Very dry survey of the history of wargaming and how it evolved into tabletop RPG's then a brief epilogue into computer RPGs & Choose-Your-Own-Adventure type books. Only really recommend it if you're very curious about the evolution of roleplaying games and where it has led to so far and the history (with plenty of minutiae) behind it all. ( )

The rigorous, scholarly documentation of a subculture's motivations and artifacts, researched with obvious love. ( )

The title of this book may be a bit broad. Though it does cover the history of wargaming, and does dig into the history of Chess and its many variations, it is all in the service of giving you the history of Dungeons & Dragons. This is very much a history of how the Fantasy RPG (and D&D in particular) came to be.

In light of that, there's a certain demographic that will definitely enjoy this book. If you once played, or currently play, Dungeons & Dragons or other Fantasy RPG, and you enjoy well-researched, heavily-footnoted historical texts, you will enjoy this book.

That's an "and", there, not an "or". I think you would really need to meet both of those criteria or you'll stop caring somewhere in the middle of section 2.

I really enjoyed it, though. ( )

This book is excellent at what it purports to do: trace the history of Dungeons & Dragons, with a discussion of the games that led to it and a handful of its immediate descendants. Tedious at times but very informative. ( )

It has some sections that are less interesting than others, but still, every RPG fan should consider reading this great book!

http://www.weberseite.at/buecher/playing-at-the-world/ ( )