Pat Robertson Goes Biblical on Dungeons & Dragons

Robertson: Kids face bulimia, anorexia and suicide caused by ‘demonic games’, via The Raw Story In the late 1970s and early 1980s, parents were told their children faced mortal danger because of Dungeons & Dragons. Many of these concerned folks were Christians, and they believed that the game encouraged children to worship the devil, practice […]

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Reality Forgotten: A D&D Fan Film

I’ve grown quite fond of fan films throughout the years, particularly clever shorts. “Reality Forgotten” is one that is more clever than film, and anyone who has ever played D&D will recognize this particular scenario. Author Jack Vance Passed Away Author Jack Vance, who had a profound impact on Dungeons & Dragons, passed away. Here […]

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Towards a Solar Powered Appalachia

Twelve years ago, I wrote a short 3-part series at Wired.com that focused on the disconnect between Appalachia and emerging technologies, particularly broadband access and high-tech business development. The crux of the issue was that rural counties far away from the national highway system had nearly no access to universal high-speed broadband coverage, which meant […]

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The Complexity of Interactions: A Community Problem

One of the themes we explored in Dungeons + Dreamers was the computer game designers attempt to graft the real-world interactive and communal experience of paper gaming with the virtual world experience. This is a powerful idea because virtual spaces remove geography and time from experience. When you remove those two elements from an experience, […]

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Games in Film: A Tale of Two Movies

Video Games: The Movie I just came across this Kickstarter campaign to help fund the post-production for this documentary on video games: I’ll be donating to the cause on June 1, and you should consider it as well. I never grow tired of hearing designers and developers discuss how they made games. However, I look […]

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A Return to Ultima (ish)

A few years ago, it seemed as if the MMORPG world had passed Richard Garriott by. He’d had two rather contentious breakups with corporations, Electronic Arts and NCSoft, and he seemed more interested in pursuing his dream of going to outer space. Two years ago, Garriott re-emerged at the SXSW Accelerator, an event I emcee […]

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Games, Violence, and What We Know

In 2001, John  and I were approached by McGraw Hill with a book idea that explored the research behind video games and violence. As fate would have it, we were nearly finished with a proposal about games and communities. While we rejected the idea of a book based on violence, we did include a chapter […]

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The Tenth Year Edition

The more we do this, the more I think we sound like Axl Rose…but for the first time in a long time, I’ve blocked out 1/2 a month work exclusively on the Second Edition of Dungeons and Dreamers, which now also makes it likely the Tenth Anniversary Edition of the book. Regardless of delay and […]

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From Wired News: Auction Preview of D&D Co-Creator’s Personal Collection and Archives

I just saw this interesting tidbit about the lost treasures of Dave Arneson thanks to this piece by GeekDad over at Wired News. His original gaming dice. His original Dungeons & Dragons and Blackmoor campaign manuscripts. His first printing, woodgrain boxed set play copy of D&D. Letters from Gary Gygax. Other letters, notes, documents, artwork, […]

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