Diary of a Network Geek

Wow, that’s two in the space of a week.

They say that famous people die in threes.  Last week it was Gary Gygax.  Today, it was Arthur C. Clarke.   He was a great man who predicted the communications satellite, among other things, though he’s probably best known for writing 2001:A Space Odyssey.  He wrote more books and stories than I can think of and continued to influence the science-fiction world right up until the end.

Locus Magazine has a more detailed biography.

Wow, this brings back memories…

On an e-mail list I’m part of, someone brought up the game Traveller. This was one of the first non-TSR role-playing games I ever played. In fact, I think I still have the rules I used somewhere in the house. And that book I recently read called The World Without Us has really had me thinking about the future and science-fiction and related topics, so the off-hand mention really caught my attention more than it would have normally. Anyway, the mention of the game brought back a rush of memories and led me to do a bit of searchng.
There were several editions printed after the one I used. And, you can still get them all from Far Future Enterprises. There is also an active, fan-run website filled with information called TravellerRPG.com. And, Steve Jackson Games, who makes their own version of Traveller, has the Journal of the Traveller’s Aid Society. (The Traveller’s Aid Society was something in the game you could belong to that would help your characters out if they got in a financial jam in almost any star system in the civilized universe, but that help often led to other, more problematic, adventures.) Oh, and there’s another site that’s setup like a ship’s encyclopedic database, for more adventure support and fun.

Anyway, what with Gary Gygax passing away earlier this week and all, the fact that there are still guys out there playing this game I played back in High School just really made me smile. Of course, it’s probably the same guys…

Gary Gygax, co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons died this morning.

He and Dave Arneson just about invented the entire role-playing game industry.  I don’t think I know anyone who wasn’t touched, in some way, by D&D.   Those of us who played owe Mr. Gygax a debt of gratitude that is hard to put into words.
He grew up in Lake Geneva, which is also where he started playing war games.  Those war games added more and more fantasy elements, until, finally, rules were developed to allow individual heroes to adventure without the armies.  The rest, as they say, is history.  Now, those rules are in their fourth major revision and have been copied, or emulated, or added-to, the world over.

Wow, the world has changed so much in such a short time.
We’ll all miss you, Gary.