I still remember when D & D first came out. Traditional wargamers like me weren't supposed to play it. The people playing it were weird, supposedly.
After seeing it the highest rated game ever in Strategy and Tactics Magazine, I bought the first edition. For many of you, it may be impossible to understand how archaic the system was back then, coming off the back of a miniatures game called Chainmail.
Well, my 'wargame' club saw the game. I made my first D & D campaign in 1973, I think (sorry, it was so long ago!). By 1974, we were now effectively a role playing club. No matter how archaic the first edition rules were, it WAS D & D. It was an experience like no other. Instead of playing games against each other, the team played TOGETHER. The rules weren't great, but our imaginations were. I may never had the fun of my first two D & D campaigns, which between them lasted 12 years. My notes to my second campaign are over 800 pages long, I still keep them. I have over 100 maps.
D & D is now the 'mainstream' for fantasy; that is, in fantasy books now gnomes are 'good' since they were in D & D. We all know what golems are. We play HOMM and we see the monsters have powers as defined by D & D. In FfH, we have Barbatos the lich. Who would know what a lich is without D & D?
So, to Gary Gygax -- Many people have improved the system, modernized it, made it better organized, made it more realistic - but you were the man who invented it! How many people have given such happiness to so many people?
May you always make your saving throw in heaven,
Your great fan Breunor
