R.I.P Gary Gygax, co-creator of D&D

A sad day for role-playing games yesterday as the co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, Gary Gygax, passed away at the age of 69. History should regard him as one of the two ultimate Dungeon Masters.

Via vnunet.com Gygax explained what makes RPG special compared to other games:

"There is no winning or losing, but rather the value is in the experience of imagining yourself as a character in whatever genre you’re involved in, whether it’s a fantasy game, the Wild West, secret agents or whatever else."

Most role-playing games are now played entirely on computer, of which Gygax largely disapproved.

Back in November, I lamented the direction of D&D 4.0 by current owners Wizards of the Coast, which seems opposite of Gygax wishes as well. The good thing is the original D&D will always exist and there’s no reason to play new versions if players don’t want to.

Last week I received notification that Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach was offering past players free DDO access from today, March 5 – March 11, 2008 to test the new features and to celebrate turning two years old:

• Level Cap = 16th Level!
• 5 New Dungeons!
• Crafting Comes to Eberron!
• New Raid Bosses – Fiendish and Fearsome!
• UI Skins – Custom UI Skinning (more info)!

I wrote about my DDO gameplay experience in February last year. For me the MMORPG version of D&D was a bit too repetitive and took too long to level, but the leveling is more faithful to Gygax’ vision. In light of his comments above, I’m curious how Gygax felt about DDO and if Atari was doing the game justice.

Hat tip to Chris Brogan for being the first I saw to blog and twitter Gary Gygax’ death.