Dicing with Dragons

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Dicing with Dragons, published in 1982, contains something unusual for a reference book. Buried within its pages is a complete solo adventure called "Eye of the Dragon". Ian Livingstone included it as a working demonstration, letting readers experience the hobby firsthand before the explanations ran out.

  At the time of publication, the phrase "role-playing game" drew blank looks from most people outside a narrow community of enthusiasts. Livingstone's guide set out to close that gap between the hobbyist and the curious outsider. The publisher who first requested such a guide never received this book. Something else arrived at their door instead, and it became the first of many popular titles.

• 2. Mapping the Hobby

  ›

  Dungeons & Dragons stood at the center of the guide's survey, but Livingstone treated it as one of four systems worth covering in depth. RuneQuest, Traveller, and Tunnels & Trolls each received detailed treatment alongside it.

  Beyond those four, Livingstone briefly described 31 other role-playing games. The list included Boot Hill, Bushido, Call of Cthulhu, Gamma World, Gangbusters, and Top Secret. Others stretched across a wide range of settings and styles.

  Painting miniature figures had its own dedicated chapter, aimed at readers who wanted to build a physical dimension into the hobby. Separate chapters covered accessories and the role of a gamemaster. The accessories section surveyed published adventures for the games described and reviewed magazines and fanzines devoted to role-playing.

  Computer systems and computer games available in 1982 filled another chapter, documenting the earliest digital edge of the hobby. At the outer edge of the hobby, Livingstone also described several live-action games that had no established name at the time. Those forms of play would later become known as live action role-playing. The route that brought all of this into one volume was not the one its original commissioner had in mind.

• 3. The Wrong Commission

  ›

  Geraldine Cooke, an editor at Puffin Books, wanted to breathe life back into the imprint's struggling science fiction, fantasy, and horror list. A friend told her about a new shop in Hammersmith called Games Workshop, which specialized in role-playing games.

  After meeting the store's owners, Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone, Cooke asked them to write a book explaining the role-playing industry. What they delivered was not what she had requested. They brought Warlock of Firetop Mountain, a complete role-playing adventure they had already written. Puffin Books published it and it became the first title in the Fighting Fantasy series.

  Livingstone did eventually write the guide Cooke had originally commissioned, but it went to Routledge & Kegan Paul rather than to Penguin. In 1983, Plume, an imprint of New American Library, brought it to American readers. Signet issued a second American edition in 1986.

  Russ Nicholson drew the illustrations, almost all of them in a square format. Nicholson later explained that Livingstone and Jackson had first requested that square shape for Warlock of Firetop Mountain. Livingstone then carried the same format into Dicing with Dragons. In 1986, an Italian translation appeared under the title Giocare a dadi col drago. Milanese publisher Longanesi issued that edition, which included a new preface by Giampaolo Dossena. By 1983, the book was in the hands of both British and American readers, and the specialist press had begun to form its verdict.

• 4. What Readers Said

  ›

  M L Rowland's review in White Dwarf Issue 38, published in February 1983, gave the book nine out of ten. Rowland called 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, dated April 1983, brought a second assessment. Dave Pringle noted that the book covered all the familiar ground of role-playing while also providing a useful chapter on computer games. Pringle's verdict was a direct recommendation.

  Fantasy Review published its own notice in October 1984. In 2014, the site Pornokitsch returned to Dicing with Dragons in a retrospective. Pornokitsch described the book as "interesting because it is so dated," calling it "a peek at the formative years of role playing games." By 2014, what had been a current guide in 1982 had become a primary source. A book Rowland had praised for its appendices alone was now valued for the record it preserved.