D&D Co-Creator Dead at 61

The local boys and girls at Wizards of the Coast have posted a memorial for Dave Arneson. His fall to cancer on Tuesday may not be the dice roll heard round the world that Gary Gygax‘s was, but perhaps it should:

Dave’s far-ranging interests led him to a unique concept in wargaming — a wargame where each model represented just one hero instead of many soldiers in an army. That idea in itself wasn’t new; “skirmish-style” games had been around for years. 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 set in the types of fantastic worlds popular in sword-&-sorcery fiction; 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.

As a D&D novice, I find the game can be a bastard in terms of setting up character statistics, working out battle strategy, and wading through overblown “fantasy” names like Erylach and Ruflufluflufjord. I don’t love it for those reasons. I love it because it’s an excuse to be a role-playing dork with a group of friends, and to sustain that mutual dorkitude on a semi-weekly basis—bonding over this lunacy that we’ve decided is perfectly appropriate for a few hours at a time. That’s thanks to the aforementioned persistent/personality system, and for that, Mr. Arneson, I thank you.