Advanced Dungeons and Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons (commonly known as D&D and sometimes abbreviated as DND or DnD) is a fantasy role-playing game (RPG) first designed by Gary Gygax and David Arneson in the early 1970s. It was published by Gygax's company, Tactical Studies Rules (TSR).
Overview and history
Dungeons & Dragons evolved from the Chainmail system of wargaming rules. D&D was the first commercially-produced role-playing game and it is by far the most well-known and best selling. D&D has exerted a massive influence over its imitators and successors, in many ways defining what an RPG was — to some extent, the game continues to define the RPG genre.
Gygax and Arneson designed Dungeons & Dragons to take place in a fantasy fiction setting based upon popular fiction and mythology. It was influenced by The Lord of the Rings, popular Greek and Norse mythology, the pulp fiction stories of Robert E. Howard, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and many of the more contemporary fantasy authors of the 1960s and 1970s, such as Jack Vance, Fritz Leiber and Michael Moorcock. The game invented the RPG concept of a referee (the "Dungeon Master" or DM) who creates the fictional world of the game and moderates the action of the adventures.
The original D&D game allowed players to assume the roles of fighters, wizards (magic-users), clerics (priests), Hobbits (called by that specific name in the original rules), Dwarves, or Elves (later versions turned these last three into "races" and called them "demi-humans", able to take professions independent of species). The players would embark upon imaginary adventures, where they would battle all kinds of fictional monsters from goblins to dragons to ten foot gelatinous cubes, while gathering treasure and experience points as the game progressed. These character classes, monsters, and fantasy world settings were greatly expanded and improved with further editions of the game.
D&D took the world of wargaming by storm, creating its own niche and giving birth to a multitude of role-playing games, based on every genre imaginable. Science fiction, horror, superheroes, cartoons, westerns, spies and espionage, and many other fictional settings were adapted to role-playing games, with several of these games also being published by TSR. However, "fantasy role-playing," loosely based on the world of D&D, continued to dominate the field of role-playing games, and this state of affairs still holds as of 2003.
Editions
D&D has gone through several revisions. The first edition featured just a few character classes and monsters. Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D) was published between 1977 and 1979, and greatly expanded the character classes, monsters and spells. In 1980, the Dungeons & Dragons name was used for a simplified version of the game that was incompatible with the more mainstream AD&D. In 1989, AD&D Second Edition was published, which revised the rules again, consolidating some character classes, disposing of some fan favorites, and revising the combat system slightly. It was during this time that the current owners of TSR (Gygax and Arneson had earlier left) angered many fans with several extreme practices intended to make up for declining sales, such as inflating prices, excessive split pricing of individual game products, and relentless copyright infringement lawsuits. A long decline in popularity followed into the 1990s, resulting in TSR filing for bankruptcy in 1998; TSR never emerged from bankruptcy, and was in the end purchased by former competitor Wizards of the Coast.
In 2000, a third revision, called Dungeons & Dragons Third Edition (or 3E for short), was published by Wizards of the Coast. It is the basis of a broader role-playing system designed around 20-sided dice, called the d20 system. This edition rationalized movement and combat, according to its proponents. Others are of the opinion that it needlessly complicated matters by adding tortuous rules regarding "attacks of opportunity" and putting all movement on a square grid. The edition did remove old arbitrary restrictions on class and race combinations, and incorporates skills and feats to allow players to customize their characters. The d20 system is an open source version of the D&D core rules that makes it easier to market D&D-compatible content under a broadly recognizable commercial license.
In July of 2003, errata and some significant rule changes were incorporated into a new set of core rulebooks as edition "3.5".
Manuals
Several manuals (hardbound books) are required for D&D. With the first edition, the popularity of these (often pricey) volumes of books encouraged TSR to publish more and more editions of increasingly esoteric rules for the game. At its height, the first edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons offered as many as fourteen different hardcover rulebooks, which often contradicted with one another and caused friction among game players attempting to properly interpret the rules for different situations. The publication of the second and third editions of D&D negated the "official" status of the previous rulebooks, though game players often still refer to the earlier editions as reference guides.
As of the Second Edition, manuals available for the game included:
These manuals, though no longer official, are highly-prized by collectors. Examples in good condition (which is rare since these books got a lot of use from players) can fetch prices many times their cover value.
The pen and ink illustrations within these volumes, especially the Monster Manual is uneven—some artwork is amateurish (as was all D&D art in the early days), while some show skillful use of lines and media. Despite their uneven quality, some fans regard these illustrations as the best in the series.
Dice
Dungeons & Dragons is noted for introducing the use of many unique types of polyhedral dice. While the game uses traditional 6-sided dice from time to time, many other types of dice are used more frequently. D&D's popularity prompted its competitors to adopt the use of many-sided dice, though this trend has been reversed with the introduction of "third generation" role playing games.
