So, it’s not news to anyone by now, but Gary Gygax, who is widely regarded as the inventor of role-playing games, has died.

I think it’s safe to say that without the influence of Gygax (and others like him; Dave Arneson,Marc Miller, and Kevin Siembieda leap to mind,) I would not be the man I am today. Reason enough to visit his house and make sure he’s dead, some might say. But that would be unfair — he did so much more than lead me to a life of geekery; he invented a new type of game that, you could argue, fundamentally changed our perception of play, and led more or less to every game that came after it. From the kids (young and old,) who still meet weekly to eat pizza and playDungeons and Dragons, through all of the other games that brought their own style and personality to the hobby he invented and all the computer games that aim to recreate that same feeling through a keyboard and a monitor to the global juggernaut that is World of Warcraft, they all owe a debt of gratitude to E. Gary Gygax. Put simply: the world of entertainment would not be where it is today without his input.