Podcast #173: Game Wizards: The Epic Battle for Dungeons & Dragons with Jon Peterson

This week, Morrus and Peter are joined by Jon Peterson to talk about his new book on the history of roleplaying games, Game Wizards. In the news, Paizo recognizes the Paizo Workers United labor union, Edge Studio announces more Star Wars on the way, more information about the Cowboy Bebop RPG, and more! Plus a brand new sketch about what a three-headed demon dog really wants.

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Jon Peterson

Game Wizards: The Epic Battle for Dungeons & Dragons Game Wizards: The Epic Battle for Dungeons & Dragons (Game Histories): Peterson, Jon: 9780262542951: Amazon.com: Books

Playing at the World Blog Playing at the World

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News

Paizo Recognizes Union Paizo - Paizo Recognizes Union!

Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons: An In-Depth Review Fizban's Treasury of Dragons: An In-Depth Review

News Digest for the Week of October 22 (Free D&D Beyond Adventure, Cowboy Bebop RPG update, Astral Tabletop ends development, Adventures in Rokugan, Green Ronin AGE User Generated Content) News Digest for the Week of October 22

Edge Studio Announces More Star Wars RPG Products Coming Edge Announced It Will Be Making Star Wars RPGs....

Kalymba RPG https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/craftandogames/kalymba-the-roleplaying-game

Aegean Mythic Roleplaying https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/stoo-goff/aegean-mythic-role-playing-across-the-aegean-sea

Traveller Core Rulebook Update 2022 Mongoose Publishing

Deluxe Edition Cover Reveal (limited to 300 copies)
Monster ENCyclopedia: Umber Hulk D&D General - Monster ENCyclopedia: Umber Hulk

Level Up: Advanced 5e Kickstarter https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/enworld/level-up-advanced-5th-edition-a5e

Comparison between Kickstarter tracking/prediction sites
Tricorder Collector’s Box Set Introducing the Tricorder Collector’s Box Set

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Kickstarters

Iron Kingdoms: Borderlands and Beyond https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/privateerpress/iron-kingdoms-borderlands-and-beyond

Tome of Spell Holding https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dungeonbones/tome-of-spell-holding

Holler: An Appalachian Apocalypse for Savage Worlds https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/545820095/holler-an-appalachian-apocalypse-for-savage-worlds

Mutated Monsters https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dicedungeons/mutated-monsters-evolve-your-5th-edition-campaign

Goblonia https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gandersnitch/goblonia-ttrpg

Our Haunt https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jdragsky/our-haunt

Haunted Hill Academy https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/351992582/haunted-hill-academy

Keep up to date with all the RPG crowdfunding projects ending soon every week with Egg Embry’s RPG Crowdfunding News RPG Crowdfunding News – Iron Kingdoms, Holler, Mutated Monsters, and more

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Game Wizards

Game Wizards: The Epic Battle for Dungeons & Dragons Game Wizards: The Epic Battle for Dungeons & Dragons (Game Histories): Peterson, Jon: 9780262542951: Amazon.com: Books

Playing at the World Blog Playing at the World

Playing at the World (the book) is currently out of print and I could not find a used copy for under $500.

Game Wizards (Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson) Miniatures from Mudpuppy Games Game Wizards Gary and Dave Minis To Be Released at Gamehole Con – Mudpuppy Games

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Hosts: Russ “Morrus” Morrissey and Peter Coffey

Editing and post-production: Darryl Mott

Theme Song: Steve Arnott

Kickstarter Game Research: Egg Embry

Kickstarter Game Theme: Lyrics by Russ Morrissey, Vocals by “drwilko”, Guitar by Darryl Mott

Malach the Maleficent played by Darren Morrissey

 

[Spindly]

@Abstruse @Spindly Dave wrote about this very subject. While I’ve heard of the idea of digging under castles and it evolving from there I don’t recall a cited source for that.

Dave wrote in fact the idea came from Conan.

Though I’d bet, like the below article states, Tolkien had some influence id add that as well as the tappers trying to break into castle Blackmoor

From Blackmoor to Dungeons & Dragons: the invention of the dungeon crawl

In my post, “How the dungeon crawl’s advantages propelled Dungeons & Dragons to success,” I argued that the invention of the dungeon crawl contributed as much to the initial popularity of Dunge…

dmdavid.com

Excellent post, thanks for sharing. I'll gently re-cite my above comment. Yes, Conan escaped from dungeons. No, Howard did not describe parties of functional specialists drawn from the races in LotR with only one addition (gnomes—not coincidentally the least played race). The primary template for The AD&D Player's Handbook 1e is LotR, specifically the fellowship.

 

[Abstruse]

Fascinating history, thank you! But the Moria pattern still fits and nothing else we have seen does nearly as well. Aristotle's typology of causes might be helpful here: Chainmail was the efficient cause, Moria the formal: AristotleCausesNotes

At this point it's clear you've made up your mind that you know what happened better than the people who were there and what was going on in the minds of the creators more than the creators themselves do. So this conversation is officially pointless.