[MUSIC PLAYING]
MICHAEL WITWER: We've
been working now
for a couple years
on really trying
to tell the entire history of
this incredible game, "Dungeons
and Dragons,"
through its visuals,
which was a really pretty
interesting project.
So we're not going
to be able to go
through the entire
45-year history today.
But we do want to give you
some highlights of what we've
got in the book and
some things that we
found that I think
are really pretty
important to this
entire movement.
Can we get a show of hands,
before we really kind of get
into it, of who
either plays or has
played "Dungeons and Dragons
or another role-playing game?
[LAUGHTER]
MICHAEL WITWER: Nice, OK.
Let's skip that slide.
JON PETERSON: I see why this is
standing room only [INAUDIBLE]..
MICHAEL WITWER: So we can
skip this slide, I think.
[? JON PETERSON: ?] But
we're not skipping this one.
MICHAEL WITWER: We're
not skipping this slide.
[LAUGHTER]
So "Dungeons and
Dragons is certainly
having a moment right now.
The game is as popular
as it's ever been,
but it hasn't always
been this way.
So, Kyle, you want
to talk a little bit
about kind of where
we are right now,
maybe why we are where we are?
KYLE NEWMAN: There's no denying
that "Dungeons and Dragons
2018, it's having a
zeitgeist moment, the brand.
And it's probably the most
players it's actively had.
And it's growing.
2018 is going to turn out to be
the biggest year for the brand.
It's already on
course for 10% growth.
And what's happening
now is the entry point
for "Dungeons and Dragons,"
because of digital things
like YouTube and Twitch, where
you can watch somebody play
or see how the game
is meant to be played
over a five-minute clip, now you
can see that that's all it is.
The stigmas are stripped away.
And we've got to
this point where
the vernacular and the
shorthand about gaming
and some of the important
principles that were invented
by "Dungeons and Dragons,"
leveling up and XP,
are all part of our
culture already.
So in a sense,
people have already
been playing "Dungeons
and Dragons."
And now they're exposed to it,
and there's this easy entry
point.
So it's an exciting
time for the brand,
I think for role
playing in general,
because it's really about
collaborative storytelling
and community.
And you make a little family.
And you tell the story together.
And in a digital age, there's
something wonderful and analog
about having that
presence with each other,
using pencil and paper,
and getting together,
and connecting.
So I think there's
a nostalgia tied in
with escapism and escapism
within the narrative.
So it's having a
wonderful moment.
MICHAEL WITWER: We'd
like to show this,
because this game has come
a really, really long way.
And this is kind of a one shot.
We've got a number
of these in the book
about really how far this
game really truly has come.
And again, this is a way
the visuals can really
help you see that.
Something that was
entirely homebrew,
that's really kind of very cool.
Anyone on this
panel like to talk
a bit more about what
we're looking at here
and who that is?
JON PETERSON: Does anyone not
recognize this guy up here?
SAM WITWER: You guys
know what that is, right?
The jerk of all
jerks, the beholder?
Yeah, well, what we
were able to unearth
is a lot of the interesting
inceptions of these very
specific and unique monsters.
And what surprised me--
it surprised Jon, because
he's an old pro at this,
but for me, it
surprised me greatly
how young some of the people
that Gary Gygax brought in
were to try to conceptualize
some of these things.
If you're like a 14-year-old
kid and some old war gamer
comes to you and says,
I'm going to give you $2,
and I need some illustrations,
and I need them done yesterday,
well, what are you going to do?
You're going to
violate copyright law.
[LAUGHTER]
Right?
I mean, it's the only
thing you can do.
And, I mean, look, we got some
Dr. Strange going on up there.
KYLE NEWMAN: This is
issue 167 of Dr. Strange.
It was [INAUDIBLE].
JON PETERSON: Strange Tales.
KYLE NEWMAN: --oh,
Strange Tales,
between Dr. Strange
and Nick Fury.
And this particular
artist seemed
to have an affinity for it.
And you can see he
copied and swiped--
JON PETERSON: Swiped.
KYLE NEWMAN: --some of the--
JON PETERSON: Yeah.
KYLE NEWMAN: --some of the key
images from this book, which
translated to very
foundational art
in the first copy of
"Dungeons and Dragons."
JON PETERSON: It's important
to appreciate, though,
that this was a very open and
collaborative fan community
when it started, right?
This was not something
where anybody had any notion
that this would be commercially
viable, that this would escape
from a very tiny audience.
And much like with comics
fandom, yes, you did swipes.
People would take characters
and re-appropriate them,
because it wasn't really
for commercial purposes.
And so what we see in these
borrowings that are clearly
so indebted to Marvel
Comics in this instance,
it was just the way the
community functioned
at the time.
And it really wasn't
quite illegal.
SAM WITWER: Right.
JON PETERSON: It's a gray area.
MICHAEL WITWER: Yeah.
And one thing we
really love to show,
when we show things like
that, is this notion
that this was-- it
was so homebrew,
it almost redefines what we
understand as homebrew today.
Right?
And there's something
kind of cool.
There's a cachet
about that today.
Well, at this time,
you're talking
about people that were
playing a game for themselves,
and they were hand assembling
this game in their basement
to sell it to this really small
esoteric group of war gamers
at the time.
And, Jon, you want
to talk a little bit
about kind of where
this all emerged from,
this whole notion of role
playing games and D&D.
JON PETERSON: Sure.
And some of you may
recognize the actor,
the elegant English gentleman
who is depicted up there
in the upper left, a guy by
the name of Peter Cushing--
Been in "Star Wars," a
lot of classic [INAUDIBLE]
horror films, things like it.
Well, Peter was
part of a community,
and it was largely
an Anglo American
community that
collected and painted
these military miniatures.
And this was a pretty
serious historical hobby.
People would explore
the Napoleonic period.
They would want to pay
meticulous attention
to getting uniform details
right and things like it.
And Gary Gygax, who was one
of the co-creators of "D&D,"
he was a part of this
community in the 1960s.
You see him depicted
there in the lower panel.
He's the guy on the right who's
kind of closely scrutinizing
this scene in front of him.
That was a medieval
miniature war
game, a period recreation of
what medieval combat would
have been.
And that picture is
actually from something
he called The Lake
Geneva War Games
Convention, which is a little
group of friends he had over.
About 96 people
made it to this con,
which was a block
away from his house.
KYLE NEWMAN: About
this many people.
JON PETERSON: Yeah,
about this many people.
And it was at this
horticultural hall,
a place they did
flower shows, that
was about a block
away from his house
in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.
Today, of course,
that convention
has continued since then.
We now just call it
Gen Con for short.
And the ones we have now in
Indianapolis draw 60,000-plus
people.
This is a pretty big
deal at this point.
But it was at this time in '68
that Gary got really interested
in medieval miniature war games.
And so he teamed up with
another guy, Jeff Perrin,
who lived in Rockford,
Illinois, nearby.
And actually, Greg
Bell, the kid that we
saw during those illustrations
from Marvel Comics,
he was part of
Jeff's circle there.
And they put out this
pamphlet called "Chainmail",
which as you can see is rules
for medieval miniatures.
And these kinds of
things, usually you
share these kinds
of miniature rules.
They developed through fanzines
that would determine, OK,
what does combat mean when
you have this kind of soldier
versus this kind of soldier?
