Dungeons and Dragons is what people played before online RPGs were a thing (of course, we all still continue to play it today). It started out as a tabletop game in 1974 and quickly became the dominant product of its genre. Bringing together the classic setup of the dungeon master who controls the entire game environment, and the rest of the players who must team up as various magical characters to complete a quest, the game provided countless hours of fun while giving birth to the modern cosplay movement among fans of the fantasy genre.

As happens with any piece of media that explodes in popularity, the world of D&D soon moved beyond the board game. There were cartoons and movies made in the settings made famous by the game. Popular characters started popping up on lunch boxes and t-shirts.

What fans particularly loved about the first two editions of the game was the extremely simplified combat rules and classes. This made the game highly accessible for new players while allowing more accomplished players to make up complex new worlds for the game using their imagination.

Later iterations of the game tried to move up the complexity level of the classic system, leading to a dip in popularity as fans moved on to other RPGs. But D&D is experiencing a resurgence of sorts. The D&D IP is still ripe for mining across all genres, meaning that cartoons, books, and movies are still being made based on the original tabletop game. Here are 25 facts about the game every fan needs to know:

24 D&D Started Out As A Companion Piece

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Strangely enough, D&D did not start out as a proper game on its own. Instead, it was a companion book to a miniature-based tabletop wargame called Chainmail.

What saved D&D from becoming a forgotten add-on game was a creative spat between the creators of D&D and Chainmail.

After what we assume was a series of 'Oh yeah?'s exchanged between the creators in increasingly louder voices, the D&D team broke away to set up their own game. They first came up with Basic Dungeons and Dragons, and then the now-classic Advanced Dungeons and Dragons.

23 A Lot Of Celebs Are Fans Of The Game

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There was a time when admitting to playing RPGs was tantamount to outing yourself as an uncool guy, especially if you were a Hollywood celebrity. But times are changing, and a number of big names in films have expressed their love for D&D, including actors Joe Manganiello, Vin Diesel, and Filmmaker Jon Favreau.

Favreau, in particular, has credited the game with giving him a really strong background in imagination, storytelling, and understanding how to create a tone and sense of balance in a narrative. Besides giving him some serious nerd cred.

22 In Prison, Playing The Game Is A Security Threat

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Playing the game in prison constitutes a security threat, since it takes at least four players to play the game.

That many prisoners together make up a gang, according to prison security.

There have been instances of D&D sessions between inmates turning aggressive, with players even attacking each other after some, particularly heated arguments. Think Game of Thrones rather than Lord of the Rings.

21 There's An International D&D Game Day

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With the kind of longevity and popularity the game enjoys, there is no wonder that fans the world over decided they needed a special day to commemorate their love for D&D. The Worldwide Dungeons And Dragons Game Day is celebrated across game stores in over 40 countries every year.

During the 2006 D&D Game Day, a host of celebrities came together to play the game along with other fans. The guest list included Stephen Colbert, Robin Williams, Vin Diesel, MOby and Mike Myers among others. That's some strong backing for a simple tabletop card game.

20 The Hong Kong Connect To D&D Monsters

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There are a lot of strange and disturbing looking creatures in D&D. We've already seen how heavily the game was inspired by western fantasy properties. But to create the look for several D&D monsters, creator Gary Gygax looked to the east.

The story goes that Gygax came across a bag of cheap, plastic pre-historic animals that had been manufactured in Hong Kong.

Gygax had been struggling with giving physical shape to the creatures featured in the game's Monster Manual. Using the pre-historic toys as inspiration, he came up with the D&D monster's looks.

19 The Dirtiest Book In The Series

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D&D has long had to fight an unsavory reputation for being linked to bizarre activities. When the company Wizards of the Coast bought the rights to the game, they decided to embrace the controversy and even use it as part of their marketing strategy!

They released an instruction manual book called Book of Vile Darkness.

In it, players found details about the dirtier parts of the game that earlier books had dared not touch. Topics included various grown-yup easter eggs and character classes.

18 The Episode That Almost Ended The D&D Show

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Back in the 80s, Dungeons and Dragons debuted on TV in the form of a cartoon serial. A group of plucky youngsters are thrown into another realm filled containing, you guessed it, dungeons and dragons. The youngsters are given a set of magical artifacts and guided by a wise old dungeon master in their quest to finish the evil Mage Venger.

One time, the kids almost succeed in ending Venger after luring him into a trap at a Dragon's Graveyard. The show was almost canceled because of how dark that episode got.

17 Ridiculous Problems Faced By Players

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For more than thirty years, Dragon magazine has imparted wisdom on all things D&D. This includes a 'Sage Advice' column where players can sound out the experts about various problems they're having within the game.

This has led to some truly ridiculous questions being raised through the column.

For instance, one player had a female character that had somehow gotten pregnant, with the player asking what needed to be done next. Another player wanted to know if Barbarians eat quiche. Quite a few players also keep asking about the rules concerning marriage within the game.

16 Bards Are Actually Quite Powerful

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The Bard class of characters are generally the least popular among players. That is because, in a game that relies on each character filling a specific niche with their expertise, the Bard stands out as a Jack of all Trades. He's somewhat good at many different things, without being an expert in any one thing.

But the thing is, in the original Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, becoming a Bard required you to have several levels in other classes first. This meant the Bard was originally meant to be a very powerful character in his own right.

