On Boston Globe website, Peter Bebergal has written an extensive article on the influence of the Dungeons & Dragons game from the seventies to now. Here's a clip:

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the beloved, much maligned, often misunderstood role playing game developed in 1974 by Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax. Without CGI graphics, surround sound, or flat screens, they invented an immense and complex gaming system that requires only pencils, graph paper, and some oddly configured dice. Arneson and Gygax paved the way, but let's face it, my friends and I changed the world.

It started innocently enough. With a copy of "The Fellowship of the Ring" at my side and Styx on the record player, I was looking for something to help me rise above being bored, lonely, and unfulfilled. One day at school, a kid approached me. Having sensed in me an ally -- the same urgent need to avoid getting beat up that day -- he timidly asked if I wanted to play "D&D" after school.

Read the whole thing (http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/11/15/dungeons_and_dragons_we_love_you/) at Boston Globe.