Growing up my friends and I played Dungeons & Dragons, a lot (and just for the record I never once considered myself a geek). Those days have since passed; and now, sadly, so has the creator of D&D; Gary Gygax.
Gygax started out playing miniature war games such as Gettysburg. His love of science fiction and fantasy novels combined with a fascination with Medieval history led him, and his friend Don Kaye, to found the publishing company Tactical Studies Rules in 1973 and publish the first version of Dungeons & Dragons in 1974. The hand-assembled print run of 1000 copies sold out within nine months. After the death of Kaye in 1976, his widow sold her shares to Gygax. Gygax, now controlling the whole of Tactical Studies Rules, created TSR Hobbies, Inc. Unfortunately,Gygax experienced financial troubles soon after and sold TSR Hobbies to Brian Blume and his brother Kevin. The Blume family would own roughly two-thirds of TSR Hobbies by late 1976. Tactical Studies Rules published the two first printings of the original D&D and TSR Hobbies, Inc. continued on with the game.
Gygax left TSR in 1985 when changes in management created a conflict. He formed the corporation Dungeons and Dragons Entertainment which eventually led to the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon series on CBS. Later on, Gygax created Dangerous Journeys, an RPG spanning multiple genres. He began work in 1995 on a new RPG, originally intended for a computer game; however, it was released in 1999 as Lejendary Adventure. A key goal of its design was to keep the gaming rules as simple as possible, as Gygax felt that role playing games were becoming discouragingly complex to new users.
In 2005, Gygax returned to the Dungeons & Dragons RPG with his involvement in the creation of the Castles & Crusades system with Troll Lord Games. Troll Lord Games has published Castle Zagyg, the previously unreleased, original version of Gygax’s Castle Greyhawk with the original dungeon setting for D&D.
Gygax died the morning of March 4, 2008, at his home in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin at the age of 69. He was in semi-retirement, having almost suffered a heart attack after receiving incorrect medication to prevent further strokes after those on April 1 and May 4, 2004. He was diagnosed with an inoperable abdominal aortic aneurysm.
I will roll 2d10 percentile dice in your memory.