🐲 Dungeons & Dragons: Still casting a spell

With nerd culture out in the mainstream these days, it’s time for you to start playing the world’s most recognizable nerd game. It’s not just a bunch of high schoolers sitting around talking about how to kill dragons. It’s also adults talking about how to kill dragons, too. “People are re-engaged with that brand because it’s a face-to-face game, it’s immersive,” Brian Goldner, CEO of Hasbro, which owns Wizards of the Coast, which owns the Dungeons & Dragons game, said earlier this year. [And it’s selling very well]( in the culture it [drew the blueprint for](. D&D is, at its heart, a collaborative storytelling game. The dungeon master sets the scene for the story, the players control its main characters, and the famous dice balance that control with randomness. But all the rules are really just guidelines, and any D&D player will tell you it’s all about the story along the way. You’ll make friends with fictional characters, get scared for your (character’s) life, and hold your breath while a die tumbles across a table. So let’s use our movement action and dive in. 🐦 [Tweet this!]( 🌐 [View this email on the web]( Sponsored by [Quartz Obsession] Dungeons & Dragons November 16, 2018 It's back --------------------------------------------------------------- With nerd culture out in the mainstream these days, it’s time for you to start playing the world’s most recognizable nerd game. It’s not just a bunch of high schoolers sitting around talking about how to kill dragons. It’s also adults talking about how to kill dragons, too. “People are re-engaged with that brand because it’s a face-to-face game, it’s immersive,” Brian Goldner, CEO of Hasbro, which owns Wizards of the Coast, which owns the Dungeons & Dragons game, said earlier this year. [And it’s selling very well]( in the culture it [drew the blueprint for](. D&D is, at its heart, a collaborative storytelling game. The dungeon master sets the scene for the story, the players control its main characters, and the famous dice balance that control with randomness. But all the rules are really just guidelines, and any D&D player will tell you it’s all about the story along the way. You’ll make friends with fictional characters, get scared for your (character’s) life, and hold your breath while a die tumbles across a table. So let’s use our movement action and dive in. 🐦 [Tweet this!]( 🌐 [View this email on the web]( Timeline [1968:]( D&D co-creator Gary Gygax holds the Lake Geneva Wargames Convention where he stumbles onto a medieval wargame called [Siege of Bodenburg](. [1970:]( Gygax founds the [Castle and Crusade Society]( to build rules for miniature wargames set in the Middle Ages. [1974:]( Gygax and co-creator Dave Arneson publish [Dungeons & Dragons]( (PDF), a pamphlet with 82 pages of rules. [1978:]( Gygax and Arneson publish [Advanced Dungeons & Dragons:]( a Player’s Handbook, Dungeon Master’s Guide, and Monster Manual. This is the same trifecta of rulebooks still sold today. [1983:]( Tactical Studies Rules, or TSR Inc, which Gygax founded to publish D&D and license its monsters, reaches $27 million in revenue. A D&D [animated show]( leads its time slot. [1989:]( D&D publishes its 2nd edition, which renames demons in an attempt to distance itself from allegations of devil worship. [1997:]( TSR is bought by Wizards of the Coast. [2002:]( Characters of Buffy the Vampire Slayer play D&D in a [season finale episode](. [2006:]( Wizards of the Coast announces a D&D MMORPG [2008:]( Gary Gygax passes away. [2014:]( D&D 5th edition is released. [2019:]( Paramount Pictures plans a D&D movie. CHART D&D is making more money than ever, and has become a driver for gaming revenue, Hasbro says. Sponsored by Mercedes-Benz USA What does automotive design with a Boost look like? --------------------------------------------------------------- The new 2019 Mercedes-Benz CLS combines progressive design with an all-new inline-6 turbocharged engine with EQ Boost. With the very latest in automotive intelligence and safety technology, it sets new industry standards.[Start your Mercedes-Benz journey here >]( Courtesy of Random House Explain it like I’m 5! D&D 101 --------------------------------------------------------------- A bunch of people sit around a table. Each player has a character, whose personality and skills are spelled out on a character sheet. Some D&D groups use maps and miniature figures, some draw out battle maps with markers, and some just play in the “theater of the mind,” meaning everyone just imagines what’s going on. Whatever the medium, the dungeon master (DM) sets the scene: Players can be in a city, a hidden crypt, or lost deep in the forest. Then what happens next is up to the players. Each player can jump in and narrate what their character is saying or doing, and the effect of those actions are determined by rolling dice—primarily a twenty-sided die called a d20—and the characters’ attributes. As the characters explore the DM’s world, monsters or friendly characters will arise, all voiced by the DM. Storylines can be as simple as finding the loot in the depths of a dungeon or as complex as a political thriller where the characters manipulate different factions and state leaders to their wills. And with those basic mechanics, that’s pretty much the entire game, which can run for a night, or a weekend, or for years. The rest is all in your collective imagination. By the digits [8.6 million:]( Number of Americans who played D&D last year, according to Wizards of the Coast. [9 million:]( Number of people who watched D&D on the streaming service Twitch last year. [35:]( Years that history professor Robert Wardhaugh has been running a D&D campaign. [$2:]( Fee per drawing paid to high school illustrators for the original D&D artwork. [$350:]( Amount one professional DM charges per