Players die frequently
By GYGAX, Gary and Dave ARNESON , 1974
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Dungeons & Dragons Rules for Fantastic Medieval Wargames Campaigns Playable with Paper and Pencil and Miniature Figures - Volume 3: The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures.

  • Author: GYGAX, Gary and Dave ARNESON
  • Publication place: Lake Geneva, Wisconsin
  • Publisher: Tactical Studies Rules Inc.,
  • Publication date: November 1975.
  • Physical description: First edition, fourth printing. Octavo (210 by 140mm), 36pp, buff wrappers printed in brown and blue, hippogryff motif, stapled.

    Issue:
    "Fourth printing November 1975" on inside cover. Price $3.50 on outside cover. 5,000 copies of this set were printed.
  • Inventory reference: 22168

Notes

The first printed Dungeons & Dragons map - ultimate worldbuilding adventure!

The Game
The rules for Dungeons & Dragons are 36-pages long, structured, yet open-ended, and while once played indoors with the participants seated around a tabletop, is now more commonly played by Video Tele conferencing (VTC) One player takes on the role of Dungeon Master (DM) while the others each control a single character, representing an individual in a fictional setting. The only items required to play the game are the rulebooks, as here, a character sheet for each player, and a number of polyhedral dice.

Dungeons & Dragons has its origins in a set of medieval miniature rules written by Jeff Perren and expanded by Gary Gygax, and a game called 'Chainmail' devised by Dave Wesely and Dave Arneson, before Arneson and Gygax collaborated on developing 'The Fantasy Game', the game that became Dungeons & Dragons. The name was chosen by Gygax's two-year-old daughter Cindy; upon being presented with a number of choices of possible names, she exclaimed, "Oh Daddy, I like Dungeons & Dragons best!".

The original, Dungeons & Dragons, for which advertisements first appeared in the Spring of 1974, was first published in three volumes: 'Men & Magic'; 'Monsters & Treasure'; 'The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures', presented in a brown wood-grain box, with six reference sheets of tables and charts.

With a production budget of only $2000 to produce a thousand copies, the result was amateurish. Only $100 was budgeted for artwork, and it shows. Gygax pressed into service just about anyone who could hold a pencil, including local artist Cookie Corey; Greg Bell, a member of Jeff Perren's gaming group; D&D co-creator Dave Arneson; Gygax's wife's half- sister Keenan Powell; and fellow TSR co-founder Don Kaye. Each artist was paid $2 for a small piece or $3 for a larger piece, with an identical amount paid as a royalty every time another thousand copies were printed.

Dungeons & Dragons is obviously heavily influenced by mythology and fantasy novels in general, and Tolkien's work in particular. In fact, the similarity between the worldbuilding of Dungeons & Dragons, and Middle Earth was rather too close for comfort for the Tolkien estate. Early editions of the game include references to "hobbits", "ents" and "balrogs". These were later altered to "halflings", "treants", and "balors".

The Maps
Two "maps" appear in the first edition of the rules. More rudimentary sketches than proper cartography, they are 'Sample Cross Section of Levels' and 'A Sample Level', illustrating how a Dungeon Master might go about contructing their own worldbuilding cartography.

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