Before There Was Dungeons & Dragons - Part One: The Birth of Chainmail
Before There Was Dungeons & Dragons is a five-part historical series examining the people, games and ideas that gave birth to the modern role-playing hobby.
Before there were role-playing games, before fantasy gaming became a global industry, and before millions of players explored digital worlds like EverQuest or World of Warcraft, there was a modest little medieval wargame called Chainmail.
Printed as a slim booklet with a distinctive yellow-orange cover, Chainmail appeared to be nothing more than a set of rules for medieval miniature battles. Hidden within its pages, however, was the beginning of something far greater. Long before Dungeons & Dragons transformed gaming forever, Chainmail laid the foundations upon which the entire role-playing hobby would be built.
The Origins: Wargaming in the Late 1960s
The story begins during the late 1960s, when tabletop wargaming was still a relatively small hobby pursued by dedicated enthusiasts across the United States.
In 1967, the United States Continental Army Command (USCAC) brought together fans of Avalon Hill strategy games. Among those involved were Scott Duncan, Bill Speer and a young Gary Gygax, who served as the club's treasurer.
As interest grew, the organisation evolved into the International Federation of Wargamers (IFW). One of its greatest achievements came in 1968 when Gary Gygax helped organise the first Gen Con in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.
Fewer than one hundred people attended, yet that small gathering would eventually become one of the world's largest gaming conventions.
At the convention Jerry White demonstrated The Siege of Bodenburg using detailed Elastolin medieval miniatures and an impressive castle layout. The spectacle of medieval warfare and immersive battlefield storytelling left a lasting impression on Gygax.
The Castle & Crusade Society
Inspired by medieval history, Gygax founded the Castle & Crusade Society, encouraging members to create fictional kingdoms, noble families and ongoing campaigns alongside historical gaming.
He also helped establish the Lake Geneva Tactical Studies Association (LGTSA), whose members met around the famous sand table in his basement to experiment with new miniature rules.
Among the regular visitors was Jeff Perren, who brought four handwritten pages of medieval combat rules for 1:20 scale battles. Those four pages would become the foundation of Chainmail.
Creating Chainmail
Over the following years Gary Gygax expanded and refined Perren's ideas into a comprehensive set of medieval miniature rules. The Castle & Crusade Society's newsletter, The Domesday Book, became the testing ground for new mechanics and scenarios.
The finished rules covered medieval combat, siege warfare, jousting, man-to-man combat and large-scale battlefield engagements.
In 1971 Guidon Games published the rules as Chainmail Rules for Medieval Miniatures. Collectors today affectionately know this first printing as "the little yellow booklet".
Although modest in appearance, this publication marked one of the most important milestones in gaming history. It distilled years of experimentation into a coherent ruleset that would influence generations of game designers.
At this stage Chainmail was still intended to be a historical wargame. Yet players soon began asking for something more imaginative than knights, castles and siege engines.
Next: Part Two – The Fantasy Supplement That Changed Everything, where dragons, heroes, wizards and magic transformed Chainmail into the direct ancestor of Dungeons & Dragons.
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