Respect to the Master

The father of Dungeons and Dragons is dead. Gary Gygax, 69, succumbed on Tuesday after struggling with health problems for past few years. I remember first reading about D&D in comics, and then getting intrigued about this thing called 'pen and paper gaming'. I bugged my relatives in the US to get me the game even though my parents often said that this D&D thing was 'satanic'. When I eventually got my first D&D set, it was the Campaign Rules set, which was totally useless and over my head without the previous Basic and Expert sets, but I devoured it hungrily and made my own rules with a bunch of six-sided die and my imagination.

And more than all the cool manuals and art and modules and novels and worlds introduced by D&D over the years, the most I can say that it have me was the capacity to create- to make my own worlds, to make my own heroes and party of adventurers to venture into realms unknown. Thanks to Dungeons and Dragons, I created kingdoms, empires, continents, heroes, villains, curses, legends, myths, artifacts, monsters, deities, cults, mysteries and countless other cool stuff in my mixed-up grey matter. I owe D&D so much of what I am today as a creator, writer, player and gamer.

Thank you Gary. Dungeon Master. Rest in peace.