Advanced Dungeons & Dragons was first published by TSR as a series of hard-cover rulebooks written by Gary Gygax over 1977 to 1979. Oddly, the first book to be released was the Monster Manual rather than the actual rules for playing the game. Gary Gygax explained that due to the nature of the entries, the Monster Manual was the easiest of the first three to write. With just those first three books, you really had all that you needed to play, although more monsters and other resources always came in handy!

Page last updated: 20 January 2013