Dave Arneson failed a saving throw against cancer yesterday. He was 61 years old. Along with Gary Gygax, Dave created Dungeons and Dragons, the ancestor of all role-playing games, table top or computer. If you’ve ever played World of Warcraft, Mass Effect, or logged into an virtual world like Second Life, you’re part of the legacy that Dave helped create.
I moved about 20 miles away from Dave and Gary’s home town of Lake Geneva, WI when I was seven, but even without the close proximity to endless GenCon conferences, I would have been hooked. I started playing at age 9 and was an enthusiast until I left for college and Chemistry 101 erased nearly all of my available free time.
Pouring over the D&D manuals late at night was the first time it ever occurred to me that a complex, incredible system like this could be designed. Designing a world or a module within Dungeons and Dragons was, for me, the most fascinating aspect of the game. For every hour I spent playing the game with my friends, I probably spent forty drawing maps of the dungeons I would create, or inventing new monsters out of whole cloth. In my teens, when personal computers became a reality, it dawned on me that designing systems was an actual job, and that you could get paid for it. I’d do it for free.
More than anyone else, Dave and Gary taught me that design isn’t how it looks, it’s how it works.
Thanks Dave. Rest in peace.
