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Dungeons & Dragons, that ground-breaking role-playing game, celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. Specifically, the game's big "4-0" comes this month. It was in January of 1974 when the game's co-creator, Gary Gygax, officially announced in a newsletter that "the Lake Geneva Tactical Studies Association has now released its set of fantasy campaign rules (Dungeons and Dragons)." In that announcement, Gygax invited folks to drop by his Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, home some Sunday afternoon to experience Dungeons & Dragons themselves. But lo, those four decades ago, when D&D first debuted, no one knew what to make of it. D&D was...

1 Lego 2 Monopoly3 Dungeons and Dragons 4 Wii 5 Nintendo consoles 6 Playstation consoles 7 Scrabble 8 Scalextrix 9 Trivial pursuit 10 Gameboy and other 11 Star wars toys 12 Transformers 13 Microsoft X-Box 14 He-Man & Masters of the 15 Cluedo 16 Meccano 17 Hornby train set 18 Connect 4 19 Airfix 20 Action man 21 Matchbox cars 22 Etch a sketch 23 Teddy bear 24 Rubik cube 25 Atari consoles 26 Play-doh 27 Plasticene 28 Subbuteo 29 Spirograph 30 Risk 31 Roller skates 32 Top trumps 33 Yo-yo 34 Teenage mutant ninja 35 Chemistry Set 36 Twister...

Dungeons & Dragons co-creator Dave Arneson, whose fantasy role-playing game guided the socially awkward through adolescence, has rolled his last dice. Arneson, the Associated Press reports, died on Tuesday of cancer in St. Paul, Minn., at the age of 61. He and Gary Gary Gygax – who died last March -- invented D&D in 1974, and the game became a cult favorite among geeky teen boys, giving way, as ScientificAmerican.com tech editor Larry Greenemeier notes, to the nerd power of the 1980s embodied by Bill Gates. (It is also a favorite of a number of actors, including Vin Diesel, who...

Dungeons & Dragons co-creator Dave Arneson lost a long battle against cancer last night. The Escapist expresses its sincere condolences to the friends and family of Dave Arneson. In his youth, Arneson was fond of wargaming, specifically naval wargames. As a student of history, Arenson combined his passion for gaming with historical events, frequently running "what-if" scenarios for famous battles of ages past. His love for tabletop gaming led him to a fateful meeting at Gen Con in August 1969, where he met a young man named Gary Gygax. Together with Gygax, Arneson was responsible for co-creating the influential tabletop...

GM: OK, the bugbear attacks you. What do you do? OBAMA: I send one of my 672 henchmen after it. MCCAIN: OK, seriously. Why does he have so many henchmen? I'm a level 72 ranger and he's only a level 8 paladin. OBAMA: Well, if you'd bought the Grassroots Organizing and Oratory/Colgate Smile proficiencies you could min max it so that you... MCCAIN: Why is he even IN this campaign? I thought this was supposed to be a high level party. OBAMA: Well, maybe some people got tired of the grim and squinty "Matterhorn, son of Marathon" shtick you keep...

Set both of your 20-sided die to 0-0, raise the Monster Manual to half-staff and spend your 14th level ranger's next several turns hoisting a few pints of ale - even if that does mean losing some hit points along the way. If none of that makes any sense, then you probably didn't take much notice when Gary Gygax died earlier this week. But for those of us who spent our Friday nights huddled around a hexagonal map scattered with lead figurines of dwarves and owlbears, instead of the spiked punch bowl at the junior prom, this is a very...

MILWAUKEE (AP) - The man who co-created the game Dungeons & Dragons and helped start the role-playing phenomenon is dead. Gary Gygax (GEYE'-gaks) died this morning at his home in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, about 55 miles southwest of Milwaukee. His wife, Gail Gygax, says he had been suffering from health problems for several years, including an abdominal aneurysm. Gygax and co-creator Dave Arneson developed the role-playing game in 1974 and it went on to become 1 of the best-selling games ever. Dungeons & Dragons is considered the grandfather of fantasy role-playing games and has influenced video games, books, movies and...

"Gary Gygax, who co-created the fantasy game Dungeons & Dragons and helped start the role-playing phenomenon, died Tuesday morning at his home in Lake Geneva. He was 69."

Does the Israel Defense Forces believe incoming recruits and soldiers who play Dungeons and Dragons are unfit for elite units? Ynetnews has learned that 18-year-olds who tell recruiters they play the popular fantasy game are automatically given low security clearance. "They're detached from reality and suscepitble to influence," the army says. Fans of the popular role-playing game had spoken of rumors of this strange policy by the IDF, but now the army has confirmed that it has a negative image of teens who play the game and labels them as problematic in regard to their draft status....