The Dice are Silent
Posted By Kathleen David on March 4, 2008
I found out through a friend that Ernest Gary Gygax had lost his saving throw verse death (2nd edition rule of course). This news stunned me. I knew through the grapevine that he had been in poor health for a while now. He had some serious medical problems that he seemed to be dealing with for the most part but still considering the number of medical problems that he had been having, it surprises me that I am not writing this sooner.
This is not really about Gary Gygax. I met him a couple of times over the years. I was inarticulate the first time because he was fri’king Gary Gygax. I was better subsequent times that our paths crossed. He loved the fans and listened to so many tales told of things that happened in people’s campaigns and to their characters. I admired his patience with people even when you could tell he was really tired.
This is about what Gary Gygax did for me. The first game I played that he created was Chainmail which was the precursor to D&D. I was introduced to Dungeons and Dragons through my high school science fiction club and a party that we threw that some gamers came to by invitation and we all arranged to get together and game. They brought the box set of D&D and ran us through the basic rules. My first character was a pretty generic fighter that got killed about half way through the dungeon. But I had a lot of fun. We agreed to get back together in two weeks and try it again. And we started gaming about every two weeks.
I remember the excitement when we found out about Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. We went to the “Sword of the Phoenix” when the books were released and got a set. Which put a gamer back a pretty penny but the system was a beautiful thing. We passed the books around and learned the new rules and got out our dice to try it. That was the real beginning of my love for role-playing games.
Gaming became a touchstone for me. I can’t tell you how many friends I have made over the table. I can’t tell you how many games or campaigns I have been a part of. Gaming became a part of me and still is.
One of the longer campaigns that I played, I had a ranger who was pretty kicking stats-wise. But he had no luck what so ever or rather my dice hated me for a time. He ended up with a dragon shaped scar on his face and left arm which was critical for an adventure but really knocked the hit points down. Then there was the night that we were talking about homosexuality because of some stuff that had happened on campus that week. So we figured out the statistical probability of being gay and rolled for each of our characters. And all of the sudden I was running a gay ranger. I still have a fondness for that character. Heck, I probably still have his sheets. But that is D&D, you create and play in the world of your creation with the rules as set down in the rule books.
Yes, I made the dice bag that my original dice are still housed in. I branched out from D&D and did some play testing over the years for GuRPs and the original Vampire; The Masquerade way back in the late 80s and early 90s. I have played a lot of different role playing games in my day but it all comes back to D&D for me. That was my first love.
My sympathies are with Gary’s family and extended family.
I got to thank him for giving me such a wonderful creative outlet and for that I am grateful. I think I’m going to see if I know where my dice bag is and, if my brother hasn’t already taken them, get my books from my parent’s house which included the Deities and DemiGods that was recalled along with the original box set and a very old copy of Chainmail. He created something very special that will live on far into the future.
Game On!
“JFK’s death by gunshot/assignation”
Death by assignation? Oh, Jerry, don’t tell me you’re one of those Marilyn Monroe conspiracy theorists…
TWL
The point I was trying to make in my responses to the JFK Jr. plane crash was that many people were expounding on how terribly sad it was that he – whom they admired so much, either for being a Kennedy, or being handsome, or because they had seen him grow up in the spotlight, or perhaps some other reason – had died, while making absolutely nothing of his wife and sister in law dying in the same crash. The FAA investigation found pilot error to be a major factor in the crash, and that makes the pilot’s death less disturbing to me than that of the people he flew into the ocean. I won’t deny that my comments were in poor taste – but my behaving like an ášš doesn’t make that sort of thing right. You could cite any bad thing you like – bad driving, rudeness, theft, murder or anything at all – and say, very accurately, that it has been done before, continues to be done, and that many people get away with it – but it is wrong to claim such things must be all right, then. Consider the worst things you think about me. Some of them are true. Do you think that means it’s perfectly fine for anyone to do those things, since I have? I don’t: I’ve done things I shouldn’t have (and I’m not referring to the spats on this site, but other, more important things); I was wrong, and I would change some of them if I could. They aren’t going to change, and they’re still wrong for me or anyone else to do.
You make much of the fact that I wrote about Teddy Kennedy’s mishaps and JFK Jr.’s death, somehow making these things quite current – not like the JFK assassination. The plane crash was on July 16, 1999: That’s nearly nine years ago. The Chappaquiddick incident occurred in 1969, thirty years before that. You can decide for yourself whether the passage of time alters the propriety of humor, but really ought to admit that what happened 9 or 39 years ago is well in the past, and not just last week. When I talk about the recently deceased, what happened in 2008 is more immediate than what happened 39 years ago.
“Death by assignation? Oh, Jerry, don’t tell me you’re one of those Marilyn Monroe conspiracy theorists…”
No, I was up late and didn’t cath it in the proof read. I must have botched the spelling for “assassination” and the automatic spell checker must have decided that I was shooting for “assignation” instead. Hey, I’ve got an 8 month old and I’m working on no sleep at all these days. I’m happy I can still spell my name right.
I was just kidding, Jerry — I think you got that, but given the 8-month-old effect I figured I’d clarify! (I remember that effect all too well…)
I still like “death by assignation,” though. Not counting political deaths by assignation (cf. Spitzer, Eliot), could we use that to refer to Nelson Rockefeller?
TWL
Jeffrey, I have to admit…you covered yourself for a good, long while. But, and I know this will shock some, I think I like Mike better than you now. Mike, at the least, is entertaining, somewhat and in small doses, and I think he genuinely tries to conversate.
You…you’re either truly dense, or you deliberatly misunderstand what people post.
Example: I say you don’t understand a particular community, in referrence to the recent passing of one of that community’s founding memebers.
You go on to blather about how I’m making out those member to be a unique species.
The point you’re totally missing? That unless you understand a community, you cannot begin to make accurate observations on actions, words, and deeds that you see.
I don’t know how you go from me saying there’a s gaming community to interpreting me saying that gamers are a unique species. That’s a jump in logic that’s impressive by any standard.
Anyway, I think I’ll be ignoring you from now on. I occasionally engage Mike because I’ve seen in him the ability…rare as it is…to actually converse, back and forth. Trying to talk with you makes me wonder if my Universal Translator is broken.
bobb alfred: Although you’ve previously shown good understanding of big words, I’ll use small ones to be very clear. Saying an action is good because of the group the people involved are in is saying different standards apply to different people – that what’s normal and good for gamers is different from what’s normal and good for non-gamers. I don’t think enjoying RPGs makes one particularly different from anyone else – so if it would be rude for an average person to make light of a relative stranger’s passing it would also be rude for a gamer to do so. “Such and such an action is not rude, and here’s why I say that” is a good defense against my accusation. “It’s OK for gamers” is not.
I’ve never played Dungeons and Dragons, or any other role-playing game, so I only have a passing awareness of Mr. Gygax. Still, my condolences to his family and friends.
While I’ve never played any role-playing games, I did buy one back in high school: the Star Trek role-playing game. The intent was to play it with my friends Joe and Ken, who had some familiarity with such games.
And then Ken moved away. And as I understand it, you need at least three people to play such games. So it never got played.
I still have the 10-sided dice from that game. A friend and former co-worker and I sometimes used them to make lunchtime Backgammon matches more… interesting.
Question: With such dice, if you roll an 8 on one and a 9 on the other, did you roll an 89, a 98 or a 17?
Rick
Rick — it’s either an 89 or a 98. Typically you label one die in advance as the 10s digit and the other as the 1s.
TWL