In Appreciation of Dave Arneson

I just learned of the death of Dave Arneson.

Many gamers may not realize it, but Dave affected the lives and careers of almost everyone in our industry.  He represents one of a small group of people who turned games into Games in the late 1960's and early 1970's.  Partnered with Gary Gygax and others, much of what we now take for granted in RPG's was developed from his imagination and logic.

Gamasutra and other sites have covered the news of his death, but I wanted to add a personal note. 

I've worked on computer RPG's for 34 years, from mainframes and Intellivision all the way up to MMORPG's and modern consoles.  I could not have designed a single level of those games without knowing and playing the work of Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. 

Unlike the lucky students who studied with him at Full Sail in recent years, I only had the privilege of a few conversations with Dave.  He was a modest and considerate guy. 

In 1975 one of my college friends introduced me to D&D, which at that time was contained in a handful of 5x8-inch home-brewed booklets authored by Arneson and Gygax.  In later years the flow of TSR's growth led to Gygax's name growing in prominence and Arneson's name dropping away, but that's how it goes once hobbies turn into businesses.  The true foundation work that evolved wargaming into role-playing involved him.

In 1975 Pong and its variants were the only video games.

In 1975 Chess and Checkers and Monopoly and Chutes & Ladders were what most people thought of as games.

The computers we wrote games on at the time filled an entire room and were connected to painfully slow terminals that only printed letters and numbers, no graphics.  People didn't own computers, universities did.  This is pre-Apple, pre-Commodore, pre-PC.  It was even pre-computer typesetting, which is why the original D&D books look so primitive when you see them today.

Dungeons and Dragons was like nothing we had ever seen before.  The game swept up our circle of friends and became an obsession.  Within a few months it had spread from college campuses to excite young people across the country.  And, like today's games, it inspired the wrath of politicians and the worry of non-gamers about exactly what we were all doing in those marathon coven-like meetings where we referred to strange creatures, magic, gods and guilds. 

And screamed occasionally when an undeserving Wandering Monster scored a critical hit and the DM chose not to re-roll.

One or two generations later, role-playing is accepted as just another form of gaming.  But before Dave Arneson and his friends started experimenting with new kinds of game designs, role-playing as we know it did not exist.

Thanks, Dave, from all of us.  We'll always be grateful for the Beginning you gave us and the inspiration to continue a story that will never end.

Copyright (c) 2009, Don Daglow

Comments

[buy wow gold]

Gamers of this generation are not well informed how Dave Arneson's work has influenced the gaming industry. D&D was popular before but I never got addicted to this game unlike my cousin. It was cool but of course WoW is much cooler. Perhaps if not for Dave's work, the creators of WoW will not be inspired to do the greatest game ever.