RIP Chuck Cuthbert

On Friday night the world lost a great man in the form of friend and fellow gamer Chuck Cuthbert. As his obituary indicates, he was a long-time army man although I really only knew his off-duty self well. But whether on-duty or off, I can tell you that Chuck worked tirelessly to better family, friends, and country.

Chuck and his lovely wife Heather first appeared in my life back around 2000-2001 when they walked into the drug store and asked if I was Bret. "This is odd," I thought, "I hope they don't want money or something." As it turned out, all they wanted was friendship. My dad and Chuck had been members of the same Emergency Management group in my hometown and my dad must have mentioned my affinity for D&D. Long-time players themselves (Heather and Chuck had a Ren Faire-type wedding in fact), they were eager to find a group in Hamburg where they must have just moved to a short time before.

After having just lost 2 players to non-D&D distractions, I was more than happy to have the Cuthberts as part of the regular crew. Not long after we met, the Cuthberts were kind enough to offer their furnished barn in which to host our games and it is where we've enjoyed each other's company for the last 8 years. My group had never experienced such comfortable surroundings! Chuck and Heather always provided refreshments and proved to be better roleplayers and friends than I could have ever asked for.

No matter what character he played, Chuck would always be attentive and ready with a plan to save the beseiged party's collective asses in some outrageous fashion (often forcing me to rethink my bad guy's actions and, overall, make me a better DM). In his final game, a couple weeks ago, his character wrenched a poisoned scythe blade from a trap and hurled it at the 4-armed demon in the next room. It wasn't until after the combat when he learned the creature's immunity to poison, but here's what he wrote on the XP sheet he handed in: "Disabled Scythe Trap and used it to attack Mr. Fourarms (who was immune to poison, but I didn't know that so it was still cool!!!"). As a GM, Chuck was incomparable. Attention to detail and ability to improvise came as second nature to him which, as anyone who's run a game can tell you, are essential qualities. No one could run Spycraft or Traveller like him and likely never will.

We've shared countless adventures together with Chuck--both in and out of roleplaying--but now he has set off on man's greatest adventure. Alone, for now, perhaps. But one day we will all meet again to continue that journey of adventure and friendship for eternity.

Godspeed, my friend. You will be missed.