Miniatures
Dungeons & Dragons introduced the widespread use of miniatures to aid in gameplay. These miniatures are scale-sized models of elements found in most adventures, such as fighters, mages, dwarves and a variety of monsters. The figures can be placed according to party order and relative position of characters. Used together with non-player character and figures for monsters, they added to the immersiveness of the game. Though D&D can be played without such miniatures, it is almost universally played with them.
The original miniatures available for use with D&D were made of lead, but due to the dangers of lead poisoning, they are now made of lead-free pewter.
In the 1980s, numerous companies sprung up developing lead figures for D&D and related role-playing games. Some of the most respected were Ral Partha and Citadel, noted for their high-quality and attention to detail. TSR even partnered itself with one miniature manufacturer, Grenadier, and released their figures under the D&D brand. Despite this clever marketing partnership, Grenadier figures were usually derided for poor quality and unrealistic proportions.
Miniatures, early on most often referred to as "lead figures," were used in a variety of ways to aid in the immersiveness of the game. Often they were placed on acetate-covered graph paper with walls and other entities drawn with grease pencils. As the adventurers advanced, the grease pencil markings could be wiped off and a new area drawn. Some players wouild build entire floor tile and walls sets from wood or cardboard and would invest in large inventories of trees and other location objects to make the gaming even more immersive.
As with dice, many players became attached to certain figures in their collection. Many players spent hours carefully painting their figures with exacting detail. This attachment and hobby still exists today, but has ebbed with the widespread availability of pre-painted figures.
Other media
A movie, Dungeons & Dragons, very loosely based on the gaming conventions, was released in 2000. This was preceded in the 1980s by an animated cartoon series of the same name.
A number of computer role-playing games such as Pool of Radiance (1988), DragonStrike (1990), Forgotten Realms Unlimited Adventures (1993), Baldur's Gate (1998) and its sequels, (1999), Icewind Dale (2000) and its sequels, and Neverwinter Nights (2002) use Dungeons & Dragons-based rules. Forty-nine computer RPGs have been released and sold under the D&D license as of October 2002. Some use licensed Second Edition AD&D rules, while others use the more recent open-source d20 system for game mechanics as well as trademarks licensed from Wizards of the Coast. In these computer games, the rules are usually modified to enhance PC-based game play. Some players go so far as to say that computerized versions are so different from PnP (pen-and-paper) games that they really are different experiences, and shouldn't be lumped together.
A number of video game console and arcade games such as Warriors of the Eternal Sun (1992, Sega Genesis), Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom (1993, arcade), and Slayer (1995, 3DO) were created with the D&D theme in mind, all of which barely touched on the dynamic role-playing nature of the D&D system, but all of which were designed and marketed under the D&D license. Seven console and two arcade games have been released and sold under the D&D license as of October 2002. While the game is not officially credited, the popular 1980s arcade game Gauntlet is also seen as being influenced by the D&D game.
Seven board games were also sold under the D&D license. One of them, Dungeons & Dragons Computer Labyrinth Game in 1980 was the original board game which was a computer/board game hybrid and the first D&D licensed game that contained digital electronics.
Magazines devoted to supporting Dungeons & Dragons include Dungeon Magazine and Dragon Magazine.
Other settings
TSR created many imaginary worlds called campaign settings in which D&D games can be based, although product development has ceased for most of them. These fantasy worlds include:
Legacy
Several competitors to TSR and D&D became successful in their own right. A number of other role-playing systems include Call of Cthulhu by Chaosium, Champions by Hero Games, GURPS by Steve Jackson Games and by White Wolf Game Studio. But D&D was the first and most successful role-playing game, and all of the RPGs of today can be traced back to the original creation of Gygax and Arneson (interestingly, Call of Cthulhu d20 was released in early 2002, using the D&D-derived d20 System, and many other successful RPGs have followed suit).
Many criticize Dungeons & Dragons, claiming that it fosters unhealthy obsessions with the occult and suicide. Often this connection is pointed out when young people are indicted for crimes, such as a 2001 murder of Robert M. Schwartz, a prominent scientist in Loudoun County, Virginia. Nevertheless, studies conducted by Michael Stackpole show that the suicide rate is actually lower among gamers than non-gamers.
See also
External links
Referenced By
Demon | Demonic | Devil | Devils | Imaginary universe | Midgard(role-playing game) | Midgard (role-playing game) | Origin and history of the demons | Prince of Darkness | Rolemaster | Strategic Simulation Inc. | Strategic Simulations | Strategic Simulations, Inc. | The Devil | The Devil and his names | The Prince of Darkness
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