Fifty Years of Dungeons & Dragons

Fifty Years of Dungeons & Dragons PDF Author: Premeet Sidhu
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262547600
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 387

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Book Description
On the fiftieth anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons, a collection of essays that explores and celebrates the game’s legacy and its tremendous impact on gaming and popular culture. In 2024, the enormously influential tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons—also known as D&D—celebrates its fiftieth anniversary. To mark the occasion, editors Premeet Sidhu, Marcus Carter, and José Zagal have assembled an edited collection that celebrates and reflects on important parts of the game’s past, present, and future. Each chapter in Fifty Years of Dungeons & Dragons explores why the nondigital game is more popular than ever—with sales increasing 33 percent during the COVID-19 pandemic, despite worldwide lockdowns—and offers readers the opportunity to critically reflect on their own experiences, perceptions, and play of D&D. Fifty Years of Dungeons & Dragons draws on fascinating research and insight from expert scholars in the field, including: Gary Alan Fine, whose 1983 book Shared Fantasy remains a canonical text in game studies; Jon Peterson, celebrated D&D historian; Daniel Justice, Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Literature and Expressive Culture; and numerous leading and emerging scholars from the growing discipline of game studies, including Amanda Cote, Esther MacCallum-Stewart, and Aaron Trammell. The chapters cover a diverse range of topics—from D&D’s adoption in local contexts and classrooms and by queer communities to speculative interpretations of what D&D might look like in one hundred years—that aim to deepen readers’ understanding of the game.

Fifty Years of Dungeons & Dragons

Fifty Years of Dungeons & Dragons PDF Author: Premeet Sidhu
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262547600
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 387

Get Book Here

Book Description
On the fiftieth anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons, a collection of essays that explores and celebrates the game’s legacy and its tremendous impact on gaming and popular culture. In 2024, the enormously influential tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons—also known as D&D—celebrates its fiftieth anniversary. To mark the occasion, editors Premeet Sidhu, Marcus Carter, and José Zagal have assembled an edited collection that celebrates and reflects on important parts of the game’s past, present, and future. Each chapter in Fifty Years of Dungeons & Dragons explores why the nondigital game is more popular than ever—with sales increasing 33 percent during the COVID-19 pandemic, despite worldwide lockdowns—and offers readers the opportunity to critically reflect on their own experiences, perceptions, and play of D&D. Fifty Years of Dungeons & Dragons draws on fascinating research and insight from expert scholars in the field, including: Gary Alan Fine, whose 1983 book Shared Fantasy remains a canonical text in game studies; Jon Peterson, celebrated D&D historian; Daniel Justice, Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Literature and Expressive Culture; and numerous leading and emerging scholars from the growing discipline of game studies, including Amanda Cote, Esther MacCallum-Stewart, and Aaron Trammell. The chapters cover a diverse range of topics—from D&D’s adoption in local contexts and classrooms and by queer communities to speculative interpretations of what D&D might look like in one hundred years—that aim to deepen readers’ understanding of the game.

30 Years of Adventure

30 Years of Adventure PDF Author: Of The Coast Wizards
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780786934980
Category : Games
Languages : en
Pages : 283

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Book Description
A thirtieth-anniversary retrospective explores the Dungeons & Dragons franchise, featuring a selection of essays and photographs that capture the events, products, personalities, art, and influence of the game through the years.

Game Wizards

Game Wizards PDF Author: Jon Peterson
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262542951
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 401

