DBear
unbeliever
Another D&D gawd has fallen...
http://www.giantitp.com/index.html
excerpt
http://www.giantitp.com/index.html
excerpt
After some confusing rumors and retractions, it has been confirmed by multiple sources that Dave Arneson passed away late on Tuesday, April 7, 2009.
Many of our younger readers may not know who Mr. Arneson was, but he was a pivotal part of the birth of the hobby we all play. By most accounts, he literally invented the very concept of role-playing games. While he would share official credit for the original Dungeons & Dragons rules with the late Mr. Gygax, Mr. Arneson was the first to take the Chainmail wargaming rules and run a game where players controlled a single character, rather than an army, and described that character's actions to a judge who would determine how the environment reacted to them. Pretty much every roleplaying game (and many computer games) can trace their lineage to this single idea. He also invented the first campaign world, Blackmoor, which is hardly surprising considering he invented the concept of campaign worlds in the first place. It is impossible for me to overstate the impact his games had on what would become our mutual hobby.