Image courtesy David Louis Edelman.

Terrible news from the world of gaming, for those who haven't heard; E Gary Gygax, one of the creators of legendary roleplaying game Dungeons & Dragons, died this week in his late sixties. The online community being what it is, there are of course a ton of tributes and bios to the man around the blogosphere right now, as well as lots of essays about the cultural and artistic impact of D&D that are more astute than I could possibly write; I do, however, have a personal story about Gygax, which I thought I'd share...

Back in 1982, in my eighth-grade English class, one of our assignments was to write a letter to someone considered an expert in their field, asking them more detailed questions about their field; being the twice-weekly player of D&D I already was by then (er, AD&D, I mean), I of course wrote to Gygax up there in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. And lo and behold, I was one of only a half-dozen kids in my class to actually receive a response; and not only that, but it was a three-page handwritten response as well, on this luxurious cream paper with a frilly detailed TSR letterhead at the top.

It was a real thrill for me to receive, and to this day hard for me to believe that the man actually took the time to sit and write out a handwritten letter like that about obscure gaming rules to some pubescent kid doing a homework assignment; from what I've been reading online this week, though, it seems that this was the kind of man Gygax was at all times, a gregarious creator who was always infinitely tickled that others enjoyed what he did. That's the best kind of artist to be, I think, and it's a shame that another one is gone from this world; rest in peace, Gary Gygax, and rest assured that history will remember you well.