It was apt that Gary Gygax's death this week should be announced by the chief executive of a company called Troll Lord Games. After all, Mr Gygax was a co-creator of the Dungeons & Dragons' role-playing game, and as one grieving interviewee ("I don't think I've really grokked it yet") put it: "He shaped an entire generation of gamers." D&D, as afficionados call it, (more than 20 million people are estimated to have played the game since its invention in 1974), can mystify even those who give it a go. There is no board, nor fancy graphics - just some odd-shaped dice and imaginary monsters. Indeed, the game is all made up: players can turn themselves into a druid, or a warrior, or anything and then go in search of their fortune. Another participant acts as dungeon master and plots their adventures. To do so, he uses obscure rules more complex than any EU treaty; no detail is too small - an adventurer carrying too much has to slow to a speed determined by a mule encumberance table. Ridiculous? Yes. But in an age of expensive, souped-up video games, there is something treasurable about a teen pursuit that requires only pen, paper and imagination. By constructing a world of their own, young players have to ponder everything from zoology to climatology, as well as developing a grasp on probability theory (those odd-shaped dice). And for (let's face it) boys struggling to fit into often-cruel adolescent society, it still offers an escape from reality, and a twist on an old cliche: if you can't join them, beat up some orcs.