So walking through a local drugstore I finally saw my first copy of the Time Magazine Special Edition on Dungeons and Dragons. The history of this roleplaying game was interesting enough for me to pick this up as a curiosity buy. I’m going to take a look through this magazine and see if it was worth the $14.99 cover price.
This special edition will be displayed on stands until December 6, 2024. The editor-in-chief is Sam Jacobs. The magazine itself has 96 pages. I couldn’t find an edition number but the bardcode on the front of my issue was 0 70989 10230 9 (ISBN number?) As with all Time Magazines, it has the red border on the cover. There are no advertisements in this magazine.
There is an introduction, four sections and a last page about the dragon. The introduction (titled “Storied Roots”) talks about the literary influences that helped Dungeons and Dragons. It also talked about the days of wargaming in the 1960’s that influenced Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson and the early development of Chainmail.
The first chapter is titled Origins. Some of the information is similar to the Storied Roots listed above, with a little bit more detail. It was interesting to read some of the history contained in this section. I wasn’t aware that Gary Gygax’s four-year old daughter came up with the name “Dungeons and Dragons”. There was more information on the “satanic panic” that happened in the 80’s, the departure of Gygax and the development of 2nd and 3rd editions. I’m not surprised that in this history, they didn’t even mention fourth edition. A timeline is provided in this chapter, which was interesting.
The second chapter talks about D&D on the screen. The first section is about Critical Role, which I’ll admit, I’ve never seen. While I’ve watched a few “how to play” videos on YouTube when trying to learn a new system, just watching someone else play is kind of depressing. Because I want to play myself. So I kind of skipped this section for now, but I intend to go back and read it in detail so that I can understand. Then there was an article about Stranger Things (a show I’ve only seen a hand full of episodes of) and one about Vecna. Finally there was an article about the recent Dungeons and Dragons movie that just came out. Now this one I’ve seen. I was a little surprised that there wasn’t anything more on the inspirational Dungeons and Dragons animated show from the 80’s in this section. I watched the heck out of that series.
I’ve reached the third chapter titled “Modern Ventures”. This discusses the reach of D&D into other business realms. This includes dice, video games like Baldur’s Gate 3 and other partnerships in the merchandising that I wasn’t aware of. It was an interesting read.
The last chapter, Healing Words, talks about how playing rolepaying games can be therapeutic. This is something that I’ve told other people for years. I’ve had one DM that would use D&D to help teach math to younger players. There were two articles in this chapter.
Alright, now that I’ve had a chance to go through the magazine, I can see where there will be some sections that I’ll get a chance to learn something. I enjoyed reading the history sections (and I would like to read more). I can see where some sections could have been expanded (more on B/X or BECMI, the animated series, etc.) but I also understand that there is a limit in the printed medium. So, I am happy that I picked up this issue as I’ll be giving it a deep read soon.
Do you have any questions about the Time Magazine special? Feel free to ask me about them. This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com with any comments.