessible to gamers looking for a less complex game to play. And just three years ago Gygax re-envisioned the original AD&D rules as Castles & Crusades for Troll Lord Games.

Even without Gygax at the helm D&D continued to grow, spawning a 1999 film, several dozen novels, live-action game play and numerous societies. And of course it launched a cottage industry of computer games. Today D&D remains one of the most successful video game licenses, with the first game version arriving in 1981 for the Intellivsion game system to the present with the just-released Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer. More than six dozen games have been released in the past 25+ years, and some of these have included the popular Icewind Dale, Baldur’s Gate and Neverwinter Nights series, which explore various parts of the world of Greyhawk (the setting of D&D). And today D&D: Online is just one of many popular massively multiplayer online role-playing games.

D&D thus surely changed video games as much as the latest PC gaming hardware or new 3-D graphics processor. Without the vision of Gary Gygax games would lack the heart and soul, and the adventure genre may have never been born.

Rest in peace Gary. Your worlds will live on for a very long time.

Posted by Peter Suciu on March 10, 2008 | Comments (0)