And what are the odds
that things will hit?
And how many people get killed
by arrows or boiling oil
or whatever?
And you roll dice
to determine that.
The interesting thing
about "Chainmail",
though, is that the final
third of that booklet
was reserved for something they
called the fantasy supplement.
And there really had been no
fantasy wargaming products
before this.
And it detailed how you would
fight with orcs and elves.
It had wizards who could cast
fireball and lightning bolt.
SAM WITWER: Could I ask you,
what did war gamers at the time
think of the fantasy supplement?
JON PETERSON: They weren't
usually crazy about it.
These guys who,
again, were really
focused on exploring history
through these miniatures
looked down on it.
It was childish.
You were playing
with fairy tales.
It was very controversial, but
it caught on with a few people.
And one of the people
it caught on with
is the gentleman you see
there to the left, whose
name is Dave Arneson.
Now, Gary and Dave
had, in 1970, been
a part of the group they called
the Castle and Crusade Society.
And this was a small club--
it was never larger than 80
people--
who largely
connected up by post.
They sent around a fanzine they
called the "Domesday Book."
And the map you see
behind them there
is from the ninth issue
of the "Domesday Book,"
and it shows an imaginary
land that Gary had devised
called the Great Kingdom.
And Dave Arneson had
a parcel of this.
He was a baron in their
society, so he was the baron
of an area called Blackmoor.
And Dave used these
"Chainmail" rules
to start exploring
kind of the fantasy
dimensions of this in Blackmoor,
including dungeon exploration.
Although "Chainmail" had
wizards and fighters,
he added a cleric class to
it, and also added to it
this notion that you
might be able to go up
in level, gain experience
points as you kill things.
And so he and Gary started
corresponding about it,
and that process
ultimately led up
to what you see there
on the left, which
is the cover of the first draft
of "Dungeons and Dragons,"
which we reproduce in the book.
MICHAEL WITWER: And
you can see here we've
got a couple of fun panels,
actually one of which
that does not make the
original draft of "Dungeons
and Dragons," the
other that does.
The beautiful witch
you will actually
find in those original
pamphlets that very few people
have today, of course.
This was a very
small production.
But one thing I always
like to point out
with things like what they
call the ugly witch there
in that panel by Cookie Corey.
She writes this little note
to Gary that says, hey,
I'm trying to figure this out.
Help.
It was a draft panel
from a game that
was as homebrew as you get.
And it was never used.
It's a miracle it still survives
today, if you think about it.
They didn't know they
were making history
when they made it.
This is that draft piece of
paper that's on your desk
that you scribble
something on and throw away
because it wasn't good enough.
And finding things like that
was particularly interesting,
and it told you a little bit
different story about how
this all really came together.
JON PETERSON: And
it's fascinating
that Cookie Corey, again
a female artist, half
of the artists who worked on
the original "D&D" illustrations
were female.
KYLE NEWMAN: And
what's important
about that previous panel, the
map, the great kingdom, that
was the first shared universe.
And these guys were
communicating either
in person at the
convention or pen pals.
And they would say, oh,
this castle has been sieged,
or this village
has been ransacked.
And they would have to
mark it down on their map.
And in the
pre-internet days, that
was the only way to have
this shared universe.
SAM WITWER: Sort of an
early "World of Warcraft."
KYLE NEWMAN: But it's
precursory to everything
that people find
interesting now in gaming.
SAM WITWER: And
sending a letter off
to tell someone that a
character has been killed
is a little bit
slower than dial-up.
Trust me.
MICHAEL WITWER: So we
finally get to a point here,
kind of emerging from this
wargaming lineage, where
they publish a game.
They self-publish a game.
And there it is, what we call
in this space, the brown box,
hand assembled by Gary Gygax,
his partners, and his family
in 1974.
And this becomes fairly
popular in the space.
But by popular,
what I mean really
is that it becomes popular
in the wargaming community.
People really like it.
They're interested in.
And I will tell you, if you
read these original rules,
it's incomprehensible to
just about anybody else.
Even today, if you're
a roleplaying gamer,
you will read these rules
and say, what in hell
is he talking about?
But again, it does catch
on in this little space.
And of course,
because this game is
this interesting do-it-yourself
fantasy builder for everybody,
for whatever reason, it really
captures the imagination
of this group.
And they start writing about it.
They start developing
their own campaigns.
It's the ultimate
viral type of mechanism
to put into people's hands.
And this catches
on pretty quick.
By 1975, the game
is going very well.
And they actually are invited
to a convention in Baltimore
called the Origins Convention,
which is alive and well today.
You may have been to Origins.
This is Origins
one in Baltimore.
And Origins has
asked Gary to put
on a tournament for this
radical new game called
"Dungeons and Dragons."
And Gary brings a couple
of his staff members
to be co-DMs with him.
And he built something
called the Tomb of Horrors.
Has anyone ever heard
of the Tomb of Horrors?
SAM WITWER: Who's played
the Tomb of Horrors?
Raise your hand if you've
played the Tomb of Horrors.
Oh, you're so sheepish.
Look at this.
The fear is still with
you after all these years.
Did anyone survive
the Tomb of Horrors?
Thank you.
Thank you.
JON PETERSON: The first
honest people we've seen.
SAM WITWER: The first
audience that tells the truth.
JON PETERSON:
First honest group.
KYLE NEWMAN: No one survives
the Tomb of Horrors.
SAM WITWER: No one survives
the Tomb of Horrors.
This is universally known as
the most deadly, maybe unfair
adventure in "Dungeons
and Dragons."
KYLE NEWMAN: In the
novel "Ready Player One,"
it was the first obstacle
in Ernie Cline's book.
And although it didn't make the
movie, the iconography right
there, you see in the--
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
--right, that's all over
the third act graffitied
on the van they drive around.
So they tried to keep
the homage alive.
But it is known as the
ultimate challenge for a gamer.
JON PETERSON:
Well, and it needed
to be such a challenge
because the way they ran
this is a tournament, right?
They needed to find winners.
And so you could go
in with a party of 15.
These were huge parties.
Remember, this is only 16 months
after the game has come out.
Maybe 1,500 copies
have been sold.
A lot of Xeroxed
copies, but 1,500
have been sold at this point.
Most people who went into
this in Origins that year
had never been
played before, right?
This was their introduction.
Welcome to "Dungeons
and Dragons."
SAM WITWER: You die.
JON PETERSON: Enjoy
the Tomb of Horrors.
KYLE NEWMAN: And to survive
it, you had to often bring
hirelings or in-laws to send
into the room in front of you--
JON PETERSON: Right.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
KYLE NEWMAN: And people
to sacrifice that
would touch the wall
and absorb the poison.
And this was the
kind of thing where
it wasn't your character's
life on the line.
You found ways to
probe the dungeon.
SAM WITWER: So what
we're looking at here.
This is Gary's hand-drawn
map of the tomb itself.
And what happened is we're
talking about a tournament,
you know?
It's competitive.
You have all these
different groups,
and they're all
running concurrent.
There are different dungeon
masters running each group.
So Gary knew, because up
until now, what is he doing?
He's selling rules.
And the rules have
little illustrations
to make things a little
bit more specific.
But that's about
as far as it goes.
1,000 copies, cool.
Some Xerox machines,
some bootlegs, whatever.
