Gary Gygax, the co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons and the acknowledged 'father of role-playing games', died on 4 March 2008. I know I'm coming to this a bit late, but I thought I'd write something, as my early teenage years were largely spent in the company of such games. I have to admit that I tend not to mention this too often, such is the stigma, even today in this culture of gaming, and its strong connection with the terms 'nerd' or 'geek' (unlike comics, which I am now able to discuss in wider circles without getting such funny looks...well, some of the time).

Anyway, I was 13 (this was late 1982), and a school-friend had recently returned from a holiday in Florida, clutching the red boxed set of Basic Dungeons and Dragons! Bitten most severely by the RPG bug, we soon joined a local role-playing club, where I was very quickly turned away from D&D, and on to T&T - Tunnels and Trolls - something of a small-time rival to Gygax's mainstream success.

Tunnels and Trolls (written in 1975 by Ken St. Andre), was simpler, less rule-bound, and therefore, I thought, smoother to play, allowing imagination to flow more freely. Furthermore, it only used six-sided dice, so you could just borrow them from Trivial Pursuit or Monopoly. I don't think I ever went back to D&D, but I did move around into other games - Traveller, Runequest, Call of Cthulhu and Paranoia, though T&T was the mainstay.

Looking back, the bit I enjoyed most was writing the adventures more than actually playing them (though those were not bereft of fun). Gaming got me into self-publishing (printing my first fanzine, 'Demon Issue' in March 1985), and similarly, I enjoyed the writing and illustrating more than the actual playing. After a few years I looked at my shelf with all the games I'd accumulated, and didn't play, and the hobby quickly faded out for me. In some ways, I kind of regret the amount of time I spent writing RPG adventures - it took up a lot of hours, and maybe (I sometimes ponder) I'd be a better artist today if I'd have spent those valuable 'developing years' drawing more, instead of filling in character sheets.

But hey-ho, there you go. I did have some fun, and it did kick off my drawing more a bit later, as I started illustrating for other fanzines too, a road that has definitely lead to me doing my own thing with The Rainbow Orchid thus far.

To end off, here's a letter I wrote to the local paper in 1993, though I'd stopped playing by then. It's slightly embarrassing when I read it now, but the sentiment still holds water.