Virtuwise

Get Ready to Roll: Dungeons & Dragons Celebrates 50 Epic Years!

This game brings back so many memories.

There is something special about getting together with your friends around the table to start a campaign. Today, these types of games are mostly online, and although you can chat with your friends online, it's missing that personal element. The smell of pizza in the corner, the drips of soda on the game board and the feel of the dice.

Kevin Purdy writes on Ars Technica

With this letter, written by Gary Gygax to wargaming zine publisher Jim Lurvey, one of the founders of what would become TSR announced that a January 1974 release for Dungeons & Dragons was forthcoming. This, plus other evidence compiled by Jon Peterson (as pointed out by the Grognardia blog), points to the last Sunday of January 1974 as the best date for the "anniversary" of D&D. The first sale was in "late January 1974," Gygax later wrote, and on the last Sunday of January 1974, Gygax invited potential customers to drop by his house in the afternoon to try it out.

One memory that quickly comes to mind is when my mom threw out my newly purchased D&D set. In the early days of D&D there was a lot of resistance to the game. Parents thought it was a bad influence on children, and they tried everything to stop the game play.

D&D got me interested in role playing games and I quickly transitioned to my favourite: Robotech the Japanese mecha anime television series.

Here is some trivia for you, how many people know that Tom Hanks did a TV movie inspired by D&D, called Mazes and Monsters. I enjoyed it, and you can likely watch it on YouTube.

I think this year might be the right time to get back into D&D with friends.