ORIGIN QUEST GROUP ARTICLE!
Below is the article i wrote for Daniel Estes, son of Endless Quest author Rose Estes is the one that heads up our group! Thanks for reading :)
Tuesday, January 21st, 2025
A question that many never think to ask. D&D has become so well known (or notorious) that many people have a general idea of the game, and many who sit down at the table, be it virtually or in person, give little thought as to the origins of the game. Is it important to know what inspired Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson to create what would one day become D&D? I leave that to you, the reader. I for one believe in order to know , we are we need to understand where we came from and that concept extends to a hobby that I have spent many years, countless hours, and a considerable amount of energy on through the years.
If you have read anything on the creators of Dungeons & Dragons, then you know that Gygax and Arneson got their start playing such games as Avalon Hill's Gettysburg, a historical wargame put out in 1958 that was made for two players. Gary went on to join the International Federation of Wargamers and to write articles for several wargaming fan publications. Dave played games with his close friends.
The two met at Gen Con in 1969 and struck up a friendship, a friendship that spawned their collaberative effort of Don't Give Up the Ship, a naval wargame, in 1971. Gary would go on to co-write Chainmail with Jeff Perren which was the first wargame to scale combat down from unit sized forces to individual combatants engaged in one on one fights. Chainmail would eventually transition from a historical setting to a more fantasy based one and would begin to include magic for use in combat.
It would be Arneson who would introduce the idea of roleplay to gaming wanting a change from the standard historical wargaming and wanting a focus on individual characters instead of armies. His idea was given life in his renowned Blackmoor campaign, a game he brought to Gen Con in 1972 to introduce to Gygax. To say that Gary was inspired is an understatement. In no time he and Dave were working together to create a new game, one that saw many possible names before the two settled on Dungeons & Dragons. Gary and a lifelong friend scraped together the money and started Tactical Studies Rules, or TSR, and D&D was published. Shortly afterwards the now well known adventures were published, Against the Giants, The Village of Hommlet, and The Tomb of Horrors to name a few.
My own introduction to D&D was through my cousin, Jerry. He had joined the D&D club in his high school (yes that was a thing in those days) and he could not stop talking about this great game his English teacher was running for them after school once a week. He was so inspired he went out and bought the Dungeon Master Guide, the Players Handbook, and the Monster Manual. I remember sitting at his kitchen table looking through the books while he regaled me with stories of his exploits as a human wizard. My first game was in 1981 with me playing solo as a fighter in AD&D with several henchmen playing through The Palace of the Silver Princesswith Jerry as the DM. This adventure module would introduce me to a whole new world to explore and play in. I had read Tolkien as a child, several times, and D&D gave me the opportunity to play in a fantasy world and be fight legendary creatures like I had read about in stories.
Over the years D&D has gone through a lot of changes. Changes in owners, changes in editions, expansions of the rules, changes in focus and direction. Through it all one thing remains consistent in my mind; it brings people together to sit at the table (or behind their computers) to tell stories, share fun, and play in the worlds that are the offspring of those first imaginings so many years ago. No matter what edition you enjoy, like most, or play, D&D remains a game about people exploring a fantasy world together and creating stories they will talk about for years to come.
As a DM of over thirty years myself, I have always recalled a quote from Gary Gygax that I have printed out and taped to the inside of my DM screen:
"It is the spirit of the game, not the letter of the rules which is important. Never hold to the letter written, nor allow some barracks room lawyer to force quotations from the rule books upon you, if it goes against the obvious intent of the game."
I am a firm believer in the Rule of Cool as it has become known and quite simply it means that we should never be so hidebound that we allow the rule to restrict imagination, player enjoyment, or the fun of weaving a memorable story together. At the end of the day that is what D&D is to me, having fun and helping my players tell the story of their characters.
