Waxing Gygaxian

Trolling the blogosphere turns up more than a few articles about Gary Gygax, one of the creators and driving forces behind Dungeons and Dragons, and his death this past week.

Not that I really wanted to opine terribly much on the subject, but I naturally started to cast my mind back to those days I spent in darkened basements (usually John's or Peter's), rolling dice and eating junk food.

My first exposure to Role-Playing was game of WarHammer RPG, a particularly grim, gritty and unsurvivable world where more time was spent delving through their ridiculous character creation system: "I'm a Rat-catcher! Yay!", than actually doing anything before your personage died a horrible death.
Yes - I was hooked.
It was pretty much inevitable, cause after that my next foray was with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Ahhh, good ole TMNT - wherein you would portray a mutated animal.
I was a camel. Yep.
Years would pass and reams of character sheets, dice and pizza.
I have a lot of memories invested in the rolling of dice. There was a lot of joking around, a lot of comraderie - and a lot of imagination.

So Kudos to those Comrades and the times we spent. To John, for creating one of the creepiest moods in my imagination with that Chill campaign, and to Andy - for making me laugh my ass off one so many occaisions - and the six fucking years we spent on his Grand Guignol.

I tip my glass to you Mr. Gygax.