My Inspirations: Come On, Like You Have to Ask

There really only can be one subject for this week. The only surprise was that I forgot to include him among the original list I planned on using for this blog. Despite that oversight, how can I not write about Gary Gygax this week? I mean, I think I have to. You're not legally allowed to remain on the Internet without talking about it.

Sorry, I don't want to be too glib here. It's harder to write about this sort of thing when you're a few days past the original shock, but that doesn't mean Gary doesn't deserve it. My story on how Gary changed my life is a bit different than most, however.

Part of the problem is that I'm 28. Many of the stories I read in the past week were made by people slightly older, and who grew up in a different time. They predated not only the Internet and the general fad of geekiness, but also video games and other semi-popular geeky interests. For them, Dungeons and Dragons were often it. It becomes the tale of a shy, awkward outsider who made their first close friends, and sometimes even found love, through the game.

My story was a bit different, because by the time I was in grade school, let alone junior high, high school, and college, low-level geekery had already flooded the world. The Internet wasn't a mainstream thing until high school or so, but until then, everyone and their brother had a Nintendo. School lunch rooms rang with battles between Nintendo and Sega supporters. Our entire generation grew up to be gamers, of one degree or another.

And so I already found a place and a community of sorts that way. I read gaming magazines, memorized the names of famous designers, and dedicated much of my mental capacities to gaming. And I had friends in the same way. My closest friends as I grew up were all gamers in one way or another.

But they weren't role-playing gamers. Bonding for us meant playing Earthworm Jim or Contra 3. I nonetheless tried to influence them otherwise. I asked, pleaded, and/or browbeat them into at least occasionally trying other types of games. And it wasn't always Dungeons and Dragons, either. In fact, it was often Toon, a much simpler RPG designed to do little but make the players laugh, or even an even simpler, almost rules-less game of my own making. I will be dealing further with both of these games in later blogs, but I'll be focusing on D&D now.

But that begs the question of how D&D, and thus Gary, became one of my inspirations. I never played regularly until college, after all. Sure, I enjoyed the trappings of the game. I liked going to Gen Con annually, and getting the books, and making campaign settings. But finding nobody who really wanted to play was disappointing, and watching games I planned in the very long term crash and burn before they could even start was often painful.

But it did inspire me, just not in the "here's a social group for geeks like us" way. It inspired me to create. I didn't exactly need the help; video games did this well before I even realized Dungeons and Dragons existed as something beyond the Pool of Radiance video game. But the differences were notable, because making something in an RPG gave you two things that making video game design documents didn't. They offered validity, and they offered public evaluation and gratification.

The former is a bit ironic, since Mr. Gygax himself was once famous for his hard-line stance against house rules. But it's still applicable. When I want to make a video game, my ideas never can get past stage 2, at least in a foreseeable future. I conceive of them and then, if I really get lucky and passionate about it, I write down the details. That's really about it. Very simple ideas could theoretically be made using cheap and novice-friendly build engines, but the big ideas, the ones that really inspire me, are forever elusive without a massive budget and an interested development team. An RPG idea, though, ends at the written level. If I write a module, I have a module. It may not be as polished as a professional one and the art is nonexistent, but the basic element is identical.

The second aspect is harder to appreciate, but just as important. Since my video game ideas never get past the design level, they can't ever be evaluated. I can't determine if they're good or bad. When I'm DMing, though, the idea can be evaluated by an interested and appreciate group immediately. Is the game fun? I won!

This does feel less like a tribute to Gary Gygax and more like a general "why I like tabletop RPGs," I have to admit. But I know precisely how any of these things came into being. Gary Gygax (and Dave Arneson; let's not forget him,) were largely responsible for this codification of fantasy, of adventure, of the arts that have inspired so many of us geeks. Without that system, making adventures, campaign settings, and monsters for that system would be impossible. And the influence of D&D is felt throughout the world well beyond D&D. The same ideas were used to influence video games, and both influenced modern fantasy in television, movies, and other mediums. And who do we think design these modern fantasies? People who, more than likely, were themselves players of D&D as kids. No, Gary Gygax didn't personally create Megaman, or Final Fantasy, or Buffy. But the greatest artists are the ones who uplift other artists, to support kings and philosophers, and to elevate culture throughout the world. Gary Gygax did just that, and I can only hope to do the same some day.

Rest in Peace, Mr. Gygax. I hope you're somewhere out there still, groaning with irritation at all the "he failed his saving throw" jokes.