Dungeons & Dragons is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (RPG) originally 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 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.
Dungeon was one of the two official magazines targeting consumers of the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game and associated products; Dragon was the other.
Open gaming is a movement within the tabletop role-playing game (RPG) industry with superficial similarities to the open source software movement. The key aspect is that copyright holders license their works under public copyright licenses that permit others to make copies or create derivative works of the game.
The Open Game License (OGL) is a public copyright license by Wizards of the Coast that may be used by tabletop role-playing game developers to grant permission to modify, copy, and redistribute some of the content designed for their games, notably game mechanics. However, they must share-alike copies and derivative works.
An owlbear is a fictional creature originally created for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. An owlbear is depicted as a cross between a bear and an owl, which "hugs" like a bear and attacks with its beak. Inspired by a plastic toy made in Hong Kong, Gary Gygax created the owlbear and introduced the creature to the game in the 1975 Greyhawk supplement; the creature has since appeared in every subsequent edition of the game. Owlbears, or similar beasts, also appear in several other fantasy role-playing games, video games and other 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.
An Adventure Path is a series of interlinked adventures (campaign) for tabletop role-playing games which can be played in succession and lead characters to advance from lower to higher levels, through a particular path of events.
Paizo Inc. is an American role-playing game publishing company based in Redmond, Washington, best known for the tabletop role-playing games Pathfinder and Starfinder. The company's name is derived from the Greek word παίζωpaizō, which means 'I play' or 'to play'. Paizo also runs an online retail store selling role-playing games board games, comic books, toys, clothing, accessories and other products, as well as an Internet forum community.
James Jacobs is an American designer and author of role-playing games and texts in the fantasy, horror and the occult genres.
Necromancer Games was an American publisher of role-playing games. With offices in Seattle, Washington and Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, the company specialized in material for the d20 System. Most of its products were released under the Open Game License of Wizards of the Coast.
Goodman Games is an American game publisher best known for the Dungeon Crawl Classics series of adventure modules and role-playing game, the Dragonmech role-playing game, and the Etherscope role-playing games. The company produced licensed adventures for Wicked Fantasy Factory, Judges Guild, Xcrawl, Iron Heroes, Castles and Crusades, and Death Dealer.
The Game System License is a license that allows third-party publishers to create products compatible with and using the intellectual property from the 4th edition of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D). It was released to the public by Wizards of the Coast (WotC) on June 17, 2008.
The Pathfinder Roleplaying Game is a fantasy role-playing game (RPG) that was published in 2009 by Paizo Publishing. The first edition extends and modifies the System Reference Document (SRD) based on the revised 3rd edition Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) published by Wizards of the Coast under the Open Game License (OGL) and is intended to be backward-compatible with that edition.
Owen K.C. Stephens is a game designer who has worked on a number of products for the Starfinder, Pathfinder and Star Wars Roleplaying Game and other games.
Greg A. Vaughan is an American writer who creates material for roleplaying games.
Free RPG Day is an annual promotional event by the Tabletop role-playing game industry. The event rules are fairly simple: participating publishers provide special free copies of games to participating game stores; the game store agrees to provide one free game to any person who requests a free game on Free RPG Day.
Kobold Press, also known as Open Design, is an American game company that produces role-playing games and game supplements.
The Starfinder Roleplaying Game is a science-fiction/science fantasy role-playing game published by Paizo Publishing. It is built on Paizo's previous game, the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, both in its game mechanics and universe, but adapted to a more futuristic style than its fantasy predecessor; game content is intended to be easily convertible between the two systems. Like its predecessor, the Starfinder RPG supports adventure paths and other material written by Paizo and third party publishers.
