I second that - D&D in particular and tabletop role playing in general were enormous influences in my teen years, and Gary Gygax was the name everyone knew. RPGs did more for my imagination -and- my library research skills than any other activity I can think of, and I made friendships that are still strong today. (As well as vile enemies, but let us not dwell on their wicked influence until their utter destruction is assured...) I think we have Gary and other game design geniuses like Steve Jackson to thank for much of that.

I honestly believe that those who are growing up on WoW and Xbox are missing out on an even greater shared fantasy experience. Nothing quite matches the intensity of building your own world - not even sophisticated 3D graphics with super-slick rendering pipelines and kick-ass physics systems (Ok, so the technology is cool...).

/ejt

I suspect a large number of computer programmers over the age of 30 played D&D (or AD&D if you will) in their youth. I'm sure many still play today. I think there are a lot of similarities between building and application from scratch and imagining your own universe and the cast of characters that fill them.

I spent a good part of my youth from age 15-24 playing D&D. Not only did it help to shape my creativity (and love for reading) but it also helped me to think out problems. RPGs, like in chess, make you have to think about the steps your going to take in the future. You have a human counterpart (the DM) and you need to try to analysis where they're trying to take you. That's the way it was when we played the game anyway--as we never really played from modules but basically played on the fly. You'd have an outline of events, but the path was always based upon what the RPC did.

It's indeed sad to see Gary's passing...