The new Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons book is a vital piece of gaming history
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The new Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons book is a vital piece of gaming history

A new book from Dungeons & Dragons publisher Wizards of the Coast chronicles the early history of the tabletop RPG, and therefore a vital step in the evolution of RPGs as a whole. The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons: 1970-1977 will release on June 18, 2024, and compiles a slew of documents from the development and release of the first tabletop RPG.

The first chapter of the book is a doozy for people who’re interested in the formation of what an RPG is, detailing and providing documents from the two inspirations that combined to become Dungeons & Dragons: Dave Arneson’s Blackmoor roleplaying wargame and Gary Gygax and Jeff Perren’s wargame Chainmail. It’s deeply cool to see what may well be images of one of the first real RPG character sheets, with its list of simple stats to draw from, or images of correspondence between the two as they consider combining their efforts.