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What Happened to Dungeons and Dragons?

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What Happened to Dungeons and Dragons? BBC NEWS | UK | Magazine | What happened to Dungeo... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/3655627.stm Home News Sport Radio TV Weather Languages [an error occurred while processing this directive] Low graphics | Accessibility help One-Minute World News Last Updated: Monday, 26 April, 2004, 12:40 GMT 13:40 UK News Front Page E-mail this to a friend Printable version What happened to Dungeons and Dragons? By Darren Waters In today's Magazine Africa BBC News Online Big beasts Americas How elephants helped to Asia-Pacific In the 1980s millions of teenagers world-wide would battle dragons armed with just dice, paper and pens. D&D became part shape human Europe history, by of youth sub-culture but as the game celebrates its 30th birthday, Middle East David is anyone still playing? Cannadine South Asia Change UK In 1974 two men in the US a-coming England Midwest, Gary Gygax and Dave Justin Webb on America's Northern Ireland Arneson, created Dungeons and love affair with Scotland Dragons, the first ever role-playing progress Wales game. Audience of UK Politics one Would you Education Developed out of war gaming using table-top miniatures, the paperback watch a play Magazine rule books were an instant success, all on your own? Business a genuine phenomenon which Health 7 days quiz spawned an industry and influenced What now for Science & a generation of film-makers, writers Environment Paul the eight- and videogame developers. limbed oracle? Technology Entertainment An estimated 20 million people Also in the news worldwide have played D&D since it Magazine regulars ----------------- was created, with more than $1bn Tweetbook Video and Audio Say goodbye spent on game equipment and to worktime ----------------- books. boredom. Programmes Follow us on Have Your Say "I thought we would sell about Facebook or D&D lets you live out your heroic fantasies In Pictures 50,000 copies," says Gary Gygax. Twitter Magazine Monitor Country Profiles Paper Monitor, Your Letters, Quote of the Special Reports Co-creator Dave Arneson recalls: "When we started playing we Day, Caption Competition and more thought we were kind of crazy. It seemed to start quite well and sold RELATED BBC SITES better, and better and better." RELATED INTERNET LINKS: SPORT The game spread by word of mouth and became a cult in schools and Dungeons and Dragons WEATHER in universities across the globe. Gary Gygax' Lejendary Adventure ON THIS DAY Troll Lord EDITORS' BLOG It was even a cult at a Wisconsin naval base. "At one time every Zeitgeist Games nuclear submarine had a D&D group," says Arneson. Dungeons and Dreamers EN World D&D is a game in which a group of Dragons Foot friends create and develop Jeremy Jarvis illustrations characters by rolling dice which Myriador determine skills and abilities. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites The characters are taken on adventures which are plotted by a separate player - the Dungeon Master. You can be a fighter, a thief, or a magic user, perhaps even a bard, There is something in D&D that a druid or a cleric. But there is no strikes a chord in many people; the board or counters - just pen, paper call of adventure and an active imagination. D&D co-creator Gary Gygax 1 of 10 06/08/2012 02:52 PM BBC NEWS | UK | Magazine | What happened to Dungeo... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/3655627.stm "I get to be braver, stronger, wiser, smarter, faster, handsomer, and just generally more than I am in real life," says current player, Joshua Turton, 29, from the San Francisco Bay area. "I can perform miracles, save damsels, slay dragons, cast spells, right wrongs, raid tombs, drink ale, and live dangerously." Brad King, author of Dungeons and Dreamers, which charts the influence of D&D on early videogames, says D&D should not be confused with board games. "It was the first really interactive game. If you play board games there is always an objective or goal. "D&D is the opposite. It's about sitting down and telling stories with your friends." At the height of its popularity in the 1980s the game became a target for cultural conservatives. D&D rules grew out of war gaming in the early 1970s The game was wrongly implicated in a missing persons case, a teen suicide and a number of murders. Some schools banned the game, and many parents refused to let their children play. The controversy inspired a 1982 TV film, Mazes and Monsters, starring Tom Hanks. A later cartoon series and a more