http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/pro..._demagogued.php

Though I never knew whom Gary Gygax is, now I knew that he is the co-creator of a board game system that I have played as a teenager. Like the author of the article, I was never really a player, for two simple reasons that how well the players fared is largely decided by the whims and fancies of the DMs and that as a teenager somehow my "normal non-gaming brain" makes me feel uncomfortable playing these make-believe games, especially with normal friends around. To put this in a more understandable perspective, it is akin to the reaction of the public to the people whom dresses up and engage in real-life role playing.

But liking D&D and other fantasy related stuff do have their merits, for a start, I noticed that my vocabulary improves markedly, I learnt words like "esoteric" and "dogma" which some might consider as common words but as a whole, and this is just my personal opinion, that I do noticed that people whom have played or touched D&D at some point in their lives all posess a certain degree of mastery of the English Language above that of the public mass. Not saying that the rest of the people is not good; there will always be people whom are better but as a whole this is what I have observed in the people I have interacted with. My last brief gaming group in my varsity days truly astounded me with their command of the language. Perhaps my command of the language is not great to begin with but the gaming sessions I had with them truly enforces this belief. Even though I am now a working adult, somewhere at the back of my mind, the image of the an ambidextrous katana wielding, unarmored AC 0 swordsman still lingers.......

My condolences to his family. I grew up playing some of his game creative influence in AD&D.