It's all about the Myth

One of the many amazing things about Matt was his connection to the unusual. Our friend Bethie always said she didn’t want to go to Scotland unless it was with Matt. If he was there, Nessie would surely make an indisputable appearance. One of his dreams had been to travel Europe and hit the places his favorite writers loved. I imagine him coming home with stories of Baba Yaga wandering some Eastern European street in her chicken-legged hut, being chased by redcaps through the Scottish moors or seduced by a Lorelei along the German Rhine.

This was one of the things that made Matt a brilliant storyteller; he saw past the veil and experienced the universe in a way few people get to. A true shaman. In recognition of the 2nd anniversary of his passing and to celebrate another piece of his mythical life, I present two of my favorite Matt Myths.

I love you, bud.

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."

Mini-Matt

There is a Simpson’s episode I love. It’s the one where Bart wants to jump the canyon on his skateboard. He starts off jumping smaller stuff and at one point he is trying to jump a car. The quarter-pipe is too steep, he goes straight up, and then back down, landing on his back in the road. His friends all gather around his unconscious body.

You think they're going to help him, but then they yell, “Bart’s dead!” and scatter, leaving his presumably dead body behind.

I love that episode because it reminds me of two of my favorite stories from Matt's childhood, one of which found its way into my first novel. You'll understand why when you read them.

Enjoy.

The Epic Adventures of Jackson and Toby

Matt Welty and I first met at a Dungeons and Dragons game (2nd Ed Advanced DnD I think) in 1988. I’d recently moved to Orange County from Kentucky and didn’t have a lot of friends. I didn’t realize at the time how much the culture shock was hitting me. All the societal rules I’d grown up with were different in Orange County. I didn’t have my familiar group of geek friends to hang out with on the weekends, or the track and cross country team to make me feel like a part of a team.

The first thing I do when I move to a new city is find the local comic and hobby store to seek out people I can immediately understand. In this case it was a store on El Toro Rd called Comic Quest. I’d managed to befriend and game with a couple of the employees when the owner, Rich Grinnel, invited me to an after-hours ADnD game at the store. I was stoked, though I probably didn’t know what ‘stoked’ was at the time.