A Believer

by Aggro Me on July 30, 2008

Part of our salute to Gary Gygax:

My favorite article about Gary Gygax is definitely a brilliant piece entitled “Destroy All Montsters” by Paul La Farge in a magazine called The Believer.  In it, the author goes on a quest of sorts (which succeeds) to actually play a game of Dungeons & Dragons with Gygax as the DM.  Before we get to this quest (the Scenario) we first get plenty of information on the history of both D&D and Gygax (the Manual).  This section could have been dry, but it’s written in a clear and enjoyable manner.  There’s a third thread which runs throughout the piece that really spoke to me, the author’s journey of coming to grips with his own past as a D&D player. 

Since the Believer is more of a magazine for literary geeks then gaming geeks, I always thought it was a shame that more people who would appreciate it didn’t get to share in this great article.  It appeared in the “Gaming” issue of the Believer in September, 2007 and I wrote up a little review of that issue on Aggro Me.

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Tilted Twister

by Karnatos on July 30, 2008

Woot! Robots!Something I love is all the hobbyist-built robots out there, and this one mixes three things I love! Tilted Twister is a robot that solves a scrambled Rubik’s Cube.

What I find particularly interesting about this guy is that he’s not just any type of robot, he’s a Lego Mindstorms-based robot!

Wow! Robots mixed with Lego and a Rubik’s Cube? OK, I kinda hate Rubik’s damn cube, I could never solve it… but this robot can! On average it can solve the puzzle in 6 minutes, which totally kicks my current running time of well over 13,140,000 minutes.

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Future Gygax

by Aggro Me on July 30, 2008

Part of our salute to Gary Gygax:

You know you’re a geek icon when you appear on Futurama.

Gygax appears as a “Vice Presidential Action Ranger” in the episode “Anthology of Interest I.”  I won’t ruin it for you if you haven’t seen it but I think it’s a good cameo.  Wikipedia states that “Gary Gygax’s appearance alongside Al Gore is something of an inside joke since Gore’s wife, Tipper Gore, hates Dungeons & Dragons and has been publicly critical of it.”  But I think Gygax would have made it into the show at some point anyway, as it’s obvious that at least some of the writers play D&D. 

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