Last roll of the dice for Dungeons & Dragons co-creator

However odd the dice you hold may be, in the end there can only be that one number that will turn up:

MILWAUKEE - Gary Gygax, who co-created the game Dungeons & Dragons and helped start the role-playing phenomenon, died Tuesday morning at his home in Lake Geneva. He was 69.

Dungeons & Dragons players create fictional characters for themselves and describe their adventures with the help of complicated rules and unusually shaped dice. The quintessential geek pastime, it spawned a wealth of copycat games and later inspired a whole genre of computer games that are still growing in popularity. Gygax had been in declining health for several years but as recently as January he hosted weekly games of Dungeons & Dragons at their home, Gail Gygax said.