If you have never heard of D&D–Dungeons and Dragons– then you haven’t been paying attention for the past 50 years. 2024 is the Golden Anniversary of this iconic TTRG. A TTRPG is a tabletop role-playing game: a game played around a table or online in which a group of people create and play the part of characters in a story that develops as the game is played. This Table Top Role-Playing Game originated in the world of Medieval tabletop war games. In those early days, game sets were openly shared in many wargame magazines. Wargaming magazines with titles like Strategy and Tactics and Command Magazine played a large role in helping to spread the wargaming scene.
In 1971, Gary Gygax co-developed Chainmail, a miniatures wargame based on four pages of instruction for medieval warfare written and published by Jeff Perren. Gygax also included elements from a two-page set of rules developed for a late 1970 game run by the New England Wargamers Association (NEWA), which were designed by one Leonard Patt. Patt’s system showed the first fantasy game with heroes, dragons, orcs, ents, and wizards who cast fireballs at enemies.
After playing Dave Arneson’s Blackmoor game with him, Gygax adopted the idea of adaptive play where each player reacted to situations and tried to escape them rather than adhering to rigid rules. Each piece represented a single character rather than larger formations.
In the 1960s, Gygax created an organization of wargaming clubs and founded the Gen Con gaming convention. He co-founded the company Tactical Studies Rules (TSR, Inc.) with childhood friend Don Kaye in 1973. The next year, Gygax and Dave Arneson created D&D, which expanded on Gygax’s Chainmail and included elements of the fantasy stories that he loved as a child.
In 1976, Gygax founded The Dragon, a magazine based around the new game. In 1977, he began work on a more comprehensive version of the game called Advanced Dungeons & Dragons which would become the modern D&D.
Gygax designed numerous manuals for the game system, as well as several pre-packaged adventures called “modules” that gave a person running a D&D game (the “Dungeon Master”) a rough script and ideas. In 1983, he worked to license the D&D product line into the successful D&D cartoon series.
The Dungeons & Dragons game changed ownership many times until it is currently owned by Hasbro. In this 50th year the celebrations include special Lego sets, D&D Pop Tarts, and D&D Stamps.
Timeline of D&D:
1780 The first wargame was invented in Prussia by Johann Christian Ludwig Hellwig.
1913 HG Wells published the first rulebooks for for miniature wargames using toy soldiers. An influence on Gary Gygax.
1953 When Gygax was 15 years old, he and his best friend Don Kaye stumbled onto the wargaming scene.
1954 American Charles S. Roberts created the first successful commercial board wargame Tactics (1954).
Wargaming magazines. Titles like Strategy and Tactics (beginning in 1967) and Command Magazine (beginning in 1989) would play a large role in helping to spread the wargaming scene.
1958 Gygax Marries Mary Jo Powell, the girlfriend of his childhood friends, Kaye (divorced 1983)
1967 Gary Gygax co-founded the International Federation of Wargamers (IFW) with Bill Speer and Scott Duncan.
1967 The first Gen Con, Gen Con “0”, as it’s now known, was held in August at Gary Gygax’s home at 330 Center Street, Lake Geneva. Between 12 and 20 people were invited. Three card tables crowded the small front porch, and miniatures gaming was held in the basement.
1972 Dave Arneson’s Blackmoor based on Adaptive Storytelling and shared imagination played with Gary Grygax and Terry and Robert Kuntz.
1973 October Gary Gygax and Dan Kaye create Technical Studies Rules, Inc.
1974 Gary Gygax, in a quest to generate more random numbers, was the first to incorporate the 20-sided die (Icosahedron) from a school catalogue into a new game he had invented called Dungeons & Dragons.
1977 Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D), was produced by Gygax himself. AD&D was separated into four hardcover books: the Player’s Handbook, Monster Manual, and Dungeon Master’s Guide—a tradition that has been replicated by AD&D’s descendants for decades—plus a final book, Deities and Demigods. As Gygax’s creation, AD&D went on to become the “official” version of D&D.
1982 Gary Gygax was forced out as CEO and off the TSR board amidst a battle for control with Brian Blume.
1985 Gygax sold his remaining stake in TSR shortly after.
1992 Gygax continued to create role-playing game titles independently, beginning with the multi-genre Dangerous Journeys in 1992.
1996 TSR was over $30 million in debt and unable to secure additional financing. Despite publishing popular RPG content, the company seemed on the brink of bankruptcy.
1997 Wizards of the Coast bought out TSR and produced a third edition of Dungeons & Dragons materials in 2000 The $146.3 million purchase from Fandom, a San Francisco-based fan platform that has owned and operated D&D Beyond since 2019.
1999 Wizards of the Coast doubled the previous TSR Sales of D&D and was acquired by Hasbro for $325 million.
2008 Death of Gary Gygax at 69 on March 4th.
2009 Death of Dave Arneson on April 7th.
2019 Fandom, a San Francisco-based fan platform purchased D&D from “Wizards of the Coast”.
2024 Post office issues 10 D&D stamps designs using existing illustrations highlighting characters, creatures and encounters familiar to players of the game.
2024 Hasbro will issue revised and updated Player’s Handbook, Dragon Masters Guide, and Monster Manual
2024 Lego releases D&D set.