Crave

Gary Gygax helped keep me out of trouble when I was in junior high school.

I was saddened earlier Tuesday to hear that Gygax, the co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons and the father of modern role-playing games, has died. He was 69 years old. My CNET Reviews colleague Will Greenwald has already written about Gygax's role in the gaming community.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

For many of us who grew up before PCs became ubiquitous and long before it was cool to be a geek, Gygax's creation meant Friday nights spent playing games with your friends, not wishing you were someone else. Instead of finding creative ways to break the law, we were busy rolling 20-sided dice and doing battle with Orcs and other evil beasts.

It was a fantastical world for adolescents. Gygax managed to mix The Lord of the Rings and mythology with comic book adventures. Naturally, there were absurd D&D-related scares in the early-1980s regarding kids delving into Satanism and disastrous episodes of real-life sword fighting. (I always thought if kids were dumb enough to fight with real swords, they had bigger issues than the influence of a role-playing game).

My own memories: Before moving on to the decidedly autocratic role of Dungeon Master, my favorite D&D role was a long-sword-wielding ranger named Toranaga (I think the miniseries Shogun was big at the time and that's where I got the Japanese name). He had a magic girdle of strength and ran a speakeasy on the side. For the record, Toranaga was Chaotic Good, had a 17 strength (that's non-magic girdle-enhanced), had a sturdy constitution of 14, but was a bit clumsy due to his 9 dexterity. For those of you who never played the game, well, sorry, this probably doesn't mean much to you. Let's just say 17 is good (18 is the highest you can get); 9--not so good.

I also seem to recall my ranger/barkeep met his untimely demise at the hands of an Ochre Jelly monster that made a home in his bar. It was an ignominious death for a guy named after a mighty Japanese warrior.

Times have changed, of course. Like most kids, I moved on from D&D and hadn't even looked at a D&D book in decades, until a former colleague of mine brought into the office. While we may have been oddball hobbyists 25 years ago, role-playing games are now mainstream, thanks to gaming consoles and the Internet. World of Warcraft is a billion-dollar enterprise, and D&D lives on in various forms. But without D&D paving the way, it's hard to imagine WoW would even exist.

So let's pay our respects: You have to wonder how many of today's writers, computer programmers, video game creators, and other creative sorts wiled away their winter nights playing D&D. Thanks, Mr. Gygax. You allowed us to use our brains.

Gary Gygax at Gen Con 2007

(Credit: Alan De Smet)

Gary Gygax, co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons and one of the fathers of tabletop role-playing games, died on Tuesday at the age of 69. He had suffered from heart problems.

The news was first announced on the message board of Troll Lord Games, the publisher of Gygax's most recent works. It has since been directly confirmed by the company, which will post an announcement on its Web site later Tuesday.

Gygax was best known for helping create Dungeons & Dragons and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. He also pioneered tabletop role-playing games. The first D&D rulebooks were released in 1974 by TSR, and since then have produced three full-fledged sequels, numerous revisions and updates, and dozens upon dozens of additional rulebooks, settings, and campaigns. While Gygax hadn't had much direct involvement with D&D for many years, he developed and contributed to many role-playing games, including Troll Lord Games' Gary Gygax's Fantasy Worlds.

If not for his contributions, video games and geek culture would probably look much different than it does today. Beyond jokes about "d20s" and "saving throws," D&D's systems and mythos have spawned many excellent games, including Baldur's Gate and Planescape: Torment.

Dungeons & Dragons continues to develop. Since TSR was purchased by Wizards of the Coast, the game has seen even more expansions and updates. The company released Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition in 2000, and Dungeons & Dragons 4.0 is scheduled to ship in June. Though he didn't actively produce the latest editions of the game, neither they nor the countless video games, books, and other media that carry the D&D name would have been possible without him.

Pentax K20D

(Credit: Pentax Corp.)

You've gotta admire feisty little Pentax. Undeterred by a dSLR market dominated by Canon and Nikon, plus the deep-pocketed relative newcomer Sony and tireless veteran Olympus, Pentax continues to refine and innovate its offerings rather than just trying to sell cheap models built from off-the-shelf parts. This year sees the first tangible result of the company's alliance with Samsung, a 14.6-megapixel CMOS sensor, which makes its way into Pentax's new midrange model, the $1,300 K20D (body only). Pentax's other new model, the entry-level $799 K200D (a kit with the new smc PENTAX DA 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 AL II lens), looks more like the typical budget package.