But Gary understands going
into this tournament-- wow,
the way I'm describing
the tournament,
it's almost like "Karate Kid."
KYLE NEWMAN: It is like
"Karate Kid." (SINGING)
It's the best around.
SAM WITWER: Sorry.
So he knows going into this
tournament he needs some help,
because he's going to have
several dungeon masters who
are not him running different
groups all at the same time,
all with these timed challenges
and these huge groups.
They all need to be
reacting to the same stuff.
So he brings on
14-year-old Tracey Lesh
to start making
these illustrations.
So you can see the prototypical
version of the great Green
Devil right here.
Tracey Lesh is this
14-year-old kid
who's making all of these very,
very specific illustrations
so that-- why?
Why is he doing this?
To spruce it up?
No.
For no other reason
than the dungeon master
for each of these
tournament groups
has to be able to present the
same information to each group.
And what's the easiest?
Well, a picture is
worth a thousand words.
KYLE NEWMAN: It's to
standardize the experience--
SAM WITWER: Exactly.
KYLE NEWMAN: --so
you could actually
run it as a legitimate
competition,
so each group experience
the same thing.
SAM WITWER: These
are the graphics
to the game that
Gary designed, right?
Now, so, suddenly there becomes
a little bit more pressure
in terms of, well, we
really need art, don't we?
We really need to be
pushing this artistic thing.
We need to instruct people,
what is happening in this room?
We need to instruct people,
what is the challenge that
is placed before you?
And so as the game continues
and continues on in prominence.
And, by the way, what my
brother is holding here
is really quite special.
This is the tournament version
of Gary's Tomb of Horrors.
This is not the
published version,
the one that killed you, sir.
KYLE NEWMAN: 1970.
JON PETERSON: They're
not responsible.
Well, they're
partially responsible.
Partial.
They're definitely responsible.
But, look, it's not them.
It's different, because
this is different.
These are different
illustrations
that lead to the
illustrations that you
were shown before you died.
These are different
illustrations.
You get Gary's
handwritten notes in here.
You get references
to rules that never--
KYLE NEWMAN: Characters
like the Mystic.
SAM WITWER: Yeah,
things that didn't quite
make it into the game.
And it is our great
privilege to have
been able to reproduce this for
this special edition of our--
[INAUDIBLE]
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
SAM WITWER: Yeah, so that
this too can kill you.
KYLE NEWMAN: What's important
about this early art--
and you see a lot of it's
hand drawn, black and white.
Color hasn't been
introduced yet.
And its purpose is function.
It's like a cave
painting, or like pottery.
It has a purpose.
It's not to blow you away
with cinematic landscape.
It's not to transport
you somewhere else.
It's there to tell you how
the game can be played,
because this is a totally
customizable experience.
And so this early art,
what's fascinating
is it has just such a
hand-drawn quality is there.
And they haven't introduced
the budget yet to it.
And we're going to get to this--
Technicolor finally is
introduced into the game
at a certain point.
Once it starts selling copies,
they have an art budget.
MICHAEL WITWER: So we're
now two years into the game.
So we'll only be six
to eight hours more
if you have the time today.
[LAUGHTER]
So things like this,
though, were really
pretty meaningful to us.
I don't want to certainly talk
about our personal story too
much, only to say that
things like Tomb of Horrors
are iconic in the brand.
But we never actually
realized the visual relevance
of Tomb of Horrors
till we started
looking at this visual
history through that lens.
And so that was pretty
cool to actually discover
some really new things.
SAM WITWER: By the way, for
new players, Tomb of Horrors
has added significance in
that recently they put out
Tomb of Annihilation, which
is a continuation of all
of that danger.
KYLE NEWMAN: As
well as the Yawning
Portal, the last
challenge in that,
is a reproduction of the Tomb
of Horrors fourth edition.
MICHAEL WITWER: So they
keep coming back to this.
It's really iconic.
KYLE NEWMAN: So the
nostalgia is still alive,
looking back to these
previous things that
were so landmark in the game.
And that's one other reason why
fifth edition is so successful
because it's pulling
off of all this history
rather than supplanting
it with something new.
MICHAEL WITWER: So the
game starts selling copies,
and it does start to really
grow in these really niche hobby
channels.
But again, we're still
very much in a small space.
And I want to really
reiterate that.
But the game starts
to make some money.
And in an associated
fashion, they
start producing a little
bit better materials.
They start creating
beginner and basic box sets.
And more importantly,
they start to hire
real artists that have a
little bit of art training
to do their work, not just
local teenagers they could find
that would work for $2 a panel.
And you start to see some
illustrated panels that
are in color.
And then, of course, in end
of 1977, beginning of 1978,
they start on this line
called the Advanced
"Dungeons and Dragons" line.
What's notable about
it-- well, there's
a lot of things notable about
it we won't get into today.
But these are hardcover books
that are very high quality.
They have full-color covers.
And we're actually really
pleased in our book
to bring you actually the
original native paintings
of the wraparound covers for
the first time that have ever
been published.
KYLE NEWMAN: Now, when we
got together to make this--
there's four of us
here, and you're
saying, why did it take
four people to do this?
We got together, and
we said, we don't
want to just make a
visual history book,
where it's just images.
There's a story here.
There's a juxtaposition,
a magic that happens when
you put two images together.
And we wanted to also
present native art.
And there were five
key images that we saw.
And up until the last day,
even after the book was
closed and ready to
go to the printer,
we said, open it up, because
this one came into our lap.
But like the previous one,
you see the spider in the tree
was covered by spine and
trade [INAUDIBLE] up there.
So to be able to present
this in its full glory,
to see the brushstroke,
to see the color quality,
to remove it from the
low-quality printing process
that they had back then and
actually photograph it new.
And each time we'd
find something,
and Jon spearheaded a lot of
this-- we'd find something,
it would lead to three
or 10 more images
that we wanted to include.
So we wanted this
to be a book that
was not just art, but ephemera,
and toys, and animation cells,
and belt buckles, and color
forms, and anything the way
the brand was visualized.
And so these, though,
are the key images,
I think, in the book, seeing
this brand in its full glory
back in this era.
MICHAEL WITWER: So
at this point, again,
the game really is
doing very well.
But it is not destined
for the mainstream.
And I would, if I had to say--
I mean, I don't know what
would have happened otherwise.
But what I would say is that
this game would have never come
to the mainstream
if not for a really
weird particular incident that
no one could have ever planned
for in 1979.
JON PETERSON: James
Dallas Egbert III,
a 16-year-old college student--
16 years old in college.
You can imagine that must have
been very difficult for him.
He disappears at some point.
And the family is very worried.
They hire a private
investigator named
William Dear, who comes
to the campus, checks
out the guy's dorm
room, looks around,
finds these strange books
that he can't really
make head nor tails of.
There's a thing called
"Dungeons and Dragons,"
and it's got devil faces on
the cover and stuff like that.
And he's looking through
it, and he's reading it,
and he's seeing these
maps, strange mazes.
And he's asking around.
Hey, are there any mazes around?
Oh, there's steam tunnels.
There's steam tunnels underneath
the camp-- wait a second.
Wait a second.
I know what happened here.
I know what happened to
James Dallas Egbert III.
I think that he played
this strange game,
and he played it too well.
