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What kind of D&D Nerd would I be if I don’t say something about Gary Gygax’s passing? Probably a very ill-informed one, at best.

Back on March 4th, 2008, the D&D community’s beloved father of D&D passed on to other realms. His passing made for big news, as it was seen just about everywhere. And though Gary Gygax was just one of the creators of D&D, I think he was the best known for it.

Though while many people always attributed Gary Gygax with D&D, it was hardly his only work. He was also responsible for other roleplaying game systems as well, with his most recent ones being Lejendary Adventures and Castles & Crusades.

One of the key things he tried to do with his newer game systems was to simplify the rules. And admittedly, with what D&D has become, the simplicity can be seen as quite a blessing. Gary Gygax even said, during a GameSpy interview:

The new D&D is too rule intensive. It’s relegated the Dungeon Master to being an entertainer rather than master of the game. It’s done away with the archetypes, focused on nothing but combat and character power, lost the group cooperative aspect, bastardized the class-based system, and resembles a comic-book superheroes game more than a fantasy RPG where a player can play any alignment desired, not just lawful good.

With my experience, this does actually ring true, at least to a degree. With a large group of people, it can be very overwhelming trying to run this game, and make sure that everyone is having fun. It can even get to the point where the DM isn’t having fun at all. However, with only a couple people, modern D&D can still be a lot of fun.

Of course, there’s also the shear number of books that add new classes, feats, skills, spells, and miscellaneous abilities. Even though they’re fun to peruse, it’s an utter nightmare to keep track of all of them.

However, despite how complex modern D&D has become, it still has a large following (including myself, of course ). Gary Gygax’s creation has had a huge impact on this world, and continues to do so. And D&D is indeed quite the phenomenon, as it will still continue on despite his passing.

In honor of Gary Gygax, I plan to run a Tomb of Horrors adventure with my D&D group, using the 3.5 system. I recommend that fellow D&D Nerds do the same. However, it needn’t be just Tomb of Horrors, but any module or any game system that was created by him. I would definitely recommend running a campaign in his honor using one of his latest systems, like Lejendary Adventures!

If you want to see what Gary Gygax has created throughout his life, there’s a good Wikipedia article about him:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Gygax