Dungeons and Dragons Co-Creator Dave Arneson Passes Away:
Dave Arneson, co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons along with the late Gary Gygax, passed away today at the age of 61. Gygax himself died last year. Arneson’s role in the development of D&D was less well-known than that of the more famous Gygax. But it was he who introduced many of the crucial elements of character role-playing.
Unfortunately, Gygax and Arneson had a falling out in the late 1970s after a legal dispute over the intellectual property rights to their joint creation. However, both deserve to be remembered for their outstanding achievement in creating the world’s most successful roleplaying game and for its positive influence on an entire generation of intellectually-oriented young people.
Actually, it’s starting to be a couple of generations now. A friend of mines six year old son is rapidly becoming an avid gamer… These guys started a brand new culture in their days.
I grew up on the extreme fringes of the map (under the northern edge of the Iron Curtain), and RPG’s didn’t reach my neck of the woods until the early nineties. I fell for it instantly, and knew I’d continue playing as long as I had someone to play with. I was right, I am still at it
(I only wish I was right about a few other things as well, because then I would have been filthy rich, and quite possibly a pirate captain by now.)
The northern part of Norway, not to far from the Kola Peninsula. I remember the radio-signals being drowned in static when the Russians tested their noise-transmitters in the 80’s.
