Gary Gygax died in his Lake Geneva (Minnesota) home on March 4th this year at the age of 69 - apparently from complications possibly arising from an abdominal aneurysm.
For those of you in the 'who the hell is Gary Gygax?' camp - he was the old, wise, bearded gentleman most commonly associated with the invention of the role-playing game. Yes, Gygax is seen as inventing Dungeons and Dragons (and Advanced Dungeons and Dragons). By doing so he brought the notion of turn-based role-playing games to the tables and cellar floors of millions around the world.
This means that, if you're playing and loving
Mass Effect,
Tabula Rasa,
Final Fantasy 0-XXXIV or - poor you -
Folklore, many people will claim that you owe it all to Mr Gary Gygax and his cohorts at TSR Games.
According to his local newspaper,
The Star Tribune, "Gygax dropped out of high school but took anthropology classes at the University of Chicago for a while.
"He was working as an insurance underwriter in the 1960s, when he began playing war-themed board games."
So, farewell then Mr Gary Gygax - anybody who can go from insurance underwriter to inventor of an entire genre of game-play deserves a decent send off.
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