Came across this book while looking for something:
What is Dungeons & Dragons? by Butterfield, Parker, and Honingmann
I think I got it as part of a bundle on eBay a while back. Meant to look through it but forgot all about it. Looks fairly interesting and I will have to read through it when I get a chance.
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I have two copies of this book with different covers from your picture above and each other. This is a fantastic book with a brilliant and detailed section on character generation and a great little introductory adventure. When I introduced my current gaming group to D&D, I came very close to using this as the first adventure.
What is really amazing is that the three authors wrote and saw this published while they were all still in high school. They started playing D&D in ’77 and published the book in ’82. Puffin (Penguin) Books were making some bold decisions at the time – it was two years later they published Alexander Scott’s Maelstrom rpg and if I remember rightly he was 16 years.
My copy is a 1984 printing from Warner Books, not Puffin/Penguin, which explains the different cover. I don’t know the history, but maybe Warner bought the rights to get it out “to the masses” in the US after its initial success and the growing popularity (and controversy) of D&D.
I have this book too. It is in the basement at my mom’s house (which is, contrary to the perception of gamers, not where I reside). I remember trying to convince my grandmother that D&D wasn’t satanic with this book. To this day she isn’t convinced. :/
Like many, I did run into issues with the supposed Satanic influences of D&D in my youth. It kept me from being allowed to play with too many other players, and, as the circle of available gamers was tiny in the first place, this was a major negative modifier on my chances to play.
Once something gets a Satanic/cultist reputation, those that buy into the claim will rarely ever let go of that belief. Because both Satanic/cultist and non-Satanic/non-cultist groups will react the same way (by claiming not to be Statanic/cultist), regardless of the truth skeptics will just say “well, of course they’re going to deny it.”