How Dungeons & Dragons Changed the World

I'm sure any number of tabletop historians would contest the "Great Man" narrative that Gary Gygax singlehandedly invented tabletop. Nevertheless, the simply-titled Dungeons & Dragons: A Documentary appears to have an even bigger and more intriguing hypothesis: D&D fundamentally shaped not just the course of game development but also our daily social interactions.

Launched on Kickstarter a little under a month ago, the documentary project has just shy of two days left to its funding period and has already exceeded its $150,000 goal. The above trailer, more of a pitch video, advertises to pledgers just what they're paying for: an affectionate Gygax biography, to be sure, but also a look at the mass cultural reception of the game and its industrial and social ripple-effects.

Let me make this argument to you. In light of Oblivion's Project Eternity nostalgia-fest accruing just under a million USD within 24 hours of launching, perhaps it's worth it to kick a few extra dollars toward Iconoscope and Westpaw films, who are interested in profiling the development of the game to which Project Eternity owes a considerable legacy.

You can check out more videos and interviews, as well as make your own pledge, from the documentary's Kickstarter page.