SAN ANTONIO — A ragtag band of warriors huddles in a small roomat the aptly named Dragon’s Lair Comics & Fantasy here. They’relocked in combat with a horde of dark elves, known as drow, whohave developed some very intelligent insects for what can only benefarious purposes.
It’s the type of adventure that can take place only in theimagination. Or, in this case, on a tabletop framed by severalplayers and a game host known as the Dungeon Master.
Each is armed with sheets that bear character names such asKeraga the barbarian and Fie the rogue, along with statistics fortraits such as dexterity, armor class and stealth. Multicoloreddice with four, 10, even 20 sides shimmer at each player’s side,while at the center of the table sits a small battlefield like achessboard with miniature knights that bear hooked wings and headyspells.
Welcome to the world of Dungeons & Dragons, the originalrole-playing game, or RPG, that opened the door to many a geek’swanderlust for worlds of fantasy creatures and combat long before“The Lord of the Rings” movies and “World of Warcraft” ever madesuch arcana mainstream.
“D&D is a game that has evolved over the years,” says AndyCollins, RPG development and editing manager at Wizards of theCoast, which publishes D&D.
“Our goal is to keep it fresh and relevant to gamers of thecurrent era.”
Tastes for games have changed over the past 30-plus years, heexplains.
“Certainly we’ve become more visually oriented as we’ve movedmore heavily into computer games, online gaming. Attention spansaren’t quite as long.”
Now in its fourth edition, D&D has come a long way from thatlittle boxed set of three booklets created by Gary Gygax and DaveArneson in 1974.
Consider the game play of today’s fourth edition players such asApril Bremner, aka the aforementioned Keraga. Bremner tracks hercharacter stats on her laptop while rolling 6-sided dice to inflictdamage and eventually dispatch one of the drow controlled byDungeon Master George Pena Jr.
Bremner has played D&D since high school, a good 27 years.“It’s definitely faster, but it’s definitely easier to pick upnow,” she says, adding that D&D’s fourth edition also is moregroup-friendly.
“It’s branching into more social stratospheres,” says JJ Shaw,manager at Midnight Comics in Houston. Shaw says today D&D alsobenefits from social networking via Facebook(Facebook.com/dungeonsanddragons) and Twitter (@Wizards_DnD).
Collins notes online tools connect players across the globe. AndWizards offers an online D&D character creator and monsterbuilder with plans for more applications and utilities.
Katy Ottinger, a player, refers to D&D as “theater sittingdown,” which she says makes the lingering misconception that thegame is secretly evil or satanic all the more confounding.
“This is actually a good, fun, family activity,” she says.
dungeons & Dragons Toys
bremner, intelligent insects, wizards of thecoast
There’s an excellent Excel spreadsheet created by Kenad Broki from the WotC boards, which is currently being maintained and updated by Ben/NotLestat. Covers the current errata as well as material from all the sourcebooks.