D&D Turns 50 this year, but When? According to One Historian, This Weekend
A look back at D&D historian Jon Peterson’s argument for why D&D’s 50th birthday is this weekend. Break out the d20 candles!
Dungeons & Dragons crashed onto the scene in 1974 and created a new genre of game. Rising out of the ashes of wargames, with ideas about how to simulate an entire world of swords and sorcery, a game released in a trio of pamphlets back in 1974 would spread like wildfire. But when did that first spark ignite?
After all, D&D turns 50 this year. But what was the official release day?
That’s harder to say. Because there weren’t any massive advertisements saying “pre-order D&D, expected release 1974”, and no big media blitzes. At the first printing of the game, only 1,000 copies were run.
And while there are plenty of days it could have been, depending on who you talk to, actual D&D historian, Jon Peterson of Playing at the World once made the case pretty clear for D&D’s first birthday being in late January, 1974.
Here’s a look at why.
D&D Turns 50 – Here’s Why You Should Start Celebrating this Weekend
Ironically enough, Peterson lays out his case in a post titled When Dungeons & Dragons Turns 40. Here, Peterson goes through an extensive process to lay out a timeline for the first official “release” of D&D. But it’s a tricky thing to pin down, especially in D&D’s case, since the first advertisements weren’t around until February of 1974.
So Peterson dug through the records available to, as he puts it, “box the date in”. It is a fascinating case, too. You can read the whole thing over at Peterson’s Playing at the World but in a nutshell the timeline looks something like:
- In 1973, Gygax talks about how he and D&D co-creator Dave Arneson are hard at work on developing a set of rules for a “fantasy campaign game”, and by September 1973, Dave Arneson talks about the “fantasy simulation” his group has been running.
- In October of 1973, TSR releases its first game, Cavaliers and Roundheads to raise money for D&D
- The Foreword of the Original D&D White Box set is dated November 1973.
- In December 1973, Gygax talked about a “fantasy campaign set” due out in January.
- By February 1974 advertisements started to appear for D&D, but as Peterson points out, for a notice to appear in February, “it would have to be sent before the beginning of the month”.
All of this adds up to the release of D&D most likely being late January 1974. And owing to the fact that Gygax invited players to come to his house “on Sunday”, Peterson holds that the last Sunday in January 1974 is the best day to try and raise a die in honor of D&D’s birth.
How will you celebrate?
