Dungeons & Dragons

A game of Dungeons & Dragons.

Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), fantasy role-playing game (RPG), created by American game designers Ernest Gary Gygax and David Arneson in 1974 and published that year by Gygax’s company, Tactical Studies Rules (TSR). The game was acquired in 1997 by Wizards of the Coast, a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. The game’s soaring popularity led to D&D-themed miniature figurines, books, television shows, and movies.

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D&D has gone through multiple editions, with various changes to the rules and nomenclature. The game is set in a medieval fantasy world in which multiple players form a group that is led through an adventure by one player who assumes the role of the storyteller, or Dungeon Master. The Dungeon Master makes up story events or chooses them from one of the published adventures, to which the players may respond in different manners to create a unique gaming experience. The other players each choose a race (human, elf, dwarf, halfling), a class (e.g., Fighter, Rogue, Wizard), and skills for their character, and they apportion a small number of points to different attributes (Constitution, Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma) that determine how effective a character is in performing various actions. As actions are performed successfully, points are gained to the corresponding attributes. Most complex actions have some probability of failing, which is determined by rolling one or more of the game’s polygonal dice (4-, 6-, 8-, 10-, 12-, and 20-sided). Often players use a sheet marked with a grid and miniature figurines to represent their characters’ movements.

The basic rules and milieu of Dungeons & Dragons has been adapted for many electronic RPGs, such as Baldur’s Gate (1998).