15 The Movie Bombed Hard At The Box Office

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When the tabletop D&D game came out, it sold out within a week. If only the movie had met with the same kind of demand. Made on a budget of $45 million, the entire run of the film was only able to gather a measly $33 million.

Suffice to say the disastrous performance of the movie scared off Hollywood from trying to adapt the D&D game for the big screen again. Later stabs at movie adaptations stuck to straight-to-DVD features that naturally suffered from a lack of funding, leaving both critics and fans dissatisfied.

14 Stealing From Star Wars

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The original D&D game spawned innumerable copycats and blatant rip-offs that kept the creators busy filing appeals against IP theft. And yet, when the movie came out, it became pretty obvious that it was borrowing heavily from another highly popular franchise: Star Wars.

Seriously, the whole D&D movie was basically a reworking of The Phantom Menace. There's even a character that's modeled on the most hated Star Wars character, Jar-jar Binks. Also, the scene in the maze steals directly from Indiana Jones, because if you are going to copy stuff, why not go the whole hog?

13 There's Actually A D&D Stage Musical

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There aren't a lot of fandoms that can rival D&D in terms of devotion and how they express their love for the game. The Australian Filk music (yes, that's an actual genre) group Tripod took it upon themselves to adapt the game for the stage in the form of a musical.

It follows the tale of three adventurers who set out on a quest involving magic and self-discovery. The whole thing is done in a very self-aware manner, and there are several references to the fact that the story's characters are in an RPG.

12 Stealing From The Wrong Franchise

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Grimlocks are subhuman monsters found in the underground cave systems in the D&D campaign settings. A lot of people assume Grimlocks were inspired by a Tyrannosaurus Rex Dinobot of the same name found in the Transformers franchise.

In reality, Grimlocks were directly inspired by the beastly Morlocks found in HG Wells's classic novel The Time Machine. Both types of creatures are characterized by their ferocious appearance, subhuman intelligence, and huge numbers. The only difference is that Grimlock as a group are shown to be much more aggressive than the Morlock tribes that inspired their creation.

11 Making Classes Out Of Famous Characters

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The original game borrowed a lot from other fantasy properties that came before it. One place where the influences are the most clearly visible is in the naming of the classes that the players have to choose from.

The Ranger class is clearly modeled on Aragorn from the Lord of the Rings.

The Thief class is basically the Grey Mouser from Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series of novellas. Conan the Barbarian is the inspiration for, you guessed it, the Barbarian class. Finally, the Paladin is none other than Poul Andersen's Holger Carlsen.

10 The Game Made Tom Hanks Do WHAT!?

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When D&D first came out, its use of dark magic and monsters for its narrative made many outsiders believe the game was a front for creeps to lure innocent children into their fold. So great was the hysteria surrounding this belief that it even gave birth to a movie showing the negative effects of playing the game on young minds, starring Tom Hanks in his first leading role.

In the movie, Hank's character is so consumed by his D&D character that he attacks a hobo in Manhattan, thinking he was a goblin.

9 Characters Use The Vancian System Of Magic

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Magic used in D&D is quite distinct from the type of magic you see in Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings, or Game of Thrones. Magical Effects are produced using distinct spells. Each spell needs to be prepared in advance, and can only be used once before needing to be recharged.

The power of each spell depends on the skill level of its wielder.

This system of magic is known as Vancian, and it was directly based on Jack Vance's rules of magic as they appeared in his seminal novel, Dying Earth.

8 Exit Of The Lord Of The Rings

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One giant Fantasy literary work that has clearly had a huge influence on D&D is Lord of the Rings. In fact, early versions of the RPG game even had a setting where you could play as a Hobbit.

You could go on adventures where you meet Ents and face off against the Balrog.

But then it turned out that man who held the rights to Tolkien's characters objected to their inclusion in D&D. A legal battle was fought. The D&D creators lost. And all explicit references to Tolkien's world were removed from the game.

7 Myth Drannor Haunts Your Computer

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The Ruined Elven City of Myth Drannor is a forgotten realm setting in D&D that fell before the forces of evil and became a cursed place of terror and despair. Some of that curse moved out of fantasy into reality when the game, Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor was released for Windows back in 2001.

The game carried a terrible glitch that would delete the system files on a player's computer if the game was uninstalled without getting patched first. You would need to reinstall windows if you wanted to use your computer again.

6 D&D Can Be A Lot Like GTA

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You might be wondering why there has been so much controversy surrounding D&D when it's basically another Sword and Sorcery genre fantasy like Lord of the Rings or Percy Jackson. The truth is, playing D&D can often be like playing GTA in terms of violence. And we all know how much the media likes to give GTA a hard time for promoting this stuff in a game.

Considering that many D&D sessions carry explicit references to human sacrifice, curses, and finding new ways to end lives, it is no wonder that parents can get concerned.

5 Based On True Events

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An early childhood memory played a crucial part in Gygax's vision for the game. At a young age, Gygax and his best friend would sneak into Oak Hill, an abandoned psychiatric hospital at night. There they would spend hours tracking across the giant shadowy halls playing make-believe.

Naturally, those experiences left a powerful impression on Gygax's mind.

Later, while creating the basic setup for D&D, he would draw on those memories to detail what a scary dungeon would look like. No one knows if Gygax also encountered any rogue mental patients that inspired the game's monsters...