According to Pentax, the new sensor requires less space for the ancillary circuitry, allowing for photodiodes with the same area as those of a 10-megapixel sensor. In theory, this should allow for higher-resolution images with noise equivalent to that of the lower-resolution ones; we won't know until we test it. In other respects, the body and much of the technology of the K20D carries over from its predecessor, the K10D. Pentax claims improved sensitivity for the image stabilization, and a slightly larger LCD with improved off-angle viewing.

At its price point, it competes directly with the Canon EOS 40D, though like the K10D it offers many features, including the dust- and weatherproof body, sensor-shift image stabilization and wireless flash controller, that you'll see in pricier models like the Sony Alpha DSLR-A700 or Olympus E-3.

Selected specs:

Pentax K200D

(Credit: Pentax Corp.)

At $799, the K200D kit enters a more crowded field, one currently dominated by the Nikon D40x and Canon EOS Rebel XTi, both of which seem ripe for replacement. (Pentax will offer a body-only version of the K200D for $719.) It jumps to a 10-megapixel CCD from its predecessors'--the K100D, K100D Super, and K110D--6 megapixels, uses a pentamirror viewfinder rather than a pentaprism, for a lighter body, and increases to a 2.7-inch LCD. Unlike the older models, it also takes 4 AA-sized batteries (Pentax claims 1,100 shots off 4 disposable lithium cells). Like the K200D, it uses sensor-shift image stabilization and implements an enhanced dynamic range mode, which theoretically provides enhanced highlight detail.

Pentax expects to ship the K20D in April, while the D200D should be around by the beginning of March.

Canon EOS 40D

(Credit: Canon USA)

Although rumors began to circulate about this model as much as a year ago--for example, here's a Crunchgear post from September, 2006--the Canon EOS 40D will finally hit stores within the next two weeks. Unsurprisingly, the much-speculated upon replacement for the EOS 30D introduces some long-requested features, integrates some of the new technology from the EOS 1-D Mark III and delivers the usual bump in resolution and performance. The pricing remains similar to that of the 30D, with a body-only version for $1,299 and a kit including the EF f/3.5-5.6 28-135mm IS USM lens for $1,499.

There's a lot here that strengthens the 40D's credibility as a semipro workhorse. Canon added dust- and weatherproofing on the CF slot, buttons and all connection points, and implemented the same integrated cleaning system that's in the Mark III series. The control layout and menus are similar to that of the Mark III series as well, for a better experience using the 40D as a supplement to those models. Unlike the Mark III, Live View with the 40D supports autofocus; pressing the AF button briefly locks up the mirror, and Canon claims it has a silent electronic first curtain shutter, making it quieter and faster.

Canon EOS 40D

(Credit: Canon USA)

Continuous shooting performance gets a boost from the Digic III image processor, and the increase to nine cross-type AF sensors (up to f/5.6) from one should significantly speed up autofocus performance. Canon claims AF calculation speed is 30 percent faster in the 40D than the 30D. Furthermore, supporting interchangeable focusing screens allows for the option of more precise manual focus.

On the wait-and-see-if-it-matters front, Canon says the larger 3-inch LCD renders a broader color gamut, but shrinks the viewing angle from 170 degrees to 140 degrees. And, although Canon says it's unchanged, the specs indicated that spot size for spot metering has increased slightly, from 3.5 percent to 3.8 percent of the viewfinder--that's relatively large. And it would have been nice to eke out ISO 6,400 in this model.

Nevertheless, we're all eagerly waiting to see what this baby can do. Stay tuned.

Not all games need a computer or a video game system. Long ago, before the Internet and broadband and (one assumes) wheels and indoor plumbing, gamers played games on tables. Card games, role-playing games, and strategy games were all played with pens, paper, cards, dice, and figurines. Plenty of gamer geeks still play those games today. I count myself as one of them.

(Credit: Wizards of the Coast)

Wizards of the Coast owns Dungeons and Dragons and Magic: The Gathering, respectively the largest tabletop RPG and collectible card game franchises ever. WotC recently announced the strangely named Gleemax, a social site focused specifically on the pen/paper/dice/card gamer crowd. Gleemax will bring together tabletop gamers of all stripes with game reviews, game blogs, friend lists, local event calendars, and other handy services. You'll be able to hunt for players/hosts for various role-playing, card, and miniature strategy games, and even find out if any game stores nearby are hosting tournaments or campaigns.

Computer gamers will be able to get in on the action, too. If you're not a fan of tabletop games, you can use WotC's new video game portal to find new independent strategy games and WotC's own online games, like Magic Online and the upcoming Uncivilized: The Goblin web game.

You can check out Gleemax.com for a preview of the site, though it won't really get going until its social networking features get rolled out in August.