Celebrating 30 years of Dungeons and Dragons
Posted Monday, October 28, 2002 - 20:49 CEST by Sorcerer

If you weren't an athlete, but you were a teen-ager in the 1970s and if you had a certain bent for fantasy, you probably played or at least knew people who played Dungeons and Dragons. The fantasy game turns 30 this year, and even in an age of high-tech electronic adventures, its appeal endures.

This is the beginning of a radio feature aired last Saturday by NPR, which was brought to my attention by our faithful community member Mathetais. You can listen to the sound clip here (7 minutes). While on the whole it's not much (and certainly no news to anyone familiar with D&D), here's another CRPG-bashing quote from it by Gary Gygax, Co-author of the original Dungeons & Dragons:

All those [computer games] are is seek-and-destroy missions. They're exciting, you know, graphically, but, you know, I think Aristotle told us that the least element of the tragedy is the mighty special effects. And there is no group playing, there is no camaraderie, there is no role-playing. Go find something, kill it, get its treasure, get a little more powerful, so that you can go kill the toughest thing in the game and then the game's over.

His pounding on computer RPGs never fails to bring a smile to my face, but as I'm sure many of you will agree, some D&D CRPGs are a lot more than just seek-and-destroy missions. Or maybe we just want to believe that... Feel free to comment below.