Letters to the Editor
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Paper or "Plastic"
The article notes that the modern adventure video game has its roots in D&D, which is certainly true. Having played modern video games based on D&D, I know I would have loved them when I was a teenager in the 70's, but that said, I'm really glad I played D&D back in the paper and dice days. The video games are really a lot of fun, but the paper game required a lot more imagination and work than the video game, since--at least the way my friends and I played it--you had to create not only your character, but if it was your turn to "host" the game, you had to create the setting, which meant at minimum creating maps and populating it with monsters and other dangers, but usually there was a backstory to your setting, as well as other heroes and villains your friends/adventurers would meet, and often they each had a story as well. Creating the "dungeon" was like a fun version of homework.
When playing, your real job as the host (or "Dungeonmaster") was not to set impossible tasks for the other players, or to get them "killed", but it was really to entertain your friends for a couple hours with a mix of clever puzzles, fun storylines, a dash of drama, and the judgement to know when to occasionally cheat the dice rolls in favor of the players, or to add a few more goblins, in order to tread that line between making the adventure too hard or too easy--you were in essence telling a story that evolved with chance and the choices your friends made. In this fashion, not only did the "adventurers" have to cooperate to overcome the obstacles set by the Dungeonmaster, in the end, even the "adversarial" role of the Dungeonmaster was a cooperative one.
Unfortunately, in the video games, the role of the Dungeonmaster is now filled by a computer or console, which is a shame. Playing the Dungeonmaster was in many ways the most rewarding part of the old paper D&D game, since keeping your fellow teenage friends entertained for a couple hours was a much bigger challenge, and triumph, than defeating any paper dragon.