Whether you've played Dungeons & Dragons, or not, everyone knows that it's had a profound effect on gaming. It's not an overstatement to say that the structure of D&D is the reason we play many of today's videogames the way we do. D&D's cryptic and awkward rules always turned me off as a kid. If I was going to play I didn't want to be privvy to all the ins and outs of game mechanics. No, I wanted a computer to do all the calculations for me. Now that they do, I regret that I never got swept up in the phenomenon when it first started. Just take a look at the kids in the photo that accompanies this MSNBC piece. They look happier than I did when I was that age!
