How did Dungeons & Dragons begin, and what did it change?

Dungeons & Dragons came out of the American wargaming hobby. Gary Gygax in Wisconsin and Dave Arneson in Minnesota, both wargamers, co-created the fantasy role-playing game, which appeared in 1974. It is described as the first modern role-playing game, and its mechanics and group structure shaped tabletop role-playing games and many computer games. [1] [2]

In the late 1960s the Gygax home in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, was a focal point for wargamers. Gygax helped found the International Federation of Wargamers and in 1968 set up its annual Gen Con event. People then played board wargames such as Gettysburg and Stalingrad, or miniature wargames with models on large tabletop maps. Both tried to simulate historical battles using dense rules. Gygax met his local group, the Lake Geneva Tactical Studies Association, in his cellar every weekend to play and to plan their own rule variations. [3]

About 300 miles away, University of Minnesota student Dave Arneson was part of a similarly experimental group, the Midwest Military Simulation Association, which was already modifying games such as Diplomacy. [3]

Smithsonian Magazine describes the pair's approach as novel: instead of setting player against player, the game had participants work their way together through a fantasy realm, sometimes as friends and sometimes as foes, under the watch of a referee. The setting drew on fantasy such as The Lord of the Rings, with its elves and orcs. [4]

After a wargame publisher turned the game down, Gygax and a childhood friend formed a company, Tactical Studies Rules, to market what he and Arneson had invented, and they printed 1,000 copies at first. The result was published in 1974. [5] [1]

D&D established conventions that have dominated the genre: dice as a game mechanic, character record sheets, numerical attributes, and group play centered on a gamemaster. Within months, other writers and publishers released their own role-playing games, mostly fantasy, including Tunnels & Trolls (1975), Empire of the Petal Throne (1975) and Chivalry & Sorcery (1976). Later games followed, including Traveller (1977), RuneQuest (1978), Call of Cthulhu (1981), GURPS (1986) and Vampire: The Masquerade (1991). The influence also looped back to miniatures wargaming through games such as Warhammer Fantasy Battles. [2]

Many players of the late 1970s and early 1980s were also programmers, and they built computer versions of the game. Commercial examples include Ultima (1981), The Demon's Forge (1981), Telengard (1982) and Might & Magic (1986). The Museum of Play's author argues that D&D also supplied the basic mechanics of many later games: hit points, experience points and levels, character races and classes, collecting armor and weapons, and fighting ever fiercer monsters. Because the rules were statistical, they suited computers that could generate random numbers and calculate hit probabilities quickly. The same source says numerical measures such as health in Doom or hunger and hygiene in The Sims descend from D&D's mechanics, even in games with no swords or sorcerers. [6]