D&D General Finished reading my 4th "History of D&D" book. Thoughts.

[haakon1]

I liked “Empire of Imagination“, which is a Gygax biography, (I especially liked the Lake Geneva map, which I used when it inspired me to visit) and “Slaying the Dragon“, which is interesting business history of TSR‘s founding through WotC acquisition.

In a different vein, “The Elfish Gene” is a memoir of an AD&D player.

 

[Scottius]

I've read all those as well as all of Designers & Dragons. Have to agree regarding Of Dice and Men. It's a weird read with the bizarre vampire game session bits mixed in with each chapter. Definitely the least essential read of the bunch in my opinion when covering RPG history.

 

[Mull Ponders]

My recommendation (I have read at least 10 books on this) is Game Wizards and Slaying the Dragon. Jon Peterson covers the early history until the departure of Gygax in Game Wizards with a crisp historian view. Slaying the Dragon by Ben Riggs spends the bulk of time covering the Williams era and the transition to WoTC. His style is more storytelling. Combined, you get an informative and entertaining view of DnD history.

 

[Parmandur]

Of Dice & Men is actually the earlier book, and the writer feels that he needs to explain to his readers what RPGs even are...hence the personal anecdotes as illustrations. Not as hard hitting as Riggs or Peterson by a long shot, but I think probably the best read to offer to a total hobby outsider who is curious to learn something completely new.

Reading all of them helps provide a three dimensional perspective on the events and characters involved.

 

[Parmandur]

You know what, thinking about the differences here, I think these do mark a real "elusive shift" in the culture: in 2021 (Game Wizards) or 2022 (Slaying the Dragon), the authors could expect some reasonable understanding of what an RPG or even specifically D&D is from a general audience reader, whereas waaaaay back in 2013...a lot of work needed to be put into introducing the basic concept and trying to explain it.

In 2013, no casual everyday reader would have watched Critical Role.

 

[el-remmen]

I liked the vampire-killer homebrew campaign parts of Of Dice and Men better than the "history" part.

 

[Parmandur]

I liked the vampire-killer homebrew campaign parts of Of Dice and Men better than the "history" part.

Well, the history has been much better since then, but it was pretty good for 2023! The awesome Gamma World like post-apocalyptic 3.5 game has aged better, in a Heavy Metal album cover sort of way.

 

[DarkCrisis]

Months later and no one has mentioned my Mass Effect reference

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Months later and no one has mentioned my Mass Effect reference

I did think of Mass Effect watching the trailer for the new WotC videogame (which looks like it's going to be setting up a multiplatform franchise, if the game does well). I suspect that was the point, though.

 

[DarkCrisis]

You should also check out Secrets of Blackmoor. It's a documentary with archival footage of Dave and Gary and recent interviews with the people who were there at the time. It's a great addition to the topic.

I finally got around to watching Blackmoor. A lot of good stuff but I found it kind of dry.

Sad to see that Dave and his group don’t get more recognition but even his family/friends kind of admit that Dave doesn’t like to formally type things up. Which is where Gary came in.

As much as Gary is known as a “gamer who ran a biz”, Dave is as a gamer who just wanted to game.

It’s to bad they couldn’t get along better even with Dave as just an idea man, but I guess Gary needed more physical work out of him. IDK