D&D General How Dungeons & Dragons Started, WotC video.

[Mannahnin]

The historical analysis seems reasonable, compassionate and fair. Its focus on the documents, the rules themselves, and how these rules actually functioned in practice, feels accurate and useful. Both Gygax and Anderson are vital.

It convincingly demonstrates that "Dungeons & Dragons", per se, originates in year 1974. But the book explains the formative years leading up to it are innovative and causing a revolutionary paradigm.

It is interesting how the "rights" to certain historical documents can interfere with the process of understanding history. The authors are aware of this, and make an effort to compensate for the missing documentation in their description.

The book looks to be an excellent book about D&D, and even an excellent example of historiography itself.

Playing at the World was already good, but Peterson has just gotten better and better with each book, IMO.

The video also emphasized for me how the "fans" are an integral aspect of the D&D tradition. Corporations can help this tradition or hurt it, but no single corporation can "own" it. The fans "own" D&D. Corporations can own their contributions to it, and do well to integrate and acknowledge the contributions by others.

D&D and perhaps the roleplaying generally that derives from it, is unlike other kinds of games.

The game is about how to invent a reality. This is something profound, perhaps existentialist. It cannot be commodified.

Peterson's books are also excellent reminders and illustrations of this. Of how the people who made it in the first place were fans before they made a small business. And then seeing all the fan and rival publisher discourse discussed in The Elusive Shift, in terms of how RPGs became an idea memetically spread.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I found it intensely interesting that both the Bard and the Ranger can be traced back to fan suggestions for the game. It adds a level of nuance to them that I just find makes so much more sense to me.