It’s with great sadness that I report today that Gary Gygax, the creator of Dungeons and Dragons has passed away at the age of 69. Gary was the creator of the game, it’s premier personality and figurehead, as well as it’s ardent defender and one of it’s most colourful characters. I never got the chance to meet him, and have rarely played first edition AD&D, but I still have immense respect for the man that started it all.

I was never a great fan of his Lejendary Adventure stuff, which his company had sent to our meagre little gaming site (The Montreal RPG Hub), way back in the day. Despite that, however, I would read his posts on ENWorld‘s forums (there as Col_Pladoh) with great fascination. I rollicked at his brief-but-awesome guest appearance on Futurama. Quite simply, I respected and revered this man. It’s a terrible shame that he’s passed on.

The news was broken by this post on the Troll Lord Games’ forum. You can find more discussion on ENWorld. UPDATE: You can also read this (quite nice) article at CNN. UPDATE AGAIN: Wizards of the Coast has a dedication to Gary on their D&D page. ANOTHER UPDATE: There’s this documentary about D&D that was done awhile ago that’s pretty interesting to watch. At the end of it, however, they have a few interviews with Gary about inspiration and such. They’re very interesting. Check them out here and here.

This also gives GM’s day a whole new meaning.

RIP Gary.

Black Industries, the makers of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and the just-released-but-already-sold-out Warhammer 40k RPG are going to stop making RPGs. This makes me a sad panda.

Black Industries regret to announce that Dark Heresy: Disciples of the Dark Gods out in September will be the final product to be released from Black Industries.

Kevin Rountree General Manager of BL Publishing said ‘As a result of the continued and impressive success of our core novels business, which we have built around 40K and Warhammer, we have decided to focus all of our efforts on growing this part of our business. Black Industries has seen fantastic success, most recently with Talisman and Dark Heresy. This change does not take away from that achievement rather it allows BL Publishing to focus on producing the best novels we can. This is a purely commercial decision and will enable us to carry on the huge growth that we have recently been experiencing with our novels’

For the time being Black Industries will continue to post articles in support of the products on their official website, which is a fantastic resource for scenarios and gaming tools for GM’s and players alike.

Sauce