Multiplayer gaming pioneer Dave Arneson passes away
Arneson was one of the co-creators of the Dungeons and Dragons game. This file is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License
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Saturday, 11, Apr 2009 11:45
One of the co-creators of the Dungeons and Dragons fantasy game, Dave Arneson, has died of cancer at the age of 61 in a hospital in Minnesota today.
Arneson and his late friend Gary Gygan founded the game which spawned a series of video games, books, films, and cartoons and is credited with creating one of the most popular genres in gaming: role-playing games.
In a statement, Wizards of the Coast, a part of toymaker Hasbro Inc, said Arneson was instrumental in a shift in the way war games were made with users controlling one character rather than a large group.
"By the early 1970s, Dave's far-ranging interests led him to a unique concept in war-gaming – a war game where each model represented just one hero instead of many soldiers in an army," said the statement.
"What was new were the ideas that the same heroes could be played in a series of games, learning and becoming more powerful with each battle; that their battles could be part of larger adventures.
"And, most importantly, that playing just one hero at a time was more exciting than controlling a whole army if that hero had a personality. In other words – role-playing."
The company said that Blackmoor, a game Arneson was working on before creating Dungeons and Dragons, was the first role-playing game.