Gary Gygax, cocreator of the pen-and-paper game that directly spawned
Baldur's Gate and
Neverwinter Nights and influenced the entire RPG genre, has died at age 69.
Craze.com's Will Greenwald and Tor Thorsen report on GameSpot:
Before there were any role-playing video games, there were pen-and-paper role-playing games. This week brings the sad news that one of the founders of the most famous analog RPG has passed way.
Gary Gygax, cocreator of
Dungeons & Dragons, died on Tuesday at the age of 69. He had suffered from heart problems.
Gary Gygax: 1938-2008
The news was first announced on the forums of
Troll Lord Games, the publisher of
Gygax's most recent works. It has since been directly confirmed by the company, which will post an announcement on its Web site later today.
Gygax was best known for helping create
Dungeons & Dragons and
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, and pioneered tabletop RPGs. The first
D&D rulebooks were released in 1974 by
TSR, Inc., the tabletop RPG company
Gygax founded with Don Kaye the year prior. Since then, there have been three full-fledged reworkings of
D&D, numerous revisions and updates, and dozens of additional rulebooks, settings, and campaigns.
Since
TSR was purchased by
Wizards of the Coast in 1997, the game has seen even more expansions and updates. The company released
Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition in 2000, and
Dungeons & Dragons 4.0 is scheduled to ship this coming June. Although
Gygax hadn't had much direct involvement with
D&D for many years, he developed and contributed to many RPGs, such as
Gary Gygax's Fantasy Worlds from
Troll Lord Games.
If not for
Gygax's contributions, video games would look much different than they do today.
D&D's systems and mythos led directly to many marquee video game RPGs, including the
Baldur's Gate and
Neverwinter Nights series from
BioWare. Its influence can also be seen in many other modern fantasy RPGs, including
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and
World of Warcraft. Another of TSR's pen-and-paper RPGs,
Star Frontiers, was the precursor to many science fiction RPGs, such as
Mass Effect.