He played it so long
that he became confused
between reality and
fantasy, between am I me,
or am I my character?
And I think James
Dallas Egbert, he
wandered down to
the steam tunnels,
which are the very
same, very similar thing
to the maps in the game.
And he's probably
wandering down right there.
He probably even killed himself.
I think that's what happened.
And suddenly this
makes national news.
"Dungeons and Dragons"
is now everywhere.
People are talking
about it, this game that
drove this kid
insane, caused him
to go off down into these
steam tunnels and kill himself.
And then in the meantime,
James Dallas Egbert,
he just ran away.
He was fine.
It had nothing to do with "D&D."
He was just under
a lot of pressure.
KYLE NEWMAN: And there was
no corrected follow-up story.
JON PETERSON: No corrected
follow-up, because that's not
a very good story, right?
Like, he's fine.
Anyway.
MICHAEL WITWER:
So this game that
was selling in hobby
catalogs all of a sudden
is in "The New York Times."
So while the story
does resolve itself
in about a month's time--
and as they suggested,
no one ever comes
back and retracts.
Oh, by the way, all
that stuff was nonsense.
All this bizarre cult
talk, all of this confusion
between reality and
fantasy, it's all nonsense.
No one bothers really doing
that, or very few people do.
But now you've got parents
that are interested.
Oh, but my kid plays that.
Let me go take a look.
And they see things
like this on the cover.
KYLE NEWMAN: Which
nobody had noticed
until recently the amazing
thong on that demon.
We didn't even
notice it until we
were able to look at
this image so big.
SAM WITWER: the first time
we reproduce the demon thong
as it's never before been seen.
MICHAEL WITWER: So, Jon,
what happens from here, now
that there's a new scrutiny on
this game that was otherwise
just kind of in
the shadows before?
JON PETERSON: Oh, well,
obviously sales quadrupled.
[LAUGHTER]
I mean, why wouldn't they?
So, yeah, once this got
this mainstream attention,
yeah, people started buying it,
and that additional scrutiny.
Obviously once these
sorts of images, parents
became aware of what was in
them, this created controversy.
But also the news
cycle, once it stopped
talking about James
Dallas Egbert,
that got Gary Gygax on Tom
Snyder's "Tomorrow," which
was a big show at the time.
It got articles in "Newsweek."
They were no longer really about
the James Dallas Egbert thing.
But from that,
again, it completely
transformed the brand into
the most unlikely thing
that could have happened.
And with it came
mainstream attention.
Now, that mainstream attention
included a nice contract
with Random House, who happens
to be our publisher as well.
Random House started
distributing this.
But of course, because this
pressure and this concern,
and also it looked
demographically
like younger and younger
people were buying it,
they needed to really
redo their image a bit.
The devils and thongs and things
like that probably weren't what
Random House wanted to see
in Walden Books [INAUDIBLE]..
SAM WITWER: Not really.
JON PETERSON: And
so one of the things
we love about this book--
I love advertisements.
Advertisements bring you back
into the moment so quickly.
So do catalogs and
things like that.
These are catalogs here, side
by side, from 1981 and 1982.
1981, the Gateway
to Adventure looks
like a pretty scary
place, actually.
You know, I love the septum
piercing for the door knocker.
But the demon tail,
everything looks really scary.
The adventure looks like it
might actually not be for kids.
Fast forward to 1982, and
it's Morley, the happy wizard.
[LAUGHING]
Come, come into my
room, where there's
treasure and games and fun.
And this is very much
what the band became then.
First of all because they
had so much more money,
they got much better artists.
They got much better
public relations
teams and marketing teams.
And then they got
much better artists.
WITWER: But there is still this
stigma attached to the brand.
KYLE NEWMAN: Forever fused
with this heavy metal energy.
SAM WITWER: There's
mothers that want
to form a group called Bothered
About "Dungeons and Dragons."
BADD.
JON PETERSON: Game
Devil Worship.
SAM WITWER: That's right.
The most trusted face of our
generation, Mr. Tom Hanks,
right here, plays in a
made for TV movie by CBS
called "Mazes and Monsters,"
which is about the fact
that "Dungeons and
Dragons" does--
it's not ambiguous-- it does
drive your children insane.
And Tom Hanks has a real
Oscar-winning moment
at the end when he
realizes that he's insane.
MICHAEL WITWER:
It's a must watch.
SAM WITWER: Yeah.
It's on YouTube
somewhere, I think.
KYLE NEWMAN: And it finds
its way into the mainstream.
This is Steven
Spielberg's "E.T."
from 1982.
And Spielberg's filming
this movie in 1981.
And what's in the zeitgeist?
What are teens playing, and
what's got an edge to it?
He's trying to authenticate and
ground the movie to endear it
to teens and children.
And "Dungeons and Dragons"
provides him that.
It gives it that energy
and authenticity.
So you can see it in the movie
here, and in a very early scene
just before Elliott meets E.T.
An interesting footnote--
you can see it on YouTube--
is that the end of
the movie was supposed
be bookended by Elliott
finally graduating
to the Dungeon Master's chair.
And he's actually leading the
group and the older brother
and his friends
through the dungeon.
So you can see that "Dungeons
and Dragons" was supposed
to have more of a central
place in the narrative,
and it's a really nice bookend.
But here what its purpose
was, was to really show
what teens were up to in 1982.
That's one of its more
famous pop culture examples.
MICHAEL WITWER: And you think
about this domino effect.
Sometimes people
ask us, so does D&D
make the mainstream without what
they call the Satanic Panic?
This whole kind of controversy
we're talking about.
And the answer is, I don't know.
But I think it's safe to say
that it's not in "E.T." by 1982
if it hasn't showed up in
the mainstream circa 1980.
KYLE NEWMAN: We can thank
the worst private detective
of all time, William
Dear, for the success
of "Dungeons and Dragons."
MICHAEL WITWER: Now
we've got money.
Now we're on the
shelves of Waldenbooks.
Now we've grown from a company
with $2 million of revenue
a year to $30 million
of revenue a year
in about a four year span.
So things are actually
going quite well,
and now you can hire some really
well-seasoned, trained artists.
Some of the best, actually,
in the fantasy business.
That's kind of what starts
happening from here.
Does anyone know-- did anyone
grow up on the Red Box?
What we call the Red
Box in the space?
SAM WITWER: Nice.
MICHAEL WITWER: One
of the most famous--
Not only the most famous
products in gaming history,
but of course, some of
the most famous art.
We're showing off
a little bit here
by being able to find some
draft art of some really
iconic imagery.
As you can see here,
you've got some variations
in this early Larry Elmore
version of the Red Box cover.
We've got a lot of things
like that in the book
that we're real excited about.
KYLE NEWMAN: This
is a real gateway
piece between the old '70s
stuff and the direction
the brand is going.
That's one of the reasons
why it ends up on our cover,
because it has this very
cinematic, immersive entry
point.
And you feel like you're
right there with the fighter.
It's one of those ones that
survive multiple generations.
Even up until recently
they recycle it.
JON PETERSON: Oh, I mean,
it was on pinball machines.
It was on wallets.
That piece of art
appeared everywhere.
And the game was inspiring
so many people by this point,
because it could reach
such a wide audience.
People who became really,
really, really into "D&D."
One of them was a guy
named Ed Greenwood who
developed this campaign world
that he called "The Forgotten
Realms."
