A moment of silence...

[DrukenHammer]

Gary Gygax, co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons and one of the fathers of tabletop role-playing games, died on Tuesday at the age of 69. He had suffered from heart problems.

The news was first announced on the message board of Troll Lord Games, the publisher of Gygax's most recent works. It has since been directly confirmed by the company, which will post an announcement on its Web site later Tuesday.

Gygax was best known for helping create Dungeons & Dragons and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. He also pioneered tabletop role-playing games. The first D&D rulebooks were released in 1974 by TSR, and since then have produced three full-fledged sequels, numerous revisions and updates, and dozens upon dozens of additional rulebooks, settings, and campaigns. While Gygax hadn't had much direct involvement with D&D for many years, he developed and contributed to many role-playing games, including Troll Lord Games' Gary Gygax's Fantasy Worlds.

If not for his contributions, video games and geek culture would probably look much different than it does today. Beyond jokes about "d20s" and "saving throws," D&D's systems and mythos have spawned many excellent games, including Baldur's Gate and Planescape: Torment.

Dungeons & Dragons continues to develop. Since TSR was purchased by Wizards of the Coast, the game has seen even more expansions and updates. The company released Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition in 2000, and Dungeons & Dragons 4.0 is scheduled to ship in June. Though he didn't actively produce the latest editions of the game, neither they nor the countless video games, books, and other media that carry the D&D name would have been possible without him.

Sad news, without Gary Gygax, none of us would be doing anything like this. Safe to say, without his influence there may not be RPGs of any kind (tabletop, video games, online). If it would, it certainly would not be as prominent as it is. Without him, Lurid and I would have never been exposed to the fantastic world of roleplaying and I highly doubt Kalarsys would exist

[Zain Winters]

*grabs a D&D book, takes down the American flag and hoists the book onto the pole, salutes the book as it flaps in the wind*

[Lurid Sorcerer]

You're right Druken. There's almost no chance that any of us would be here, and you certainly wouldn't be using the name Drukenhammer.

Kalarsys, it's infant form "Demons," was simply a way for the few of us playing at the time to experience a D&D-like game without having to buy and books or dice. Plus, it let us design the game as we played it, adding complexity when we grew bored, and developing our role playing and tale spinning skills all the while. Kalarsys as we know it today was born from my desire to create a game that was easy to play, as World of Darkness, but was extensible. If I had never played D&D and thus started "Demons," this would have never came about. By taking perspective from playing both WoD and D&D, I began work on my project.

Though I now own books and dice from both games, I continue to develop Kalarsys because of the way it allows us to interact with each other. A world without that would be a pointless one, indeed!

*salutes the 1st Ed. Player's Handbook on the flagpole*

[DC_Desperado]

.... i've had to salute alot of things... but thats one worth saluting all day.

*salutes.*