Quick Links

Dungeons & Dragons is currently in its fifth Edition. Each of the game's iterations is more than a mere reprint - they bring updated rules, new artwork, additional player options, and often a complete overhaul from top to bottom. While some things have remained constant throughout the years, such as the six Ability Scores, D&D is a very different game today than when it launched in 1974.

Related: The Best Familiars In Dungeons & Dragons

Let's take a look at how the game has changed and evolved over the decades. Every player has their favorite version - which is yours?

Original Dungeons & Dragons (1974)

dungeons and dragons original rulebook cover

Published simply as Dungeons & Dragons, the first D&D set is now known as Original Dungeons & Dragons in the same way that Star Trek: The Original Series is differentiated from its successors. OD&D was a comparatively simple ruleset but introduced players to Ability Scores and experience levels. The game had four playable races; humans, dwarves, elves, and hobbits. The last had their names changed to halflings after the Tolkien Estate threatened legal action. There were only three playable classes; the fighting-man (now known as the fighter), the magic-user (later the wizard), and the cleric. A fourth playable class, the thief, would be added in the Greyhawk supplement and was rebranded as the rogue from Third Edition forward. The druid was added in the third supplement, Eldritch Wizardry.

Related: Dungeons & Dragons: Status Conditions You Don't Want To Get

Original Dungeons & Dragons also introduced the Alignment system, albeit in a simpler form. Player characters were simply assumed to be Good - which in hindsight shows stunning faith in people on the part of TSR - and had only to decide whether they were Lawful, Neutral, or Chaotic.

This version of the game was sold as a boxed set that included three rulebooks - but not the ones you're thinking of. Men & Magic focused on character creation, The Underworld & Wilderness Adventure provided rules for exploration and combat, and Monsters & Treasure served as the game's bestiary.

Battles in Original D&D were a very different affair than they are today. To-hit rolls and damage were both determined by the attacker's class, rather than the damage being associated with their weapon, and a lower Armor Class was better - ideally zero or negative.

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition (1977)

advanced dungeons and dragons first edition player's handbook
AD&D Cover by David Trampier

The popularity of D&D rapidly outgrew the simplicity of its rules, and when it came time to overhaul the game, TSR created Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. This is the earliest version of D&D that is likely recognizable to most players today. It introduced a wide variety of new character classes and added the Good-Evil axis to Alignments. This time, the game was published as a trio of hardbacked, full-color rulebooks - the Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, and Monster Manual.

Related: Epic Ways To Break Dungeons & Dragons Without Cheating

Throughout the rest of the 1970s and well into the 1990s, TSR published the Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set alongside AD&D. This boxed set, similar in format to Original Dungeons & Dragons, was meant to introduce new players to the game and was marketed heavily to toy stores. Kids who might not have a local hobby shop or know of its existence could get into the game that way. Since it was expected that players would start with the basic set and transition to AD&D, the Monster Manual was the first of the core rulebooks to be published in 1977, so DMs could add more nefarious foes to their game. The Player's Handbook followed in 1978, and the Dungeon Master's Guide in 1979.

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Second Edition (1989)

By the end of the 1980s, it was time for another rules shakeup. The design team at TSR recodified what would go in the core rulebooks, taking out unpopular or cumbersome rules and making popular optional rules from supplements part of the main game. They also aimed to make the game more marketable to teenagers. AD&D Second Edition also introduced the game's most infamous rule, THAC0. Every character and monster had a THAC0 stat, which was short for To Hit Armor Class 0. The result of an attack roll was subtracted from the character's THAC0, and if the difference was equal to or lower than the target's Armor Class (yes, lower AC was still better at this point), the attack would hit.

While Second Edition proved popular, financial troubles at TSR necessitated the sale of the company. Magic: The Gathering publisher Wizards Of The Coast bought TSR in 1997 and set about creating the newest version of D&D.

Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition (2000)

dungeons & dragons 3e player's handbook

After a development period in which D&D was redesigned from the ground up, Third Edition launched. It kept the three-rulebook system but dispensed with the clunky THAC0 system. Armor Class now went up, simplifying the game for new players who would naturally be inclined to associate a higher number with a better stat. While the original Ability Scores and the method for generating them were largely intact, the raw scores were rarely - if ever - used to determine the outcome of an action. Instead, each Ability Score had an Ability Score Modifier derived from it which was added or subtracted to die results. Wizards' version of the game also introduced Skills, which determined how good characters were at the fundamental aspects of adventuring. Previously, these had been largely derived from Ability Scores or simply roleplayed.

Related: Dungeons & Dragons: The Schools Of Magic Explained

The new system - dubbed the "D20 System" after the iconic twenty-sided die that was now used for most rolls - was published under the Open Game License, allowing third parties to freely create content as long as they didn't otherwise infringe on Wizards' copyright. For example, an author could publish an adventure using the basic D20 rules, so long as they didn't include any characters or locations that were owned by someone else. More advanced, proprietary rules were also off-limits. Still, this led to a rapid expansion of the RPG industry as publishers rushed to create content compatible with the world's most popular roleplaying game.

Dungeons & Dragons Third Edition, Revised (2003)

Once it was released into the wild, it turned out that Third Edition had some serious balance issues that the playtesters hadn't caught. Notably, classes who weren't meant to be frontline combatants could easily keep pace with their martial companions and had access to spells as well. The druid and the cleric were considered particularly egregious in this regard. Dr. Thomas McIntee lays out the mathematical causes of this unbalance here.

Wizards was quick to react, releasing a revised set of rulebooks in 2003 that became known as "Edition 3.5." This was the standard ruleset for the remainder of Third Edition's run.

Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition (2008)

dungeons & dragons dungeon master guide 4e cover

With an enormous library of official and third-party supplements, D&D Third Edition eventually became bogged down with options and power creep. Wizards Of The Coast announced a new addition in 2007 and spent the next year hyping up D&D's next incarnation. Fourth Edition sought to make the game more balanced than it had ever been, with distinct roles for each character class inspired by the tank/DPS/healer trinity that had evolved in MMOs over the last decade. Each class had a unique suite of special abilities, from spells and prayers for casters to daring exploits for martial classes. Additionally, these powers were rated by their overall power, with the most basic being usable at will and the more powerful effects only available once per encounter or even once per in-game day.

Fourth Edition also introduced the Dragonborn, which became one of the game's most popular playable races.

Despite being a solid system, Fourth Edition felt different enough from previous versions that many players didn't think it felt like D&D. The oft-repeated refrain among naysayers was that it felt too much like a video game. Additionally, players who had invested heavily in Third Edition's expansive bibliography felt like they had been left out in the cold as that version of the game was no longer supported. Many of these discontented gamers migrated to Paizo Publishing's Pathfinder system, which had started as an Open Game License setting and was released as a full ruleset in 2009 to directly capitalize on dissatisfaction with Fourth Edition.

Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition (2014)

fifth edition cover

Although Wizards Of The Coast tried to make Fourth Edition a success (and it was a good system, despite the hate) they quickly realized they had to correct their course. In 2012, they announced an unprecedented community-driven playtest, D&D Next, for Fifth Edition. Taking player feedback and heavy internal development, they created Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition which constituted a return to form for the franchise. The intent was to create an edition of Dungeons & Dragons that combined the best elements of every previous version. Favorite mechanics were streamlined; for example, AD&D had included Proficiency Bonuses that granted characters better results with their favored weapon types. Fifth Edition gives each character a single Proficiency Bonus that is applied to anything they're considered good at, whether it's a particular weapon, a skill, or a lucky set of lockpicks.

Fifth Edition also did away with dice roll modifiers. In earlier versions, a ranger hoping to shoot an arrow might make a ranged attack, gaining a bonus from their magic bow, another bonus from elevation, and a penalty from the unfavorable wind. In Fifth Edition, a situation can be either Advantageous or Disadvantageous, allowing players to roll twice and keep the better result... or in the case of Disadvantage, forcing them the take the worse one.

D&D Fifth Edition proved immensely popular, and errant players came back to the games in droves. The game also exploded into mainstream popularity in a way it had never done before. With D&D's fiftieth anniversary looming in 2024, the future looks bright for adventurers from every Plane Of Existence.

Next: Weapons A Dungeon Master Should Never Give To The Players