Cynematik • Cyndi Greening

Gary Gygax, one-half of the team that invented the original fantasy role playing game (Dungeons and Dragons, of course), passed away on March 4, 2008. From his modest Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, home—with collaborator Dave Arneson—Gygax’s game ultimately generated over $1 billion in sales and was played by an estimated 20 million people. During my college years at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire, I was one of those folks. I loved that game. My friends and I would spend hours, rolling the many sided dice as we explored underground lairs in search of treasure, trinkets and valuable experience points. For a long time, I was really into the game. I became a dungeon master, drawing my own elaborate worlds, populating them with gnomes, wizards, thieves and monsters. Some of my favorite memories of good times with friends revolved around those D&D games.

There were a number of reference manuals (which I am embarrassed to admit that I still own after all these years) on being a Dungeon Master, on capabilities of Creatures and Monsters, on every aspect of the game. Contemporary RPG games (like World of Warcraft or Halo or Assassin’s Creed) have players collecting experience points for chasing down and killing opponents. With D&D, it was all a roll of the dice … from four-sided to 20-sided … that determined our fate. Other than the drawings in the manuals, there was little to look at, so it was all in our imagination. Gary Gygax may very well have been the genesis of the modern gaming industry. May he rest in peace.