Dave Arneson invented Hit Points

Roll that thought around in your head for a while. If you're reading this blog, odds are you've played at least one game in the last 30 years with hit points. Or Armor Class. Dave Arneson invented both of those. He also invented Role Playing Games.

He died last week.

Unlike his partner in crime Gary Gygax, Arneson kept a low profile, so over the last 30 years or so Gygax tends to get the lion's share of the credit for Dungeons and Dragons. By all accounts, that's more or less fair - Gygax created D&D, but Arneson invented RPGs. It's hard to imagine where the wold would be without him - even if you didn't burn most of middle school playing RPGs like some of us, take the computer game industry - billions of dollars a year, now, and essentially all of that attributable to RPGs in some way or another.

When Gygax died a year ago, the obituaries were verbose and plentiful - over the last week, that has not been the case with Arneson. (There are, of course, exceptions) I think most people just don't really know what to say.

Well, here goes: he came up with one thing, and it made the world a better place. I don't think you can ask for a better obituary than that.