Of Dice and Men: The Story of Dungeons & Dragons and The People Who (32 page)

I turned on Williams Street and headed back downtown, toward the final destination of my pilgrimage. As I got closer to the lake, there were fewer houses and more storefronts, and then, in the last few blocks before Main Street, nothing but commercial space—a crepe restaurant, an antiques store, and lots of stores with beach towels and sunblock in the windows, waiting for summer and crowds of strangers.

My final stop was the corner of Main Street and Broad. The building is currently called the Landmark Center, but back in 1873, it was
the Hotel Clair. A hundred years later, it became the headquarters of TSR—the rickety old building where AD&D and the Red Box were born.

Today, the residents of the Landmark Center include a jeweler, a bank, and an architecture firm. The main storefront—once the second home of the Dungeon—is a candy store called Kilwin’s Chocolates. A sign outside promises “Mackinac Island Fudge & Homemade Ice Cream.”

I went inside. It smelled like caramel, a sweet, burnt aroma. Rows of glass-fronted bakery counters showed fresh-made fudge and candies. A few display tables had gift boxes of treats. I picked out a box of dark-chocolate cherry cordials—my favorite—and an assortment of truffles to bring home to Kara.

There were two teenage girls behind the counter, neither older than sixteen. As one of them rang up my purchase, I casually asked a question.

“Do you guys know the history of this building?”

She looked at me, a little startled, but friendly. “No, I don’t think so.”

“There used to be a game store here.”

In the corner of the room, an older woman had been cleaning the marble table used for cooling fudge. She stopped what she was doing and walked toward the register.

“Oh yeah, I know that,” she said. She pointed a finger at the ceiling. “Up there. Dungeons and Dragons.”

“Yeah. Their offices were up there, back in the 1980s.”

“I know that was there. I don’t know anything else, though.”

“How long has the candy store been here?”

“Oh, she’s been here sixteen years. I just work here, I don’t know much.”

The young girl fished my change out of a drawer. I took it and turned back to the woman. “Thanks,” I said. “I was just curious.”

“The building’s got a lot of history, I don’t know what. But if these walls could talk, you know . . .” She trailed off and smiled. I smiled back.

There was a park bench on the sidewalk just outside the store. I sat down and watched the traffic. A couple walked by, perhaps on their way to dinner. An old lady shuffled past with a walker, followed by her tiny dog. A kid with Spider-Man sneakers rode his bike up the sidewalk. None of them even glanced at the old brick building, the place where countless adventures began.

I opened up the bag from the candy store and ate a cherry cordial. It was fantastic.

Fortified in mind and body, David strode from the city. It hadn’t been what he’d expected, but he did find wisdom there: Build something together. Know yourself. Have fun.

With the sun at his back, he surveyed the road ahead. A few dozen yards away, the path split and continued in different directions. Farther in the distance, he could see each path split again, and again, dozens of roads, headed to all corners of the globe.

He had no map and no idea which path to take. So he reached into his pocket and pulled out a lucky token, something he’d carried since childhood—a small geometric figure, almost a sphere, but flattened to show twenty identical faces, each one numbered sequentially.

He threw it high in the air, caught it on the way down, and opened his hand so it rested flat on his palm. He read the number on top and then laughed to himself. He stuffed the die back in his pocket and walked on with purpose.

He was ready for adventure.

When I returned to Brooklyn and met with the guys for our next game session, I left Weslocke at home. I’d scored our group an invite to Wizards of the Coast’s private play test of the fifth edition of Dungeons & Dragons, so it was time to start a new campaign, with new characters, in a new world of adventure.

Once everyone had arrived, I reached into my bag and produced a fat folder of paper: five copies of an in-progress
Player’s Handbook,
collated and bound, hot off the laser printer in my office. One for each of us.

We sat at Alex’s dining room table and read through the packets. Every few minutes someone would tut-tut or chuckle and point out a particularly controversial or exciting change in the rules. After half an hour we told ourselves we knew enough to begin and started to roll up new player characters.

Alex decided he’d play an elven rogue named Kilën, after a beloved grandfather. The fifth-edition rules ask players to choose one of several themes that describe their character’s identity; Alex said Kilën would be an “adventurer.” Later, he told me he’d really chosen “spy” but decided to keep that a secret from the other players.

Phil rolled up a wizard and named him Tealeaf. Because he’s Phil, he made him an acrobatic gnome. In my mind’s eye, I pictured Yoda doing backflips and shooting bolts of Force lightning from his fingers.

R. C. made a dwarf fighter, a nobleman named Beauteponce. When he rolled his intelligence score, it came up seven, not much smarter than a troll. It would be fun to have him in the party. And aggravating.

Morgan would play a human cleric. He chose the theme of “pub crawler,” which grants the character an advantage to find information, since everybody knows his name in all the local bars. He called the character Norm.

When they were done, I glanced over each character sheet, then returned them to their owners. I had brought several of my own characters with me, along with a few maps—winding caves, an unexplored countryside, a strange wizard’s tower. I also brought a few pages of notes—nothing too detailed, just an outline. Set decoration for a simple story, a quest to find a box of lost books. There’d be plenty of room for the players to fill in the details.

I took a breath and surveyed the table, looking each of my friends in the eyes. “You have all gathered at a tavern,” I said, “in search of adventure and glory.”

1
. That’s what the dot in a lowercase letter is called. Stop snickering.

2
. “Secret or concealed doors are difficult to hide from elves. Merely passing within 10' of the latter makes an elven character 16 2/3% (1 in 6) likely to notice it. If actively searching for such doors, elven characters are 33 1/3% (2 in 6) likely to find a secret door.”
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Players Handbook,
page 16.

