Tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs, to insufferable nerds like myself) are suddenly a hot commodity. For those of us who have been fans of the hobby for many decades, it’s hard to believe that the thing that got us ridiculed in high school is suddenly a mainstream success. There are podcasts and web series about TTRPGs! There are blockbuster movies about TTRPGs! Celebrities play them! What was once a small, marginalized corner of an already obscure hobby is now . . . well, still pretty small, but growing. And you can’t talk about TTRPGs without talking about the granddaddy of them all, the first and the biggest role-playing game: Dungeons & Dragons (D&D).

D&D is the hobby’s 800-pound gorilla (or, in game terms, its seven-headed hydra). But it’s not just because it was the first role-playing game — most fans would argue that it isn’t the best. A big part of D&D’s fame is the history of the game as a business. The unexpected success of D&D, the financial struggles that deepened as it grew bigger, and the loss and alienation of its two cocreators make for a narrative as compelling as any crafted in the game itself — and show the perils of putting profit before purpose in any artistic medium.

Following the death of D&D’s creators, Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, in 2008 and 2009 respectively, there has been a surge of interest in the origins of TTRPG, particularly as the game’s fanbase has expanded during COVID-19. Enter Jon Peterson’s Game Wizards: The Epic Battle for Dungeons & Dragons. Peterson focuses on the business end of D&D, examining a period of roughly a dozen years from the game’s creation in the mid-’70s to Gygax’s loss of control of TSR, Inc., its publisher and the company he founded. It’s a surprising, fascinating, and often depressing look at the legal wrangling, corporate warfare, and bitter personal recriminations that followed the game’s path from an amusement for a tiny group of like-minded enthusiasts to an international business.