James Maliszewski Legacy Author, Author at The Escapist

Days of High Adventure: When Characters Were Born, Not Made

If there’s one element that strongly separated tabletop roleplaying games from the miniatures wargames out of which they grew, it’s the former’s focus ...

By James Maliszewski Legacy AuthorMay 20, 2010

Days of High Adventure

Days of High Adventure: Remembering Dave

From the time I entered the hobby of roleplaying games in the Fall of 1979, the name of Gary Gygax loomed large in ...

By James Maliszewski Legacy AuthorApril 8, 2010

Days of High Adventure

Those Funny Dice

Odds are good that, to an outsider, one of the most peculiar aspects of tabletop roleplaying is its way of generating random numbers. ...

By James Maliszewski Legacy AuthorFebruary 4, 2010

Days of High Adventure

Founding Fathers

That the hobby of roleplaying grew out of the older hobby of wargaming is well known. The world’s first tabletop RPG, Dungeons & ...

By James Maliszewski Legacy AuthorDecember 17, 2009

Days of High Adventure

The Books That Founded D&D

Although it’s commonplace nowadays to assume that J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings was the primary source of inspiration for Dave Arneson ...

By James Maliszewski Legacy AuthorNovember 19, 2009

Days of High Adventure

A Lifetime of Gaming

2009 marks two important anniversaries for me: the 40th anniversary of my birth and the 30th of my introduction into the hobby of ...

By James Maliszewski Legacy AuthorOctober 22, 2009

Days of High Adventure

A Visit to Trollhalla: An Interview with Ken St. Andre

Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson released the first roleplaying game, Dungeons & Dragons, in 1974, creating a worldwide sensation and laying the foundations ...

By James Maliszewski Legacy AuthorSeptember 17, 2009

Days of High Adventure

Full Circle: A History of the Old School Revival

At the dawn of the hobby of roleplaying in the 1970s, there were no Internet forums or blogs through which gamers could communicate ...

By James Maliszewski Legacy AuthorAugust 20, 2009