Gary Gygax Dead

[filkertom]

I'm trying to find a confirming link, but... wow. Rumors are flying that Gary Gygax, co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons and basically one of the fathers, if not the father, of role-playing gaming, has passed away at the age of 69. Rest in peace, sir. We all owe you a lot.

What are your favorite RPGs, be they tabletop, computer, or LARP? I've got a stack of 'em, but RuneQuest still tops 'em all, followed by the Elder Scrolls series (Morrowind and Oblivion), Ultima 4, Final Fantasy 7, and GURPS.

ETA: Confirmation. Thanks to ericthemage.

Comments

[ericcoleman]

Tabletop -
CoC is my favorite, I even like the original 5 hours to make a character version of the rules. Nothing like spending forever to get a character ready, just to have him go hopelessly insane in the first half hour of game play

Computer -
Ultima 5 for me, and the Ultima clone Wrath Of Denethenor

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Oh, I loved Denethenor. :D Actually, I think someone was redoing that....

And, your gamemaster was cruel and obnoxious if s/he offed your CoC characters that quickly. More than any other, CoC should be literary/cinematic. You should have to work to go insane.

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

AD&D, and Ultima3 (on an Apple2e)

[thingunderthest.livejournal.com]

Yeah the most authoritative thing I have seen seems to be the orginal post on the Troll Lords forums.
http://www.freeyabb.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=4373&mforum=trolllordgames

[ericthemage.livejournal.com]

http://wkbt.com/Global/story.asp?S=7963395

I hope it aint so.

[ebonunicorn.livejournal.com]

D&D and progresive family.

[jss]

This seems to be the main source out there at present (linked to from the alt.obituaries article that's first in a "gary gygax obit" Google search), wherein Neil Christiansen says Gary died at 1am at his house today. Wikipedia's article has been updated to reflect it.

[jcw-da-dmg.livejournal.com]

I had lunch with him once (along with my brother). Seemed like a pleasant fellow.

[joshuwain.livejournal.com]

Tabletop, my favorite is still Dungeons & Dragons while online it's gotta be City of Heroes.

I met Mr. Gygax only once, at a Gen Con when I was a kid. He was onstage, surrounded in a cloud of cigarette smoke, jovially taking questions from avid, little gamer geeks like myself. He was very friendly and I'll miss him...

[wormquartet.livejournal.com]

Adventure (a.k.a. Colossal Cave), Day of the Tentacle, Phantasy Star, and I've always had a soft spot for Leisure Suit Larry.

-=ShoEboX=-

[wormquartet.livejournal.com]

Oh, hell. How did I forget Paranoia?

-=ShoEboX=-

[kilbia.livejournal.com]

For me, the story is the game, so my favorite is HERO because I have such an awesome DM right now.

I have really enjoyed myself at Amtgard (a LARP) in the past, though I'm not as into it anymore.

[kshandra]

gridlore and I are long-time fans of the SSI Gold Box games (Pool of Radiance et al). I never really got into desktop gaming, for all that I tried repeatedly. But I made a great groupie and back-seat driver.

I was hanging out with friends one afternoon during their regular TFOS session. An upperclassman walks into to the library where the PCs were hanging out, looks at one of them and says "Hey, dweeb." Without even thinking, I looked at the player and said "You should make a Cool roll."

The GM blinked and made everyone roll. They all failed. :D

[dan-ad-nauseam.livejournal.com]

(Takes a bonk.)

[pandoradeloeste.livejournal.com]

Changeling from World of Darkness. The rest of WoD is all about balancing humanity with monstrosity; Changling is about balancing childlike wonder and fantasy with mundane real-world concerns. We started playing it a lot during my junior and senior years at college, appropriately enough. It's a good game for transition points between childhood and adulthood.

[msgeek.livejournal.com]

First off, can borrow your icon?

Secondly, my favorite game systems are Classic Traveller (little black books version, not the GURPS or d20 versions) and Big Eyes, Small Mouth. I am more into role playing than "roll playing." Story uber alles.

That said, AD&D was fun stuff, good times, and if Gygax is dead, I will mourn. My gaming clique back in the 1980s came up with a retrofit of Traveller rules for "legendary past" campaigns, but you know what? It wasn't so hot compared to what we knew worked which was AD&D. So we never threw away our polyhedra in favor of d6 exclusively.

Damn. I'm depressed now.

[ericthemage.livejournal.com]

My absolute favorite was CyberSpace from I.C.E. but perhaps because we had a kick ass GM who made it a lot of fun.

