Dungeons and Dragons Co-Creator Interviewed 30

Posted by simoniker on Sunday October 05, 2003 @11:12PM from the venger-versus-tiamat dept.

spongebob writes "The great Dave Arneson was interviewed on his current work and upcoming releases at EnWorld. Arneson is one of the most important figures in gaming, because he was co-author of Dungeons & Dragons, that little game who spawned an entire industry (or two, if we count videogames). Despite this, he doesn't enjoy the immense recognition given to Gary Gygax, the other author of Dungeons & Dragons. This is perhaps explainable with the fact that Gary Gygax had a long and high profile career as game designer and manager of TSR Hobbies (then TSR) for many years and for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons' creation. Anyway, Dave remains a sort of 'unsung legend' of the gaming world."

Dungeons and Dragons Co-Creator Interviewed

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- Re:Interseting stuff (Score:2)
  
  by shadowbearer ( 554144 ) writes:
  
  It's a sad day on slashdot when an article about D&D gets so few posts that it doesn't rise above the 2 level.
  
  "The times, they be a'changin'" -Dylan
  
  SB
- Re:a letter to pseudo-nerds (i.e. d&d players) (Score:5, Funny)
  
  by OwlofCreamCheese ( 645015 ) writes: on Sunday October 05, 2003 @11:36PM (#7141432)
  
  okay, this is a troll, so we need either acid or fire!!!
  
  - Re:a letter to pseudo-nerds (i.e. d&d players) (Score:4, Funny)
    
    by tunah ( 530328 ) writes: <sam&krayup,com> on Monday October 06, 2003 @12:03AM (#7141518) Homepage
    
    -1, Flamebait.
    
- Re:a letter to pseudo-nerds (i.e. d&d players) (Score:2, Insightful)
  
  by Anonymous Coward writes:
  
  you give real geeks a bad name.
  
  THEY give geeks a bad name? They're not the contrived, egotistic, homophobe douchebags you seem to be. Why do you bother posting negative stuff when all it accomplished is making you look retarded?
- Re:a letter to pseudo-nerds (i.e. d&d players) (Score:4, Insightful)
  
  by Creepy Crawler ( 680178 ) writes: on Sunday October 05, 2003 @11:43PM (#7141452)
  
  Soooo. what do you do when your GF plays along with you in a campaign?
  
  We play a monthly campaign with a few (7) friends. Even my GF has got worked up into it more than I have sometimes. And even though it's RP, you're with friends. That's the real reason it's fun.
  
  That's why single player Diablo 2, NWN, and any other RPG is really not fun.
  
  And as a last not, taking RP too far is quite scary. Hell, taking anything too far is scary to deal with. Though, RP is a great way to get with friends for a fun game.
  
  And yes, I know you're a troll.
  
- Re:a letter to pseudo-nerds (i.e. d&d players) (Score:5, Funny)
  
  by pyrros ( 324803 ) writes: on Monday October 06, 2003 @03:49AM (#7142111)
  
  and not resort to diverting my sexual urges into a game where i pretend to be a wizard.
  
  You are completely wrong. I play a cleric.
  
- Re:a letter to pseudo-nerds (i.e. d&d players) (Score:1)
  
  by Jaeph ( 710098 ) writes:
  
  So we should leave our good name in the hands of the email-spammers, virus-writers, and evil CEOs?
  
  -Jeff
He plays the game himself (Score:5, Funny)

by sahonen ( 680948 ) writes: on Sunday October 05, 2003 @11:53PM (#7141488) Homepage Journal

I wonder what his character stats are like?

WooHoo! I'm almost famous! (Score:3, Informative)

by glowurm ( 518048 ) writes: on Sunday October 05, 2003 @11:56PM (#7141496)

I graduated from Full Sail, and have met Mr. Arneson in passing and he's a nice fellow. My former room-mates are both associate course directors in the same program he's a course director in, though they teach different classes, and it's my understanding that he gives out autographed copies of a D&D starter kit to his students.

In fact, my former supervisor's cubicle is right across from his!

(I can already hear the paparazzi!)

Name recognition (Score:4, Funny)

by Anonymous Coward writes: on Monday October 06, 2003 @12:10AM (#7141536)

Mr. Arneson doesn't receive the kind of recognition Gary Gygax does, because he doesn't have an equally wacky name. Being named something like "Gygax" or "Ransom Love" really helps you in becoming famous!

- Re:Too much credit here... (Score:5, Informative)
  
  by iq in binary ( 305246 ) writes: <iq_in_binary@hot ... m minus language> on Monday October 06, 2003 @12:58AM (#7141667) Homepage
  
  Videogames? Um, no. Dumbass.
  
  You are wrong, plain and simple. Among the most popular of the first videogames to hit the market were based off of D&D. To this day we still see analogs of the D20 system fostered by Gygax and Arneson, such games still happen to be a staple of the industry.
  
  And BTW, editors, D&D spawned 3 industries. The first CCG to go mainstream (M:tG) was heavily influenced by D&D itself (spoke the creator).
  
