My wife called me at work today and told me. Man, I feel like a jigsaw puzzle with a piece missing. I joined the game in 1981 and it has been such a big part of my life, even my sanity while deployed. Anyway, below is my little testament to the power of the game Gary created.

When I was a kid I had what psychologists call “vivid dreams”, which are basically nightmares that are so real it’s like being in a Freddy movie. They were horrible and I dreaded sleep. About the age of 13 I began playing D&D, and my first successful adventurer was a ranger. Every night as I went to sleep I imagined my character fending off monsters and put him into the kind of situations I dreamt about. Eventually whenever I had a nightmare, I would become this character and set things right. After a few months the nightmares ended, never to return.

Years later I discovered that a similar therapy was being used by psychologists to treat people with chronic nightmares. Little did I know I had invented a treatment for other people’s bad dreams, but it was D&D that gave me the tools to do it. As such I owe Gary quite a lot. I never mentioned this to him on Dragonsfoot because I didn’t want to seem like a fanboy or a kook. But now that he’s gone, I feel that telling this story is the best tribute I can offer to his memory.