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Dungeons and Dragons might be one of the most iconic games of all time, but that doesn’t mean that everyone knows everything about it. There are so many rules and mechanics that take up the memory banks that it is understandable to not know everything about it. This is especially true since the game itself has been out for decades now.
Since Dungeons and Dragons is so old, some things have been changed or become such important additions that the older concepts have long been forgotten. Other things have never really had a reason to get into the spotlight much.
10 It Was Originally Released As An Add-On For Chainmail In 1971
Upon its release, Dungeons and Dragons was simply an add-on for the medieval wargame Chainmail. Eventually, the thought that knights fight dragons came into the developer’s heads and they came up with the first incarnation of the very first TTRPG. This became so popular and fantastical that the original game was dropped and D&D became its own standalone game.
Continuing from this legacy, many other TTRPGs have spawned in its wake, taking up space in all different genres and with varying levels of complexity. It also spawned numerous other games from card and board to video games, movies, books, and even entire television shows.
9 There Used To Be Magazines Players Could Write Into With Ideas & Questions
The widespread use of the internet is more of a modern addition to the world, but Dungeons and Dragons existed before that point. So instead of getting on the internet and chatting with players across the globe for ideas, clarification, or advice, people got together and made magazines and mailing lists to help one another across long distances.
Magazines such as White Dwarf even used to host contests that gave the game some iconic monsters, rules, and locations. Entire companies such as Forgotten Realms got their start as write-in ideas to things like this and then eventually became part of the official game. Nowadays most of the magazines have moved on and have been replaced with websites and forums.
8 National D&D Day Is November 5th
Just about everything has its own national day, from pancakes to pie to other more normal holidays. Dungeons and Dragons also has its own national day, and it is on November 5th every year.
Not that anyone ever really celebrates D&D Day, or even knows about it, but some D&D heavy retailers will have little sales to celebrate it, and some artists will make tributes to it. It’s just fun to know that the biggest TTRPG of all time has its own day.
7 The D20 System Was Released As Public Use In 3.0e
The third edition of Dungeons and Dragons made great strides in the game as a whole. Suddenly there was a lot more unification, clearer rules, better balancing, and generally more streamlining in their presentation. It did need another rebalance which spurred 3.5e, but it got there in time.
The biggest thing this edition did was to release the d20 system to be for public use. Due to this, a whole swath of similar TTRPGs came into existence, including the extremely popular Pathfinder. The franchise had always been about customization and making the game unique, so it wasn’t too much of an illogical step to allow people to design entire games off of it.
6 There Are Some Monsters Behind A Paywall
Even though Dungeons and Dragons released its vice grip on the d20 system and much of its content for public use, that doesn’t mean they gave up the rights to everything. Some of their most iconic monsters are still locked behind their game and cannot be used without gaining express permission from the company.
Such monsters include the iconic Beholder and Gauth, Mind Flayers, Carrion Crawlers, Displacer Beasts, Githyanki, Githzerai, Umber Hulks, Slaads, and Yaun-Ti. Similar creatures have appeared in different media but have to be just different enough or they will receive legal repercussions from Wizards of the Coast.
5 Official Free Resources Do Exist
Dungeons and Dragons has a bad reputation for being expensive. It can be for sure, but it doesn’t have to be. The official website offers numerous free resources from pdf downloads of old books to free printable character sheets, discussion boards, and many other tools that can be used.
There’s also the official Dungeons and Dragons wiki, which has many of the resources from the game available to browse along with huge homebrew collections. There’s also plenty of other resources that can be used to play the game with, though they are not always sanctioned, approved, and rarely are they officially recognized.
4 The Original Gods Were St. Cuthbert & Rao
Originally there were no gods meant to be added to the game, but players started questioning where their divine magic came from. Therefore they came up with St. Cuthbert, the god of Law, Common Sense, and Zeal, and his foil Rao, the god of Peace and Reason. These two were constantly at odds and were considered rivals. Other gods started to appear and it caused some controversy, especially when the creators added in gods from Lovecraftian lore without obtaining proper permissions.
St. Cuthbert continued on to be in most of the main rulebooks until the Raven Queen appeared, at which point he was put into the supplemental guides where Rao had been for years. As time went on, he even started taking on more warlike aspects and gained the entire plane of Arcadia to govern from his basilica. The inclusion of these gods started part of the satanic and occult associations that Dungeons and Dragons took years to shake.
3 Originally There Were Only Three Classes
Nowadays, there are tons of classes to choose from and then prestige classes and focuses to customize characters even further. However, there were originally only three classes available: Fighting-Man, Magic-User, and Cleric. Essentially it just consisted of the fighter, mage, and healer tropes in big categories which have now been split up into more specialties.
While it could have logically stayed that way as everything falls back to one of those categories anyway, it is definitely nice to be able to fill in more niche roles such as a rogue or a ranger, or even being able to blur the lines and make characters like paladins and battlemages.
2 The Budget Started Out Very Minimal
Dungeons and Dragons might be the biggest icon for tabletops, but it didn’t start out that way. Since it was merely an add-on for another game, it didn’t have much to work with. Then, when the creators decided to make it a standalone game, they only had a few thousand dollars to make it into something.
Later, there were so many legal repercussions and issues that they ran into that it makes sense for such strange rules and awkward formatting to become the norm. They were both making something brand new and trying to do so with pennies. Every issue they faced just added to the stress and challenges of trying to build one of the most iconic games of the modern era. It eventually worked out and now there’s really something special to be had from it.
1 Everyone Had To Be Human
There wasn’t always a ton of races back in the olden days of the game. Everyone was human until other races were eventually added in as creatures, monsters, or even classes. The iconic elf, dwarf, gnomes, halflings, tiefling, and half-orcs were not things someone could play until later installments.
It was even later that the game built in capabilities to turn anything into a player character regardless of what it was supposed to be. Nowadays, any monster can be turned into a player character with enough finagling and an agreeable Dungeon Master.
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