A month ago, on gamesmaster day - 4th of March, one of the most important designers of our role playing universe died. Actually you can read it in many places. Without him there might not have been our hobby of fantasy role playing. True, his ideas diverged with those of many others after, but his foundations were _the_ foundations of the game. And I guess everyone who's a bit of a fantasy role player knew.

Originally Gary Gygax was a dabbling designer of war games in the seventies, and probably before, in the sixties too. His small press wargame “Chainmail” became the base of a new game he, Dave Arneson and friends were testing at university campuses. This became Dungeons & Dragons. It was such a hit that Gary chanced to publish the game himself, and thus he flooded his basement with hundreds and hundreds of small printed booklets until they were sold. I guess his wife must have shaken her head many times. Anyhow the game became a success, and Gary came to be an icon.

His company Tactical Studies Rules (TSR) later was taken over by younger people who believed they could make more money from the business. They could. But many older gamers started missing the old, special feel the games used to have. Did Dungeons & Dragons and their counterparts become too commercial, too much about buying books and too little about the exciting, almost mystical underground feel it used to have? The original Gygax books certainly had the air of mysterious magickal tomes, spellbooks. And I guess he added more to this feel than just obtuse, almost poetical prose with more unreadable words than the average programming manual. Gary did something right. Very right.

Gary went on to write another version of D&D in Powers & Perils, but it never was the same. Most terms in D&D were trademarked, copyrighted and labeled eternal property of the lawyers. So most terms in Powers & Perils meant the same but were worded entirely different. It didn't work. Gary wrote a book about Games Mastery. That's where I lost him. Instead of being a book of hints and tips to make your game more interesting, it read more like an almost monastic, religious manual for upcoming knights templar. Maybe he lost it too, at that moment. Or maybe I should reread it.

But Gary went on writing, both games and novels. He kept a central place in many gaming conventions, and inspired many old and new players. And he kept experimenting. Who knows there are nuggets of gold to be found in his later writings as well as his earlier ones.

I can easily imagine him now as an Obi-Wan-Kenobi, floating invisibly and leading young game masters gently to their destiny. Even if we diverged, we owe a lot. Thanks Gary, for everything. Maybe we should petition you for canonisation after all. Saint Garius Gygax.