Blargh, that certainly sucks. At least he left behind one hell of a legacy.

Holy crap!

Well, it is with the appropriate respect that I relate a joke I first heard in 1986:

A gamer died and went to Heaven. He worriedly asked St. Peter if gaming was allowed in the Hereafter, and Peter laughed and said, "Come with me."

The gamer was shown to a nice room with a big round table covered with potato chip bags and empty soda cans and dice and Cheez Doodles; seated around it were people who looked just like D&D characters. "There's St. Paul," Peter said. "He always wanted to be a paladin. Here's St. Michael, who oddly enough likes to be a Dwarven thief. And this is St. Bartholemew, who loves to pretend to be a magic user."

At the head of the table was an unassuming man in glasses. "Who is that?" the gamer asked.

"Oh," said Peter, "that's God. He likes to pretend he's Gary Gygax."

Dear Athelind Stormdancer.

Countless hours at Mark and Thresa's with several other couples on a weekly basis (Wednesday and often Friday evenings). AD&D and Traveller. Jeno's microwave pizzas, chips, beer and, often enough, good dope in a bong or pipe passed. For YEARS (like ten or more). Sigh, the good old days. Still have my books, manuals and compendiums, dice (d4-d100 with a nifty little drawstring bag with a handsewn sword on it made by Theresa) and a big hex board. Hard to give them up in spite of things like WOW. Oh, and boxesfull of figurenes (Ral Partha, Citadel, etc.)

Those were good days but then the Commodore and PC and then it was over. Glad to see many still play the board games though I have not in many years.

Steed

He also managed, once separated from TSR, to write a game system which was fairly well assured to slaughter brain cells wholesale....which, happily, is mostly forgotten now.

But yes, we will all remember him with some fondness.

I wouldn't say he really invented a new form of entertainment. Basically, he found a way to put rules on "let's pretend".

Now, that having been said, it was an incredible, why-didn't-I-think-of-that idea ^_^