40 years of Imagination

We owe most of what we love in television, video games, and art today to this man.
The man above, a legend in his own right, is Gary Gygax. If you are a fan of the role-playing genre of games, you have undoubtedly heard this name. He is one of the two creators of what is known today as Dungeons and Dragons — The lovechild of Gygax and Dave Arneson, who are both today known as the fathers of role-playing games.

What began in a basement with a few friends, at a table laden with snack foods and soda became one of the biggest cultural phenomena the world has ever seen. A game based entirely around chance, and the lucky throw of die, was suddenly the target of much scrutiny through the 80’s and 90’s with movies such as “Mazes and Monsters” and “Dark Dungeons” and had suddenly reached peak popularity with the rise of video game culture. Why? because it was the basis for so many of their stories. The creative process had to begin somewhere, and according to Ken Levine of Irrational Games, responsible for the Bioshock Series: “ I went from having no friends and no social circle to an immediate social circle through ‘Dungeons & Dragons, and the creative process begins somewhere there at the table”. Even titans of the industry like John Romero and John Carmack of Id Software took credence towards D&D being the basis of some of their best selling games such as Doom, Quake, and Wolfenstein, many of which have seen resurgences today. It’s through the synthesis and germination of these ideas through the catalyst of something that acts as such a cultural magnet like D&D that gives us what we see today as masterpieces of their genre. But video games aren’t the only place where Dungeons and Dragons has made it’s mark.

Film and literature both have been manipulated very carefully, and changed very radically by the effect’s of Dungeons and Dragons’ culture shift; many stories previously focused on low fantasy found much more ground in high fantasy. Some forms of entertainment decided to make commentary on the meta: self-referential humor in order to include some instances of Dungeons and Dragons. Some took the very stories they played from their youths, and decided to meld them into a special, close-to-heart form of entertainment. The biggest possible change noted is known as the “Gygax Effect”, in which many a film during or after 1978 was inevitably affected in one way or another towards being used in a D&D module, or vice versa. This caused a massive divide in the world of entertainment — it was the rise of nerd humor, and a sudden popularization of a tabletop game that gave one person complete power over a party; a popularization of free thinking over the religious doctrine, “undermining” values of the US. Households were torn asunder because of the message given by media at the time: “D&D: a Satanic practice?” became the hot topic of many a discussion across the nation, as a game that had set the standard for entertainment had also set the tee for so many other series to come under fire for using old storytelling tools such as magic and the occult, which lead to many a novel later in time, such as Harry Potter, coming under fire.

But it wasn’t all bad. The effects of the film industry changing radically due to the uprising of the role-playing crowd definitely improved things over time, as we began to receive smash hits like The Matrix, The Goonies, and Star Wars because of this sudden craze based entirely around the Gygax Effect; there was money to be made and a culture was brewing. But where it ends up today is actually exactly what Gygax would have wanted, a memory in which he is held in such high esteem, as someone who loved to play games, and share what he learned from playing them with everyone he knew.

The story doesn’t end there. The arts might be where his biggest influence shines, because where there is imagination brewing, there must be pictures of what you’re dealing with. The concept art knew no bounds when the most famous D&D module came out for 1e: The Tomb of Horrors. This dungeon in particular is known for it’s difficulty and has been referenced over the years in media such as “Ready Player One”, and become such a cultural icon, there are still references towards it today. The concept art around it has become so legendary, that this face is synonymous to it.

The legendary nature of such dungeons is not based around the lore of a single campaign, as no two are similar. What brings these forgotten crypts and guarded secrets to the light of day is how every single one is quite different, and how every single one is left to the group of friends at the table, the commitment to finishing said collection and the dedication and work it takes to create the atmosphere and maintain it for everyone to enjoy. That is what makes D&D an all-encompassing cultural artifact. That is what nurtures the media we’ve all come to know and love.

These cultural impacts are not only the legacy, but the purpose of the game. It is what we all strive for on those rainy days and late nights when we pull out the graphing papers and dungeon sets, it is what we all enjoy the effects of when we watch Game of Thrones and Futurama, and the world would not be the same if not for the brainchild of a bunch of guys in a basement, looking for a way to bring the magic of storytelling to life.

Rest in Peace, Gary Gygax.

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