He had written something
like 11,000 pages
of material for this.
By the late 1980s "D&D--"
I guess the people at TSR
decided they wanted to be
more in the story business.
To be building not just kind of
a set of rules, but very much
worlds.
Worlds that they
could exploit not just
through game products
like modules,
but to take to novels, to
calendars, to computer games.
KYLE NEWMAN: Animation.
JON PETERSON: Animation.
So what you see up here is
Ed Greenwood's original map
of the Sword Coast of
the Forgotten Realms
that includes
places you may have
heard of like Waterdeep
or Baldur's Gate
or take your pick.
"Neverwinter Nights."
As soon as they conceived of
this trans-media direction,
we start to see games
like "Pool of Radiance"
become ambassadors
for the "D&D" brand.
"D&D" no longer is merely
a tabletop phenomenon.
This is something they felt
was very important to show.
Again, we talk a lot about all
the ancillary things of "D&D"
we like to show in this.
Things like computer
games at this time
started to get close
to what the sales were
like for the base game books.
This time the
"Player's Handbook"
might sell 400,000 copies,
say, but "Pool of Radiance"
now can sell 250,000 copies.
You know, we love showing how
you can see the little kobold
figure in "Pool of
Radiance" copies so directly
from that kobold from
the "Monster Manual."
These kinds of
things just get us
in touch with the roots of this.
But if you fast forward another
decade to "Baldur's Gate,"
by the time "Baldur's
Gate" comes out,
it's selling two million copies.
And then "Baldur's
Gate II" sells
another two million copies.
A lot of these campaign
worlds they develop--
Planescape is my personal
favorite of these.
That was well-received
in the community,
but "Planescape: Torment" the
computer game is why everyone
knows Planescape, because
it's commonly rated as one
of the best RPGs of all time.
KYLE NEWMAN: And so these
digital versions of the game
become the overriding and
dominant visualization of it
for mass audiences.
You're seeing the brand's
identity shift a bit
as the marketplace is shifting.
And it introduces
competitors as well,
because "D&D"'s been
around for a bit,
and now other
people are inspired
to create role-playing games
through the open gaming
license, and people who grew up
on it now are game designers.
So the marketplace
is more crowded,
and "Dungeons and Dragons" is
also publishing other realms.
They're competing
against themself too.
And then you have the
influx of digital games.
MICHAEL WITWER: There's
one thing we really
like to show in the
book, and one thing
that became clear to us.
A lot of us have
studied-- we've all
played this game
our whole lives,
and we've studied this
game for a long time
and at a pretty in-depth level.
But there are certain
things you will just
never see if you do
not look at the game
through the visual lens.
One of them is
something like this.
Again, this little
image here talks
about all the
different campaigns
that TSR was rolling
out in the 1990s.
You can see how confused the
brand actually had become.
It was trying to create
something for everyone.
KYLE NEWMAN: Buck Rogers is--
MICHAEL WITWER: We've even
got Buck Rogers in there
for some reason.
Really, we do.
There's so many
interesting stories
you see when you start looking
at the game in this way.
We studied things
like how the game
had been inspired by pulp art.
That's a picture from the
very famous Brom there,
from "D&D"'s art stable, and
how he was inspired by Frank
Frazetta-- as was
everyone else--
from the famous "Conan" covers.
KYLE NEWMAN: But the art needed
to be eclectic to sell it.
So you'd have a more whimsical
fantasy, sci-fi "Spelljammer."
Or you'd have very
brutal and violent
and grounded "Dark
Sun" with psionics
that had a "Mad Max" feel.
The art told you the direction
that you could creatively
take this world with the
same basic rules set.
The art was the main
communicating factor
in this that sold
it for everyone.
MICHAEL WITWER: This
little panel here, I think,
is pretty fun.
And again, there's a lot we
can talk about, safe to say.
But what we like to show
here is this idea that
in the '90s there's this
little game called--
"Magic-- The Gathering" is born.
It creates what we know as the
collectible card gaming space.
Again, it's the same bucket of
money for most hobby gamers.
Those people that were
playing "D&D" previously
start shifting their
money over to "Magic--
The Gathering."
If you were buying
a module before,
now you're buying
a booster pack.
So it starts to eat the lunch
of the entire hobby gaming space
even though it's a
different type of game.
What you see TSR doing,
the creator of "D&D,"
is that they start
following suit.
They start trying to enter
the CCG space themselves
with "Spellfire."
They start reacting to
a lot of market trends.
Well we need newer and younger
players to enter the space.
How do we get them?
How do we indoctrinate
young players?
And so we like to show
little things like this,
which is an ad-- it actually
comes from an ad at the time.
That's about a four
or five year period
where these are
all different basic
and beginner sets they're
rolling out on an annual basis
to try to figure out, how can we
get new players into the space?
So there is the basic,
beginner, introductory set.
Here is the basic,
newly revised so-and-so.
They're trying to
find a way to explain
this game to people still.
SAM WITWER: It's so interesting
that that's an ad, right?
They're just kind of like,
confused about "D&D?"
Well how about more confusion?
JON PETERSON: Here's eight
tries at being not confused.
SAM WITWER: And
you're doing fine now?
Good.
Great.
It's interesting to
note that at this point
the brand had become
a little bit--
I mean, while it was
doing some great things,
there was some insecurity there
for perhaps the first time.
Because "D&D," being the
first role-playing game,
could stride boldly
forward with no thought
as to what any competitor
was doing because they
were the only game in town.
Then when there were
competitors, well,
the competitors weren't
as big as they were,
so they didn't
bother to, you know,
they didn't care what
anyone else was doing.
They were "D&D" and they
were going to be "D&D."
But then by the
time you get here,
it starts looking at different
marketplaces including,
for example, video games.
It starts going what are
all those millions of kids
playing over there?
"World of Warcraft"?
But that's just "D&D."
Well that's not-- oh come on.
You can do better than that.
Don't sit here in front
of your computer all sad.
Looking sad.
Don't play computer games.
What are you, a loser
with your computer games?
Also play our
computer game though,
because we're going to make
one even better than the one
that you are playing.
And also, by the way, your books
are no good to you anymore,
sir.
Just use them to prop
your computer up and play
our computer game.
KYLE NEWMAN: You're
just like, wow.
So the story of advertising
tells the schizophrenia.
"D&D" wasn't just looking
over its shoulder.
It was trying to catch up
or be forever replaced,
and it was a dangerous
time for the brand.
What's fascinating is there
have been so many times
when the brand has been on
the brink of disaster and doom
and how it's been resurrected.
I think that's
what's so wonderfully
traced with these ads.
Sometimes you don't have to
write the stuff in the book.
The juxtaposition of images
tells you what's going on
and how they're trying to
figure out what they are,
and how they can
survive and sell it.
MICHAEL WITWER: And
so all of a sudden
the game starts to
look like those very
digital games they're trying
to now emulate and follow.
They're trying to
capture this audience.
KYLE NEWMAN: It's like a fantasy
Busby Berkeley musical here.
They're jamming everything
they can into the frame,
and this guy's got an
impossibly large sword,
and everybody looks
like they're doing
something absolutely heroic,
and the asymmetric angles.
There's a total video game
emulation going on here.
The game had become
more complex,
and it's also really a complex
minis game at this point.
