MIT Press Game Wizards: The Epic Battle for Dungeons & Dragons (Game Histories)

If you are looking for an understanding of how TSR got started and what struggle looked like for them before Dungeons and Dragons defined a genre and became the behemoth that is 5E today, I would highly recommend Jon Peterson's "Game Wizards" to you.Like many of an older generation that discovered the Holmes Box set and ogled the Player's Handbook in their local (and independent) toy store in the early 80's, I have a soft spot for all of the starter and Advanced D&D products that made up 1st edition. I left the hobby when 2nd Edition hit and I went off to college (in hindsight - odd that I never sought out gamers at school there), but returned with the advent of 3rd edition and the nostalgia itch it created.By that time Gary was a much venerated bulletin board presence on many gaming websites. Answering questions with a wink and a nod. Often with the same wit and charm that came across in his introduction essay to many of the early products of TSR.But this work by Peterson lays bare the animosity, paranoia, pettiness, and later folly of both creators of D&D - Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. While also crediting their genius, drive to be something more than they were, and what they did with the surprise success that found them.Some of these stories you may have heard. Peterson brings to the table the discussions of the industry at the time. Origins and Gencon rivalry. The competition with Avalon Hill and Flying Buffalo. The rivalries with fellow publishers that in time turned into acquisitions for TSR. The gossip that seemed to follow every move of Gary and TSR as D&D sales grew dramatically in the roughly 10 years of Gary's tenure. The nepotism of both the Gygax family and the Blume family (2 brothers co-owned the company with Gary) that constituted a good chunk of staff at any given time and seemed to suppress employee morale as the company grew.You won't find a lot of details on product development. The attempted comic book arm that has been described in other books isn't to be found here. But you get a good look at the "Hollywood days" of Gygax as he went to the west coast in an effort to get D&D made into film and yes eventually, Sunday morning cartoons.On full display is the hubris that quick success can bring and the awful business decisions one can make when money seems to be raining from above and can't possibly stop. Exponential growth was the expectation every year - regardless of outside factors. It seemed they wanted to go from a small company to a toy making powerhouse without stopping in the middle. They talked of competing with the enormous board game manufacturers of the time while D&D made them a big player in a very small pond. Ownership readily admitted they had little in the way of business training, and that becomes more and more evident as the company grew. A group leadership approach is fine for a small startup but proves to be increasingly problematic as opportunities and responsibilities mushroom. A company without a vision and someone to drive a team forward is bound to experience more than their fair share of growing pains. Entrepreneurs and those interested in business will learn a lot from reading about this particular decade in TSR's history.In the end, the middle-aged war gamer was out maneuvered by a player that he invited to the table but never really saw as a threat. A pawn that could provide a cash infusion to help save his creation from the deep debt TSR found itself in by 1985. The general was vanquished and removed from the board. But he and all the creators at TSR build the foundation of a genre of gaming millions have enjoyed 50 years on (and counting).Kudos to Peterson for his scholarship and his narrative flow. Never a dull moment in reading this. He would do a great service to the hobby and to RPG history by writing about Lorraine Williams years of TSR in another book and Wizards of the Coast and Peter Adkison in a third. If we can only be so lucky!

Jon Peterson has made a name for himself as a gaming historian. His rightly lauded and fastidiously researched Playing at the World may well be the definitive treatment of the historical antecedents of modern role-playing games across the centuries.Game Wizards: The Epic Battle for Dungeons & Dragons tackles a more focused topic: the creation of D&D and the first 12 years of Tactical Studies Rules (TSR) from its founding to the fateful evening when Gary Gygax was removed from direct control of the company. Peterson is particularly interested in divining credit for the game’s creation, sifting through the competing claims of Gygax and Dave Arneson, and detailing the (mis)management of TSR which led to Gygax inadvertently placing himself in danger of losing the company he co-founded.Like Playing at the World, Game Wizards is well-researched with 30 pages of endnotes citing various trade magazines, columns in Dragon, and other sources. But what makes the book more readable than, say, Playing at the World is that Game Wizards has a compelling narrative on which to hang the various financial figures and convention numbers. No one thought Dungeons & Dragon would be an especially profitable idea (Peterson regularly reminds us that Gygax and Arneson thought it might be a “$300 idea”). So when the game takes off, what had been built on nebulous contracts and verbal agreements quickly becomes the focus of intense legal battles as various players seek their piece of the pie.At yet those battles seem to have been exacerbated by the interpersonal conflicts that inevitably arose when a bunch of hobbyists tried to run a business. Broken promises, poor HR policies and procedures, and the lure of wealth and fame seem to have taken its toll on those who initially banded together to bring D&D to life, leading to the sad but inevitable climax of Gygax’s reign.Game Wizards is a treat for RPG fans, especially those (like me) who came to the hobby well after the events it depicts. I highly recommend it.

Jon Peterson has done it again with Game Wizards: The Epic Battle for Dungeons & Dragons (Game Histories) . This tome is a complete history of TSR, aka Tactical Studies Rules, and the birth of Dungeons and Dragons. It could be titled "The Rise and Fall of the D&D Empire".I was around back then, and played a small part in D&D history (Jon apologized for leaving me out, but he said his publisher was already complaining about how long the book was) although I had no "in" to the daily workings of the company.This book is also a very good "must read" "How NOT to do" book for small business start ups. You may have a great idea (And D&D was one of the best) but if you don't know how to run a business once it gets BIG, you will run into many of the same issues that Gygax and TSR did- expreme nepotism, spending huge amount of cash on wasteful projects, and generally killing your own Golden Goose.Towards the end, it became hard to read as the decline was so very tragic.

I'm one of the last people that would consider financial history and forensic accounting interesting. Still, the description of this book intrigued me (as I'm a long-time RPG player) so I took a risk and ordered a copy. I was honestly shocked at how interesting this book turned out to be. Part of that I would have to attribute to my love of D&D but mostly it would be the author's incredible ability to give dry accounting matters the tone of a suspense story. I'm not kidding, this book reads like a murder mystery complete with ominous hints that a fact here or there will be important later. If all business history were this fascinating, I would have been an accountant. The next time I get paid, I am going to order more of Peterson's books.Picture: A map depicting the area where most of the events take place (done in the style of classic D&D module maps, too cute!).

Meraviglioso approfondimento fatto da un autore di peso (suo è infatti il ponderoso Playing at the World, oltre che lo stupendo Art & Arcana) sulla storia dei contenziosi (anche legali) tra i due co-creatori di D&D (Gary Gygax e Dave Arneson) per la paternità del gioco più bello del mondo.A questi si intrecciano le vicende della casa editrice TSR, da creatura di Gygax e di cui Gygax era presidente, fino ad arrivare alla sua estromissione da parte di nuovo e vecchio management. Un decennio (1975-1985) analizzato anno per anno meticolosamente e con un enorme lavoro di documentazione. Il risultato è davvero impressionante e molto dettagliato.Assolutamente e caldamente consigliato a tutti gli appassionati di storia dei giochi di ruolo ed in particolare di D&D, il primo e di gran lunga il più famoso.