The death of Gary Gygax on Tuesday took awhile to hit me. The timing of his death, coming as the building the crescendo of excitement of the release of DND 4E nears its peak, is for me one of those transcendent moments, a lens which will bend and focus my thoughts on tabletop gaming. One thought was quiet wonder at how and where the news was reported. Almost every mention came in a tech-related blog or section. The death of the creator of Dungeons and Dragons was, quite correctly, assumed to be a landmark event to techno-geek culture. Not that other folks don't play the game, but the soul of the game was embraced by folks who worked at Apple, or who have 'Linux' as their license plate, or otherwise loved their toil in technical arcana.
 Mr. Gygax's game had a profound effect on my life. I arrived as a freshman at Carleton College with a vague plan to get a degree in mathematics or perhaps some computer-related field. By the end of the first term I was bitten by the DND bug. I had read those little chapbook-sized rulebooks backwards and forwards, played in two campaigns and started my own. While I didn't know how I was going to do it, I knew that designing DND and role-playing games was what I was going to do for a living. James Bond 007, DC Heroes, Star Wars, Torg, Earthdawn, and approximately a hundred different published products all got their start from that pig-headed, unrealistic certainty. Games were my calling. That choice led me to meet a wondrous assortment of fans, pros, and soon-to-be-pros; many of them are friends to this day.
One of the late-night discussions I have had with fans is how and why DND took so darn long to make it to TV or film. In Chicago I knew actors and writers who played DND, but it didn't hold the same grip on them as it did for my geek friends. The result is DND left the tabletop via the fandom, inspired imagination, and elbow grease of the geek. Nethack, cartridges by Coleco and Atari, Telengard, the sometimes inspired SSI line of games, Ultima, Wizardry, Might and Magic ... any of these trip a nostalgia burst? Anyone remember being stunned by the vastness of Daggerfall? For those less ancient than I am, how may of you remember losing hours upon hours in some MUD, or discovering Everquest or World of Warcraft for the fist time? Anyone here have dawn sneak up on them will playing Final Fantasy? Whacking your way through the excellent Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance series with a friend? Geeks had taken the idea of DND, its core, polished and served it up in such a way that it was accessible to miliions of people, far beyond the scope of the tabletop game. Somewhere along the way, the geek-view of DND diverged significantly from the tabletop game. How classes are supposed to be arranged, how magic is supposed to work, what racial restrictions meant and how firm they were... a myriad evolutionary details. Geek-DND evolved into a different species than tabletop-DND. This point was repeatedly hammered home to me when I would try to DM or play with some of my coworkers on my more recent projects. Bottom line, they loved the idea of the tabletop game, and didn't care for its execution. The Vance-ian magic system was routinely declared broken, character options for most classes were seen as too limited, most classes were not seen as viable until at least 3rd level. The Mother Country of all character-based games was seen as so dilapidated and player-hostile that is wasn't even worth a visit. I could nudge some of them back to the table with a system like Savage Worlds. But DND was no longer a prime geek pastime. Their hobbies had evolved, and the game had not. Enter DND 4E. I was so excited when I heard about the changes being made. This is what my co-workers had been asking for. It promises to be an edition of DND that took some of the hard-won lessons of 30-years of geek-driven changes, and brings them back to the tabletop. Is it a significant departure from all previous editions? Sure looks like it. Will the changes cause problems with the fans. Probably, but the soul of the game remains, and the execution seems so much more in line with what geeks have been doing with DND for the past two decades. For the first time in more than ten years I can see this game being embraced by the geek core, who can evangelize folks as they did 25 years ago. The game should be more accessible, more familiar to players of console and MMORPGs. And Gary Gygax? First ... I am really going to miss him. He was a hero to me, a hero who loomed large because I worked so hard to emulate him. My career, my professional dreams would have not, could have not, existed except for his inspired invention. Just knowing that Gary was out there inspired me a little, let me hope a little. Now my hope, and belief, is DND 4E is the true and rightful heir to the game he and Dave Arneson birthed nearly 35 years ago, ready to entice and excite new generations of players. His legacy will live on. So the King is dead. Long live the King.
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