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10 Things You Didn't Know about Dungeons and Dragons


Dungeons and Dragons is to paraphrase Matthew Mercer, voice actor and Dungeon Master on Critical Role, a nerdy-ass game, for nerdy-ass folk. When you play Dungeons and Dragons, you sit around a table, roll dice and pretend to be elves or dwarves or halflings or any other fantastic race. Most people are familiar with the game via popular culture. Recently, Dungeons and Dragons was an important plot point on the Netflix show, Stranger Things. But if you begin to play and start diving into the history of Dungeons and Dragons, you’ll find that there’s a lot more to the game than what pop culture would lead you to believe. Here are 10 Things You Didn't Know about Dungeons and Dragons:

  1. Dungeons and Dragons Stemmed from a War Gaming Tradition

    War games are what they sound like; they are games about war. Players move armies around a board, simulating defeats and victories. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson were part of the war gaming scene when they thought up the idea of Dungeons and Dragons. In fact, they met at the convention Gygax founded, the Lake Geneva Wargames Convention, or GenCon. The two shared an interest in medieval war gaming and created a game called Chainmail which would be the foundation for Dungeons and Dragons.  As their friendship developed, they kicked around the idea of making a game where the player controlled one person rather than entire armies. We know these games now as roleplaying games. In 1973, Gygax and Anderson collaborated on what would be the first edition of Dungeons and Dragons. By 1974, they released it into the world.

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  2. The Game Was Initially Self-Published

    We think of self-publishing as something new. People can now just put their books on Amazon and shove them out into the world. But the tradition goes back from before the days of Amazon. Gary Gygax couldn’t find a publisher for Dungeons and Dragons. Which, if you think about it, it isn’t surprising. Any game more complex than chess is considered weird by people who don’t play tabletop games. Gygax teamed up with Don Kaye and Brian Blume to found Tactical Studies Rules. Together they produced a thousand copies of three little booklets, Men & Magic, Monsters & Treasure, and Underworld & Wilderness Adventures. These booklets had to be hand assembled and were shipped out in cardboard boxes. This auspicious beginning was the start of Dungeons and Dragons. Despite this, success was on the horizon for the men at Tactical Studies Rules.

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  3. The Creators Wrote Dungeons and Dragons as a Hobby

    Nowadays, people can make careers out of Dungeons and Dragons. Wizards of the Coast employs a whole division of people to develop rules, stories, monsters and all of the other nitty gritty number-crunching minutes of the game. Artist illustrate these books with heroes and villains, settings and props and all sorts of people and things that could occupy a medieval fantasy world. But Gary Gygax, Dave Arneson and Brian Blume thought that this would be something to do on the weekends. No one knew that this kind of game could be popular, and the founders of Dungeons and Dragons at Tactical Studies Rules never really thought their product would sell outside of the wargaming community. They probably didn't even think they would make a profit. But Dungeons and Dragons became a phenomena beyond their wildest expectations.

    Image by Wil Wheaton

  4. Dungeons and Dragons Was an Instant Success

    The booklets mentioned in the previous page completely sold out in eleven months. And considering they were self-published with little advertisement, this was an impressive feat.  In 1975 Tactical Studies Rules became TSR hobbies as the demand for the books grew. The second and third printing of the Dungeons and Dragons booklets sold out by the end of 1975. And as word of the game spread, demand grew, TSR published The Basic Set which had the three original booklets and the dice needed to play the game. By 1980, retailers sold 12000 units of The Basic Set per month. And that was just the original set of booklets. This doesn’t include the Advanced Rules, and all the zines and modules produced by unofficially by fans and officially by TSR. Gygax and company had clearly tapped into something that people loved.

    Image by Benny Mazur

  5. Girls Have Always Played

    Girls have been part of Dungeons and Dragons from the beginning. Even if pop culture from E.T. to Big Bang Theory to Stranger Things have presented it as a “boys only” hobby. But that’s simply not true. Girls expressed interest in Dungeons and Dragons when they heard about it, just like boys did.  In an interview with Matt Coleville, Jim Murphy makes frequent mention of his girlfriend and other women at early tables of Dungeons and Dragons. He even tells a funny story about how his girlfriend became the highest-level spell caster in California. This is not to erase the fact that the spaces where Dungeons and Dragons was played were male-dominated. Female character’s strength scores were capped and clothing was scarce to be found in depictions of female characters. Women faced obstacles that men do not when trying to enter Dungeons and Dragons and other tabletop communities. The current publishers of Dungeons and Dragons have made an effort to include respectful depictions of women in their art. In their story modules like Storm King’s Thunder, women are given active roles in the story. Women were a part of the Dungeons and Dragons community and always will be.

