Game Wizards

The Epic Battle for Dungeons & Dragons

By: Jon Peterson

Narrated by: Chris Andrew Ciulla

When Dungeons & Dragons was first released to a small hobby community, it hardly seemed destined for mainstream success—and yet this arcane tabletop role-playing game became an unlikely pop culture phenomenon. In Game Wizards, Jon Peterson chronicles the rise of Dungeons & Dragons from hobbyist pastime to mass market sensation, from the initial collaboration to the later feud of its creators, Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. As the game's fiftieth anniversary approaches, Peterson—a noted authority on role-playing games—explains how D&D and its creators navigated their successes, setbacks, and controversies.

Peterson describes Gygax and Arneson's first meeting and their work toward the 1974 release of the game; the founding of TSR and its growth as a company; and Arneson's acrimonious departure and subsequent challenges to TSR. He recounts the "Satanic Panic" accusations that D&D was sacrilegious and dangerous, and how they made the game famous.

With Game Wizards, Peterson restores historical particulars long obscured by competing narratives spun by the one-time partners. That record amply demonstrates how the turbulent experience of creating something as momentous as Dungeons & Dragons can make people remember things a bit differently from the way they actually happened.

©2021 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (P)2022 Tantor

more good stuff from Peterson

I've read/listened to several books covering the history of DnD. This is the first where I felt that I came away with a good sense of the personalities of the primary 'players' involved. While history is often rather dry, based simply on what can be proven from papertrails, Peterson has taken the time to interview people and look at the correspondence and interactions to get a sense of what the actual relationships may have been. Of course, nobody paints themselves as the 'bad guy' and I think Peterson has done a fine job of navigating the choppy seas of interpersonal relationships to give the reader an idea what the personal dynamics were like.

Like many other stories of ventures taken up with goodwill and trust, TSR struggled to make the transition to a serious business. The story is a great insight into what American culture was like back then as well. Having lived through it myself, I sometimes forget how difficult times could be and what a 'wild west' the business culture was like. This book is a great window into a nascent subculture that would go on to be a dominant force in pop culture decades later.

Nice and grounded

if you are like me and you have read several books on TSR and the development of D&D this serves as good look on the financial aspect of the TSR story and for once doesn't strive to heap excessive praise on Gygax, like he was just a guy and he had success and failures

The real inside scoop

This was well written and beautifully narrated. I thoroughly enjoyed this deeper look into the somewhat untold history of D&D. Would highly recommend!!

A book well written

Jon hit the nail on the head with this book. The rise and fall of TSR has been told a few times but, Jon does the story one better. You feel like you are an employee of TSR of yesteryear and you are seeing everything first hand. I like that it doesn't take sides in the messiness that was early TSR. I never knew Dave A. I did know Gary. I think he would be happy to know his game lives on and is bigger than ever.

excellent in depth detailing of the history G&D

very in depth detailing of the history of Gary and Dave at TSR. a great read if you are interested in the subject

A true history of TSR

This is the most balanced history of the early days of TSR and D&D. As someone from the Twin Cities who has met many of the earliest gamers I feel it fairly shows the early days of the game. Having said this it is more about the first years of TSR than the development of D&D.

Very Repetitive

Expect 13.5 hours detailing every instance of Dave Arneson bickering with Gary Gygax and Gary Gygax bickering with everyone else.

Awesome Book Ruined By A Bizarrely Bad Narration

I had to return it only 2 hours in and buy an eBook version. The content is fantastic, and I loved learning about the history of the hobby. However, the narrator is full stop unbearable. His voice is fine, but he has the strangest inflections and cadence. I'm pretty sure he did this all in one take or something. It was actually evident the moment I started the book. He says the name of the book, but instead of saying "Game Wizards" like a normal person he says "Game WIZards". Hard to put into type, but I hope it makes sense. Then, during the text, he has these extremely jarring and distracting pauses mixed with inflections that don't match the text. "Gary went...to the store and.....boughtabagofpeanuts." What I think might be happening is that he gets to the end of a line and pauses because he doesn't know the next word and then continues a half second later when he's read it. It's so weird, like remember back in school when we'd read stuff out loud and some kids were just not good at it? It feels like that. It doesn't help that he reads slow as molasses. I've listened to many audiobooks, and only Game Wizards and one other I had to listen on 1.2x speed. It is FULLY unlistinable at 1x, and just barely intolerable at 1.2x. He also ends sentences constantly on this downswing? So much so that it is, again, distracting. If this book had come out in 2023 I'd say this was 1000000% an AI voice that never got touched up, since so many of the issues are so bizarre that I couldn't imagine a human making them this frequently. But the book came out in 2022, just before the AI boom. Unless the audio came out later or something, I don't know. This was a very frustrating experience, also because none of the other reviews mention this issue. But I swear I'm not insane, I showed this to my wife and she said, with a look of vague discomfort, "I don't like this." Read the print, skip the audiobook.