D And D
The game is currently published by Wizards of the Coast, a subsidiary of Hasbro. It was derived from miniature wargames with a variation of the Chainmail game serving as the initial rule system. D&D's publication is widely regarded as the beginning of modern role-playing games and, by extension, the entire role-playing game industry.
Players of D&D create characters that embark upon imaginary adventures within a fantasy setting.
A Dungeon Master (abbreviated as DM, also known as a Game Master or GM) serves as the game's referee and storyteller, while also maintaining the setting in which the adventures occur. During each game session, the players listen to descriptions of their characters' surroundings, as well as additional information and potential choices from the DM, then describe their actions in response.
The characters form a party that interacts with the setting's inhabitants (and each other). Together they solve dilemmas, engage in battles and gather treasure and knowledge. In the process the characters earn experience points to become increasingly powerful over a series of sessions.
D&D departs from traditional wargaming and assigns each player a specific character to play instead of a military formation. In 2000, the simpler version of the game was discontinued and the complex version was renamed simply Dungeons & Dragons with the release of its 3rd edition. Dungeons & Dragons version 3.5 was released in June 2003, with a 4th edition in June 2008.
As of 2006, Dungeons & Dragons remains the best-known and best-selling role-playing game, with an estimated 20 million people having played the game and more than US$1 billion in book and equipment sales. Dungeons & Dragons is known beyond the game for other D&D-branded products, references in popular culture and some of the controversies that have surrounded it, particularly a moral panic in the 1980s falsely linking it to Satanism and suicide.
Play overview
A D&D game session in progress
Dungeons & Dragons is a structured yet open-ended role-playing game.
Typically, each player controls only a single character, which represents an individual in a fictional setting. As a group, these player characters (PCs) are often described as a ‘party’ of adventurers, with each member often having his or her own areas of specialty. During the course of play, each player directs the actions of his or her character and its interactions with the other characters in the game. A game often continues over a series of meetings to complete a single adventure, and longer into a series of related gaming adventures, called a ‘campaign’.
The results of the party's choices and the overall storyline for the game are determined by the Dungeon Master (DM) according to the rules of the game and the DM's interpretation of those rules. The DM selects and describes the various non-player characters (NPCs) the party encounters, the settings in which these interactions occur, and the outcomes of those encounters based on the players' choices and actions. Encounters often take the form of battles with 'monsters' – a generic term used in D&D to describe potentially hostile beings such as animals or mythical creatures. The Dungeon Master may choose to deviate from the published rules or make up new ones as he or she feels necessary.
Release 3.5 of the three core rulebooks
The most recent versions of the game's rules are detailed in three core rulebooks: The Player's Handbook, the Dungeon Master's Guide and the Monster Manual.
The current editions also assume, but do not require, the use of miniature figures or markers on a gridded surface. These are abbreviated as a 'd' followed by the number of sides.
First, a player determines his or her character's ability scores, which consist of Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. Published adventures typically include a background story, illustrations, maps and goals for PCs to achieve.
Although a small adventure entitled 'Temple of the Frog' was included in the Blackmoor rules supplement in 1975, the first stand-alone D&D module published by TSR was 1978’s Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, written by Gygax.
A linked series of adventures is commonly referred to as a 'campaign'. The locations where these adventures occur, such as a city, country, planet or an entire fictional universe, are also sometimes called 'campaigns' but are more correctly referred to as 'worlds' or 'campaign settings'. D&D settings are based in various fantasy subgenres and feature varying levels of magic and technology. Popular commercially published campaign settings for Dungeons & Dragons include Greyhawk, Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, Mystara, Spelljammer, Ravenloft, Dark Sun, Planescape, Birthright and Eberron. Alternatively, DMs may develop their own fictional worlds to use as campaign settings.
Several Dungeons & Dragons miniature figures. The grid mat underneath uses one-inch squares.
Miniature figures
The wargames from which Dungeons & Dragons evolved used miniature figures to represent combatants.
