Everything I Needed To Know, I Learned From AD&D

I was thinking about some of the things people have said about Gary Gygax’s influence, especially how:

Gary Gygax saved more lives than pennacillian (sic). When I was 10, he was 39. He knew he was writing a book for 10 year olds… but never talked down to us. He was the only adult presence in my life from the time I was 10 to the time I was like 15 that didn’t preach, didn’t talk down and didn’t have any parameters.

I, too, was 10 years old when I played my first Dungeons and Dragons game, and this observation really hit me tonight. There was no pandering, no dumbing down of concepts to fit an adolescent game. We may not have understood all Gary and Dave put in front of us, but it challenged us to learn and grow into it. Statistics, economics, cartography, linguistics, storytelling, history, tactics, drama — all were part of the great Dungeons and Dragons tapestry. What’s the difference between a halberd and a glaive-guisarme? Which weapon is more effective, one that causes 1d8+4 or 1d12? What happens when you walk into a town with buckets of gemstones and unload them on the local market? These are questions that this crazy game posed to kids, and you know what? Kids learned.

I credit Dungeons and Dragons for vastly expanding my vocabulary, too. When my High School Literature teacher came across a passage in Gogol that talked about a wraith, I already knew what it was and moved on. When someone asked the teacher what a wraith was, and the bluffed, five hands immediately shot up and corrected him.

I remember how he looked around, more than a little startled, and asked how we all knew about this alternate name for a spectre.

“It’s in the Monster Manual,” I mumbled. Everyone who had raised their hand nodded, and the rest of the class looked at us with a mixture of awe and pity. (At least we didn’t tell him how many Hit Dice it had.)

Years later, one of my co-workers complained to a group of us that a client had corrected her use of e.g. in an email. “Who can keep them straight, anyway?” she vented.

“But e.g. is ‘for example,’ and i.e. is ‘in other words,’” I replied, puzzled. (Admittedly, this was not my best management moment.) Silence fell on the group.

“Do I dare ask how you know that?” asked another co-worker.

“The first edition Dungeon Master’s Guide,” I replied, promptly. “I learned all the latin abbreviations from it when I was a kid.” They still had that mixed look of awe and pity, but I felt nothing but thanks to that book for making me figure out i.e., c.f., n.b., e.g., etc..

So, thank you, Gary Gygax, for all the great things that you gave us. Little or big, we are better for them.