When Dungeons & Dragons got its start in the 1970s, no one involved probably imagined where it would end up. The wildly successful tabletop roleplaying game is unmatched in popularity. Countless players have sat around tables, rolled dice, and imagined over the decades. In honor of the game’s 50th anniversary, Wizards of the Coast is turning back the clock with the definitive record on how Dungeons & Dragons came to be. The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons: 1970 – 1977 explores the game’s history, including co-creator Gary Gygax’s first draft of D&D. This marks that draft’s first release to the public.
This collection pulls together early published writings, booklets, and supplements. Early articles and documents show the foundation for contemporary D&D. There’s even previously unpublished correspondence between Gygax and Dave Arneson, who co-created the roleplaying game. Other aspects of this tome of D&D history include:
- Peruse a remarkable collection of magazine and fanzine articles, many of which are no longer publicly available or remain undiscovered by D&D historians and fans of classic D&D.
- Flip through facsimiles of all the first printings of Original D&D, compiled in a single book for the first time in D&D’s publishing history.
- Explore the creation and development of the original 1974 game with insightful commentary by Jon Peterson, one of D&D’s foremost historians.
Wizards does note that some of the legacy content in The Making of Original D&D collection does not reflect the franchise’s value. They’re presenting everything as it was as history, but they recognize the depictions were wrong—then and now.
The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons: 1970 – 1977 will arrive on shelves on June 18, 2024. The book is available for preorder now.