As some you of may have already heard, Gary Gygax passed away on Tuesday.  He was, along with Dave Arneson, the creator of Dungeons & Dragons.  D&D, in turn, spawned a whole new hobby: role-playing games.

As I’d never met Mr. Gygax, I was planning to leave it to others to eulogize him.  After all, I’ve been kind of busy with a project and I wasn’t sure what I could add to the sentiments being expressed.  But as I thought about it, it occurred to me that given what a profound impact gaming has had on my life, I should at least put a few thoughts together.  Mostly as an acknowledgment of how much I owe to the forefather of gaming.

Like more than a few of my generation, I came to the hobby as a direct result of the bad press D&D received after a teen prodigy named Egbert disappeared from Michigan State University.  Rumor had it that he had gone missing while playing Dungeons & Dragons in the steam tunnels that ran beneath the college.  When he was finally tracked down, it turned out that wasn’t at all the case.  In fact, I later met a couple of guys who had gamed with Egbert who confirmed that he’d pretty much given up D&D before his disappearance.

But the articles and news reports gave a bit of a description about the game as background.  A bunch of people got together, made up fantasy characters – wizards, warriors, thieves and the like – and another guided them through an adventure.  For a teen who was already addicted to Tolkien, Robert E. Howard and Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, it sounded like tremendous fun.

I picked up a Basic D&D boxed set.  I rolled up characters.  I wished I had someone to actual PLAY the game with.  So I eventually made my way to the local hobby/gaming store and asked the guy behind the counter how to find a game.  He invited me to participate in a campaign (an interconnected series of adventures) that he was going to be running for a guy in a nearby hospital who had recently been paralyzed in a motorcycle accident.  It was a kind of therapy, a chance for the guy (Ralph) to interact with someone beyond the doctors, nurses and family.

The first session, at the hospital, wasn’t much like the game I’d been reading.  There were a lot more types of characters and, rather than getting to pick who I wanted to play, the Dungeon Master (or DM -- the guy running the game) had random number charts to determine a character’s race, gender and just about everything else.  I ended up playing a female centaur that carried a lance and a musket.  Yeah, a musket.  I was bummed.  Gunpowder wasn’t a part of the fantasy literature I was fond of reading.  Still, it was pretty fun.

Then, for some reason, I wasn’t able to play for a few weeks.  (I'm thinking it was right around the time of my dad's first heart attack, so that could very well be what kept me away.)  When I got back, the game was happening at Ralph’s dad’s place and a whole new crowd was playing.  Including a lady by the name of Marta, who was to become (and still is) one of my closest friends.

I gamed a lot during my last year of high school and the year and a half I took off between starting college.  During that time, I invited my buddy Mark, whom I’ve known since we were both toddlers in the nursery at the church our family’s attended together, to join in.  The time we spent pretending to slay monsters, rescue princesses and thwart the evil schemes of villains only served to strengthen a friendship that lasts to this very day.

Likewise, I met my brother-from-another-mother Chris through gaming.  Although he moved to Chicago not long after we met, I was able to visit him pretty frequently when I went to college in Grand Rapids.  Although we haven’t gamed together in years, it’s where our friendship began.  If it weren’t for D&D, his terrific wife wouldn't be introducing me to cool new authors to read, his three awesome kids wouldn’t be calling me “Uncle Paul” and my life would be poorer.

Likewise, if it weren’t for gaming, I’d never have met my buddy Brian, the Turk to my J.D. (for all you Scrubs fans).  Way back in ’83 or so, we ran into each other at the Detroit Gaming Center (although it was in Ferndale at the time).  The Center was a place that was rented by a few gamers to give the gaming community in town a place to hang out.  It was several rooms, with lots of tables and chairs.  The price of admission was a buck a night, to help cover the rental cost.  Anyway, Brian and I didn’t game together much back then, but when we ran into each other a decade later, it gave us a starting place to renew our acquaintance.  Eventually, he mentioned that he was looking to start gaming again.  As luck would have it, I’d been playing with a regular group for a few years (including my aforementioned good friend Marta).  I invited him along.  He clicked with the group and started playing regularly, which meant that we ended up hanging out a lot.  Now we’re practically insufferable.  I know you think I meant inseparable, but trust me on this one.

Oh, and that gaming group I mentioned?  We still get together on pretty much every Thursday and Sunday.  Sometimes to slay dragons.  Sometimes to venture out to the stars.  Sometimes to fight werewolves, vampires and the forces of darkness.  Sometimes to sling lead in the Old West.  Pretty much wherever our shared imagination might take us.

So, if only for the friendships I’ve made, I owe a debt of gratitude to Gary Gygax (and Dave Arneson).  For reinforcing my friendship with Mark.  For providing an introduction to longtime friends Marta, Chris, Brian, Anne, Steve, Michael, Dave and Paul K (as well as newcomer Chapak).  For all the friends that I made through gaming over the years, some of whom I’ve lost track of since: Dave L., Mike P., Ralph, Larry, Don, Ramon, Storn and quite a few others. 

Oh, and that project that’s been keeping me busy?  The one that had me thinking I would just leave the eulogizing of Gary Gygax to others?  Strangely enough, it’s D&D-related.  So I also owe him a debt of gratitude for there being a D&D in the first place to generate D&D-related writing opportunities.

Given that, it’s pretty silly and pretty sad that I almost didn’t stop to say thanks.

So, thank you, Mr. Gygax.  For everything.  Rest in peace.