Dungeons and Dragons is what people played before online RPGs were a thing (of course, we all still continue to play it today). It started out as a tabletop game i꧑n 1974 and quickly became the dominant product of its genre. Bringing together the classic setup of the dungeon master who controls the entire game environment, and the rest of the players who must team up as various magical characters to complete a quest, the game provided countless hours of fun while giving birth to the modern cosplay movement among fans of the fantasy genre.
As happens with any piece of media that explodes in popularity, the world of D&D soon moved beyond the board game. There were cartoons and movies made in the settings made famous by the gam🐬e. Popular characters started popping up on lunch boxes and t-shirts.
What fans particularly loved about the first two editions of the game was the extremely simplified combat rules and classes. This ꧑made the game highly accessible for new players while allowing more accomplished players 🌊to make up complex new worlds for the game using their imagination.
Later iterations of the game tried to move up the complexity level of the classic system, leading to a dip in popularity as fans moved on to other RPGs. But D&D is experiencing a resurgence of sorts. The D&D IP is still ripe for mining across all genres, meaning that cartoons, books, and movies are still being made based on the original tabletop game. Here are 25 facts about𓂃 the game every fan needs to know:
24 D&D Started Out As A Compani𓄧on Piece
Strangely enough, D&D did not start out as a proper game on its own. Instead, it was a companion book to a miniature-based tabletop 🌳wargame called Chainma𒈔il.
What saved D&D from becoming a forgotten add-on game was a creative spat between the creators of D&D and Chainmail.
After what we assume was a series of 'Oh yeah?'s exchanged between the creators in increasingly louder voices, the D&D team broke away to set up their own game. They first came up with Basic Dungeons and Dragons, and then the now-classic Advanced Dungeons and Dragons.
23 ꦡ A Lot Of Celebs Are Fans Of The Game
There was a time when admitting to playing RPGs was tantamount to outing yourself as an uncool guy, especially if you were a Hollywood celebrity. But times are changing, and a number of big names in films have expressed their love for D&D, including actors Joe Manganiello, Vin Diesel, a🍌nd Filmmaker Jon Favreau.
Favreau, 🐼in particular, has credited the game with giving him a really strong background in imagination, storytelling, and understanding how to create a tone and sense of balance in🉐 a narrative. Besides giving him some serious nerd cred.
22 𒁏 🍎 In Prison, Playing The Game Is A Security Threat
Playing the game in prison constitutes a security threat, since i🗹t takes at least four playeܫrs to play the game.
That many prisoners together make up a gang, according to prison security.
There have been instances of D&D sessions between inmates turning aggressive, with players even attacking each other after some, particularly heated arguments. Think Game of Thrones rather than Lord of the Rings.
21 🐲 There's An International D&D Game Day
With the kind of longevity and popularity the game enjoys, there is no wonder that fans the world over decided they needed a special day to commemorate their love for D&D. The Worl🎀dwide Dungeons And Dragons Game Day is celebrated across game stores in over 40 countries every year.
During the 2006 D&D Game Day, a host of celebrities came together to play the game along with other fans. Th🧜e guest list included Stephen Colbert, Robin Williams, Vin Diesel, MOby and Mike Myers among others. That's some🍬 strong backing for a simple tabletop card game.
20 The Hong Kong Connect To D&D Monsters 𝐆
There are a lot of strange and disturbing looking creatures in D&D. We've already seen how heavily the game was inspired by western fantasy properties. But to creat𓄧e the look for several D&D monsters, creator Gary Gygax looked🎶 to the east.
The story goes that Gygax came across a bag of cheap, plastic pre-historic animals that had been manufactured in Hong Kong.
Gygax had been struggling with giving physical shape to the creatures featured in the game's Monster Manual. Using the pre-historic toys as inspiration, he came up with the D&D monster's looks.
19 The Dirtiest Book In The Series 🔥
D&D has long had to fight an unsavory reputation for being linked to bizarre activities. When the company Wizards of the Coast bought the rights to the game, the🦂y decided to embrace the controversy and even use it as part of their marketing strategy!
They released an instruction manual book called Book of Vile Darkness.
In it, players found details about the dirtier pᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚarts of the game that earlier books had dared not touch. Topics included various grown-yu꧒p easter eggs and character classes.
18 The Episode That Almost Ended The D&D Show ♓
Back in the 80s, Dungeons and Dragons debuted on TV in the form of🧸 a cartoon serial. A group of plucky youngsters are thrown into another realm filled containing, you guessed it, dungeons and dragons. The youngsters are given a set of magical artifacts and guided by a wise 🐓old dungeon master in their quest to finish the evil Mage Venger.
One time, the kids almost succeed in ending Venger after luring🌊 him into a trap at a Dragon's Graveyard. The show was almost canceled 💖because of how dark that episode got.
17 🦄 Ridiculous Problems Faced By Players 🐓
For more than thirty years, Dragon magazine has imparted wisdom on all things D&D. This includes a 'Sage Advice' colum꧟n where players can sound out the experts about various problems they're having within t𒆙he game.
This has led to some truly ridiculous questions being raised through the column.
For instance, one player had a female character that had somehow gotten pregnant, with the player asking what needed to be done next. Another player wanted to know if Barbarians eat quiche. Qu🅷ite a few players also keep asking about the rules concerning marriage within the game.
16 🍌 Bards Are Actually Quite Powerful ღ
The Bard class of🐈 characters are generally the least popular among players. That is because, in a game that relies on each character filling a specific niche with their expertise, the Bard stands out as a Jack of all Trades. He's somewhat good atও many different things, without being an expert in any one thing.
But the thing is, in the original Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, becomi⛦ng a Bard required you to have several levels in other classes first. This meant the Bard was originally meant to be a very powerful character in his own right.
15 🦋 The Movie Bombed Hard At The Box Office
When the tabletop D&D game came out, it sold out within a week. If only the movie had met with the same kind of demand. Madeꦉ on a budget of $45 million, the entire run of the film was only able to gather a measly $33 million.
Suffice to say the disastrous performance of the movie scared off Hollywood from trying to adapt the D&D game for the big screen again. Later stabs at movie adaptatꦓions stuck to straight-to-DVD features that naturally suffered from a lack of funding, leaving both critics and fans dissatisfied.