Gary Gygax co-created Dungeons and Dragons in 1974.  His obituary today got me thinking and reminscing.  I was in elementary school in the late 70s when D&D made it to California.  I recall my fourth grade teacher having to explain to me the difference between chain mail and postal mail! 

As kids my friends and I played with army men, and occasionally would incorporate dice and rulers, and impose rules.  When we ran around the hills and fields of pre-Sprawl Bay Area, we role played as knights, and soldiers, and cowboys.  Just as we were about to cross from kids to adolescents, along came Dungeons and Dragons, a game with imagination, and heroes, and monsters, and that was OK for big kids, and even adults to play.

Gary Gygax made it OK for grown ups to keep dreaming, playing, imagining, and inventing.  I’d wager that MOST of us in the games industry over age 30 got our start playing DnD back in the day.  Back then there was Atari and DnD, and you could not buy Atari for a week’s allowance.

One thing in his obit by the AP made me smile, they perfectly described DnD: “Dungeons & Dragons players create fictional characters for themselves and describe their adventures with the help of complicated rules and unusually shaped dice.” 

Who else credits Gary Gygax for their lifelong love, creation, and play of games?