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Book Description
The story of the arcane table-top game that became a pop culture phenomenon and the long-running legal battle waged by its cocreators. When Dungeons & Dragons was first released to a small hobby community, it hardly seemed destined for mainstream success--and yet this arcane tabletop role-playing game became an unlikely pop culture phenomenon. In Game Wizards, Jon Peterson chronicles the rise of Dungeons & Dragons from hobbyist pastime to mass market sensation, from the initial collaboration to the later feud of its creators, Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. As the game's fiftieth anniversary approaches, Peterson--a noted authority on role-playing games--explains how D&D and its creators navigated their successes, setbacks, and controversies. Peterson describes Gygax and Arneson's first meeting and their work toward the 1974 release of the game; the founding of TSR and its growth as a company; and Arneson's acrimonious departure and subsequent challenges to TSR. He recounts the "Satanic Panic" accusations that D&D was sacrilegious and dangerous, and how they made the game famous. And he chronicles TSR's reckless expansion and near-fatal corporate infighting, which culminated with the company in debt and overextended and the end of Gygax's losing battle to retain control over TSR and D&D. With Game Wizards, Peterson restores historical particulars long obscured by competing narratives spun by the one-time partners. That record amply demonstrates how the turbulent experience of creating something as momentous as Dungeons & Dragons can make people remember things a bit differently from the way they actually happened.

The Elusive Shift

The Elusive Shift PDF Author: Jon Peterson
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262360942
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
How the early Dungeons & Dragons community grappled with the nature of role-playing games, theorizing a new game genre. When Dungeon & Dragons made its debut in the mid-1970s, followed shortly thereafter by other, similar tabletop games, it sparked a renaissance in game design and critical thinking about games. D&D is now popularly considered to be the first role-playing game. But in the original rules, the term "role-playing" is nowhere to be found; D&D was marketed as a war game. In The Elusive Shift, Jon Peterson describes how players and scholars in the D&D community began to apply the term to D&D and similar games--and by doing so, established a new genre of games.

Dungeons & Dragons Art & Arcana

Dungeons & Dragons Art & Arcana PDF Author: Michael Witwer
Publisher: Ten Speed Press
ISBN: 0399580948
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 450

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Book Description
An illustrated guide to the history and evolution of the beloved role-playing game told through the paintings, sketches, illustrations, and visual ephemera behind its creation, growth, and continued popularity. FINALIST FOR THE HUGO AWARD • FINALIST FOR THE LOCUS AWARD • NOMINATED FOR THE DIANA JONES AWARD From one of the most iconic game brands in the world, this official DUNGEONS & DRAGONS illustrated history provides an unprecedented look at the visual evolution of the brand, showing its continued influence on the worlds of pop culture and fantasy. Inside the book, you’ll find more than seven hundred pieces of artwork—from each edition of the core role-playing books, supplements, and adventures; as well as Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance novels; decades of Dragon and Dungeon magazines; and classic advertisements and merchandise; plus never-before-seen sketches, large-format canvases, rare photographs, one-of-a-kind drafts, and more from the now-famous designers and artists associated with DUNGEONS & DRAGONS. The superstar author team gained unparalleled access to the archives of Wizards of the Coast and the personal collections of top collectors, as well as the designers and illustrators who created the distinctive characters, concepts, and visuals that have defined fantasy art and gameplay for generations. This is the most comprehensive collection of D&D imagery ever assembled, making this the ultimate collectible for the game's millions of fans around the world.

Dungeons & Dragons Museum

Dungeons & Dragons Museum PDF Author: Hasbro International Inc.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781800789623
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Welcome, adventurer! Journey through fifty years of Dungeons and Dragons with this illustrated gift book.Take a walk through fifty years of the beloved fantasy role-playing game - often referred to as the 'single most influential game of all time'.Illustrated throughout with rarely-seen images and with a focus on DnD's contribution to fantasy culture, Dungeons and[Bokinfo].

When Tito Loved Clara

When Tito Loved Clara PDF Author: Jon Michaud
Publisher: Algonquin Books
ISBN: 1616200553
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
Clara Lugo grew up in a home that would have rattled the most grounded of children. Through brains and determination, she has long since slipped the bonds of her confining Dominican neighborhood in the northern reaches of Manhattan. Now she tries to live a settled professional life with her American husband and son in the suburbs of New Jersey—often thwarted by her constellation of relatives who don’t understand her gringa ways. Her mostly happy life is disrupted, however, when Tito, a former boyfriend from fifteen years earlier, reappears. Something has impeded his passage into adulthood. His mother calls him an Unfinished Man. He still carries a torch for Clara; and she harbors a secret from their past. Their reacquaintance sets in motion an unraveling of both of their lives and reveals what the cost of assimilation—or the absence of it—has meant for each of them. This immensely entertaining novel—filled with wit and compassion—marks the debut of a fine writer.

