When Was Dungeons & Dragons Invented? A History of D&D

It’s hard to ideate a satellite without Dungeons & Dragons. It’s go specified a immense portion of our culture, from Stranger Things episodes, to references successful drama TV shows similar Community and Freaks and Geeks, to however we presumption the phantasy genre arsenic a whole. Dungeons & Dragons has besides had a singular power connected the gaming manufacture successful general, from committee games to video games. But if you look backmost astatine the past of Dungeons & Dragons, it’s really a batch younger than you mightiness think. And the crippled conscionable keeps evolving. So erstwhile was Dungeons & Dragons invented? Who invented it? How did it start? And wherever did it spell from there? Let’s dive in!

Before D&D was the crippled arsenic we cognize it, it grew retired of a medieval warfare crippled called Chainmail. The crippled was built to simulate medieval combat, but determination was a 14-page supplement included astatine the extremity of the crippled that explained however to use the rules to a phantasy setting.

When Dungeons & Dragons was archetypal published, the crippled came successful the signifier of 3 booklets successful a woodgrain-colored cardboard box: Men & Magic, Monsters & Treasure, and Underworld & Wilderness Adventures. The archetypal people tally was of 1,000 hand-assembled copies, and it sold retired successful little than a year.

D&D is acceptable successful a medieval phantasy satellite successful which players signifier a radical made of antithetic races and classes. They are led done the communicative by a Dungeon Master who narrates their adventure. Players find however to respond to the events successful the game, and the occurrence of their actions are determined by rolling dice. The dice are 4-, 6-, 8-, 10-, 12-sided, but galore of the choices successful the crippled are decided by the 20-sided die.

Each player’s character’s class, race, strengths, and weaknesses tin besides play into the occurrence of their actions. In the archetypal D&D boxed set, determination were lone 3 main classes a quality could play: Cleric, Fighting-Man, oregon Magic-User. As for races, players could beryllium a human, elf, dwarf, oregon hobbit (later renamed halfling).

The archetypal variation screen of The Players Handbook

In 1977, Dungeons & Dragons divided into basal and precocious versions of the game. The Monster Manual was the archetypal publication successful the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons product line, introducing 350 antithetic monsters into gameplay. A twelvemonth aboriginal successful 1978, a 128-page hardcover called The Players Handbook further expanded the satellite of Advanced D&D. Finally, successful 1979, TSR released the Dungeon Masters Guide, the 3rd and last halfway Advanced Dungeons & Dragons hardcover rulebook.

TSR published Dungeons & Dragons content until 1997, erstwhile Wizards of the Coast purchased the institution and aft 3 years of improvement released Dungeons & Dragons 3rd variation successful 2000. In the biggest revision of D&D rules to date, this caller variation of the crippled combined the Basic and Advanced D&D games into 1 unified game. The caller variation besides allowed players to customize their characters successful unsocial ways, introducing skills and feats into quality creation.

Based connected feedback received from D&D players connected the 3rd edition, Wizards of the Coast released a 4th variation successful 2005. Then successful 2012, Wizards of the Coast announced that they would beryllium processing a 5th edition, utilizing further suggestions from players and letting them playtest the rules. Public playtesting began successful May 2012, and the 5th variation was yet released successful 2014, to coincide with the 40th day of the game.

Early successful Dungeons & Dragon’s work history, it became wide that the crippled was inspired successful nary tiny portion by the phantasy satellite of Lord of the Rings. In fact, aboriginal versions of the crippled were truthful akin to the LOTR satellite that the Tolkien property deed Gygax and Arneson with a lawsuit that was yet settled retired of court. According to Gygax successful a station on EN World, the Tolkien property wanted the words dragon, dwarf, elf, ent, goblin, hobbit, orc, and warg removed from the crippled entirely. While it was successfully argued that astir of the phantasy names belonged to the nationalist domain, D&D was required to alteration hobbits into halflings, ents into treants, and balrogs into balor.

Throughout the game’s years of popularity, the crippled has besides been accused of promoting Satanism and witchcraft. This Satanic Panic peaked successful the 1980s, with spiritual groups publishing anti-D&D tracts that showed the RPG to beryllium a slippery slope into demonic worship, murder, suicide, and more.

D&D has besides been accused of portraying negative radical stereotypes done its statement of fantasy races specified arsenic orcs and “dark elves” arsenic inherently brutish and evil characters. The creators of D&D are inactive grappling with this issue, and a batch of it comes down to idiosyncratic quality choices and gameplay; however, successful 2020, the D&D squad announced that they “would beryllium making changes to portions of its 5th variation merchandise enactment that fans person called retired for being insensitive…The institution volition besides beryllium making a substantive alteration to quality instauration to broaden the permissible spectrum of quality types wrong each of the game’s galore races.”

To coincide with the 50th day of the fashionable role-playing game, Wizards of the Coast has announced that the crippled volition person a “major update” successful 2024. The announcement was huffy astatine the “Future of D&D” sheet at D&D Celebration 2021, and astatine the extremity of August, Wizards of the Coast released much details astir what we tin expect from that update.

That update is officially called One D&D, which is the “codename for the aboriginal of D&D.” This update volition see a large update and enlargement of the rules of the game, including updated versions of the Monster Manual, Dungeon Master’s Guide, and Player’s Handbook. The D&D Beyond website volition besides spot a large overhaul, with caller tools and resources for D&D players. Finally, Wizards of the Coast volition beryllium introducing a caller integer D&D play experience. One D&D is presently successful the playtesting phase, but determination are surely tons of breathtaking things to travel for D&D fans!

For further speechmaking astir the past of Dungeons & Dragons, be definite to cheque retired Slaying the Dragon: A Secret History of Dungeons & Dragons by Ben Riggs, which was published earlier this year.

Looking for much D&D content? Here’s why you should commencement a Dungeons & Dragons nine astatine your library. And present are the books you should work based connected your D&D class.