Curated category
Origins Award winners
- Sid Meier's Gettysburg!Sid Meier's Gettysburg! arrived in 1997 as the very first game created by Firaxis Games. This real-time wargame emerged from a studio that had never released…
- Star Wars: X-Wing (video game)Until 1992, Broderbund held the license for Star Wars computer games. When that license reverted to LucasArts in early 1993, designer Lawrence Holland…
- Star Wars: The Roleplaying GameWest End Games released Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game in 1987. This product drew heavily from the company's earlier Ghostbusters role-playing game system.
- Dungeons & DragonsIn 1974, a small box set of three booklets appeared on the shelves of hobby shops with a very limited production budget of only $2000.
- Monster ManualThe first hardcover book for any Dungeons & Dragons game arrived in 1977. Gary Gygax wrote the original Monster Manual as a 108-page supplement for Advanced…
- Forgotten RealmsEd Greenwood began writing stories about the Forgotten Realms as a child, starting at the age of eight. He came up with the name from the notion of a…
- Birthright (campaign setting)In 1994, Rich Baker and Colin McComb began work on a project that would change how players viewed their role in fantasy worlds.
- RavenloftIn 1978, Tracy and Laura Hickman wrote adventures that would eventually be published as the Dungeon & Dragons modules Pharaoh and Ravenloft.
- Final Fantasy VIIIn 1994, Square began planning a new entry for its flagship role-playing series. The team initially targeted the Super Nintendo Entertainment System as their…
- Dragon (magazine)June 1976 marked the debut of The Dragon, a monthly magazine published by TSR to replace its earlier publication called The Strategic Review.
- Dungeon (magazine)The first issue of Dungeon magazine appeared in late 1986, though its cover bore no date. Roger E. Moore served as the publication's original editor and…
- GURPSSteve Jackson published the first edition of GURPS in 1986, a time when most role-playing games were locked into single genres.
- Vampire: The MasqueradeMark Rein-Hagen released Vampire: The Masquerade in 1991 through White Wolf Publishing. He wanted to create a game where players were vampires instead of…
- World of DarknessMark Rein-Hagen began developing the World of Darkness series in 1990 at White Wolf Publishing. His goal was to create a new major role-playing game project…
- Magic: The GatheringRichard Garfield sat in a small office at Whitman College during the early months of 1991, sketching out rules for a game that would eventually become Magic…
- Call of Cthulhu (role-playing game)In 1981, Chaosium released the first edition of Call of Cthulhu as a boxed set. Sandy Petersen conceived the game under the working title Dark Worlds before…
- Chivalry & SorceryIn 1977, Edward E. Simbalist and Wilf K. Backhaus stood at a crossroads in the nascent role-playing game industry. They had created a system called Chevalier…
- BattlesystemIn 1985, a boxed set titled Battlesystem arrived on store shelves as a supplement for Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. Douglas Niles and Steve Winter designed…
- EberronIn 2002, Wizards of the Coast launched a competition called the Fantasy Setting Search to find a new world for Dungeons & Dragons.
- PlanescapeImagine a place where the sky does not exist. Instead, an all-pervasive light waxes and wanes to create day and night for those who live there.
- Player's HandbookThe first Players Handbook arrived in June 1978 as a 128-page hardcover book. Gary Gygax wrote the text while Mike Carr edited it and penned the foreword.
- Risk (game)In 1957, French film director Albert Lamorisse created a board game originally titled La Conquête du Monde. The project emerged from his background in cinema…
- Star Wars Roleplaying Game (Fantasy Flight Games)Fantasy Flight Games announced the acquisition of the Star Wars roleplaying license at Gen Con 2011. This marked a significant shift after Wizards of the…