Editions of Dungeons & Dragons
fantasy role playing game
Several different editions of the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fantasy role-playing game have been produced since 1974. The current publisher of D&D, Wizards of the Coast, produces new materials only for the most current edition of the game. However, many D&D fans continue to play older versions of the game, and some third-party companies continue to publish materials compatible with these older editions.
After the original edition of D&D was introduced in 1974, the game was split into two branches in 1977: the rules-light system of Dungeons & Dragons and the more complex, rules-heavy system of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D). The standard game was eventually expanded into a series of five box sets by the mid-1980s before being compiled and slightly revised in 1991 as the Dungeons & Dragons Rules Cyclopedia. Meanwhile, the 2nd edition of AD&D was published in 1989. In 2000, the two-branch split was ended when a new version was designated the 3rd edition, but dropped the "Advanced" prefix to be called simply Dungeons & Dragons; a revision, called 3.5, was released in 2003. The 4th edition was published in 2008. The 5th edition was released in 2014. A revision of the 5th edition was published in 2024.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5338719. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1974, 1977, 1991 and 1989.
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This entry incorporates text from “Editions of Dungeons & Dragons” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.