Thanks for My Life, Gary Gygax

A letter to InMemoryofGaryGygax@gmail.com for his family. I thought it appropriate to post here.

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I'm sure Gary's influence on my life is the same as other gamers: lifelong friends, nurtured creativity, keeping me out of trouble in rural Kentucky by staying in all weekend creating epic tales instead of drinking and having a kid at 14.

Over and over I've read and heard how Gary influenced our lives socially and creatively. What I want to share is how he helped me and hundreds of thousands of others develop our minds. Tabletop RPG's do something that no other social event I've ever experienced has done; it actively stimulates both sides of the brain in a dynamic and interactive way. Improvisational acting, world creation and storytelling blended with number crunching and the balancing of game mechanics creates a mental exercise that I've never experienced in anything else. On top of that is the simple, raw knowledge we get. My girlfriend is studying for her GRE's and often asks me if I've heard certain words, like dirge, augury, segue, abjure, enervate and innervate. She doesn't even ask "how do you know that" anymore. The answer is always, "Gaming."


One website says about studying for the GRE, "Memorizing vocabulary lists is not the best way to improve your vocabulary. The best way is to read more and more challenging material." Mythology, world history, cryptography, forensics, criminology, psychology, sociology, physics, creative writing, geology, paleontology, zoology, botany, theology, folk lore, linguistics, music, there isn't a single field of study that DMs and players alike haven't been ecstatic to research to make there creative visions more real or believable. That is why so many gamers from the 70's and 80's are cornerstones of modern life, influencing not only popular culture through movies, books, video games and television but business, science and technology.

Back when many of us were being ostracized by teachers and other students for our gaming hobby--and in some cases being theologically beaten for it--we were excited to practice reading, math and history in a way that every teacher dreams. Modern teaching needs to take a cue from Gary and wrap these cornerstone skills into a creative endeavor that kids are begging for. I and so many other human beings wouldn't be the successes we are today without them.

Almost a year ago today, my best friend and blood brother passed away of an unexpected, fatal heart attack at the age of 45. We met at a 2nd Ed AD&D game when I first moved to Orange County 20 years ago and didn't know anyone. Our influences on each other's lives is incalculable. Below is the short eulogy I wrote for him that I would like to share with you. All the beauty, spiritual growth and change I went through in knowing Matt is in part, thanks to Gary.

Whether or not you've been able to take the time to read this mail, thank you for giving me the opportunity to thank him in a way I probably should have a long time ago.

Thanks for my life, Gary.

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Matt Welty, Oct 18th, 1961-April 15th, 2007

Matt and I have been best friends for almost 20 years. 10 years ago we traveled together to a special place in the Panamint Valley and went through a ceremony to become Blood Brothers. He told me once he believed that our spirits travel in groups, continuously reincarnating through time. If you had a story together in a past incarnation, you would have a story again in this one. He was 9 years older than me. As far as the two of us were concerned, he shrugged and told me, “I just got here a little early this time.”

You will hear a lot of Matt stories today and in the weeks to come I’m sure. Maybe later I will share some of my favorites; like his run ins with Bigfoot and Elvis or any number of stories where as a child Matt took a dare, failed miserably and his friends left him for dead. But right now I felt compelled to try and share with you the connection Matt and I had with each other and why our friendship was so extraordinary to the both of us.

I’ve been trying to do that for days. And when I couldn’t figure out which stories to tell, or what to share with you that would press upon you what Matt meant to me personally, I did what I always did when I was staring at a blank page. I asked Matt.

For those of you who only knew him through work, or maybe through only one of his numerous hobbies, you may not know that one of his dreams had always been to be a Literature teacher. His house is full of poetry and classics and Matt was an extraordinary storyteller. And he was a pop culture fanatic; science fiction, Tolkein, comics and roleplaying games. So his answer to my question about how to give you a glimpse of the bond between us in such short a time comes as a literary reference, which was retold, in part, in one of the most popular episodes of Star Trek as well.

The Epic of Gilgamesh and Enkidu is one of the oldest stories in recorded history. Gilgamesh was a larger than life king whose friendship with Enkidu changed them both. Together they survived seductions and betrayals, traveled unknown lands, slew evil, and destroyed the Bull of the Gods; an act of defiance I think always appealed to Matt.

So just telling you that we always believed in each other, or talked for hours, or shared a love of storytelling isn’t enough. Not today. Matt wasn’t just my hero, or my confidant, or my corrupter, or my angel. Of all the language we could use to describe our friendship, the one I believe Matt was helping me to find, is Epic. Together we slew dragons, survived seductions and betrayals, lept tall buildings in a single bound, explored the world, and helped each other face evil, not with fists or guns, but with words, compassion and, sometimes, a little Punk attitude.

We created worlds together, but my imagination isn’t strong enough to create a world where he isn’t here next to me.

The consolation that I hold dear to me is that he’ll have to change outfits so many times before starting his next life that I should get there about the same time.

“So Enkidu lay stretched out before Gilgamesh; his tears ran down in streams and he said to Gilgamesh, ‘O my brother, so dear as you are to me, brother, yet they will take me from you.’ Again he said, ‘I must sit down on the threshold of the dead and never again will I see my dear brother with my eyes.’”