hour. [7:]( Editions of D&D (Original, AD&D, 2e, 3e, 3.5, 4e, 5e). [11:]( Number of eye-stalks on a Beholder. [350+:]( Original monsters in the original monster manual. [$3,000:]( Price of D&D dice made from a meteorite. Quotable “I think the game is part of a movement away from the isolation of computers and mobile devices: People want to get together on Friday night or Saturday night with their friends around a table, and be social and play a social game, rather than staring at their phone and netting zero for the next five hours.” —[Joe Manganiello]( actor/gamer/husband of Sofia Vergara Person of Interest The man who made D&D --------------------------------------------------------------- Gary Gygax’s path from obscurity to fame was as obsessive as a Dungeons & Dragons campaign. He was a 30-year-old high-school dropout and insurance underwriter in the small resort town of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin when he hosted the gaming convention that planted the D&D seed. He lost his job shortly thereafter, leaving him with five kids, freelance income from shoemaking and game-designing, and a desire to turn his lifelong love of wargames into a job. Co-creator Dave Arneson—a Minnesota college student and wargamer hooked on the [1958 Avalon Hill game Gettysburg]( been adding roleplaying elements to war games, and soon after meeting Gygax at the second Lake Geneva gaming convention, drew up a medieval role-playing game called Blackmoor. It was based on Gygax’s game Chainmail, which itself was based on Siege of Bodenberg. Gygax loved it, in part because the freeform design “reminded him of exploring the tunnels [under the insane asylum]( as a child.” Unable to pique Avalon Hill’s interest, the duo published the first edition of D&D in 1974, selling 4,000 copies in two years at $10 a pop. By the 1980s it was a multi-million dollar business with a cameo in the film E.T. cameo and its own animated adaptation, but Gygax was out of the company before the second edition of D&D was even published. (His Lake Geneva Wargames Convention also evolved into the massive Gen Con). When Wired caught up with Gygax in 2007, the year before his death, he was [happy to be back where he started]( hosting a tiny alternative reboot of his convention in Lake Geneva. Pop Quiz Which character class wasn’t included in the original D&D rules? Fighting manThiefPriestMagic-user Correct. Incorrect. If your inbox doesn’t support this quiz, find the solution at bottom of email. Million-Dollar Question Why is D&D such a big deal? --------------------------------------------------------------- It’s certainly a respite from our digital devices, and it puts the creativity of gaming in your own hands instead of a game developer’s code. But it’s also gotten a boost from screens, thanks to cult-classic shows that have embraced its storytelling nature. In 2011, Community set a whole episode around a D&D game that translated its appeal to the sitcom format, leading the sci-fi site io9 to ask [“Did Community just make D&D ‘Cool’?”]( More recently, the game was a perfect fit for Stranger Things, as the Netflix series is a blend of horror, science-fiction, and ‘80s nostalgia. [It begins with a game]( which becomes “a metaphor for how the show’s major characters fought through the actual supernatural happenings around them.” Stranger Things 2 goes deeper still. The game’s warm reception is a big change from its perception as a game for outsiders. In Stranger Things, that shades the whole experience with a particular menace that only those who were nerds in the ‘80s ([mostly white, male nerds]( that is) will get: after the game went mainstream, it [became the subject of a moral panic](. Fun fact! The video game DOOM was [inspired]( by a Dungeons & Dragons adventure, after game designer John Carmack accidentally loosed demons on the world trying to obtain a magic sword. Watch This! If you have a spare three hours…. --------------------------------------------------------------- One of the most popular [D&D live-play shows]( is [Critical Role]( where voice actor Matt Mercer is the dungeon master for other voice actors. take me down this 🐰 hole! Listen to podcasts like [Drunks and Dragons]( or [The Adventure Zone](. Read the [Basic Rules](. Or best of all, find a D&D group near you! Poll Do you D&D? [Click here to vote]( YesNoNot since high school 💬let's talk! In yesterday’s poll about [chocolate chip cookies]( 73% of you prefer them soft and chewy, soundly defeating crisp and crunchy. 📧 Sarah writes: “A good chocolate chip cookie is not simply EITHER ‘soft and chewy’ or ‘crisp and crunchy.’ IT IS BOTH.” 🎈 [Comment on the new Quartz app!]( ✏️ [What did you think of today’s email?](mailto:obsession%2Bfeedback@qz.com?cc=&subject=Thoughts%20about%20Dungeons%20%26%20Dragons&body=) 💡 [What should we obsess over next?](mailto:obsession%2Bideas@qz.com?cc=&subject=Obsess%20over%20this%20next.&body=) 📬 [Forward this email to a friend](mailto:replace_with_friends_email@qz.com?cc=obsession%2Bforward@qz.com&subject=%F0%9F%90%B2%20Dungeons%20%26%20Dragons%3A%20Still%20casting%20a%20spell&body=Thought%20you%27d%20enjoy.%20%0ARead%20it%20here%20%E2%80%93%20http%3A%2F%2Fqz.com%2Femail%2Fquartz-obsession%2F1466119) 🎁 [Get the Quartz Tabsession Chrome Extension]( 📆 [Dive into the archive]( Today’s email was written by [Dave Gershgorn]( edited by [Whet Moser]( and produced by [April Siese](. The correct answer to the quiz is Thief. Enjoying the Quartz Obsession? [Send this link]( to a friend! If you click a link to an e-commerce site and make a purchase, we may receive a small cut of the revenue, which helps support our ambitious journalism. See [here]( for more information. Not enjoying it? No worries. [Click here]( to unsubscribe. Quartz | 675 Avenue of the Americas, 4th Fl | New York, NY 10011 | United States [Share this email](