Did videogames actually start with pen, paper and 20-sided dice?
In my local game store, they have a bumper sticker that reads: I PLAYED D&D BEFORE IT WAS COOL The slogan was well aimed, and I felt myself standing up a little straighter and boasting to myself: Why, yes, I DID play D&D before it was. . .¦ Cool? Popular culture has a funny way of turning around and talking you into things that are just not true — that “Lost” really is a metaphor for postmodern life; that clip-on ties are so coming back with the hip kids in Brooklyn; that Lady Gaga didn’t steal every good idea she had from Mathew Barney and Bjork; and that “Dungeons & Dragons” has been, or ever will be, cool. Then again, there’s something to be said for a mainstay of geek culture that has survived for 35 years as a paragon of something to do in the basement that you can talk about the next day at school without shame. And looking back, it’s clear that culture owes something to the old Dungeon Master, too. “D&D” isn’t just the punch line for a “Jeopardy” question. The nerd DNA of “D&D”
