Gary Gygax, Dungeons and Dragons Co-Creator, Dies

Gary Gygax, co-creator of the classic role playing game Dungeons and Dragons, has died at the age of 69.

According to a report in the Star Tribune, Gygax had been suffering from health ailments for a number of years. Those problems include an abdominal aneurysm, but the exact cause of death was not immediately known.

Even with poor health, Gynax remained faithful to his game. Until January of 2008, he continued to host weekly games of Dungeons and Dragons, according to a CNN.com report.

Gygax developed the Dungeons and Dragons board game with a partner in 1974. Medieval characters, goblins, and dragons act as the main characters in the game. Players in the game create characters that undertake adventures within the fantasy world, and are given challenges and treasure hunts and knowledge quests to undertake during the span of each contest. Miniature figures, like in other board games, are used to represent the different characters on the board.

I remember playing the simpler version of Dungeons and Dragons as a child at home with friends and family. I got it as a Christmas gift one year when I was very young, and I loved to play it every chance I got all throughout my childhood. Other than Monopoly, it was my all-time favorite board game, and I would bother my parents to play it with me as often as I could. We didn't have a computer or video games then, so I would always want to read or play board games when things got slow. And when I wanted something exciting, I would always reach for Dungeons and Dragons, as it was action-packed, colorful, and had an element of fantasy unlike any other board game I'd ever played.

The problem was that none of my family members ever wanted to play it with me. It was a relatively lengthy board game that required constant attention from everyone involved, and nobody ever wanted to play as regularly as I did. You'd have to gain experience points and advance to new levels and gain new skills and upgrade your character, and sometimes dead characters could come back through the use of a certain magic. The game could sometimes take four or five hours if we were cautious enough, and not many people were willing to give that kind of commitment. And, as one player had to be the "Dungeon Master" and sort of quarterback the entire affair, it made it especially hard to get enough people willing to play.

So I got friends to play with me. At that time we had the easy version of the game, which wasn't as complicated as the newer version that is out now, so my friends and I could play and could understand everything in the game easily.

I especially liked the dice that it had. Some of the dice had a bunch of sides and looked like jewels, and I always thought they were very beautiful. I would sit and stare at some of them for hours,

I can't calculate how much time I spent playing the game as a child. Every Friday night with friends for at least two years, then off and on for another year or two. It was a favorite pastime of my friends and I, and a favorite torture of my parents.

I even saw the movie Dungeons and Dragons about six or seven years ago when I was older. It didn't really recapture the magic of playing the game as a child, but it was fun to see a big screen adaptation nevertheless.

Monopoly was a ton of fun and my favorite board game, but it wasn't fantastic and didn't have an element of adventure to it, and as a kid I loved anything that had to do with fantasy and goblins and adventures.

It's very sad to hear that Gary Gygax died, but his board game will be a legacy that will bring joy to millions more kids just like it did for me.