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[urbpan]

While we wonder what we can say about the passing of Gary Gygax, I've gone and posted my review of The Call of Cthulhu, the 2005 silent movie adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's signature story.

I never knew much of Gygax, except that his name appeared on the games and in the pages of Dragon magazine (which, I must disclose, I subscribed to for a year). I was delighted to see him appear on "The Simpsons," Futurama in a good natured self-parody (as all guests on "The Simpsons" and "Futurama" must be) but that was all I'd ever seen of him. Suffice it to say, the gaming paradigm he engineered changed my life, and changed how everyone thought about gaming. The Sims, Second Life, Gaia, WoW, Halo, and all the other ways of playing through living alternate lives were made possible by Gygax's popularization of role playing. Dungeons and Dragons became a phenomenon and a fad, but also spurred on hundreds of spinoffs and copycats, many of which surpassed D&D in originality and playability. But you'll always remember your first dungeon adventure.

Read my review of The Call of Cthulhu (the movie, not the role-playing game, which I also played and enjoyed) at Blood, Blade, and Thruster.

Comments

[badnoodles.livejournal.com]

When was he on the Simpsons? I only know that he was in the Futurama episode with Al Gore and Nichelle Nichols.

D'oh!

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

Er, uh, yeah.

That other show.

[aemiis-zoo.livejournal.com]

When did Gygax die?