Dungeons & Dragons: Old School

Nowadays, I'm told, you can play D&D without even naming your characters. It's all a matter of numbers, with monster descriptions thrown in for flavor and adrenaline, and melee combat involves arguing about angles and positioning and using those goofy little figurines. Back when I played, though, it was all about storytelling. Someone would spin elaborate tales, with vivid characters, all out of his imagination, and the rest of us would come along for the ride, adding perspective after perspective. Participatory storytelling. None of this sitting hunched around a table with dice and rulebooks. Back then, we only had two of them, the players' handbook and the monster manual (and funny little booklets called the Arduin Grimoire for bizarre random special abilities). We made ourselves comfortable in big chairs, with lots of pizza and beer, and eagerness to hear what our host had thought up in the past week. None of these pre-packaged campaigns. No homework. It was theatre. Performance art. Improv. It was amazing.

I'll never forget my first character, Olbert. A fat hobbit cleric with a banzai attitude, wielding a big sword by special dispensation of his fond deity, Godfrey. Not entirely sane, my Olbert, but who would be, with his uncanny ability to roll double-zero out of 100 when the chips were down? There were others, too - my druid Regan with her prodigious wish-granted charisma; the thief Marya, companioned by a wolf whose true self was the demon she served; Hillary, a black panther convinced she was an elf, and the illusionist Adrian, her companion and translator. Long, long nights in Corvallis and Springfield, sometimes stretching into dawn. And then a couple years later, playing again with liadanlj and friends in Berkeley. A few of us even tried playing on Yahoo Messenger a few years back - fractal9091, JA, and DM. Good times.

From fountaingirl, the xkcd tribute to Gary Gygax.

From fractal9091, the Order of the Stick tribute. Thanks, Roy, for saying it so well.

Added 3/10: NYT Obituary for Gary Gygax
and NYT Op Ed tribute by Adam Rogers