There are some who claim that Dave Arneson was the actual 'inventor' of D&D, but this claim is disputed, not least by the fact that many references were authored by Gygax. Most of those rules and many of the subsequent rules were authored by Gary Gygax. The game was first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules (TSR). Players typically do not compete against one another rather, the players cooperate to achieve goals and objectives while a referee, in this case called the dungeon master (DM) or game master (GM), interprets rules and adjudicates the success or failure of the players' efforts. Certain role-playing video game franchises, such as Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy, were heavily inspired by Dungeons and Dragons.
Though argued to be a harmless game, it has attracted a variety of criticism. Players take the role of characters who solve a series of heroic adventures or quests. Dungeons & Dragons (D&D or DnD) is a role-playing game with a medieval theme featuring mythical creatures such as elves, dwarves, orcs, a pantheon of gods, and dragons, but also semi-fictionalized demons.
