David M. Ewalt - Of Dice and Men - The Story of Dungeons & D

Of Dice and Men: The Story of Dungeons & Dragons and the People Who Play It

by David M. Ewalt

96 kbps, Unabridged, Read by the Author


Ancient red dragons with 527 hit points, +44 to attack, and a 20d10 breath weapon, to be specific. In the world of fantasy role-playing, those numbers describe a winged serpent with immense strength and the ability to spit fire. There are few beasts more powerful—just like there are few games more important than Dungeons & Dragons.

Even if you’ve never played Dungeons & Dragons, you probably know someone who has: the game has had a profound influence on our culture. Released in 1974—decades before the Internet and social media—Dungeons & Dragons inspired one of the original nerd subcultures, and is still revered by millions of fans around the world. Now the authoritative history and magic of the game are revealed by an award-winning journalist and lifelong D&D player.

In Of Dice and Men, David Ewalt recounts the development of Dungeons & Dragons from the game’s roots on the battlefields of ancient Europe, through the hysteria that linked it to satanic rituals and teen suicides, to its apotheosis as father of the modern video-game industry. As he chronicles the surprising history of the game’s origins (a history largely unknown even to hardcore players) and examines D&D’s profound impact, Ewalt weaves laser-sharp subculture analysis with his own present-day gaming experiences. An enticing blend of history, journalism, narrative, and memoir, Of Dice and Men sheds light on America’s most popular (and widely misunderstood) form of collaborative entertainment.

Kirkus Reviews
A child of the polyhedral dice returns to the fantasy game of his youth in a reverential history of the innovative pastime that has launched billions of role-playing adventures. Before Dungeons & Dragons, those with a fetish for alternate time periods and a visceral need to escape the banality of everyday life would wage tabletop war against each other in meticulously rendered re-enactments of history's greatest battles. Soon, however, even these highly orchestrated military clashes began to grow a bit tiresome--until someone threw wizards and other magical entities into the mix. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson are the pioneering duo credited with merging old war simulations with a revolutionary gaming system that removed "winning" as the objective and encouraged imaginative players to keep their adventures going in perpetuity--or, at least, until their characters ran out of all-important hit points. Then again, in D&D, resurrection is never really out of the question, either. Forbes senior editor Ewalt adroitly parallels his return to D&D after years away in the "grown-up world" of journalism with the story of how Gygax and Arneson originally came together in the early 1970s to form Tactical Studies Rules, Inc.; the author also covers the ensuing split between the creators. The former thread, however, is by far the more engaging, as the rise and fall and resurgence of the D&D empire has been well-documented elsewhere. Hard-core D&D followers will find few revelations in Ewalt's personal dungeon crawl through TSR history. However, for those who don't know a Ranger from a Rogue or a Hobgoblin from a Halfling, the author's devotion to the game does much to illuminate role-playing's enduring power on mortal men and women. A serviceable history of Dungeons & Dragons coupled with an insightful look at the game's allure.