Gygax: the Remembering
Mar. 5th, 2008 12:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drydemSo, gaming as a pasttime has affected my life in innumerable ways. I can say with absolute and complete certainty that I would not be the person I am today had I not picked up those d6's in the 4th grade and made Thorin, my Dwarf, to fight against the bats and carrion crawlers of the red box dungeon. While Gygax, like Marx, is a man whose ideas have been taken in vastly different directions by different followers, some good and some bad,(I'd extend the metaphor, but I don't know who really counts as the Pol Pot of the gaming world) those ideas have influenced my life in many ways. There follows a list-
-gaming taught me a good deal of self-confidence and helped me hone my sense of humor and ways of telling stories. I am a better lecturer because of gaming
-gaming introduced me to many creative people that I still consider good friends, better friends in many ways because of the creative collaboration involved.
-gaming gave me an outlet for my exploration of world folklore and culture and helped inspire my development as a folklorist, historian and anthropologist. Much of what I know about the world, I know as a result of research for game narratives
-gaming gave me a much better understanding of both character and structure in narrative, allowing me to be a more skilled consumer of culture.
-gaming gave me a better vocabulary. I had the words "Obfuscate" and "Subterfuge" on the SAT, words that I learned through their use in gaming books.
-gaming has jump started my development as a writer through the prevalence of dialogue(my spell check doesn't recognize dialogue for some reason) in the pasttime and in my writing
-gaming has been at the cornerstone of my development as a geek, giving me entrees into other geek cultures.
-gaming has been a key for the idea of cultural relativism for me. Understanding the perspectives of so many different characters has given a good sense of the differing perspectives of the real world and has had a significant influence on the way I try to treat people.
In all, I think I have a lot to thank Gygax for, because gaming made me the man I am today.
-gaming taught me a good deal of self-confidence and helped me hone my sense of humor and ways of telling stories. I am a better lecturer because of gaming
-gaming introduced me to many creative people that I still consider good friends, better friends in many ways because of the creative collaboration involved.
-gaming gave me an outlet for my exploration of world folklore and culture and helped inspire my development as a folklorist, historian and anthropologist. Much of what I know about the world, I know as a result of research for game narratives
-gaming gave me a much better understanding of both character and structure in narrative, allowing me to be a more skilled consumer of culture.
-gaming gave me a better vocabulary. I had the words "Obfuscate" and "Subterfuge" on the SAT, words that I learned through their use in gaming books.
-gaming has jump started my development as a writer through the prevalence of dialogue(my spell check doesn't recognize dialogue for some reason) in the pasttime and in my writing
-gaming has been at the cornerstone of my development as a geek, giving me entrees into other geek cultures.
-gaming has been a key for the idea of cultural relativism for me. Understanding the perspectives of so many different characters has given a good sense of the differing perspectives of the real world and has had a significant influence on the way I try to treat people.
In all, I think I have a lot to thank Gygax for, because gaming made me the man I am today.
