With apologies to Jon Peterson

Read more about this on Jon's blog

I want to be clear: this is an amazing book.  In some ways, it's the book I've wanted to write - but Jon does a better job at much of the subject material by having access to a vast wealth of documentation (and I thought I had an extensive collection!).

I managed to misremember both Jon's name and the title of his book in my recent appearance on Kevin Weiser's podcast, The Walking Eye.  I figured the least I could do would be to put in a plug for Jon's book, especially since it so richly deserves a wider audience. In short, Playing at the World is a history of how wargaming eventually led to D&D, and what other factors contributed to its success when it appeared.  Having lived through the early days of the role-playing hobby myself, I've found it a very worthwhile and interesting read. You can find out how to order it from Jon's blog.  Give yourself - or someone else - a tome of mighty magic for the holidays.