JON PETERSON: It's wonderful
to be able to reproduce things
like this.
The last image, in its
full glory like this.
We're so grateful to
Wizards of the Coast
for having given us just
unprecedented access
to their archives for
these kinds of things.
MICHAEL WITWER: Seattle-based.
Close, right?
Yeah, now we get
to this point where
the game has now been following
the market for a little while.
And they see there's literally
10x number of players playing
digital games-- digital
versions of their game
and their concept--
than what are playing
their tabletop games.
What starts happening
in the market
as they start building
these more and more complex
tabletop versions
of digital games?
JON PETERSON: There is a bit
of a backlash, you might say.
There's a bit of
a retro movement.
You increasingly see
them trying to tap back
into an audience
that had gone back
to the original principles.
There's something called
the Old School Renaissance
that's out there, which
is a bunch of players
and collectors.
I'm part of this
collecting community
that has helped restore
originalist approaches
to "D&D."
SAM WITWER: Retro clones and
all kinds of crazy stuff.
Retro cloning, it's like a
clone of an old rule set,
so that if you
loved "D&D" in 1982,
you could play that
version of "D&D."
JON PETERSON: And
you know, I think
that created some anxiety as
well at Wizards of the Coast.
So you see, for example,
this starter set,
which is from around 2008
or so, if I had to guess.
This really looks just
like the Red Box from 1983.
They're reminding
people, hey, this--
again, you can probably not
even tell the difference
looking at this in this room--
hey, this box, it's still
the same game, we promise,
even though now we're
on a fourth edition
and these are very different
rules mechanically.
Very miniatures driven in a way
that the 1983 version was not.
MICHAEL WITWER: So Wizards
takes this to heart.
Wizards, of course,
is now the owner
of "Dungeons and Dragons."
Has been now for what, 15 years?
KYLE NEWMAN:
Subsidiary of Hasbro.
MICHAEL WITWER: A
subsidiary of Hasbro.
They take this to heart and
they realize who are we?
What are we trying to be?
Are we a video game producer?
Are we trying to do nothing but
follow the video game space?
And they go through a massive
playtest called "D&D" Next.
It's actually the largest
role-playing game game test
in the history of the world.
KYLE NEWMAN: 100,000
player playtest.
SAM WITWER: By the way,
speaking of retro clones,
it included the
design team playing
through every version of the
"Dungeons and Dragons" rules
going all the way back
to the early '70s.
Literally
acknowledging that they
needed to reconnect with
the roots of the game.
KYLE NEWMAN: I think it's a
very healthy and honest thing.
They didn't just say we're
a new team of people,
we're going to go take the
game forward in our own way.
Let's go back and be
truthful about what worked,
and let's look what's in the
DNA and why these elements have
survived through iterations.
Why is the game still around?
There's a reason.
So let's cull those
elements and let's
see what people respond to
and what resonates visually
and narratively.
And let's see how we
can chemically weave it
into something special
that doesn't crush what
came before it, but can
stand on its shoulders
and still honor the past.
I think that's
what's so wonderful
about Fifth Edition
is the simplicity
and the inclusiveness of it.
You can actually-- with
3 onward, 3.5 onward--
you could start to--
the barriers were broken
in terms of what classes
you could play.
Could a half-orc be a Paladin?
But now anybody in any
class and any gender
could be any type of character.
It was a completely
blank slate and yet,
if you played all these other
games, it was even richer.
SAM WITWER: Moreover,
it just took everything
that was great
about each edition
and put it all into
one pot and let you
decide how you wanted
to play the game.
Me and Kyle are doing this book
because we fell back in love
with "D&D" because of 5E.
KYLE NEWMAN: That's kind
of how it came about.
SAM WITWER: It really is.
KYLE NEWMAN: There's a
really strange story.
As I got back into
playing, and Sam
was my "Star Wars" Game Master,
and we were in this great game.
And he had to go
off to work, and I
didn't want to start
another "Star Wars" game.
And I'd played
"Dungeons and Dragons"
on and off my whole life.
So I got back into "D&D."
Within a week or two I was
going on eBay and Amazon
to find where's the book?
Where's the book
about everything
I've missed in the
past few years?
And you know, it
really didn't exist.
I read Michael's book,
"Empire of Imagination."
I was hooked.
I knew him through Facebook,
and I knew he was Sam's brother.
I reached out and said, hey,
do you want to do a book?
And he was like, yeah.
And it just started
to pick up momentum.
Michael immediately suggested
Jon, and I knew of Jon's book
and how esteemed he was as
a historian and collector.
Then the group grew and
Sam's like, what, you're
doing a book with my brother?
How do you know my brother?
SAM WITWER: It was my initial
betrayal that sent you
off looking for a new game.
KYLE NEWMAN: We formed this
balanced party to go do it.
I think it wouldn't have been
what it was unless we all
brought our experiences
and our unique perspectives
to this to tell it
in a prismatic way
and look at it helpfully from
all these different angles.
To organically write a
unified history of the game.
Because if one of
us had done it,
it would've been so
different and limited.
SAM WITWER: Limited.
And everyone has a
different take on this game.
And we all should.
Much like we believe the
new version of the game
is very inclusive we needed to
include different perspectives.
And it wasn't just us four.
We also interviewed
countless people
who had worked on the games.
KYLE NEWMAN: We found out
artists' personal favorites,
which was often
enlightening to find out,
oh that was your favorite?
SAM WITWER: Talked
to fans old and new.
The new fans that I talked
to were the most enlightening
to me.
JON PETERSON: We had a
tremendous amount of support
from the community
doing this as well.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
When I mentioned we had
such great access to
Wizards' stuff--
unfortunately, before
Wizards acquired TSR in 1997,
a lot of that material
ended up being
scattered to the nine winds.
These early pieces of art,
these early drafts of the game,
they just ended up in the
hands of private collectors.
Fortunately, we know
a of those people
and they've been
profoundly useful.
MICHAEL WITWER: Oh,
my gosh, incredible.
So at the end of the day,
we started with this notion
that "D&D" is having
a moment right now.
And the question we
tried to ask even when
we started our project is why?
And the why, I think,
is pretty clear.
You've got this beautiful,
elegant, new rule
set that's for everyone
and the barriers
to accessibility
have been broken.
Because, where in
the '90s they had
to build new starter sets
every year to help people
understand what the
hell this game was-- now
you can go on
YouTube, and you can
watch five minutes of Matt
Mercer or somebody else
like him playing a game
of "Dungeons and Dragons."
You can understand instantly
what the game is about,
how easy it is to play, and
you can go start your own game
with your friends.
I think that's one reason why
we're all sitting here today.
We would love to
take some questions.
I know we don't
have a lot of time,
Sage will kill me if
we go too far over.
KYLE NEWMAN: If
you ask questions,
there are tour shirts.
MICHAEL WITWER: I know we
have to sign books too,
and we promise we will.
We'll stay as long as
you want us to do that.
JON PETERSON: Why don't
you model a shirt, Kyle?
MICHAEL WITWER: Let's
take some questions.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
KYLE NEWMAN: But after you ask
a question, if we call you up,
just come up and see Michael
and we'll try and get you
a shirt size if we have it.
MICHAEL WITWER: OK, let's start
with this gentleman right here.
