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Fifty Years of Dungeons & Dragons
About this book
In 2024, the enormously influential tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons—also known as D&D—celebrates its fiftieth anniversary. To mark the occasion, editors Premeet Sidhu, Marcus Carter, and José Zagal have assembled an edited collection that celebrates and reflects on important parts of the game's past, present, and future. Each chapter in Fifty Years of Dungeons & Dragons explores why the nondigital game is more popular than ever—with sales increasing 33 percent during the COVID-19 pandemic, despite worldwide lockdowns—and offers readers the opportunity to critically reflect on their own experiences, perceptions, and play of D&D.
Fifty Years of Dungeons & Dragons draws on fascinating research and insight from expert scholars in the field, including: Gary Alan Fine, whose 1983 book Shared Fantasy remains a canonical text in game studies; Jon Peterson, celebrated D&D historian; Daniel Justice, Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Literature and Expressive Culture; and numerous leading and emerging scholars from the growing discipline of game studies, including Amanda Cote, Esther MacCallum-Stewart, and Aaron Trammell. The chapters cover a diverse range of topics—from D&D's adoption in local contexts and classrooms and by queer communities to speculative interpretations of what D&D might look like in one hundred years—that aim to deepen readers' understanding of the game.
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Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- 1. Is This the Golden Age of Dungeons & Dragons?
- 2. Fantasy Games At Fifty: An Academic Memoir
- 3. Exploration and Experience: The Game Changers
- 4. Combat In Dungeons & Dragons: A Short History of Design Trajectories
- 5. “Doctor Holmes, I Presume?”: How A California Neurology Professor Penned the First Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set
- 6. Reflections on the Open Game License: An Interview with Ryan Dancey
- 7. Playing Custom: A Curious History of Dungeons & Dragons–Based Digital Games Modifications
- 8. A Return to the Magic Circle: Dungeons & Dragons and Friendship & Magic Fifty Years on
- 9. “You’re Going to be Amazing”: The Mercer Effect and Performative Play In Dungeons & Dragons
- 10. The Other D&D: Religion(s) In Dungeons & Dragons from Deities & Demigods to Today
- 11. Spelling with Dice: The Role of Dungeons & Dragons In Contemporary Speculative Fiction
- 12. Classrooms and Dragons: Learning from Dungeons & Dragons
- 13. An Ensemble of (Role-)Players? Exploring the Influence of Performance on Dungeons & Dragons
- 14. Forging Family Through Queer Dungeons & Dragons
- 15. “Race” and Race: Longitudinal Trends In Dungeons & Dragons Character Creation
- 16. Hack the Orcs, Loot the Tomb, and Take the Land: Reflections On Settler Colonialism, Indigeneity, and Otherwise Possibilities of Dungeons & Dragons
- 17. Seeking the Unimaginable: Rules, Race, and Adolescent Desire In Dungeons & Dragons
- 18. Defamiliarizing Dungeons & Dragons: Playing Out Western Fantasy In Singapore
- 19. Soft Communities and Vicarious Deviance In Dungeons & Dragons
- 20. D&D&D&D&D: Imagining Dungeons & Dragons at 150 and Beyond
- Appendix: A Brief Summary of D&D Editions
- Contributor Biographies
- Index