    Image by Rocco Pier Luigi

  6. The Idea to Record and Broadcast Dungeons and Dragons Play Is Not New

    One of the gifts of the internet is the ability to live-stream Dungeons and Dragons. You can watch people play on Critical Role, listen to Acquisitions Incorporated or pick any of the hundreds of recordings of people playing to enjoy. But the idea to put Dungeons and Dragons to audio is not new. Gary Gygax and all the others at TSR kicked around the idea of a Dungeons and Dragons radio show where the listeners would get to hear people play. Historian Daniel Peterson thought this idea was just something the creators of Dungeons and Dragons tossed around but never got around to putting into motion. Then Peterson found a tape of the pilot episode! Rather than just recording people playing Dungeons and Dragons, a session of play was recorded, transcribed and then read aloud by pro voice actors! The result is a well-polished, easy-to-listen to introduction for the game. The reason why the show never got on the air is lost to time. Maybe internal troubles at TSR distracted people from the projects. Maybe they figured it would find an audience. Maybe radio stations were uncomfortable with the fact that it’s basically an advertisement for Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. While it’s sad to know that we never got a full Dungeons and Dragons radio drama, the first and only available episode was saved from the ravages of time. You can listen to it on Youtube, Soundcloud, or the most recent Thanksgiving episode of Wizards of the Coast Official Podcast.

    Image by John Peterson

  7. The Moral Panic Around Dungeons and Dragons Was Not as Crazy as It Seemed

    A lot of people know that there was a moral panic, but the discourse on the internet dismisses it as fundamentalist paranoia. But, the paranoia is more understandable than you think. In the 1980s a kid actually went missing and was found dead. He was known to be a Dungeons and Dragons player. And since the game was new and strange to the world, investigators followed up on that lead, but found nothing. The lurid headline caught the attention of parents, who didn’t quite understand what their children were doing. Even though Dungeons and Dragons is basically playing pretend with dice, people didn’t understand the appeal. The mother of the dead child, Patricia Pulling, connected the dots to Satanism some how. She launched a Crusade against Dungeons and Dragons. Her claims fell apart and with her death, the accusations against Dungeons and Dragons faded away. Pulling honestly thought that the roleplaying game had done harm to her child. Something terrible did happen around Dungeons and Dragons. And considering a child lost his life, can we really be angry at a mother searching for answers? Even if she found them in the wrong place?

  8. Dungeon Mastering Is Fun!

    This may sound like crazy talk. DM-ing is a lot of hard work. You have to spend hours prepping characters, dungeons and caves, monsters and so much more. Not to mention all the work you have to do if you want an overarching plot to your games. But it’s actually easier than you think. Any question you might have has been answered in official Dungeons and Dragons supplements, on Reddit, in Facebook groups. Fellow DMs put up resources on websites such as The DM's Guild. It’s really satisfying to create a narrative and make hours of fun for your friends. I have to confess, I’m a little biased. I’m a DM, but I want to play more! And the more DMs are out there, the more I get to play. So get yourself the Monster Manual and The Dungeon Master’s Guide and get plotting!

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  9. Fourth Edition Was Not That Bad

    If you go onto Dungeons and Dragons forums and ask why Fourth Edition was so bad, you’ll get answers that may surprise you. Answers like, “Fourth Edition wasn’t so bad” and “I enjoyed 4e” populate the forum replies. And to be fair, Fourth Edition had a lot going for it. The combat was streamlined. It introduced an interesting new mechanic called skill challenges which allowed the players to stimulate, for example, a rooftop chase without being bogged down by combat rules. Some complained that this made it feel too much like a board game and less like an role playing game, but Dungeons and Dragons combat has always been about moving little pieces around a board. We discussed earlier in the article about how Dungeons and Dragons came from a wargaming tradition. Even in much beloved Fifth Edition of Dungeons and Dragons, combat can be reliant on miniature figures and board grids. But, ultimately, Fifth Edition is probably the best edition of Dungeons and Dragons for newcomers. It has fourth edition’s streamlined mechanics, but also emphasis roleplaying the way older games did. New content is constantly being released, allowing players a fresh experience with the game.

  10. It's Not Just Kids Playing in Their Basement

    It wouldn’t surprise most people to learn that actors play Dungeons and Dragons. When you’re roleplaying in character, you’re essentially acting. The cast of Critical Role, one of the most popular live streams of Dungeons and Dragons, is entirely made of of voice actors including Matthew Mercer. Live action actors also get in on the fun. Vin Diesel got a tattoo of his character, that’s how much he loves Dungeons and Dragons. But it’s not just people who make “low” art that play Dungeons and Dragons. Here’s a few examples of “high” art people playing Dungeons and Dragons. Judi Dench, renowned theater and movie actress, has been known to play. Junot Diaz, an Pulitzer prizing winning author has said of Dungeons and Dragons, “[it was] a sort of storytelling apprenticeship.” Other people who play include David Lindsay-Abaire, Sharyn McCrumb, Stephen Colbert and George R.R. Martin. Judging by the skill of the people listed, Dungeons and Dragons doesn’t just appeal to kids with nothing better to do, but also to adults who are skilled in their field and want to apply those skills to have some good, clean fun.

    Image by kgeiger

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