AUDIENCE: Yeah, I'm curious.
I know there were some other
role-playing games that
were created in the '80s.
Do you know how much
of that, if any,
was driven by the panic over
"Dungeons and Dragons" itself?
I ask that because I
have a specific memory.
My friends and I, we
couldn't play at my friend
Phil's house because his
mother totally bought into it.
But she bought him--
to placate him-- bought
him a role-playing game
based on the Sicilian Mafia,
which is in no way racist.
[LAUGHTER]
JON PETERSON: She should have
gotten him "DragonRaid" which
is the Christian one.
AUDIENCE: I have a
very clear memory
of sitting at his
kitchen table, three
of us plotting the hit
of a guy while she's
over there making dinner.
[LAUGHTER]
MICHAEL WITWER: So the question
is, largely how did the Satanic
Panic affect the industry?
How did it effect other games?
AUDIENCE: --that existed
because of the Satanic Panic.
SAM WITWER: I can
say this before you
give the correct answer.
I will say that our "Dungeons
and Dragons" collection
was destroyed by our mother
because it's the Devil.
MICHAEL WITWER: It's true.
SAM WITWER: So we
played "Star Wars."
MICHAEL WITWER: No,
that's exactly right.
JON PETERSON: I mean,
it's certainly true.
In no small part, just
because of the prominence
of D&D after the
Satanic Panic, everyone
wanted to cash in on it.
So it wasn't merely
just reacting
against the potentially
occult elements of it,
but just the fact that
it'd become so prominent.
But of course, by 1976 there
were already role-playing games
about bunnies in burrows.
And there was
"Traveler" by 1977.
There's a whole gamut of
genres that are explored.
"Top Secret" by 1980.
I think that it had
already leapt away
from those potentially
occult trappings
long before there
had been any panic.
But the panic definitely
made everyone think
there's actually money in this.
KYLE NEWMAN: They actually
created a new market,
so people were bound to compete.
MICHAEL WITWER: You next.
And if you want to
come up for a shirt,
the [INAUDIBLE]
asked the question.
If you want to come
up for a shirt.
AUDIENCE: I appreciate that.
I already have more
shirts than I need.
MICHAEL WITWER: Good.
Then more for
everyone else then.
You, please.
AUDIENCE: Did your
mother ever apologize?
Did someone ever come
back later [INAUDIBLE]
and go, did you ever realize how
much of a difference you made?
SAM WITWER: How much he's
enriched all of our lives
by bringing "Dungeons and
Dragons" to the masses?
Mother has apologized, yes.
MICHAEL WITWER: Yeah.
She's very supportive.
SAM WITWER: We just wrote a book
about it, so she's like, oh.
Huh.
MICHAEL WITWER: I will say this.
You have to understand
the context.
You know, these are parents that
get this game that is so weird.
It has demons on the front.
It has spells inside.
This is a really,
really frightening thing
if your 8 year old is playing
this game in the 1980s
where there's a lot of media
attention around this topic.
And of course, the Satanic
Panic is a much broader
popular culture topic.
It was not just for
role-playing games.
This stretched into satanic
cults at all kinds of places.
SAM WITWER: There was cult--
recruiting for cults and stuff.
What is--
JON PETERSON: As
for Dear, though,
William Dear the
private investigator,
not only did he not apologize,
he really doubled down.
He wrote a book about this.
He was trying to get
movies made about his side
of the story of this.
He ended up working with
the people like BADD.
SAM WITWER: To defend the
parents that threw away
"D&D" books, there was a "60
Minutes" special where they
said, very credibly,
they're like,
do you know what
role-playing is really for?
It's for behavioral
modification.
We are redesigning
our personalities.
Ask these kids what
"D&D" is and they're
like, well yeah, you
know, you kill these guys,
you take their stuff.
They're like, look at this!
[LAUGHTER]
This is what we want to
teach our children to do?
JON PETERSON: Tom Radecki, whose
name some of you might know--
who was later a big critic
of video game violence--
I understand had a
somewhat ignominious end.
He was one of the many enablers.
I guess he was trying to
provide a veneer of science
around some of this.
It was a very unfortunate time.
MICHAEL WITWER: This
gentleman right there.
AUDIENCE: So this is obviously
a very comprehensive book,
but is there anything that
didn't quite make the cut
that you each have a personal--
KYLE NEWMAN: There was
thousands of images.
I'll say this is a
curated collection.
Like we were the
board of the museum
and we had to meet and discuss
what we were going to include.
There is so much that was
on the cutting room floor.
But that was the beauty of it.
We had to just say not just
what was the prettiest,
because sometimes you
take the ugliest piece
and you show it big.
It was what was the most
disruptive, transformative--
what had people never seen?
Like page 40 is
the big eye that's
the precursor to the
beholder, and it's actually
more like a rope or
rooted to the ground.
And it clearly says on the
side in a handwritten note,
"don't use, no."
That's in the book.
So we wanted to
have room for that
and not just all the pretty art.
AUDIENCE: You talked a little
bit about the open game
license and that contribution.
Kinda how the community grew.
I was curious if you had any
opinions about the future
forward-looking-- since they
shifted off the OGL for Fourth
Edition onward--
whether it's constricting
the community
or if it's controlling the brand
to keep it more consistent.
JON PETERSON: There's
Adventurers League.
There's a variety
of ways that they're
inviting the community to
participate and publish and be
a part of the--
KYLE NEWMAN: DriveThru
RPG lets you self-publish.
JON PETERSON: They
effectively put out an SRD
for Fifth Edition as
well, that you can just
download if you just
want the basic rules.
I think that's
what they call it.
So I think they have made
precisely the same style
of outreach.
It just isn't licensed
quite the same way
that that was originally.
There's a lot of complexity
around the different ways
that they choose to license
it, but it seems like people
really like the
opportunities they're
being given to contribute to the
brand under the rubric of Fifth
Ed now.
MICHAEL WITWER: Sage, can we
have three more questions?
Is that too much?
SAGE: I think we
can do that, sure.
MICHAEL WITWER: You, sir.
AUDIENCE: You brought
up heavy metal
briefly during the
Satanic Panic and how
that correlated with all of it.
However, I actually went
through a panel hosted
by Adam Koebel, who is
Sage's own [INAUDIBLE]
and Luke [INAUDIBLE],, who
talked about the history
of heavy metal with respect
to the origins of those brands
and didn't actually
find much history there
amongst the actual creators.
However, yet it's
still clearly fused,
at least in [INAUDIBLE] in
the '90s, like "D&D" and metal
100% of the time, all the time.
When you're going through
this whole history,
did you find a lot with
the more modern artists,
some of the artists
[INAUDIBLE] et cetera,
who were really largely part
of both of these communities
and how much things have
interweaved over the years?
JON PETERSON: Luke
actually reached out to me
before that panel, I
remember, and was asking me
if I could substantiate-- you've
got to see these to get it.
MICHAEL WITWER: This is
kind of an example of how
metal and "D&D" have coalesced.
And this is of
course the brainchild
of Joe Manganiello, who
does these shirts called
Death Saves.
You've probably all
seen them on Colbert.
KYLE NEWMAN: "D&D" streetwear.
You got some nice "Gamma
World" logo up there.
JON PETERSON: So you want to
rethink if you want a t-shirt?
