I've always been nerdy (cereberal) and geeked (into) out on relatively obscure pop culture when I'm feeling dorky. (Forthcoming post to describe the canonical meanings of nerd, geek, and dork). In other words, I should have played Dungeons and Dragons when I was younger. But the wind finds the inner Grognard eventually. So when a new work friend told me he was creating a world and assuming the Dungeon Master mantle for the first time I downloaded the 300+ page PDF of D&D rules 3.5 and rolled a Human Knight from a special order in my friends world. We start in January and I'm stoked.
In honor of my first adventure I grabbed Of Dice and Men from my local library. It is an interesting book, half narrative and half exposition, it tells the tale of the author David M. Ewalt's refound love of D&D while recounding it's history.
Dungeons and Dragons is one of the most innovative games of all time. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson met while playing military strategy games in the 1960s. While both loved wargames they knew something was missing. Both agreed that wargames were too contricting, that a game where a player could create and be a character hero was more powerful that acting a proxy for an army or situation. Arneson added the "Dungeon" to host the adventure as well as the idea of "leveling" up the player character. Gygax added the art of storytelling and Fantasy Game was born. The truth is that these innovations gave birth to the video game industry in addition to every other role playing game.
This book is a nice read for anyone interested in why people play games or a history of D&D itself.
