Dave Arneson's two-year battle with cancer ended Tuesday when the co-creators of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-play game died 61 in a hospice in St Paul, Minnesota.

Arneson created the game famous for its oddly shaped dice in 1974 along with the late Gary Gygax. Arneson and Gygax developed D&D using medieval characters and mythical creatures and it was a worldwide hit, particularly among teenage boys. It eventually was turned into video games, books and films.

Arneson met Gygax, who died in March 2008, at a games convention in 1969.

"The biggest thing about my dad's world is he wanted people to have fun in life... I think we get distracted by the everyday things you have to do in life and we forget to enjoy life and have fun... But my dad never did. He just wanted people to have fun.", said his daughter Malia.

"Arneson developed many of the fundamental ideas of role-playing: that each player controls just one hero, that heroes gain power through adventures and that personality is as important as combat prowess," the company Wizards of the Coast, which produces D&D, said in a statement.

The company noted that Blackmoor, a game Arneson had been developing before D&D, was the "first-ever role-playing campaign and the prototype for all role-playing game campaigns since".

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