Following in the footsteps of games like EverQuest and Street Fighter, Dragon Age is making the leap from video game to pen and paper role-playing game. Green Ronin Publishing, the company behind the 2nd edition of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Thieves' World, Mutants and Masterminds, and Freeport, will be in charge of transferring the world of the PC game into the minds of people sitting around a table eating snacks.

"Dragon Age: Origins has been described as the spiritual successor to BioWare's Baldur's Gate™, one of the most highly-acclaimed fantasy computer RPGs in the world, so when BioWare approached us to do a pen and paper version, we had to say ‘yes!'," said Green Ronin President Chris Pramas. "With our work on Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Black Company, and Thieves' World, dark fantasy is in our blood and Dragon Age: Origins is the best in its class. An opportunity to collaborate with BioWare on Dragon Age: Origins was not to be missed."

The Dragon Age pen and paper RPG will start showing up at bookstores and hobby shops this summer. They'll be kicking things off with a box set containing everything players need to get started, with addition sets and supplements released on a regular basis.

It's always interesting to see video games being turned into pen and paper role-playing games, considering that role-playing video games were so heavily influenced by those early tabletop RPGs. Such juxtapositions generally gather a pretty strong following in role-playing circles, with the possible exception of Street Fighter: The Storytelling Game, which everyone bought just to giggle at.

While the late Gary Gygax, who passed on a little more than a year ago, added fantasy elements to war gaming to create the basis for Dungeons & Dragons, it was Dave Arneson who took those rules and altered them to a point where instead of controlling large armies, players controlled a single character with a role to play, giving birth to the role-playing genre as we know it. It may have taken a 1979 lawsuit to get him listed officially as D&D's co-creator, but role-players around the world will always remember his contributions to gaming, both tabletop and otherwise.

According to a statement issued by Arneson's family, the legend passed away quietly shortly after 11pm on Tuesday, April 7th. You'll find an address to send cards and letters below, along with the location of the April 20th viewing in St. Paul, Minnesota, where fans are invited to pay their final respects.

The clattering of dice falls silent once again, but the rolling, virtual and physical, will never cease, thanks to the contributions of this great man. He will be missed.

Cards and letters can continue to be sent:
Dave Arneson
1043 Grand Avenue
Box #257
St. Paul, MN
55105

Visitation will be on April 20th
Time: yet to be determined
Address:
Bradshaw Funeral Home
687 Snelling Avenue South
St. Paul, MN 55105

In addition to the Insider promotion, Wizards of the Coast is sponsoring a Worldwide Dungeons & Dragons Game Day tomorrow, Saturday June 7th, during which locations around the world will be hosting special events to help ease players into the new ruleset. Hit the jump for to find out more about this worldwide celebration!

Dungeons & Dragons® 4th Edition Rulebooks Now Available

June 6, 2008 (Renton, WA) – Today Wizards of the Coast announced the release of the highly anticipated 4th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), with the retail availability of new core rulebooks. Tomorrow, June 7, players around the globe will have the chance to experience the new edition of the popular roleplaying game as part of a worldwide D&D event.

D&D 4th Edition is designed to offer more streamlined game play with exciting options for character creation and interaction, while the new rules framework will reduce the prep time needed to run a game and lower the barrier to entry for new players.

In keeping pace with the changing gaming landscape and striving to meet the ever-evolving needs of players, the new edition includes features that will appeal to players who venture into a dragon’s lair every week as well as those who haven’t delved into a dungeon in many years.

“The decision to introduce a 4th Edition of the game came out of the player feedback we’ve been gathering for years,” said Bill Slavicsek, R&D Director of Roleplaying and Miniatures Games at Wizards of the Coast. “We wanted to streamline the D&D game while enhancing the overall play experience. At its heart, it’s still an exciting tabletop game experience that’s now enhanced with online resources that make it easier for players to create characters, run games and interact with the rest of the D&D community.”

To celebrate the release 4th Edition, Wizards of the Coast is sponsoring Worldwide Dungeons & Dragons Game Day (WWDDGD) on Saturday June 7 to give players the opportunity to play 4E adventures with other gamers. Retail partners and special locations around the globe will be hosting events for players; one such location is the WWDDGD Headquarters in Seattle, where Wizards of the Coast staff is taking over Neumos in the Capitol Hill neighborhood to celebrate the 4th Edition launch. For more information on WWDDGD events, visit www.dndgameday.com.

