Fifty Years of Dungeons & Dragons
On the fiftieth anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons, a collection of essays that explores and celebrates the game's legacy and its tremendous impact on gaming and popular culture.
In 2024, the enormously influential tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons—also known as D&D—celebrates its fiftieth anniversary. To mark the occasion, editors Premeet Sidhu, Marcus Carter, and José Zagal have assembled an edited collection that celebrates and reflects on important parts of the game's past, present, and future. Each chapter in Fifty Years of Dungeons & Dragons explores why the nondigital game is more popular than ever—with sales increasing 33 percent during the COVID-19 pandemic, despite worldwide lockdowns—and offers readers the opportunity to critically reflect on their own experiences, perceptions, and play of D&D.
Fifty Years of Dungeons & Dragons draws on fascinating research and insight from expert scholars in the field, including: Gary Alan Fine, whose 1983 book Shared Fantasy remains a canonical text in game studies; Jon Peterson, celebrated D&D historian; Daniel Justice, Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Literature and Expressive Culture; and numerous leading and emerging scholars from the growing discipline of game studies, including Amanda Cote, Esther MacCallum-Stewart, and Aaron Trammell. The chapters cover a diverse range of topics—from D&D's adoption in local contexts and classrooms and by queer communities to speculative interpretations of what D&D might look like in one hundred years—that aim to deepen readers' understanding of the game.
Authors:
Premeet Sidhu is an accredited English and History teacher and PhD student at the University of Sydney. Her PhD looks at the modern resurgence and educational application of the tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons.
Marcus Carter is Professor in Human-Computer Interaction at the University of Sydney and an Australian Research Council Future Fellow. He is the author of Treacherous Play and Fifty Years of Dungeons & Dragons (both MIT Press).
Joseì P. Zagal is Professor at the University of Utah's Entertainment Arts & Engineering program. He is the author of Ludoliteracy, coeditor of The Videogame Ethics Reader, and Editor-in-Chief of Transactions of the Digital Games Research Association. Zagal has been honored as a DiGRA Distinguished Scholar and a Fellow of the Higher Education Video Game Alliance for his contributions to games research.
Praise:
“Rather than another retread of why Dave hated Gary etc etc etc, Fifty Years of Dungeons & Dragons takes the refreshing stance of looking less at the game itself and rather the cultural impact it’s had over its lifetime... [The MIT Press] Game Histories series has reliably been the best source of books on RPGs over the past few years.”~Wyrd Science
“Fifty Years of Dungeons & Dragons has... something to appeal to anyone interested in game history, game studies or even just the impact of games on popular culture. If you’re interested in the ways in which hobbyist culture can have a lasting impact on the world, Fifty Years is well worth a look.”~Fortean Times
