First: a link http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/03/04/obit.gygax.ap/index.html.

Gary Gygax is probably the single largest influence on modern gaming, whether pen and paper, videogames, or LARP. Or, I guess, was.

I'm pretty sure everybody knows what D&D is, Gary Gygax was the guy who created it. I'm pretty sure that he was, along with his gaming club in the seventies, responsible for introducing statblocks into the world of wargaming miniatures. Then he made them into high fantasy. We know where things have gone from there - in videogames we have upgradeable guns, we have tilebased strategy games, we have archetypes of what wizards and fighters and paladins do in fantasy.

In a lot of ways, the early roleplaying games were either attempts to follow exactly the rules set by D&D (without infringing or by license - think Might & Magic, Phantasy Star) or were distinguished by how they didn't follow the D&D template - like Ultima & King's Quest. Rogue was the basic concept enumerated differently, and without the party.

On the other hand, I kind of feel like without Gary Gygax, we wouldn't have Drizzt.

Gaming will mostly miss you, Gygax.