Additionally, Wizards of the Coast is introducing 4th Edition online content in Dragon and Dungeon magazines and the first iteration of the D&D Rules Compendium on D&D Insider®. As additional resources and applications are developed, D&D Insider will grow to include tools for players to design their characters, dungeon, and adventure-building tools for Dungeon Masters and a digital game table for online play.

The Player’s Handbook, Monster Manual and Dungeon Master’s Guide are now available for purchase in retail locations around the world as a set for MSRP $104.95 or individually for MSRP $34.95. D&D Insider will be available for free during a promotional period and will move to a subscription-based fee system as additional components roll out.

Since its first release in 1974, the fantasy roleplaying game Dungeons & Dragons has taken millions of players on imaginary adventures of epic scale. Today, D&D is universally regarded as the original game that created the roleplaying game category, and the inspiration for generations of game designers. D&D is enjoyed by millions of players worldwide, while countless more remember it with fond nostalgia.

Wizards of the Coast, Inc., a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. (NYSE:HAS), is a worldwide leader in the trading card game and tabletop roleplaying game categories, and a leading developer and publisher of game-based entertainment products. The company holds an exclusive patent on trading card games (TCGs) and their method of play and produces the premier trading card game, Magic: The Gathering®, among many other trading card games and family card and board games. Wizards is also a leading publisher of fantasy series fiction with numerous New York Times bestsellers. For more information, visit the Wizards of the Coast website at www.wizards.com.

Reach Out Central (ROC) is an interactive program that's designed to help you explore how your thinking, behaviour and feelings all interact with each other. Choose your own character and try out different ways of reacting to real-life situations. On the way, you might change the way you feel by changing the way you think - it's easier than you'd expect.

Some of these newer games-that-aren't-really are going in some pretty interesting directions - I wonder how effective this kind of training (therapy? something?) is, but I suppose anything that opens discussions about touchy issues and problems is not usually a bad thing.

Reach Out Central: a game for tough times [Wonderland]

MMO-focused research website The Daedalus Project has a 7-page feature on the hows and whys of those who invest a little more in their adventures than the average PvP server player (who is 14 years old, tipes lik ths lol, wears a black trenchoat and white sneakers, and slyly uses his mom's mascara to darken the peachfuzz on his upper lip).

The conclusion? That the penis-fencing that goes in in PvP realms manifests in different ways when everyone is pretending to be angry at their dwarf wife for /dancing with that stupid macho paladin for a little too long yesterday, and you're nothing without me, and don't make me tell you again!

More brilliant insight after the jump.

Everyone wants to be the greatest, or worst, thing that has ever happened to their particular land of make-believe. Everyone has to be exquisitely attractive. Everyone has to have the best reason to weepily scratch their forearms bloody with their BlizzCon badges:

Entirely too many people seem to want to turn having a tragic past into some kind of contest ('Orcs killed my mother' 'Oh yeah? Demons killed my whole family!' 'Oh yeah? I never HAD a family' 'Arthas ninja'd my thorium!') which is not only obnoxious but also kinda dumb; very few people like to deal with tragedy by using it as a bludgeon against others. [WoW, M, 24]

This sort of pissery and pretention is maddening to the players that value actual character depth and god forbid, originality in the people with whom they seek to form in-game relations. The idea of actual roleplaying in RPGs is eternally tempting, but then I remember these people, grit my teeth, and go back to dealing with the "how i mine 4 fish" style of interaction. Sigh. eliza gauger

Faces of Role-Playing [Daedalus Project]

Is this guy, Lord Recluse. Even though I don't play CoV, seeing MMO uber bosses is still pretty exciting, especially when you consider the work the playerbase puts in to the games. Couple more pics after the jump.

For some addicts players, it's been a year of gaming in Azeroth. From login queues to begging for new servers to having your class broken before your very eyes, it's the ups and downs of an MMO. Admittedly, here in Detroit, I missed the WoW craze when it launched. I was all about Halo 2. Then, I installed this infernal game March 9 and have since logged something like 77 days played on my main. Gross.

I am ashamed.

By no stretch of the imagination is this the first Nancy Drew computer game, but it's definitely a head scratcher. I can't figure out who exactly this game is aimed at. Junior high school students? Middle-aged women? If old ladies are like using the word "cute" to describe the Hardy Boys, I am, like, so going to puke.

Watch the Trailer [Herinteractive]