Dungeons & Dragons is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (RPG) originally created and designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. The game was first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. (TSR). It has been published by Wizards of the Coast, later a subsidiary of Hasbro, since 1997. The game was derived from miniature wargames, with a variation of the 1971 game Chainmail serving as the initial rule system. D&D's publication is commonly recognized as the beginning of modern role-playing games and the role-playing game industry, and also deeply influenced video games, especially the role-playing video game genre.
Forgotten Realms is a campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fantasy role-playing game. Commonly referred to by players and game designers as "The Realms", it was created by game designer Ed Greenwood around 1967 as a setting for his childhood stories. Several years later, it was published for the D&D game as a series of magazine articles, and the first Realms game products were released in 1987. Role-playing game products have been produced for the setting ever since, in addition to novels, role-playing video game adaptations, comic books, and the film Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves.
Colossal Cave Adventure is a text-based adventure game, released in 1976 by developer Will Crowther for the PDP-10 mainframe computer. It was expanded upon in 1977 by Don Woods. In the game, the player explores a cave system rumored to be filled with treasure and gold. The game is composed of dozens of locations, and the player moves between these locations and interacts with objects in them by typing one- or two-word commands which are interpreted by the game's natural language input system. The program acts as a narrator, describing the player's location and the results of the player's attempted actions. It is the first well-known example of interactive fiction, as well as the first well-known adventure game, for which it was also the namesake.
Rona Jaffe was an American novelist who published numerous works from 1958 to 2003. During the 1960s, she also wrote cultural pieces for Cosmopolitan.
James Dallas Egbert III was a student at Michigan State University who disappeared for about a month from his dormitory room on August 15, 1979. The disappearance was widely reported by newspapers and possibly other media, but it was never explained. Egbert’s participation in the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons was seized upon by investigators and journalists alike as being possibly related to his disappearance, which propelled the previously obscure game to nationwide attention.
The Keep on the Borderlands is a Dungeons & Dragons adventure module by Gary Gygax, first printed in December 1979. In it, player characters are based at a keep and investigate a nearby series of caves that are filled with a variety of monsters. It was designed to be used with the Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set, and was included in the 1979–1982 editions of the Basic Set. It was designed for people new to Dungeons & Dragons.
In Search of the Unknown is a module for the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game, designed for use with the Basic Set of rules. It was written by game designer Mike Carr and was first published in 1978 by TSR, Inc. The module details a hidden complex known as the Caverns of Quasqueton. Reviewers considered it a good quality introduction to the game that was written in the so-called dungeon crawl style, where the primary goal of the players is the exploration of a dangerous labyrinth to battle monsters and obtain treasure.
Jeff Easley is an oil painter who creates fantasy artwork for role-playing games, comics, and magazines, as well as non-fantasy commercial art.
The Dungeon Master: The Disappearance of James Dallas Egbert III is a 1984 book by private investigator William Dear, in which the author gives his explanation of the 1979 "steam tunnel incident" involving the disappearance of James Dallas Egbert III, a student at Michigan State University. In the book, Dear explained that he feels the incident was misrepresented by the news media.
In the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, goblins are a common and fairly weak race of evil humanoid monsters. Goblins are non-human monsters that low-level player characters often face in combat.
Hobgoblin is a 1981 horror novel by American writer John Coyne about Scott Gardiner, a teenaged boy who becomes obsessed with Hobgoblin, a fantasy roleplaying game based on Irish mythology, as his life in the game and in reality slowly blend.
Mazes and Monsters is a 1981 novel by Rona Jaffe. The novel is a cautionary tale regarding the then-new hobby of fantasy role-playing games. The book was adapted into a made-for-television movie by the same name in 1982 starring Tom Hanks.
The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth is an adventure module for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. It was written by Gary Gygax and published by TSR in 1982 for the first edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D) rules. The 64-page adventure bears the code "S4" and is set in the Greyhawk campaign setting. It is divided into two parts, a 32-page adventure, and a 32-page booklet of monsters and magic items. The plot involves the player characters investigating rumors of lost treasure. After traversing a wilderness and two levels of dungeons, the players face Drelnza, the vampiric daughter of long-deceased archmage Iggwilv.
James Michael Ward III was an American game designer and fantasy author who worked for TSR, Inc. for more than 20 years, most notably on the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons. He wrote various books relating to Dungeons & Dragons, including guidebooks such as Deities & Demigods, and novels including Pool of Radiance, based on the computer game of the same name.
The role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), which receives significant attention in the media and in popular culture, has been the subject of numerous controversies. The game sometimes received unfavorable coverage, especially during its early years in the early 1980s. Because the term D&D may be mistakenly used to refer to all types of role-playing games, some controversies regarding D&D mistakenly pertain to role-playing games in general, or to the literary genre of fantasy. Some controversies concern the game and its alleged impact on those who play it, while others concern business issues at the game's original publisher, TSR. The game is now owned by Wizards of the Coast.
Horror on the Hill is an adventure module published by TSR, Inc. in 1983, for the Basic Rules of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. Its product designation was TSR 9078. This 32-page book was designed by Douglas Niles, and features cover artwork by Jim Roslof. It is intended for beginning gamemasters and 5–10 player characters of levels 1–3. The module contains around 20 encounters on the surface, a monastery, three dungeon levels and three new monsters.
Deathmaze is a fantasy board game published by Simulations Publications (SPI) in January 1980 that falls into the general category of dungeon crawls, more specifically, dungeon games in which players enter a dungeon, massacre the dungeon dwellers and steal their treasures.
Skullduggery is a 1983 Canadian comedy horror film directed by Ota Richter. The plot depicts the devil using a role-playing game to transform a young man into a serial killer.
Dungeons & Dragons Computer Fantasy Game is a handheld electronic game released by Mattel in 1981. Designer Peter Oliphant claims that it was one of the more basic projects he worked on during his career.
Ken St. Andre is an American fantasy game designer and author, best known for creating the fantasy role-playing game, Tunnels & Trolls (T&T), and the computer role-playing game, Wasteland.
