The inner geek in me was saddened this week to read of the death of a guy called Gary Gygax best known for being co-inventor of a game called Dungeons and Dragons.

I first knew of Gary way back in 1984 when i had just started high school. I have never been that socially adept and where i have grown to where i am now, i was yet to go throw all that. Not that i am overly adept socially now. I kind of skirted around the outside of the different social groups and eventually found my home with the small circle of geeks in my class.

Back in 1984 personal computers were a new thing and most of them like myself didn’t have one. I do remember being envious of one classmate who had a commodore 64 as i thought it was the coolest thing ever although i was never able to get one myself. By the time i got one it was 1990 and they weren’t nearly as cool.

So geeks before computers, it sounds like a museum display or a geological strata layer. So in our lunch hour we spent our time playing Dungeons and Dragons. We escaped to a world of dragons, evil monsters, magic, gold coins and swords. Fates were decided with the roll of unusual shaped dice and we always worried about our characters’ hit points reaching zero, that there was a ghoul hiding in the graveyard 50 yards to your left and our fighter really needed a better magic sword.

I grew out of Dungeons and Dragons by the time i left school and playing it on the computer was never quite the same so D&D and I parted company. I expect all the manuals and modules (and dice) are in a box somewhere under my bed. I guess they belong in a dungeon but the best i can do is somewhere under my bed.

So despite having parted company half a life time ago i am still sad to read of Gary’s death. I guess he would call it his hit points dropping to zero and no one handy with a cure light wounds spell.

Thanks for the memories.