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Dungeons & Dragons

An elaborate D&D game in progress. Among the gaming aids shown here are dice, a variety of miniatures, and a dungeon diorama.

Dungeons & Dragons (commonly abbreviated as D&D or DnD) is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) originally created and designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. The game was first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules (TSR). It has been published by Wizards of the Coast, later a subsidiary of Hasbro, since 1997. The game was derived from miniature wargames, with a variation of the 1971 game Chainmail serving as the initial rule system. D&D's publication is commonly recognized as the beginning of modern role-playing games and the role-playing game industry, which also deeply influenced video games, especially the role-playing video game genre.

In 2004, D&D remained the best-known, and best-selling, role-playing game in the US, with an estimated 20 million people having played the game and more than US$1 billion in book and equipment sales worldwide. The year 2017 had "the most number of players in its history—12 million to 15 million in North America alone". D&D 5th edition sales "were up 41 percent in 2017 from the year before, and soared another 52 percent in 2018, the game's biggest sales year yet". The game has been supplemented by many premade adventures, as well as commercial campaign settings suitable for use by regular gaming groups. D&D is known beyond the game itself for other D&D-branded products, references in popular culture, and some of the controversies that have surrounded it, particularly a moral panic in the 1980s that attempted to associate it with Satanism and suicide. The game has won multiple awards and has been translated into many languages. (Full article...)

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TSR, Inc. was an American game publishing company, best known as the original publisher of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D). Its earliest incarnation, Tactical Studies Rules, was founded in October 1973 by Gary Gygax and Don Kaye. Gygax had been unable to find a publisher for D&D, a new type of game he and Dave Arneson were co-developing, so he founded the new company with Kaye to self-publish their products. Needing financing to bring their new game to market, Gygax and Kaye brought in Brian Blume in December as an equal partner. Dungeons & Dragons is generally considered the first tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG), and established the genre. When Kaye died suddenly in 1975, the Tactical Studies Rules partnership restructured into TSR Hobbies, Inc. and accepted investment from Blume's father Melvin. With the popular D&D as its main product, TSR Hobbies became a major force in the games industry by the late 1970s. Melvin Blume eventually transferred his shares to his other son Kevin, making the two Blume brothers the largest shareholders in TSR Hobbies.

TSR Hobbies ran into financial difficulties in the spring of 1983, prompting the company to split into four independent businesses, with game publishing and development continuing as TSR, Inc. (TSR). After losing their executive positions, the Blume brothers subsequently sold their shares to TSR Vice President Lorraine Williams, who in turn engineered Gygax's ouster from the company in October 1985. TSR saw prosperity under Williams, but encountered financial trouble in the mid-1990s. While their overall sales and revenue were healthy, TSR's high costs meant the company nevertheless became unprofitable and deeply in debt. TSR was left unable to cover its publishing costs due to a variety of factors. Facing insolvency, TSR was purchased in 1997 by Wizards of the Coast (WotC). WotC initially continued using the TSR name for D&D products, but by 2000, the TSR moniker was dropped, coinciding with the release of the 3rd edition of Dungeons & Dragons. (Full article...)

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WikiProjects

The Dungeons & Dragon WikiProject collaborates on improving all D&D-related articles on Wikipedia. WikiProject Role-Playing Games, its parent project, has a larger scope and covers all role-playing games. The Video games project also has a task force dedicated to Dungeons & Dragons-related video games.

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The following are images from various Dungeons & Dragons-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Fan art depicting a hobbit (from Dungeons & Dragons controversies)
Image 2The "World Axis" model of the planes, as described in the 4th edition Manual of the Planes. (from Plane (Dungeons & Dragons))
Image 3A Dungeon Master's notebook with a custom design adventure (from Dungeons & Dragons)
Image 4TSR, Inc. logo (from Dungeons & Dragons controversies)
Image 5The 'Great Wheel' model of the planes, as described in the 5th edition Player's Handbook (from Plane (Dungeons & Dragons))
Image 6Orcs were popularized by fantasy author J. R. R. Tolkien and are found in many fantasy games. (from Dungeons & Dragons controversies)
Image 7D&D uses polyhedral dice to resolve in-game events. These are abbreviated by a 'd' followed by the number of sides. Shown from left to right are a d20, d12, d%, d10, d8, d6, and a d4. A d% and d10 can be rolled together to produce a number between 1 and 100. (from Dungeons & Dragons)
Image 8Waupun State Prison in 1895 (from Dungeons & Dragons controversies)