Of Dice and Men by David Ewalt: The History of Dungeons & Dragons

Of Dice and Men: The Story of Dungeons & Dragons and the People Who Play It
by David M. Ewalt

I got this book as a Christmas gift (in May 2022!) from my brother and his wife; it's partially a history of Dungeons & Dragons, partially a rumination on the popularity of the game. I'm not hugely versed in D&D lore per se—I've never, for instance, owned a sourcebook—but I have played in two different campaigns that each lasted over a year, and I have played some other RPGs, including running my own 2d20 Star Trek campaign.

Originally published: 2013
Acquired: May 2022
Read: December 2022

Ewalt's book is at its best when it's recounting the history of the game. Some I knew in broad strokes, but this really goes into the details of what Gary Gygax and his collaborators were up to, how they refined and honed what emerged as D&D, what the corporate machinations and complications were, and so on. So much here that I did not know but I found it utterly fascinating. I learned why Gen Con is called Gen Con, for example! I finally kind of understand the relationship between all the different early versions of D&D (or, at least, I did when I read the book; the memory is already fading). In my day job I am of course a literary scholar, and this appeals to that impulse in me: to tell the story of a work of art and how it was affected by both personal and social forces. He's clearly done exhaustive research, pulling on lots of interviews and other ephemeral stories. I wish there had been more of that kind of thing, to be honest; the history of D&D from Wizards onward isn't really covered in any kind of detail. But if you want to know the early history of the game, it's hard to imagine that Ewalt's accessible recounting of it could be bettered.

I didn't much care for the recountings of Ewalt's own sessions. I see what he was trying to do, communicate the appeal of the game that happens when you play it, but hearing about someone else's D&D session in a way that's interesting requires very special skills, and Ewalt doesn't have them. (That's not much of a knock; few people do.)

I did like a lot of the contextual chapters where Ewalt goes to different places in the gaming world that overlap with or connect to D&D, such as a Napoleonic wargaming convention. My favorite, though, was his trip to Otherworld, a sort of LARP weekend where participants go on a quest in person. He makes it sound so very much interesting and fun. I was very disappointed to learn it was just a thirty-minute drive from where we lived in Connecticut! How had I never heard of it during that whole decade? Now going would mean a plane flight... but maybe someday?