Because everyone else is...

[blackbear88]

I figured I should post something about E. Gary Gygax's passing. But I'm not a D&D player--I never really was, to be honest, I owned the basic red box set as a kid but plunged straight into Cthulhu in high school and soon after, Runequest and the Morrow Project all rolled into one. I met him once--which is to say we literally bumped into one

Comments

[knightos]

Unlike you, I have played a lot of D&D and I'm still not sure how I should feel about his death. I've heard so many many bad things and so few good things that it is hard to view his death as personal, like the death of some of my favorite writers have been. So I understand not knowing how to respond to his death.

But the real reason that I'm responding is that I don't recognize Greg Stafford's name and I figure that if he's your idol, I really should ask for education as to why.

[blackbear88]

He invented the world of Glorantha, and with Sandy Petersen and Steve Perrin, he's the mind behind Runequest, Call of Cthulhu, etc. In 1974, he published a boardgame called White Bear, Red Moon which later morphed into the RPG Runequest. In 1976, he and Petersen founded Chaosium, Inc. For me--and I know this is not true for everyone--but FOR ME, Runequest is to D&D what Lord of the Rings is to Harry Potter. D&D's a great way to get people into the fantasy RPG hobby, but the system blows (both old and new D&D) and D&D worlds are IMHO very 2 dimensional and dull, with lots of contradictions and illogic. Glorantha is a rich world with a deep Joseph Campbell-esque mythology and a magic system that's integrated with characters' lives; Runequest is a skill-based system that offers both subtlety and ease of comprehension, no "saving throws" and level-based hit points. :) So yeah, Stafford is for me what Gygax is for many other gamers.

[reynaud]

I've heard some contradictory things about him, too. And to be honest, I'm not sure he's really done anything since creating D&D, so it's not like his death will effect anything in the gaming world. But he was an icon. I suspect that everyone who's played an RPG knows the name Gary Gygax. (And, let's be honest, I think his name had something to do with it. I mean, "Gygax"? What the hell kind of name is that?)

It also means that gaming is old enough for its founders to start dying of old age.