Introduction
Dungeons & Dragons is a tabletop roleplaying game that was first created and published in 1974. This guide addresses three major questions: WHAT is the history of D&D, HOW do you play it, and WHY should you? This guide may appeal to many audiences but is most focused toward professional applications. Educators, librarians, and mental health professionals who are looking to incorporate this game into their organization may find particularly interest in the sources provided. The demand for public D&D programming is constantly increasing, so it is helpful for professionals to educate themselves. This guide is also useful for anyone who is intimidated by the game's complexity.
Here, you can learn about the game's controversial history and recent resurgence into mainstream media, find the necessary tools and helpful resources to learn and start playing Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition (the most recent version of the game), and learn about different professional applications. This guide provides a variety of different resource formats to meet different needs. Users will find journal articles, news articles, books, videos, dissertations, and more. Among these sources are research materials as well as official gameplay materials.
Databases and Search Tools Used
The following databases, catalogs, and other search tools were used to located the sources provided in this guide.
Key Term definitions were created with assistance from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary and official Dungeons & Dragons material.
IMPORTANT: When trying to find your own sources relating to D&D, remember to try changing out "Dungeons and Dragons," "Dungeons & Dragons," "D&D," "DND," "tabletop games," "tabletop roleplaying games," "TTRPGS," and "role playing games." Dungeons & Dragons fits a variety of labels, and different sources may use specific terminology. Try all key terms when searching for additional materials.
- Education Source
Find full-text articles, books and monographs, education-related conference papers, and citations for over 4 million articles including book reviews.
- ERIC (via EBSCO)
Find full-text articles and citations for journals, books, conference papers, curriculum guides, dissertations, and policy papers in all areas of education. Available on the EBSCO platform.
Tip: On this platform, you may filter by full-text directly from the results page. - Film & Television Literature Index
This comprehensive bibliographic database provides indexing and abstracts for hundreds of publications related to film and television studies.
- Gale OneFile: News
Find full-text newspaper articles. Search by title, headline, date, author, newspaper section, or other fields. Access to more than 2,300 major U.S. regional, national, and local newspapers, as well as leading titles from around the world. It also includes thousands of images, radio and TV broadcasts and transcripts.
- Google Scholar
Find peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts, and technical reports.
To set up access to UAlbany Libraries full text from off-campus, export to a citation manager, or view Web of Science citation counts, click "more info" below. - LGBTQ+ Source
Find full-text, indexed and abstracts of scholarly and popular LGBTQ+ publications, plus historically important primary sources, including monographs, magazines and newspapers. It also includes a specialized LGBTQ+ thesaurus containing thousands of terms.
- Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection
Full text covering information concerning topics in emotional and behavioral characteristics, psychiatry and psychology, mental processes, anthropology, and observational and experimental methods.