3
. Including spelling his name incorrectly on the Dungeon! rule book. “They had a ‘Gary’ in the room all the time, so they dropped an
r,
” Megarry said. “I figured, ‘They’ll get it right on the next printing.’ ” But when the first three thousand games sold out, TSR—knowing they had dropped a letter in “Megarry”—corrected it by adding a second
g.
“David Meggary” had to tell his editors they’d gotten his name wrong again. “Tim Kask was crestfallen,” he said.

T
o learn the story of Dungeons & Dragons, I interviewed hundreds of designers, players, and executives who made the game what it is today. They gave up valuable time to share their memories, and I am grateful to all of them.

First and foremost, thanks to the guys in my weekly game night: Alex Agius, Brandon Bryant, R. C. Robbins, Phillip Gerba, and Morgan Harris-Warrick. They’re good friends, and I’m grateful for the time they’ve shared. They are also, in a very real sense, coauthors of the Vampire World sections of this book. We wove those stories together, so I’m lucky they’re all so clever. My old gaming buddies deserve recognition too, particularly Mike Bagnulo, Ray Cuadro, and Everett Meyer.

Special thanks are due to Peter Adkison, Tavis Allison, Rich Burlew, Monte Cook, Cory Doctorow, Jeff Gomez, Eric Hautemont, Kristi Hayes, Jerry Holkins, Mike Krahulik, Mary Kirchoff, Ian Livingstone, James Lowder, David Megarry, Frank Mentzer, Michael Mornard, R. A. Salvatore, Lorraine Williams, Skip Williams, and Tracy Hickman. And thanks to everyone at Wizards of the Coast, including Greg Leeds, Jerome Lalin, Shelly Mazzanoble, Mike Mearls, Chris Perkins, Liz Schuh, Rodney Thompson, Laura Tommervik, and especially Marcella Kallmann and Tolena Thorburn.

It would have been impossible to complete this project without
the support and forbearance of my editors at
Forbes,
especially Randall Lane, Bruce Upbin, and Eric Savitz. I am particularly grateful to Lewis DVorkin, who gave me an extraordinary opportunity to report on the game business while I worked on this book. I’m lucky to benefit from his commitment to entrepreneurial journalism.

Thanks to all the people who helped get this book started. Jessica Stockton Bagnulo, good friend and world’s greatest bookseller, provided my first introduction to a publisher. Elisabeth Eaves and Michael Noer gave invaluable edits and advice on my first attempted chapters. My agent Chris Parris-Lamb helped craft a half-baked idea into something with value, and I appreciate his counsel, intelligence, and hard work. Amelia Mularz did a brilliant job fact-checking the final manuscript, and John Sellers read it and provided great advice.

Thanks to everyone at Scribner, especially Susan Moldow and Nan Graham, for taking a chance on a weird idea and showing great patience during its production. I would also like to tell them that whatever they’re paying my editor, Brant Rumble, it’s not enough. He’s insightful, funny, talented, and understanding. I can’t imagine a better editor, and I am in his debt.

Thanks to my parents, Larry and Barbara Ewalt, and my sister, Elissa Ewalt Ghosh. Thanks to my nieces and nephew—Casey, Maddie, Sophia, and Sid—for being awesome. And all my love and thanks to my wife, Kara, who was incredibly supportive and understanding while I worked on this project. I would have to write a hundred books to describe how amazing she is.

Finally, thanks to Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson for the good times.

COURTESY OF CAMERON R NEILSON

D
AVID
M. E
WALT
began playing Dungeons & Dragons when he was ten years old. Now an award-winning journalist, he writes about games for
Forbes
magazine, talks about games on television and radio, and plays games in and around his Brooklyn, New York, home. Join him or find out more at
www.davidmewalt.com
.

MEET THE AUTHORS, WATCH VIDEOS AND MORE AT

SimonandSchuster.com

L
ike a beholder, my eyes are bigger than my stomach. While researching this book I consumed far more information than I could possibly fit into the final printed product, from books, newspaper and magazine articles, websites, panel discussions, seminars, and podcasts to more than a hundred original interviews with past and present D&D designers, executives, and players.

But thanks to the Internet, the story of Dungeons & Dragons doesn’t have to end here. To learn more about the history of the game—particularly the Lorraine Williams and Wizards of the Coast years, which are given regrettably little space in these pages—please visit
www.ofdiceandmen.com
.

I recommend that readers interested in taking a much deeper dive into the history of war games and role-playing games read Jon Peterson’s
Playing at the World
(Unreason Press, 2012). Other books worth your attention include the following:

Archer, Peter, ed.
30 Years of Adventure: A Celebration of Dungeons & Dragons.
Wizards of the Coast, 2004.

Cover, Jennifer Grouling.
The Creation of Narrative in Tabletop Role-Playing Games.
McFarland, 2010.

Fine, Gary Alan.
Shared Fantasy: Role-Playing Games as Social Worlds.
The University of Chicago Press, 1983.

Hughes, Paul, ed.
Cheers, Gary: Celebrating a Lejend.
Gygax Memorial Fund, 2011.

Laws, Robin D.
40 Years of Gen Con.
Atlas Games, 2007.

Mackay, Daniel.
The Fantasy Role-Playing Game: A New Performing Art.
McFarland, 2001.

Schick, Lawrence.
Heroic Fantasy: A History and Guide to Roleplaying Games.
Prometheus Books, 1991.

Tresca, Michael J.
The Evolution of Fantasy Role-Playing Games.
McFarland, 2011.

Williams, J. Patrick, Sean O. Hendricks, and W. Keith Winkler, eds.
Gaming as Culture.
McFarland, 2006.

The sources for unique facts or uncited quotes are as follows: