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

It's an excerpt from this book, Of Dice and Men: The Story of Dungeons & Dragons and The People Who Play It.

Being too young to have experienced this first-hand, but just young enough to feel the effects of it on my life (my mother, who lived through the 80's, banned me from playing D&D because of this sentiment), Of Dice and Men helped me understand why that all came about.

Tl;dr of which: someone didn't like D&D and lied profusely about it in an era before fact-checking was so easy.

PS The book is great for other things, like understanding the origins of the game.

These are both good reads for nerds and novices:

• Playing at the World
  
• Of Dice and Men
  
  There's a new book that was released just recently [Empire of Imagination] (http://www.amazon.com/Empire-Imagination-Gygax-Dungeons-Dragons/dp/1632862794/ref=pd_sim_14_1?ie=UTF8&dpID=515zTJXi6UL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR105%2C160_&refRID=1GDE6308Y0NQDQ0E5NQD) but it has some mixed reviews. Quite a few old school gamers have said it's lackluster in style and substance.

> White Wolf did more to bring people to gaming as a hobby in 5 yrs than TSR did in triple that time, in terms of effort, and we can probably attribute some non-trivial fraction of how diverse the gaming community is to their efforts.

I agree with this, though I must say that TSR was child of a "nerds only" era, when marketing was not an issue, as there were two or three major fanzines where you found advertisement, and most publicity was done by hearsay.
It is to their fault that the failed to adapt to changing times, that's for sure (I would advise anyone interested in their history to read Of Dice and Men, an amazing book), but I can understand why someone "younger" did a better attempt at it...

List of Influential RPG Titles

Dungeons and Dragons - By TSR and WotC

Dungeons and Dragons 1st Edition - TSR

• Core Rulebooks
  
• Adventures (Keep on the Boarderlands, The Tomb of Horrors, The Temple of Elemental Evil)
  
  Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2nd Edition - TSR
  
  
• Core Books (PHB, DMG, MM)
  
• Unearthed Arcana
  
• Campaign Settings (Dragonlance, Ravenloft, Forgotten Realms, Dark Sun)
  
• Arms and Equipment Guide
  
  Dungeons and Dragons 3.0 - WotC
  
  
• Savage Species
  
• Deities and Demigods
  
• Stronghold Builder's Guidebook
  
  Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 - WotC
  
  
• Core Rulebooks (PHB, DMG, & MM)
  
• Expanded Core (PHB2, DMG2, MM2, 3, 4, 5)
  
• Psionics Handbook
  
• Unearthed Arcana
  
• Complete Series (Arcane, Adventurer, Warrior, Divine, Champion, Scoundrel, Mage, Psionics)
  
• Campaign Settings (Ebberon, Forgotten Realms)
  
• Adventures (Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil)
  
  Dungeons and Dragons 4e - WotC
  
  
• Core Rulebooks (PHB, PHB2, PHB3, DMG, DMG2, MM, MM2, MM3)
  
• Essentials (Heroes of Forgotten Kingdoms and Heroes of Fallen Lands, Rules Compendium)
  
• Settings (Forgotten Realms, Dark Sun)
  
• Adventures (Tomb of Horrors)
  
  Pathfinder - Paizo Publishing
  
  
• Core Rulebook
  
• Advanced Player's Guide
  
• Advanced Race Guide
  
• Ultimate Magic
  
• Ultimate Combat
  
• Ultimate Equipment
  
• Game Mastery Guide
  
• Ultimate Campaign
  
• Mythic Adventures
  
• NPC Codex
  
• Bestiaries 1-4
  
  Not Dungeons and Dragons
  
  World of Darkness - by White Wolf
  
  
• Vampire the Masquerade - Vampires are so mainstream now...
  
• Werewolf the Apocylypse - Where there are vampires there are werewolves.
  
• Mage the Ascention - and witches and wizards.
  
• Hunter the Reckoning - and someone to hunt them.
  
• Changeling the Dreaming
  
  "New" World of Darkness
  
  
• Core Book
  
• Expanded Core (Vampire, Mage, Werewolf)
  
  AEG
  
  
• Legend of the Five Rings 4th Edition Core Rulebook
  
• Legend of the Five Rings 1st Edition Core Rulebook
  
• 7th Sea
  
• Deadlands
  
  Other
  
  
• Shadowrun
  
• Savage Worlds
  
• Dungeon World
  
• FATE Core
  
• Call of Cthulhu
  
• RIFTS
  
• GURPS
  
• Paranoia - Super expensive on Amazon, not sure why.
  
• Elf Quest - Also a very popular graphic novel.
  
  Authors to Look for
  
  
• Gary Gygax - Role Playing Mastery and Master of the Game
  
• Monte Cook
  
• John Wick
  
• Dave Arneston
  
  RPG Related Non-Fiction
  
  
• Confessions of a Part Time Sorceress - Shelley Mazzinoble
  
• Of Dice and Men: The Story of Dungeons & Dragons and The People Who Play It
  
  RPG Fiction, also essential
  
  
• Dragonlance - Chronicles Triligy by Weise and Hickman - Set in a D&D campaign Setting
  
• Drizzit's Series - By R. A. Salvatore. Icewind Dale Trilogy and The Dark Elf Trilogy
  
• The Riftwar Saga by Raymond Feist - It's allegedly the story of the author's long running D&D game.
  
  Other Lists
  
  
• Good Reads Popular RPG titles.
  
• Wikipedia timeline of RPGs
  
  Honorable Mentions
  
  
• Star Wars - d6 Edition, d20 Edition, SAGA Edition, Star Wars RPG (Fantsy Flight)
  
• Star Trek - Various Incarnations
  
• Serenity the RPG
  
• D&D Comic Books
  
• Buffy the RPG
  
• Whatever the heck "Demon" is...
  
  *Please add suggestions below, I'll add to the list as I revisit this thread throughout the day. Adding Amazon links now.

Actually, Of Dice and Men is a real book, and I can personally highly reccomend it.

Of Dice and Men is a probably my go-to history of the game.

That is right (at least according to Matt Colville who seems to have a decent grasp on the history of D&D).

I've been meaning to read Of Dice and Men but haven't gotten around to it yet. The NewBooksNetwork interview with the author is really good though.

It's brought up in Of Dice and Men by David M. Ewalt.

I haven't read it myself, but this book is well-reviewed.

For out of game history from those days, I rather enjoyed Of Dice and Men. As someone who got on at the end of AD&D, it gave me some interesting context for the early days of the game.

Read this book, imho http://www.amazon.com/dp/1451640501

This is a great starting point: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1451640501