Dungeons & Dragons and Computer Role-Playing Games

The guys over at GameSpy have written up a very interesting article entitled Computer Role-Playing Games – Part 1: Tabletop Genesis & the Roaring 80s, which describes the beginnings of both Dungeons & Dragons and many of the earliest CRPGs, such as Wizardry and Bard’s Tale. Definitely worth a read, so here’s a little bit to get you started:

The first true role-playing game came from an unlikely place indeed: Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. In the 1960s, E. Gary Gygax created a medieval wargame called Chainmail. Chainmail was a minor success, and soon Gygax and friends were hosting a small local convention called “Gen Con” in support of it. (At that time, Gen Con attracted 100-500 attendees. Last year the venerable convention hosted over 21,000). The gathering attracted a Minnesotan named David Arneson, who had modified Chainmail to a 1:1 scale (one figure equals one character). Gygax reportedly liked the immediacy and the threat of instant death having a single ‘character’ added to his game; soon the two were working together. On that day, Dungeons & Dragons was born.