MILWAUKEE (AP) - Gary Gygax, who co-created the fantasy game Dungeons & Dragons and is widely seen as the father of the role-playing games, died Tuesday morning at his home in Lake Geneva. He was 69. He had been suffering from health problems for several years, including an abdominal aneurysm, said his wife, Gail Gygax.
Gygax and Dave Arneson developed Dungeons & Dragons in 1974 using medieval characters and mythical creatures. The game known for its oddly shaped dice became a hit, particularly among teenage boys, and eventually was turned into video games, books and movies.
Gygax always enjoyed hearing from the game's legion of devoted fans, many of whom would stop by the family's home in Lake Geneva, about 55 miles southwest of Milwaukee, his wife said. Despite his declining health, he hosted weekly games of Dungeons & Dragons as recently as January, she said.
"It really meant a lot to him to hear from people from over the years about how he helped them become a doctor, a lawyer, a policeman, what he gave them," Gail Gygax said. "He really enjoyed that."
Dungeons & Dragons players create fictional characters and carry out their adventures with the help of complicated rules. The quintessential geek pastime, it spawned a wealth of copycat games and later inspired a whole genre of computer games that's still growing in popularity.
Born Ernest Gary Gygax, he grew up in Chicago and moved to Lake Geneva at the age of 8. Gygax's father, a Swiss immigrant who played violin in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, read fantasy books to his only son and hooked him on the genre, Gail Gygax said.
Gygax dropped out of high school but took anthropology classes at the University of Chicago for a while, she said. He was working as an insurance underwriter in the 1960s, when he began playing war-themed board games.
But Gygax wanted to create a game that involved more fantasy. To free up time to work on that, he left the insurance business and became a shoe repairman, she said.
Gygax also was a prolific writer and wrote dozens of fantasy books, including the Greyhawk series of adventure novels.
Gary Sandelin, 32, a Manhattan attorney, said his weekly Dungeons & Dragons game will be a bit sadder on Wednesday night because of Gygax's passing. The beauty of the game is that it's never quite the same, he said.
Funeral arrangements are pending. Besides his wife, Gygax is survived by six children.
Posted by OldLordSkull on Wed Mar 05, 2008 3:53 pm ( Reads: 1244 )(comments? Gaming Industry | Score: 0)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
RPGNow and DriveThruRPG Merge
Atlanta, GA, Thursday, October 26, 2006 - RPGNow and DriveThruRPG announced today that the two leaders in the digital delivery of electronic roleplaying games have merged together to form a new company called OneBookShelf.
OneBookShelf will continue to operate both the RPGNow and DriveThru websites while a new, fully integrated site is developed that will replace the existing sites. Publishers and titles that were once exclusive to one site will now conveniently be displayed on both sites so rpg fans can find all of their favorite titles on their preferred site.
Steve Wieck explained DriveThruRPG's desire to merge, "Our goal from day one has been to offer consumers their choice of any roleplaying game ever published available for instant download 24/7 world-wide. We will be able to meet that goal sooner by combining forces with RPGNow."
The merger is being treated as a merger of equals with all employees and owners of both companies carrying on with the new OneBookShelf company. DriveThru's latest digital delivery site DriveThruComics is also now part of OneBookShelf.
"The focus of the merger is providing the best experience for rpg fans. Combined with DriveThruRPG, we will now offer consumers over 9,000 titles from over 500 different publishers. Many of the titles have never been available in print or are no longer available in print," said James Mathe at RPGNow.
Both RPGNow and DriveThru will be down for a few hours tomorrow as the content of the sites is cross-listed.
OneBookShelf also announced that it has formed partnerships with the two largest rpg community sites, RPGnet and EN World to operate download stores connected to those community sites. Fans can support their favorite community site by purchasing from the new EN World and RPGnet download stores.
Shannon Appelcline of RPGnet said :"I think it's great for the rpg community that RPGNow and DriveThruRPG are joining forces. Once the new RPGnet download store is unveiled, it will give the RPGnet community even more convenient access to instantly get the best top brand and indie rpg titles available, while supporting RPGnet at the same time".
Russ Morrissey, owner of EN World described the new partnership with OneBookShelf: "This is a winning situation for everyone involved - customers, publishers, OneBookShelf and EN World. We should have done this years ago! Now EN World's members can support their favourite publishers and EN World at the same time! And EN World can support those publishers without worrying about who's buying what where. In addition, we at EN World get to concentrate on what we do best - D&D news, and a fun community.
"EN World has been a fundamental part of growing the RPG PDF industry from the outset, as a great source of information and reviews for the customers and a fantastic source of marketing for the publishers. We've decided to partner with OneBookShelf for the operation of the EN World download store because they can provide our community more title choices, from Wizards of the Coast to EN Publishing, to the newest independent publishers, and they can provide the level of customer support to which we feel this wonderful community is entitled."
"We are in discussion with more potential partners as well," said James Mathe of OneBookShelf. "Our goal is to allow all publishers to load their titles with us and be assured that they are reaching every corner of the rpg community world-wide. Publishers can devote their time to creating great content and communicating with their fans."
One consequence of the affiliate stores is that the RPGNow site which had been divided into a main site and an RPGEdge site devoted to small press rpgs will now combine all publishers into a single RPGNow site.
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