Los Angeles - Dave Arneson, who co-created the Dungeons & Dragons game, which pioneered the format for role-playing video games has died aged 61 after a two-year battle with cancer. Wizards of the Coast, the company that produces Dungeons & Dragons, said Friday that Arneson died in a hospice in Minnesota on Tuesday.

Arneson developed the game in 1974 together with Gary Gygax, who died in March 2008. The game was one of the first to allow players to assume and develop an individual character while embarking on complex quests, and has inspired countless computer games.

"(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," Wizards of the Coast said in a statement.(dpa)