The story of the arcane table-top game that became a pop culture phenomenon and the
long-running legal battle waged by its cocreators. When Dungeons & Dragons was first released
to a small hobby community it hardly seemed destined for mainstream success--and yet this
arcane tabletop role-playing game became an unlikely pop culture phenomenon. In Game Wizards
Jon Peterson chronicles the rise of Dungeons & Dragons from hobbyist pastime to mass market
sensation from the initial collaboration to the later feud of its creators Gary Gygax and
Dave Arneson. As the game's fiftieth anniversary approaches Peterson--a noted authority on
role-playing games--explains how D&D and its creators navigated their successes setbacks and
controversies. Peterson describes Gygax and Arneson's first meeting and their work toward the
1974 release of the game the founding of TSR and its growth as a company and Arneson's
acrimonious departure and subsequent challenges to TSR. He recounts the Satanic Panic
accusations that D&D was sacrilegious and dangerous and how they made the game famous. And he
chronicles TSR's reckless expansion and near-fatal corporate infighting which culminated with
the company in debt and overextended and the end of Gygax's losing battle to retain control
over TSR and D&D. With Game Wizards Peterson restores historical particulars long obscured by
competing narratives spun by the one-time partners. That record amply demonstrates how the
turbulent experience of creating something as momentous as Dungeons & Dragons can make people
remember things a bit differently from the way they actually happened.
