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I am saddened today by the death of Gary Gygax. Mr. Gygax was the co-inventor of the pen and paper Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) role playing game. Some of my favorite high-school memories were of playing D&D with friends. In 1980 I was introduced to the game by my brother who was 18 months and one grade level ahead of me. In very few other venues would a 14 year old be accepted by 16 and 17 year olds as a peer, and it is amazing to me how D&D and its decedents foster a culture of acceptance and tolerance of age, gender race and lifestyle that the broader community could learn from.

This transcendence has even translated effectively to modern descendants of the original game. About 18 months ago I rediscovered the joy of role-playing in a fantasy setting via World of Warcraft (WoW); in the same way that I was instantly accepted 25 years ago by the older kids when I asked to play D&D, I was matter-of-factly accepted again by a group of WoW players more than 20 years my junior. WoW is a melting pot of 10 million people and even my small guild had a female co-guild master, a few African-Americans and several gay men. All were accepted into this meritocracy, where the only real criteria for acceptance were: how well do you play and how well do you socialize with the others (I also think it helped that I had a computer with two monitors, so I could always be counted on to have thottbot at the ready to answer questions in guild chat).

I believe that Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson (his co-creator) deserve much credit for adapting the medieval fantasy world of J.R.R Tolkien into a playable pen and paper game, but the real the genius of it was the way which the game provided enjoyment and challenge for people of all different cognitive styles. I personally loved rolling new characters, outfitting them, and drawing the pen and paper maps as we progressed through the environment, but the game also has immersive elements for people who excel at math, logic, tactics and strategy, those with a quick wit, and those with acting/improvisation talents.

Then they wrapped it in a perfect blanket of collaborative game-play and puzzle solving, the crazy idea of getting all your friends together for game night to play TOGETHER against a common enemy (the game) has proved successful beyond even Gary’s wildest imagination.

Gary, thank you for sharing your imagination and dreams with the rest of us and for making this world a more tolerant place: one dungeon at a time….

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