Enter Jon Peterson’s Game Wizards: The Epic Battle for Dungeons & Dragons. Peterson focuses on the business end of D&D, examining a period of roughly a dozen years from the game’s creation in the mid-’70s to Gygax’s loss of control of TSR, Inc., its publisher and the company he founded. The unexpected success of D&D, the financial struggles that deepened as it grew bigger, and the loss and alienation of its two cocreators make for a narrative as compelling as any crafted in the game itself - and show the perils of putting profit before purpose in any artistic medium.įollowing the death of D&D’s creators, Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, in 20 respectively, there has been a surge of interest in the origins of TTRPG, particularly as the game’s fanbase has expanded during COVID-19.
A big part of D&D’s fame is the history of the game as a business. But it’s not just because it was the first role-playing game - most fans would argue that it isn’t the best. And you can’t talk about TTRPGs without talking about the granddaddy of them all, the first and the biggest role-playing game: Dungeons & Dragons (D&D).ĭ&D is the hobby’s 800-pound gorilla (or, in game terms, its seven-headed hydra).
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There are podcasts and web series about TTRPGs! There are blockbuster movies about TTRPGs! Celebrities play them! What was once a small, marginalized corner of an already obscure hobby is now.
For those of us who have been fans of the hobby for many decades, it’s hard to believe that the thing that got us ridiculed in high school is suddenly a mainstream success. Tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs, to insufferable nerds like myself) are suddenly a hot commodity.
Review of Game Wizards: The Epic Battle for Dungeons & Dragons by Jon Peterson (MIT Press, 2021)
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