Short answers, pulled from the story.
Dicing with Dragons is a 1982 reference book by Ian Livingstone that explains what role-playing games are to a general audience. Published by Routledge & Kegan Paul in the United Kingdom, it covers the major game systems of the period along with accessories, miniature painting, and early computer games.
Ian Livingstone wrote Dicing with Dragons. Routledge & Kegan Paul published it in the United Kingdom in 1982, followed by a United States edition from Plume, an imprint of New American Library, in 1983, and a second American edition from Signet in 1986.
Dicing with Dragons gives detailed coverage to four systems: Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, Traveller, and Tunnels & Trolls. It also briefly describes 31 other games, including Boot Hill, Bushido, Call of Cthulhu, Gamma World, Gangbusters, and Top Secret.
The solo adventure in Dicing with Dragons is called "Eye of the Dragon." Livingstone included it as a playable example that lets readers experience role-playing firsthand.
Geraldine Cooke, an editor at Puffin Books, asked Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson to write a guide to role-playing after a friend introduced her to their shop, Games Workshop in Hammersmith. They delivered Warlock of Firetop Mountain instead, which Puffin published as the first Fighting Fantasy title. Livingstone wrote the originally requested guide separately, and it was published by Routledge & Kegan Paul.
White Dwarf Issue 38, published in February 1983, gave Dicing with Dragons nine out of ten, calling it "probably the most complete summary of the role-playing hobby available, and well worth buying for its appendices alone." The first issue of Imagine, from April 1983, also recommended the book, praising its chapter on computer games. In 2014, Pornokitsch described it as "a peek at the formative years of role playing games."