14 hours of podcasts covering the creation of D&D, the rise of TSR, the fall of Gary Gygax, and a whole lot of other stuff. I admit that I felt a true sense of sadness as I listened to this long story. What started out as a bunch of amateur enthusiasts creating games in their basements turned into a multi million dollar company that those same enthusiasts had no idea how to run. The love the money, the Good Book tells is, is the root of all evil, and much of what happened can be attributed to greed, ego, and hubris. Having read Game Wizards and Slaying the Dragon: The Secret History of Dungeons&Dragons, I have a good sense of how this whole thing went down.
Another great resource in understanding these early days of TTRPGs is Secrets of Blackmoor, a documentary that interviews many of the original players and creators, and that has gone a long way toward casting some light on Arneson's often overlooked contributions to the game. Gygax reminds me a bit of Stan Lee: he became the face, and the most well-known person, of the D&D brand, but the reality is much more complicated. It always is.
