(Image from his Wikipedia page.)
An explanation: Since the name Gary is going extinct, I thought it incumbent upon me to celebrate more notable Garys than myself. This is the sixth of a series!
Gary Gygax was, according to the Wikipedia, "an American game designer & author best known for co-creating with Dave Arneson the pioneering role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D). Gygax has been described as the father of D&D."
When did you first become aware of him? In ninth grade, when I was introduced to D&D. His name was on all the books: Advanced D&D (which I always called The Dungeon Master's Guide), the Monster Manual, & the Player's Handbook, all of which I acquired in time.
Were you a super-nerdy D&D player? I wanted to be. But the group I was with wasn't very adventurous (no pun intended). I remember in my first game asking the Dungeon Master, after he said I did five points of damage to some creature, "What did I do? Did I take off a limb? Was there lots of blood? Will he be able to have children?" The DM looked at me blankly & said, "You did five points of damage. Now roll again."
Did you do things to exacerbate the situation? That's overstating it. But once I realized that they were not going to be inventive & fun, I went ahead & had my own fun. I had a paladin I named Perry. I did this because they were naming their characters Frodo & Bilbo & the like. When I got a ranger, I named him Iridium, which everyone liked, until I told them it was the name of a metal element. Then they frowned again.
So you didn't play for a very long time? All told, probably less than a year. My friend Scott, who had introduced me to the game, moved away, & then there were only three of us. Scott kind of was our common friend, we didn't really hang out as a trio after that. It's very possible that they found other people to play & didn't invite me. Scott & I would still talk about our characters, but I'm sure he found other people to play with, too. I never did.
Wait. I think there might have been an opportunity to play again later in high school, & I might even have joined a group, but my heart wasn't in it. I was more into listening to music & dealing with my depression at that point.
Was it cool that the guy who invented D&D was named Gary? I didn't think about it at the time, but then, I never noticed in those early days that I was usually the only Gary in my class. But I do think the name was unfamiliar enough that for many years, some people would remember my name as Greg.
Is his name really Gary? It's his middle name. His full name is Ernest Gary Gygax. I'm sure he dropped the Ernest for the alliteration. "Gary Gygax" sounds like the alias for a Stan Lee/Jack Kirby super-villain.
So, the name, it's probably because of Gary Cooper again? He was born in 1938, so, probably.
What the hell sort of name is Gygax? Wikipedia said his dad was Swiss. But. Your guess is as good (& maybe as equally uninformed) as mine.
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