A History of D&D: What Happened Between 1e and 5e? (Part One)
I don't know how things are in the US and elsewhere in the world, but in Romania, for a couple of years now, the TTRPG scene is growing exponentially. Of course, most of the people who start out do so with Dungeons and Dragons. This article is somewhat for them, cause I have been asked about the history of the game on a number of times when I mentioned the very first edition was released in '74 what the history of the game even is, if it's been on the market for so long (for the international audience who might raise an eyebrow at this, given that Romania was under a communist dictatorship and after its toppling the following decade was very rough economically, the first D&D players start to pop up in the very late 90' and early 2000's, and back then it was a very very minuscule fanbase, most of the players nowdays have started playing during the pandemic).
We tackled various aspects of D&D history before, talking about the evolution of certain classes, about older mechanics, but up until now, we didn't do a full on dive into all of the editions. Obviously it is a big undertaking so we're gonna split it into two articles, this week looking at 1st edition, B/X, BECMI, AD&D 1st edtion and AD&D 2nd edition. Next week is we return and talk about 3rd edition, 3.5 edition, 4th edition & Essentials, 5th edition and 5.5 edition.
So if you wanna take down a trip through memory lane or if you just aren't familiar with the history of the game, I invite y'all to read the article! For the veterans, please do tell if I missed something (to be completely honest, there is so much, we couldn't possibly gone through everything) and tell us when did you start playing and what nice memories you have from back then!
I hope you enjoy this one, cheers!