Gary Gygax, co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, died this morning. From the WKBT.com site:

Gary Gygax . . . died this morning at his home in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, about 55 miles southwest of Milwaukee.

His wife, Gail Gygax, says he had been suffering from health problems for several years, including an abdominal aneurysm.

Like many people, Dungeons & Dragons was the first role-playing game I ever played. I got into the game early enough that all the multi-sided dice required to play were not yet included with the game, or even purchasable at local hobby stores. Instead, the game came with sheets of cardstock full of numbers that you had to cut up into little squares, called "chits." You put the chits into a Dixie cup, shook, and pulled out a number—that was how you "rolled dice" back in the day.

That RPG started an important ball rolling for me. I played other RPGs, found a focus and outlet for my artwork, characters, worlds, mythologies, fake languages, diagrams, stories, and eventually game design ideas. I learned as well—a parachutist whose chute didn't open survived a fall of several thousand feet, people walk at about 2 – 3 mph, the inability to avoid a bit of statistics with all that dice rolling. Clearly, Mr. Gygax and his game played very important roles in both my entertainment passions guiding me toward my current occupation as a game designer for an online fantasy game called Dungeon Runners.

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