Monday, March 10, 2008

Wired Article on D&D and Gary Gygax

Wired published an excellent article on Gary Gygax. It was to be an investigation into the man himself and the game he created, Dungeons and Dragons. Sadly now it’s a memorial of sorts.

The Dungeon Master: The Life and Legacy of Gary Gygax
Editor's note: Wired contributing editor David Kushner visited Gary Gygax at the Lake Geneva Convention last July. We were preparing a package of articles about the father of Dungeons & Dragons and the upcoming revised edition of the game he created when we received the sad news of his death. We are running this story now in remembrance of Gygax and in celebration of his staggering achievements. Later this month, we will run the additional articles about D&D as well as excerpts from the extensive interviews used in reporting this story. We extend our deepest condolences to Gygax's family.

Dungeons & Dragons had a way of turning game players into game designers. The rule set was pure potentiality, and the greater the creativity of each dungeon master, the more the players could extract from it. Many young people found their calling while playing D&D.


See the full article here. Check it out.

-Swinebread

10 comments:

Arkonbey said...

My 250 mi. away GM and I are planning a three-day weekend of gaming and microbrews.

I've been going through my 3.5 players manual to brush up.

I'm so going go buy that issue.

Dean Wormer said...

A game of the old D&D with the 3.5 rules are a great idea!

Swine - I think it's time to get together with don and his SO and play some old school rpgs.

Faded said...

Great stuff! Thanks for the link!

Faded said...

Great stuff! Thanks for the link!

Arkonbey said...

found this article on Slate and since it got my dander up, I thought I'd share the joy.

A D&D bashing article; though not for the reasons you might think. Written by someone who probably, at the most played three times. If that.

Arkonbey said...

To reduce your ire, you can hit The Fray. Lots of geeks wrote very eloquent (and profanity free) critiques of the article.

The Moody Minstrel said...

Dungeons & Dragons had a way of turning game players into game designers.

Tell me about it. I DMed a D&D campaign for a year or two in high school, made a module that was a crossover with a sci-fi setting I'd been developing for writing and drawing purposes, realized D&D rules didn't really work in a sci-fi setting, and voila!! The so-called "Impasse" RPG was born!

How many years have I been working on that thing now? Even though the last time I had a campaign going was almost a decade ago?

Oh, well. It's still a useful literary and art setting, and it keeps me out of trouble.

Arkonbey said...

made a module that was a crossover with a sci-fi setting I'd been developing

Cool. I always wondered if that was possible (I myself had strange visions of D&D/Twilight:2000). But, I wasn't even a good DM, let alone a module-creator; the eternal Player. :(

Swinebread said...

Arkonbey – That’s cool, overdroid has been bugging me to get skype so we can play over the net.

I’m getting it too.

Dean – I think your right!

Fade – you’re welcome

Fade – you’re welcome

Arkonbey – whoa, that’s harsh… he makes a few good points but then ruins it by being a total dick! That’s not a way to convince folks.

I’ll check out fray

Moody – I even got into making rules for gamma world before they came out with D20 and solved the whole lack of skills thing. You might want to see what D20 has coming out for sci-fi after the 4th edition is out.

Arkonbey – I an OK GM but I can never remember the rules, that’s why I like Call of Cthulhu and basic roleplaying very simple yet flexible and easy to apply.

Slay said...

There was a fantastic article in The Believer about a year ago, a little more, about Gygax and related stuff.

Read it here.