[drzarron.livejournal.com]

I've cross paths with Gary over the years and always thought he was a jerk. But he did help usher in a major new branch of pop culture and thus is worthy of remembrance.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

From what I heard, his dealings with Dave Arneson were pretty odious, and I always thought his ego shone through in his writings. But the dude did help create the RPG genre, and some of us have wonderful careers by way of that. ;)

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

I haven't role-played in twenty years, but I was very active in high school. After placing third in the AD&D Open at Gen Con (back when it was held in Kenosha), I spent a few years DMing the event and others at Gen Con. At one memorable Gen Con, I got to DM for some of the TSR folk, including Gygax. That was a real treat.

[catnip13.livejournal.com]

I played with Dave Arneson one time.

[beldar.livejournal.com]

Remembering seeing Gary at GenCon XXX with his "Porn Star" T-shirt, I can't help but think he'd get a kick out of checking out at 69 (if, of course, the live forever option is off the table). He will be very dearly missed.

I still have a soft spot for the RPG that got me started, AD&D. I still love the system of the original World of Darkness, and got a lot out of running/playing the original WoD LARP. But for favorites, I go with Call of Cthulhu for serious gaming and Steve Jackson's TOON for when it's not so serious.

[renquestor.livejournal.com]

I'm gonna have to go with Mage: The Ascension from the oWoD. It was a game about wonder, changing the world, and hubris. Great game, hell of a lot o fun.

[palenoue.livejournal.com]

I've played some good systems with bad GMs, and played with great GMs who could make Monopoly an exciting role playing adventure (Really! He did it on a dare and it worked!) So taking into account that the GM makes the biggest difference, I'll have to say that GURPS is my favorite RPG. The diversity, the flexibility, the wide-open possibilities makes it exciting to me.

For computers, nobody's hit the target yet as far as I'm concerned. Right now I'm playing World of Warcraft with several friends around the world, but I still think it's only halfway there.

[trumanburbank.livejournal.com]

Champions Of The Galaxy - www.FilsingerGames.com (and their spin off Legends Of Wrestling)

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Gotta look into those at some point. I still love wrestling way too much -- just not the current WWE and TNA products. And Ring of Honor is pushing it lately.

[shadoequin.livejournal.com]

Damn, that's just sad news. I still sit down once a week to get my geek on, D&D (v3.5) style. In fact, that's how I met my husband-to-be. I hope he's in a good place, with fine company.

And, well, D&D still is my favorite. I've had LARPs I've loved (hello Archaea), and other tabletops (Werewolf, Arcanum), but in my heart, D&D will always be king. (Not sure about this v4.0 business, though....)

[maiac.livejournal.com]

I've never played RPGs. But Gary Gygax's death stuns me, because D&D and the other games are so much a part of so many of my friends' lives.

[morpheus0013.livejournal.com]

I was just digging for confirmation; should've known to start here.

I'm four years into our RuneQuest campaign, and it's by far the best game I've ever been in (albeit with some rule tweakage.) At the risk of a stoning, I have to say I do enjoy the rules system for WhiteWolf, if not some of the games themselves. Deadlands! (Old-school, with playing cards and poker chips.)

Oh, and in order to not risk my marriage, I'd probably better add Tales From The Floating Vagabond in here, too. And both AD&D and D&D3e hold a special place.

[bryanp.livejournal.com]

I got my start with classic D&D. I played an awful lot of AD&D in high school and later. Shadowrun, Champions (and other Hero system games), others which escape me.

I think the first computer RPG I played was the original Ultima on an Apple ][+. Many others followed. I started to mention Zork and Wizardry type games, but those are more puzzle games and dungeon crawls.

[atalantapendrag.livejournal.com]

I'm partial to GURPS and oWoD myself. It's been forever since I played tabletop, though. These days it's LJ-based freeform.

[catnip13.livejournal.com]

I just about literally learned to read on basic D&D. Played a lot of AD&D in high school, sometimes with folks that I'm still friends with in my 30's. Right now, I'm playing in a Serenity game with a man I've been gaming with off and on for 18 years.

I love WOD. Especially Werewolf. Most of my favorite characters have been Children of Gaia from a specific family line (I've played 3 generations, and a cousin or two) I met the man who I am married to at a Vampire/Werewolf LARP. He was the elder of the Nosferatu. I was the Garou Alpha. They fell in love before we did.

[stevemb.livejournal.com]

My favorites are Hero/Champions and GURPS. One incident I recall from GMing a Champions session:

Me: You see [supervillain] standing in the middle of the courtyard.
Player: I rev the car up to full speed and ram him.
Me: OK. He doesn't attempt to dodge; you hit him.
Player: Did it have any effect?
Me: [rolls some dice] Yes. It made him angry.

[ericcoleman]

I had a Champions character named Scrap. He had power absorption, so getting hit by something heavy, or falling from a high spot early on in a combat was generally part of his battle plan