Review: Rise of the Dungeon Master: Gary Gygax and the Creation of D&D

Rise of the Dungeon Master: Gary Gygax and the Creation of D&D by David Kushner
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I read a book on D&D a few years ago, “Of Mice and Men”. That book focused on the gameplay of D&D and changes over time, the D&D “industry”, with fan conventions and collectibles, and the history of the business. I enjoyed that book quite a bit, but I tend to like business books. Here, in the “Rise of the Dungeon Master”, we get more a focus on the history of the game itself. This comes at D&D at a different angle than “Of Mice and Men”. This focuses on more of the creation of the game. I enjoyed playing D&D when I was younger, back in it’s early years, but I also enjoyed war games. The similarities are in the rules. Often wargames had complex rulebooks, and to play you often ended up arguing like junior lawyers. D&D had a similar complex rulebook, but it was more of a set of governing rules, incomplete given how the game can be played. But D&D also introduced the Dungeon Master, who was the judge and jury. Kushner gives some of this flavor to the description of the beginnings of D&D. Overall, Kushner tells a satisfying story of D&D, with a focus at the beginning and the ending on Gary Gygax. You don’t get the level of detail you would get out of a longer book, but, as with a good dungeon master, you get a story.

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