Dungeons and Dragons and great writers

Gary Gygax died Tuesday. As the more subsequently involved of the two creators of the role playing game Dungeons and Dragons, he's responsible for many an hour of reading and playing with my friends as a teenager and college student. It wasn't always D&D I was playing (Adventure Quest was the local scene at Purdue), but without it so much of the fantasy adventure genre as I knew it simply wouldn't have existed.

My introduction to D&D, as is the case with many of my interests, came by way of my cousin Jim, who owned most of the rule books and quest modules, as well as the novels based on the game. I would borrow them and read them cover to cover, even the parts meant only for the Dungeon Master because I couldn't resist. Some of the books have spawned the most fun and engrossing video games I've ever played, the Baldur's Gate series and Neverwinter Nights. Then there were misfires like the live action movie, the less said about the better, and the animated cartoon (which Gygax had a big hand in). I remember just one scene of one episode of the cartoon, and I probably watched the whole series, which didn't last long.

Of course, with the success of the Lord of the Rings films, fantasy is enjoying a renaissance at the moment, but when I was growing up it was more likely to get you labeled a nerd or draw disapproving looks from the folks. There were stories going around at the time of kids who believed they were the characters they played, and when the character died they killed themselves. This was actually a myth based on a couple incidents where people did kill themselves, but not because they were delusional, rather they lost characters they had spent so much time on, building their experience and abilities, that they were distraught to lose all the "work" they had put into them (and likely depressed, too). Maybe a subtle distinction, but not the same thing. Picture a writer who's only copy of his manuscript gets destroyed before anyone could read it and you'll get the idea. For some players in that age range, the characters they ran in D&D were more like friends, or works of art.

Another of the stereotypes about role-players was the dressing up in costume, which I was surprised to find when I got to college was a real phenomenon, one I engaged in on a couple of Halloween adventures put on by a club I was a member of at Purdue. "Cosplay" is now a big deal at conventions of all kinds.

Wikipedia has a great article on TSR, Inc., the company Gygax helped build and run to get D&D out to the geeks of the world, well worth a read. His success despite adversity is an inspiration to all of us writers who'd like to change the world.