"Of Dice and Men: A not too long book review" Topic

I recently finished ‘Of Dice and Men' by David Ewalt and thought I would give a mid-length review. The author, already an avid D&D player, immersed himself in the history of the game and related subjects, travelling and interviewing folks for a good year as research. Essentially a kind of ‘nerd culture' travelogue.

So by its nature the book is a bit of a potpourri – it examines the development of kriegspiel and early wargames, and the author attends a miniatures convention, which (as I mentioned on TMP a while back) he seems to thoroughly regret, having an unpleasant Napoleonics experience and departing with the stated goal of never playing such a game again. He is evidently a ‘theater of mind' gamer who is more about storytelling than tactical maneuver.
He moves on to how Gygax and Arneson injected first person and fantasy elements to create a whole new genre of game, and spends quite a few chapters on the early days of TSR. I found this section quite fascinating and probably the best part of the book. Although I had an inkling of the Gygax/Arneson rift, the author airs the dirty laundry on this and other issues to some extent.

Later chapters include the obligatory examination of the Devil-worship hysteria, have him attending a LARP style camp, going on a pilgrimage to Lake Geneva, and playtesting for the newest edition of D&D. He even plays in an old-style AD&D ‘dungeon crawl' DMed by Gygax's eldest son, and seems to enjoy it about as much as the Napoleonics game.

The writing tone is bit hard to describe – an unabashed fan of D&D, he seems proud of his ‘nerd' status at the same time he pokes fun at himself (as do many TMPers!). Humor is definitely present – for example his descriptions of trolling Craig's List for out-of-town game sessions while feeling dirty, as though he were after drugs or cheap sex, are smile-inducing. But part of him really does seem to worship the creators of D&D and the ways they have impacted/enriched his life.

I also found it odd that there is hardly ever a mention of any other RPG system – the focus is squarely on D&D, and this is the only rpg he appears to play. So I have to admit he comes across as a bit clueless, he could probably find systems he would like even more, but he confines himself to the original (well, its mutated descendants). Of course, a complete history of RPGs would be beyond the scope of the book, but to truly understand the phenomenon I believe you have to at least acknowledge the hundreds of different approaches to role-playing D&D spawned. And that LARP-esque chapter could've been safely deleted.

So, the intended audience is the uninitiated, those who may have heard about D&D and want to know more about it. Seasoned gamers probably won't find much of interest here – though as stated I found the early history of TSR to be quite engrossing. The author does point readers toward Peterson's Playing at the World for a more detailed history of the hobby.

P.S. – Once or twice he mentions Tolkien and Rowling in the same breath as part of the fantasy canon, which sets my teeth on edge, but perhaps I'm just being a fuddy-duddy.

P.P.S. – this title has recently been released in paperback.

I read it recently as well. I think your review is on target. It's a good read, and the history of D&D is well covered, but he falls down in regards to miniatures gaming and other RPG systems and settings, where his treatment becomes either shallow or nonexistent. But the book's emphasis is supposed to be D&D, so that's understandable. Definitely worth checking out,

Cool, thanks for the review and heads up. There was a Kickstarter recently for a 4! volume history of tabletop roleplaying by Shannon Applecline; it got funded, so I guess it should be available in the near future. This is an expansion to his (I think it's a he) earlier history.