E Y E W E A R, THE BLOG - FREEDOM MEANS BEING UNAFRAID TO WRITE WHAT YOU THINK

It is fitting that the obituary of Chris Haney , a Canadian inventor of the world's greatest board game since Monopoly and Scrabble - Trivial Pursuit - has been published on Canada Day, in the Guardian.  Haney helped to invent the game in my home town of Montreal, when a journalist at T he Gazette .  As a paperboy I used to deliver The Gazette, and still recall that most memorable of headlines, first glimpsed groggily at the crack of dawn some summer day thirty years ago: BOY MEETS HERO AT BOTTOM OF POOL.  No Canadian cottage or dinner party was complete without TP - which for awhile, with its pie pieces - seemed to be more popular than TV.  I had an  Uncle, Ed , who memorised all the cards, and therefore could win the game on his first round, which was annoying.  He has since died, tragically.

It is rare to be the creator of a new genre. Dungeons & Dragons was co-created by one Gary Gygax - and it was part-game, part-fantasy novel (or series of novels), and part, frankly, ambitiously-imagined (if sometimes derivative) alternate world. His work was hugely influential - often despised as (especially before video games took over as enemy number one) the instigator of teenage murder, suicide or derangement; or at least, nerdy alienation - and then again loved by millions. D & D clearly proved the worth of the fantasy market, and is as responsible as Tolkien for its continued popularity, in later film and book incarnations (including Rowling ). Anyone who has had a Palladin or Elf confront a many-eyed gelatinous monster in a dank corridor will know the thrill (and perplexing complexity) of those many-sided dice, those well-thumbed books. He will be missed, his game will live on.