  - Re:Too much credit here... (Score:2)
    
    by zero_offset ( 200586 ) writes:
    
    You are wrong, plain and simple. Among the most popular of the first videogames to hit the market were based off of D&D.
    What are you smoking? The most popular videogames were Asteroids, Space Duel, Pac-Man, Space Invaders and a bunch of other things which are totally unrelated to D&D. In fact, they were mostly space-related. I suppose you could point to the Atari 2600 Adventure game, but that hardly qualifies as evidence of one industry spawning another. It wasn't until LATE in the videogame craze
    - - Re:Too much credit here... (Score:2)
        
        by zero_offset ( 200586 ) writes:
        
        First, he said "hit the market" so I doubt he's talking about 30-year-old mainframe games. It's probably a stretch to include arcade games in his comment, but I was trying to give him a LITTLE credit, and besides those were the games that came out around the same time D&D made it's waves.
        Second, you're probably talking about games like spacewar or the endless variations on the Trek game, and once again I think you'll find most of those games were also space-related.
        Third, there is no shortage of D
- Re:Too much credit here... (Score:1)
  
  by linzeal ( 197905 ) writes:
  
  RPG games defined PC game quality in the beginning and to some still do if you count depth ;)
My Hello World (Score:5, Insightful)

by (H)elix1 ( 231155 ) writes: <slashdot.helix@nOSPaM.gmail.com> on Monday October 06, 2003 @12:24AM (#7141574) Homepage Journal

I'm sure I'm not the only one who used the *D&D framework as their training ground for programming languages and architectures. I know I've build character toolkits, etc, in Pascal, C, C++, VB, Java, and a few other oddball platforms (like the pocket PC and my HP 48). It has been years since I actually played, but modeling some of the game mechanics, learning how to have multiple people working on a project, discovering how stupid/ungrateful/correct users can actually be all started from personal projects based on the game. If for nothing else, it was nice to have such a tangible target - even if it was just to play a game.

- Re:My Hello World (Score:2)
  
  by GypC ( 7592 ) writes:
  
  Ditto.
  One of the first things I used to learn about a new programming language was how to generate random numbers so I could write a character generator.
  I always used my own programs while GM'ing to randomly generate and keep track of NPC and monster stats.
FMMP! (Score:2, Funny)

by Anonymous Coward writes:

I cast "Magic Missile"!

(First Magic Missile Post)
- Re:FMMP! (Score:2)
  
  by NaDrew ( 561847 ) writes:
  
  I cast "Magic Missile"!
  
  Why are you casting Magic Missile? There's nothing to attack here!
  - Re:FMMP! (Score:1)
    
    by aculeus ( 21460 ) writes:
    
    He's attacking the darkness
Just a side note on Gary (Score:4, Interesting)

by Lord_Dweomer ( 648696 ) writes: on Monday October 06, 2003 @01:51AM (#7141827) Homepage

I had the pleasure of gaming with him and his children (now grown up and excellent DMs) in Lake Geneva, WI every weekend for a couple years. He is as famous in gaming circles as he is for good reason. He is an excellent DM, and its not just his gaming skills that are good, its his people/social skills as well. One often forgets when looking at D&D as a game that it requires many social skills which would be contrary to the image of the typical D&D geek.

Oh dear.. (Score:2, Funny)

by rylin ( 688457 ) writes:

Roll the dice to see if any /.ers RTFA!
The reign of the single author paradigm (Score:3, Funny)

by Snowmit ( 704081 ) writes: on Monday October 06, 2003 @08:53AM (#7143222) Homepage

So, he's like the Woz of DnD?

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Dungeons and Dragons Co-Creator Interviewed 30

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Dungeons and Dragons Co-Creator Interviewed

Re:Interseting stuff (Score:2)

Re:a letter to pseudo-nerds (i.e. d&d players) (Score:5, Funny)

Re:a letter to pseudo-nerds (i.e. d&d players) (Score:4, Funny)

Re:a letter to pseudo-nerds (i.e. d&d players) (Score:2, Insightful)

Re:a letter to pseudo-nerds (i.e. d&d players) (Score:4, Insightful)

Re:a letter to pseudo-nerds (i.e. d&d players) (Score:5, Funny)

Re:a letter to pseudo-nerds (i.e. d&d players) (Score:1)

He plays the game himself (Score:5, Funny)

WooHoo! I'm almost famous! (Score:3, Informative)

Name recognition (Score:4, Funny)

Re:Too much credit here... (Score:5, Informative)

Re:Too much credit here... (Score:2)

Re:Too much credit here... (Score:2)

Re:Too much credit here... (Score:1)

My Hello World (Score:5, Insightful)

Re:My Hello World (Score:2)

FMMP! (Score:2, Funny)

Re:FMMP! (Score:2)

Re:FMMP! (Score:1)

Just a side note on Gary (Score:4, Interesting)

Oh dear.. (Score:2, Funny)

The reign of the single author paradigm (Score:3, Funny)

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