lynnfredricks.com

The Internet is being filled with comments on the recent passing of E Gary Gygax, the creator of the Dungeons and Dragons role-playing game. If you are between the age of 40 to 60, you probably remember the game’s first rise in popularity in the mid-late 70’s, and the various scandals it produced, including a terrible movie with Tom Hanks. An incredible number of conventions in both offline and online games - especially MMORGs like World of Warcraft and Lord of the Rings Online. What is particularly interesting is that Gygax himself was greatly influenced by writers such as JRR Tolkien, writer of The Lord of the Rings; he then systematized the conventions of the fantasy genre into the first pen-and-paper role playing game - that in turn greatly influenced the mechanics of these computer games.