Insincere Farewell
Gary Gygax, co-creator of the most popular and well-known tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, passed away yesterday at his home. The outpouring of sympathy and sadness on message boards and blogs was predictable as was the requisite “Can I get a res spell over here?” cracks. The general tone seemed to be one of loss and respect, many people thanking him posthumously for the game that enriched their lives.
One notable exception (to some) was PvP cartoonist Scott Kurtz’ limp “moment of silence” post that some fans found confusingly ignoble. Kurtz then posted an explanation/redaction:
Emails were getting more and more upset as the day went on, so simply to quiet the masses, I forced out a post. Shortly afterwards, I received some email from people who felt that my tribute was less than flattering.
…
It’s just that despite everyone’s obvious connection to Dungeons and Dragons, I never felt a connection to Gary Gygax. For most to the time I played Dungeons and Dragons, I had no idea who Gary Gygax was.
What I don’t understand is why would you post a tribute to someone “just to quiet the masses”? Why would you “force out” a shout-out to someone who you “never felt a connection to?” The lack of sincerity suggests to me that Kurtz was filling a role he feels shoehorned into (nerd statesman) and nothing more. As if he felt pressured to conform to what other nerds were feeling even if he didn’t feel that way himself.
I don’t begrudge him for the lack of connection to Gygax nor do I think he should have felt obligated to say something on the topic if it didn’t resonate with him or he felt uncomfortable paying tribute to someone whom he felt had not played a significant part in his life, regardless of how true or untrue that may be. In fact I would find it significantly easier to appreciate him if he’d simply come out and said:
For me, Dungeons and Dragons was about my Dad and my friends…not about the authors of the modules we were running without any real true understanding of the rules. It was a legitimate excuse to hang on to the game of “let’s pretend” well beyond the appropriate age. It was an entry point for making our own stories with pictures. For me, it was my entry into making my own comic books.
Is it so wrong that I don’t feel a connection to Gary Gygax? That I don’t feel compelled to draw an Elven Ranger with his hand held across his hearts or an Owl bear with a single tear rolling down his left cheek? I just don’t feel compelled to do that. I’m sorry.
That’s completely fair and honest. You don’t have to feel a connection to everyone that your peers does. I appreciate what Alan Moore has done for comics and I love his writing but I find him as a person to be kind of arrogant and insufferable in the way he treats his work as if it were unblemished holy scripture unworthy to be interpreted by mere mortals.
Even Gygax himself, I didn’t feel a need to do more than post a short note on Twitter saying I was sad to hear the news, but I didn’t think it warranted to come on here and write a seven paragraph tearful tribute to the man. And my site is (well, ostensibly at least) more in line with that sort of thing than PvPonline.com is.
Frankly, I’m disappointed by Kurtz’s actions, in his caving to reader pressure and in trying to be sincere when he wasn’t to finally coming clean only to be defensive for something that is really indefensible. Maybe next time Kurtz (and let this be a lesson to all nerd statesmen) will find tranquility in the power of remaining silent when you have nothing constructive to contribute.