It’s August 10, 2000. I’m walking toward the seminar room at Gen Con, flanked by the best designers of Dungeons & Dragons ever. I hold a sheaf of 100 photocopied chapters in my hands. In each of these 12-page documents, Monte Cook has written one of the finest pieces of writing in D&D’s history, Chapter 1 of the new Dungeon Master’s Guide. It tells prospective DMs how to craft campaigns that sing, just like Monte’s. I expect the 50 people attending my two-hour seminar will like them. I made a few extra just in case people want one for their friends at home.
This seminar is the preview of the DMG, which comes out next month. I’m the least senior of the four creative directors on the 3rd Edition relaunch, helping to mold the work of the best game design team I’ve ever seen. Mostly I’m getting out of their way. They know what they’re doing. But hey, I’m one of the better public speakers on the team, and I’ve been running 50-person seminars at Gen Con for a long time, so I’m leading the all-star panel.
As I arrive at the room, the youngest member of our team comes running up, breathless. He says there are more people outside than I expected.
How many, I ask.
“About 700,” he says.
I hand him my corporate AmEx. “Three blocks over on Monument Circle there’s a Kinko’s. You have 1 hour and 55 minutes to get back here with 800 copies. I will buy you a steak dinner at Morton’s if you make it.”
He gets the steak. Eight hundred people see the possibilities in what my talented colleagues have brought to the page. And we see how many people want us to succeed with those possibilities. The Player’s Handbook sells out, the highest selling book ever released at Gen Con. Three booths have the first products created under the groundbreaking d20 License. They sell out too. Everything we do sells out.
The best thing to ever hit the game industry launches on that day, 25 years ago. I had a little part in making it happen. That makes me happy, even to this day. And I still have my Player’s Handbook embossed with my name in gold leaf. It’s never leaving my house.
D&D still had some evolution left in it. It’s now the most telegenic game on the planet, played in the world’s biggest basketball stadiums. It’s digitally savvy. It’s got *good* movies now. It has evolved and morphed in Wizards of the Coast’s hands, all for the better. But at the start of that day, we didn’t know that was possible. Then we did.
Happy 25th birthday, 3rd Edition D&D. You did good.