SAM WITWER: Yeah, how
do you feel about it?
JON PETERSON: Pretty good.
MICHAEL WITWER: But I
mean, to your point,
yeah, certainly these were
peanut butter and jelly
somehow.
JON PETERSON: What's
the name the guy
who did the Kiss covers?
MICHAEL WITWER: Oh yes.
Ken Kelly.
We have this great
panel in the book.
It's a painting that
is from an LJN box art
from some of the toys.
KYLE NEWMAN: He
also did Micronauts.
MICHAEL WITWER:
That was provided
by a wonderful collector who was
hugely helpful in this project
named Billy Galaxy in Portland.
And he had the original
painting of this LJN box art.
It was by Ken Kelly, who had
been hired by LJN to do it.
Ken Kelly was the same
guy who did "Love Gun."
The "Love Gun" cover for Kiss.
So these things really were
kind of the same community
of people that were involved
in it, who were doing the art.
They were creating the visuals.
And they all kind
of went together.
KYLE NEWMAN: But it
wasn't internally.
It wasn't like TSR at
the time was doing that.
I think it was
something that happened
at home and in your bedroom.
People were starting to
put it like peanut butter
and chocolate together.
SAM WITWER: Yeah,
these were chess pieces
that were placed on the board
by Satan himself to sort of--
There you go.
MICHAEL WITWER: I think we have
two more before they kill us.
So you, sir, right there.
Yeah, with the beard.
No-- yes, you.
JON PETERSON: You do
have a beard, sir.
AUDIENCE: In "Magic--
the Gathering"
there was a push
in the late '90s
to make the game more
like, this is for boys,
and we're going to take all
that art we did in early '90s
with all the women
in it, and now it's
all going to be chain mail
bikinis from here on out.
Was there a similar reaction
sort of phase in "D&D?"
Where they pushed
against, sort of,
and then swung
back the other way?
JON PETERSON: I think when
Wizards acquired TSR and did
Third Edition, there
was a very decided push
to be more inclusive and
to show figures like--
they had these iconic
characters they
used to represent the classes.
The monk class was represented
by Ember, who is female--
a woman of color.
I think they really made
a big push around it then
and they also made a push to
try to make armor look more
like it would look
in-universe if it were real.
Which was kind of a reaction
against the more high
fantasy-ish art of the 1980s.
I think since then they've been
pretty good about this stuff,
right?
I mean certainly Fifth.
These people have
absolutely no patience.
People like Mike
Morales, who you
see in one of the
leads on Fifth now,
has no patience for anyone
who's trying to exclude anyone
from this game.
MICHAEL WITWER:
Absolutely right.
One more question.
JON PETERSON: One more thing.
Their figure is now
that 40% of players
are women now, by the way.
MICHAEL WITWER: Yes,
all the way the back.
You, sir.
AUDIENCE: As "D&D"
has evolved it's
been through a lot of
different incarnations of it
with different feels, for
whatever reason, right,
as it was trying to
chase the market.
What I'm wondering
is which of you have,
among these different
incarnations
of "D&D," its art and
the rules and whatever--
do you have one that
is your favorite?
That you want to mention
and talk a little bit about,
or just say something
about which one
of its different eras--
MICHAEL WITWER: Which edition?
Or which piece of art?
I'm sorry.
AUDIENCE: Which of
the different eras.
Because some have like a more,
you know, bikini art versus--
I just want to hear about which
era of the "D&D" art or rules
or game is your favorite?
SAM WITWER: Sort of
the Erol Otus era.
MICHAEL WITWER: Oh, Erol Otus.
KYLE NEWMAN: Yeah,
we love his art.
JON PETERSON: We just had him
with us at Games of Berkeley.
MICHAEL WITWER: Just
a couple days ago.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
That's about circa 1980.
SAM WITWER: Do you
know who Erol Otus is?
Do you know the art
we're talking about?
OK, so his art was
extremely colorful.
Like it looked like
something out of a--
KYLE NEWMAN: It was exciting
new colors and shapes
that weren't as traditional.
I think he's like the El
Greco of "D&D" fantasy art.
He's pretty awesome.
MICHAEL WITWER: You can see his
shot from "Deities & Demigods."
The first printing.
If anyone knows the
Moldvay box set,
he was the one
that did the cover
of this particular iconic piece.
No one does art like him.
He was unique.
KYLE NEWMAN: They
weren't putting him
in a box saying you have
to draw this or do that.
He was unhinged.
They just let him be him.
I think that's what's beautiful
about "Dungeons and Dragons,"
it's like a catch-all.
It's not like "Lord of the
Rings" where it has one feel.
It's a quirky catch-all
where anything goes.
I think that speaks
to the game, which
is you bring your
imagination, your group
can do it any way you
want at any rating system,
and you can take even
our structured product
and go off on a tangent
and make it your own.
That's the beauty of it.
SAM WITWER: People like Erol
Otus definitely encouraged
that, because there was a sort
of brutal edge to his artwork,
while at the same
time whimsy and humor.
The main player
characters always
looked like a bunch of wackos.
Just really weird.
If you look in the book and
see any of Erol's stuff,
or if you look it up on Google.
KYLE NEWMAN: I like AD&D. I
wasn't allowed to play it,
but my older brothers played it.
So I lingered like Elliott
while they played and looked
through the book and
learned how to draw.
And I love Fifth
Edition because it's
taken all these things I
remember and repackaged them
in a fun way.
I've gotten to play
with some new people.
I've gotten my wife to try it.
So it's pretty cool that
at this point in the game
Fifth is doing something
that the other ones haven't,
and it's really connecting.
I think that's special, and I'm
having the best time playing
Fifth Edition right now.
MICHAEL WITWER: So with
that we are going to wrap.
I want to give a couple
of thank yous if we can.
If you just indulge
us for a moment.
Firstly, thank you to
Google for having us here.
[APPLAUSE]
We are thrilled to be here.
Again, knowing
that this may well
be broadcast on Google
Talks, we really
want to thank first all the
artists and the designers that
made this game
happen over 45 years.
This is not our story.
This is their story.
KYLE NEWMAN: This
is their yearbook.
MICHAEL WITWER: This
is their yearbook.
That's good.
SAM WITWER: Did you
just come up with that?
That was amazing.
MICHAEL WITWER: Write that down.
KYLE NEWMAN: That's
why I'm here.
Every once in a while.
MICHAEL WITWER: WotC--
Wizards of the Coast-- has
been an incredible partner.
The access they gave us,
the support, the ability
to go and publish this book?
That was them.
In tandem with Penguin Random
House, Ten Speed Press,
our publisher, they deserve
an incredible amount of credit
for really letting us
do what we wanted to do.
I can tell you, this book was
supposed to be a lot slimmer,
and we really said we can't tell
this story unless you give us
450 pages oversized.
Let's do it.
Then a couple of
individual collectors--
again, I really encourage you
to look in the back of that book
and see those acknowledgments.
These are the people
that made this happen.
People like Matt Koder.
People like Bill Meinhardt.
Paul Stormberg.
Billy Galaxy.
Ian Livingstone.
Alan [INAUDIBLE].
It's a long, long list.
Those people deserve an
incredible amount of credit.
This could have never
happened without them.
So thank you to all of them,
and thank you to you for today.
Your time.
[APPLAUSE]
