“Dungeon Whispers” #1 \ A Farewell
Posted by scumminik on March 10, 2008
This series was planned to be a part of GeekEteers from the beginning. That Gary Gygax is the topic of one of the articles seems only natural. I just wish the occasion would not be as sad as it is
*** This text was published late due to organisation and editing problems. Don’t ask for specific reason, just keep in mind that Gary Gygax just passed away when this text had been written.***
Gary Gygax – the original Game Master and co-creator of “Dungeons and Dragons” – passed away last week. By now, this is no longer news. Since his passing became public, the internet has been flooded with blogs whose authors’ praise Gygax’ ideas as some of the most if not the most influential ones in their life. Neither this blog, nor this author are any different.
Oddly enough, I never played a single session of (A)D&D. The reason for this is quite simple: In my home country, D&D was never that popular. We of course have our own “standart” when it comes to RPGs that have a fantasy background, which was my personal gateway system. Over the years I played many different systems including GURPS, Vampire the Masquerade, Call of Cthulhu, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Shadowrun as well as several modified versions of those systems. Since me and the guys I play with, never really got into the “goth”-character of Vampire, we made some changes to the world of that game as well. After modifying several gaming systems we came to the conclusion that we needed to create our own.
Being involved in creating a Gaming System inside of the genre Gygax co-created and probably influenced more than any other person makes me realize even more, what he achieved by giving us RPGs. Roleplaying Games themselves became a business, a cult hobby, something Geeks would do instead of playing little league. The influence that those games had on the players and game masters can not be overestimated. RPGs train social skills (just like every other group activity does and due to the high risk of getting into a fight with each other, they might just train them a little better than most other hobbies), help to hold up a certain level of mental arithmetic (although I am living proof, that this does not always work) and above all, they train your imagination. In addition, many people get to know lifelong friends, sometimes even future business partners.
All that is wonderful and it shows how much that weird invention, that combined oddly shaped dice with the technique of role playing, meant to the millions of gamers. If we think of the economics, then we can find a whole multi million dollar industry that makes huge profits with products inspired by Gygax’ ideas. If we look at Role playing games on the computer then we will find an immense amount of titles. World of Warcraft is only the most recent and biggest success story of RPGs for PCs and gaming consoles.
Gygax never liked computer games that much. He had good reasons. For some of those and a lot of others, this column will focus solely on Pen & Paper RPGs. It will be about RPG techniques, about being a Game Master \ Dungeon Master, about being a Player and just about anything my gaming experience of over ten years will cover.
In addition, I will be answering your questions, no matter how simple, silly, detailed or odd – as long as it is RPG related. So if you are in doubt or curious about something, send an email to:
Till next time
Keep rollin’