Dungeons and Dragons and Philosophy

Dungeons and Dragons and Philosophy PDF Author: Jon Cogburn
Publisher: Open Court
ISBN: 0812698037
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
This volume will convince readers that the swift ascent of the tabletop role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons to worldwide popularity in the 1970s and 1980s is “the most exciting event in popular culture since the invention of the motion picture.” Dungeons and Dragons and Philosophy presents twenty-one chapters by different writers, all D&D aficionados but with starkly different insights and points of view. It will be appreciated by thoughtful fans of the game, including both those in their thirties, forties, and fifties who have rediscovered the pastime they loved as teenagers and the new teenage and college-student D&D players who have grown up with gaming via computer and console games and are now turning to D&D as a richer, fuller gaming experience. The book is divided into three parts. The first, “Heroic Tier: The Ethical Dungeon-Crawler,” explores what D&D has to teach us about ethics and about how results from the philosophical study of morality can enrich and transform the game itself. Authors argue that it’s okay to play evil characters, criticize the traditional and new systems of moral alignment, and (from the perspective of those who love the game) tackle head-on the recurring worries about whether the game has problems with gender and racial stereotypes. Readers of Dungeons and Dragons and Philosophy will become better players, better thinkers, better dungeon-masters, and better people. Part II, “Paragon Tier: Planes of Existence,” arouses a new sense of wonder about both the real world and the collaborative world game players create. Authors look at such metaphysical questions as what separates magic from science, how we express the inexpressible through collaborative storytelling, and what the objects that populate Dungeons and Dragons worlds can teach us about the equally fantastic objects that surround us in the real world. The third part, “Epic Tier: Leveling Up,” is at the crossroads of philosophy and the exciting new field of Game Studies. The writers investigate what makes a game a game, whether D&D players are artists producing works of art, whether D&D (as one of its inventors claimed) could operate entirely without rules, how we can overcome the philosophical divide between game and story, and what types of minds take part in D&D.

The Lost Dungeons of Tonisborg

The Lost Dungeons of Tonisborg PDF Author: Greg Svenson
Publisher: Fellowship of the Thing Limited
ISBN: 9781736572108
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Created in 1973 by Greg Svenson, a core member of Dave Arneson's "Blackmoor Bunch," and preserved for 35 years by David Megarry, the famous author of The Dungeon! board game, the Tonisborg Mega-Dungeon is now finally revealed in all of its original glory.As the only surviving Twin Cities dungeon from this era that was not created by Dave Arneson himself, it offers a unique historical perspective on early dungeon adventure games.Seasoned Referees will find much to benefit their games within the pages of this book, as will the novice Referee, who may be unfamiliar with some of the traditional methods of Old School ROle-Playing Games (RPG's). No matter your experience level, you will find everything you need to bring Tonisborg back to life within this volume.Includes: -Full-color reproductions of all 10 levels of Tonisborg Dungeon, complete with the original dungeon keys, or stocking lists. -Greg Svenson reveals how the dungeon came about and why it is a bridge between what came before and what comes after.-Extensive play guidelines teach you how to make Tonisborg rise again as a real-life experience for you and your players.-Updated maps and keys have been reconstructed from the originals for ease of play.-A set of historically accurate game rules have been included that are ideal for developing an original style adventure campaign.

Of Dice and Men

Of Dice and Men PDF Author: David M. Ewalt
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451640501
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
A definitive look at Dungeons & Dragons traces its origins on the battlefields of ancient Europe through the hysteria that linked it to satanic rituals and teen suicides and to its apotheosis as father of the modern video game industry.