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How Gaming Got Its Dice
For those of us who grew up with Dungeons & Dragons, it is easy to take the polyhedral dice of gaming for granted. Dice had played an integral role in gaming since Prussian wargamers of the early...
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Arneson's Naval Illustrations
Dave Arneson had a well-documented love of boats, especially sailing ships. Around the time that Dungeons & Dragons was developed, we see this especially in his work on the Don't Give Up the Ship...
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The Dalluhn Manuscript: In Detail and On Display
It's been a few months since I've discussed the Dalluhn Manuscript here. In the intervening time, I have conducted a more thorough study of the document, consulted with forensics experts and early...
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Tactical Studies Hobbies, an Oddity in Letterhead
In mid-1975, the partnership of Tactical Studies Rules underwent a transformation into TSR Hobbies, Inc. A number of factors motivated this transition, including the need to reorganize following the...
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Arsouf (1969) by Gary Gygax
Years before the publication of Dungeons & Dragons or even Chainmail, the wargaming fan community knew well of Gary Gygax's aspiration to design games. The image above shows the back of a copy of...
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Character Sheets in 1975
The first edition of Dungeons & Dragons did not ship with any sort of character sheet. The Men & Magic booklet did provide "a sample record of a character" (pg.10) which comprised only the...
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The Origins of Dice Notation
As a previous post here covered, Dungeons & Dragons was the first game to make practical use of all five Platonic solids as dice. The first printing of Dungeons & Dragons (1974) did not,...
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The First Critical Hits
Nothing is more satisfying than rolling the dice and seeing not only that you hit, but that you hit exceptionally well. The adrenaline rush of critical hits proved so compelling that there is scarcely...
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The Earliest Dungeons & Dragons Advertisements
In 1974, Tactical Studies Rules had a very limited advertising budget to promote their new game Dungeons & Dragons. Their first advertisements therefore appeared in fanzines, sometimes places that...
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When Dungeons & Dragons Turns 40
Many sources, including Playing at the World, assign to Dungeons & Dragons an initial release in January 1974. Our best evidence comes from contemporary notices like the one above, a letter written...
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Gary Gygax's 1973 D&D Working Draft
Just in time for the fortieth anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons, some spectacular new historical evidence has come to light: a partial copy of a pre-publication working draft of Dungeons &...
View ArticleHistory of D&D in 12 Treasures
[for best results, watch on YouTube directly]In honor of the fortieth anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons, and for a change of pace, in this video I review the development of Dungeons & Dragons...
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A Fantastic Bestiary
When we study the monsters that populated the early setting of Dungeons & Dragons, sometimes we're at a loss to identify any particular source for them. The basilisk, for example, might have come...
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Midgard II (1972), the Other Fantastic Medieval Wargames Campagin
FANTASY NUTS UNITE! [Someone] is producing a multi-player Fantasy game... It will include giants, wizards, Heroes and Rulers as some of the cast of Characters. The rules of the game are but a guide to...
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The Legacy of Gygax's Armor
Recently, the Basic Rules of the next edition of Dungeons & Dragons became available for download. While for most, this presents an occasion to ponder the future of the game, for this blog, it...
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How Gary Gygax Lost Control of TSR
Yesterday was Gary Gygax's birthday: an occasion to celebrate his achievements and successes. Today, I'm releasing a long piece about another, less cheerful part of his story: the upheaval of TSR's...
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Gen Con 1968 and Today
With Gen Con in Indianapolis this week, today we're exploring what is almost certainly the first press coverage of the convention, just following its debut in 1968. This comes from a regional paper,...
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1974 Dungeon Variant, Now for Download
One of the many pleasures of writing about the history of games is receiving unexpected correspondence from the people whose work I study, sometimes people who are very surprised to learn that a...
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The First Female Gamers
Over on Medium, I posted a new and lengthy piece about the first female gamers, and how Dungeons & Dragons managed to win the interest of women where prior wargames had not. The process of making...
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