recent film kept the brand name alive among non-players but were derided by D&D fans. In the late 1970s and 1980s, lawsuits began to fly - Arneson and Gygax sued each other over the development of the game. Neither man has any current official involvement in D&D - both selling their royalties to publisher Wizards of the Coast in the 1990s. Arneson says: "We see each other at conventions. He does his thing and I do mine. There's no stabbing each other in the back." D&D's popularity began to wane in It allows us the chance to play the early 1990s as the videogame out a dream of being the classical boom began. hero - the slayer of dragons, the hero who saves the land from some "D&D never went away," says Liz terrible foe or danger Schuh, marketing director for D&D player Delwin Shand Wizards of the Coast. "It was huge in the 1980s and then dropped off the radar screens but it never went away." "D&D was so successful that it spawned an industry that ate it," says Mr King. There are now hundreds of different, competing role-playing games which have all taken a bite out of the market dominance D&D once had. But the game remains - even thrives. Wizards estimates that three million people play in the US each month. Angus MacDonald, a 45-year-old D&D player, who lives near San Francisco, has been playing on and off since 1975. "The game is social, it is a form of Dave Arneson is still involved in the games 2 of 10 06/08/2012 02:52 PM BBC NEWS | UK | Magazine | What happened to Dungeo... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/3655627.stm storytelling, and it has allowed me industry to develop deep friendships with people over the years." Delwin Shand, a 47-year-old who has been playing for 30 years, says: "The reason the game has survived is that it allows us the chance to play out a dream of being the classical hero - the slayer of dragons, the hero who saves the land from some terrible foe or danger." Gygax and Arneson are still actively involved in the industry and are revered by D&D players for their creation. Gygax says: "There is something in D&D that strikes a chord in many people; the call of adventure. "I am certainly happy that it has made people happy and brought so many people together. There is a great fellowship among role players." Ed Stark, special projects manager There are no million dollar at Wizards, says imagination is special effects - so imagination must pivotal to the game. "People often fill in the blanks say playing D&D is like writing your Ed Stark own movie at a table. "But of course there are no million dollar special effects - so imagination must fill in the blanks." In the age of the iPod, mp3s, DVDs and online videogames, it is perhaps remarkable that a game based purely on pen, paper and dice remains so popular. Read a selection of your comments on the 30th birthday of D&D. Man, we played this for a good decade now. When we were younger we would play until 5 in the morning and still did not want to stop. Our Dungeon Master would have weeks of events and quests lined out just in case we kept going into the mid-morning. Which we have done on several occasions. Just so many good memories that came about because of D&D. Tyler, USA Dungeons & Dragons shall live forever. It's a defining experience. Nils, Frankfurt, Germany I wish I still had my spell-book and magic dagger. Surely one of the best games ever invented. Abhijit Joshi, India Twenty years ago my college roommates played D&D every weekend. Now a former roommate is playing D&D on the other side of the country with some people who are the same age we were then. All his new D&D characters are the children of the characters we played when we were younger. Occasionally they tell the other players the legends of the Fighting Lady Red and Euell the Druid, characters who lived in our imagination when we were young. Larry Smith, USA Just reading these comments have brought all the memories flooding back. It must have been 10 years since we last met up to to go on an adventure. This will cause me to now find my lost friends and start the adventures rolling once again. nathan, UK Good grief - I thought my husband and his mates were the only D&D geeks still out there! Once a week, every week, shut in a spare bedroom - I think it's where they'll finally shuffle off this mortal coil (having first slain several dwarfs, clerics and wizards on the way). Sad to say, the dice have given way to a computer generated version but they're avid enough to web-cam in a friend from the wilds! Pity me, 3 of 10 06/08/2012 02:52 PM BBC NEWS | UK | Magazine | What happened to Dungeo..
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