So as I said, my first time playing was at about eight years old, and I was staying over my friend Will's house. I didn't know what was up, I just sort of ended up sitting at the big table and before I knew it, Will was helping me roll dice to choose my new character's traits. I needed that character if I was going to embark on this sudden journey, tagging along with more experienced players, mosty older, but ones very willing to take me on and teach me of this new world. I didn't know yet that games could go all through the night and not just games, but only installments of the same game! Didn't know I'd love it, and have no problem spending days in a row without stopping.

I chose a fighter for my character's class.

Will's house is where I first heard Devo. And Will's house is where I'd walk home from on nights we watched horror flicks and I'd be walking in the middle of the spotlit street because I felt murderers closing in on me from between the neat rows of suburban houses. Will's house is also where I first heard Queen. It was The Game.

That night I stayed up late (very late) and joined in a game where there was no board, no determined outcome, a game that enjoined many people in an effort that felt amazingly real very soon. Before you knew it—and again, I stress, with mostly just your imaginations and ability to interact in this imagined world—you were inhabiting a world that felt as if you were actually climbing hills together, sneaking into dungeons, tiptoeing outside doors, and tending each others' wounds, instead of only traveling in unison upon some collective imaginary route. I don't know, I'm sure it does more or less for different people and different kinds of minds, but It changed my life, and I have not yet played a game as satisfying. No matter how lifelike the graphics, no matter how internet-connected, no matter how dolby the sound. There is just something about those marathon sessions of imagination and friendship that can never, I don't think, be replicated.

This post is to recognize the creator of the world of Dungeons and Dragons. According to the community, Gary Gygax is dead. [Update: and now this link.] But his gift to us lives on.

Gary Gygax, creator of Dungeons & Dragons, has failed his saving throw vs. death

Thank you for what you gave us!

A pictorial salute to D&D.