World-Wide D&D Game Day Saturday

It's that time of year again: The World-wide Dungeons and Dragons Game Day is this Saturday, November the 5th. Gaming stores across the globe are ramping up for events showcasing the game that in many ways helped the gaming industry get off the ground. 1up has some background on the event. From the article: "D&D mechanics have indeed been a core component of many electronic games, even those that do not share the same aesthetics or mythology. Japanese RPGs, including long-running series Dragon Quest, were heavily influenced by early D&D. The influence is much more obvious in many North American RPGs, some of which actually take up and expand on the D&D license, like Neverwinter Nights and DragonShard."

Games that owe themselves to D&D

[kinglink]

It's even more than they meantion, while Dragon Quest/Dragon Warrior in some ways barely resemble D&D, the Original FF is even more of an off shoot with their spell system, and character creation which basically are the fathers to the Console RPG legacy as well as the handleful of RPGs for the NES (including "AD&D" a truely horrible made NES game)

Most Computer RPGs owe a lot to D&D or off shoots of it, including Ultima, Wizardry, and Might and Magic, as well as almost every MMORPG.

So go out and play a cool RPG this weekend if your not getting together for some original D&D fun.

Dungeons & Dragons Online

[Bellum Aeternus]

Speaking of expanding the D&D franchise: Dungeons and Dragons Online [ddo.com] went into beta yesterday. Didn't occur to me then, but could this be a coincidence? I doubt it.

Greeks of the world unite!