D&D initially continued the use of miniatures in a fashion similar to its direct precursors. The original D&D set of 1974 required the use of the Chainmail miniatures game for combat resolution. By the publication of the 1977 game editions, combat was mostly resolved verbally.
Thus miniatures were no longer required for game play, although some players continued to use them as a visual reference.
In the 1970s, numerous companies began to sell miniature figures specifically for Dungeons & Dragons and similar games. Dave Arneson used Chainmail to run games where players controlled a single character instead of an army, an innovation that inspired D&D. Developed with Arneson's help from his modified version of Chainmail for his Blackmoor campaign, Gygax wrote "The Fantasy Game", the role-playing game (RPG) that became Dungeons & Dragons (D&D).
Many Dungeons & Dragons elements also appear in hobbies of the mid- to late twentieth century (though these elements also existed previously).
Fantasy milieus specifically designed for gaming could be seen in Glorantha’s board games among others. Ultimately, however, Dungeons & Dragons represents a unique blending of these elements.
The theme of D&D was influenced by mythology, pulp fiction, and contemporary fantasy authors of the 1960s and 1970s. Gygax maintained that he was influenced very little by The Lord of the Rings (although the owners of that work’s copyright forced the name changes of hobbit to 'halfling', ent to 'treant', and balrog to 'Type VI demon '), stating that he included these elements as a marketing move to draw on the popularity of the work.
The magic system, in which wizards memorize spells that are used up once cast (and must be re-memorized the next day), was heavily influenced by the Dying Earth stories and novels of Jack Vance. The original alignment system (which grouped all players and creatures into ‘Law’, ‘Neutrality’ and ‘Chaos’) was derived from the novel Three Hearts and Three Lions by Poul Anderson. A troll described in this work also influenced the D&D definition of that monster.
Other influences include the works of Robert E.
Sprague de Camp, Fletcher Pratt, Roger Zelazny, and Michael Moorcock. Monsters, spells, and magic items used in the game have been inspired by hundreds of individual works ranging from A. It was amateurish in production and written from a perspective that assumed the reader was familiar with wargaming.
Eric Holmes, the editor of the basic game, preferred a lighter tone with more room for personal improvisation. Confusing matters further, the original D&D boxed set remained in publication until 1979, since it remained a healthy seller for TSR.
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons was designed to create a tighter, more structured game system than the loose framework of the original game. While seen by many as a revision of D&D, AD&D was at the time declared to be "neither an expansion nor a revision of the old game, it is a new game". The AD&D game was not intended to be directly compatible with D&D and it required some conversion to play between the rule sets. The term Advanced described the more complex rules and did not imply "for higher-level gaming abilities".
Several supplementary books were published throughout the 1980s, notably Unearthed Arcana (1985) that included a large number of new rules.
Revised editions
In 1981 Basic Dungeons & Dragons was revised by Tom Moldvay. This included blending fantasy with other genres, such as horror (Ravenloft), science fiction (Spelljammer), and apocalyptic (Dark Sun), as well as alternative historical and non-European mythological settings.
Wizards of the Coast
In 1997, a near-bankrupt TSR was purchased by Wizards of the Coast.
This release incorporated hundreds of rule changes, mostly minor, and expanded the core rulebooks.
In early 2005 Wizards of the Coast's R&D team started to develop Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition, prompted mainly by the feedback obtained from the D&D playing community and a desire to make the game faster, more intuitive and a better play experience than it was under 3rd Edition. An example is HackMaster (2001) by Kenzer and Company, a licensed, non-OGL, semi-satirical follow-on to 1st and 2nd Edition. Castles & Crusades (2005), by Troll Lord Games, is a reimagining of early editions by streamlining rules from OGL that was supported by Gary Gygax prior to his death.
With the release of the fourth edition, Wizards of the Coast has introduced its Game System License, which represents a significant restriction compared with the very open policies embodied by the OGL.
A world is a fictional place in which a campaign is set.