GameSpy writes: "We've been beat over the head with this fact quite a bit, especially lately, but perhaps it bears mentioning one more time: The role-playing games we enjoy on our consoles and computers owe their very existence to a game created in the 1970s by a small group of tabletop wargamers in a basement in the American Midwest. By extension, so do most other videogames. The notion of codifying the causalities that can define a conflict is something that's inherent to games. It was Dungeons & Dragons' creators that yanked these abstractions from the ether, and etched them onto polyhedral dice.
D&D's 4th Edition, whose core rulebooks were released last month, is deemed by many fans to be decidedly similar in regards to its ruleset to what we see in many computer RPGs. By the same token, some of the ways that Wizards of the Coast is expanding the quintessential pen and paper game into the Internet mirrors the efforts of forward-looking games publishers. It's clearly a watershed moment in the history of the world's greatest role-playing game.
Last week, we got a chance to talk to Rob Heinsoo, Andy Collins and James Wyatt, the design team that spearheaded the creation of D&D's 4th Edition. Ever mindful of the ways that gaming has changed since D&D was last iterated upon, it's fascinating to hear what these creators have to say about the intersections between traditional pen-and-paper gaming, and the ways we play today."
Footage and several pieces of concept art have been discovered for a Dungeons & Dragons open-world RPG reportedly cancelled last year.
Parties in Dungeons and Dragons come with a variety of roles, and one essential yet controversial staple is the ever-present healer.
D&D's Unearthed Arcana Playtest 8 has Wizards of the Coast offering some great tweaks to monks, bards, and barbarians as the pieces fall into place
