To celebrate the release of the first new edition of the 26-year old game in over a decade, "Third Edition Thursday" will offer the expected crowd of tens of thousands of game and role playing enthusiasts an exclusive opportunity to take part in the historic launch. The celebration will include panels, discussions, and game demos. Members of the third edition design team, as well as David Arneson and Gary Gygax -- the original Dungeons & Dragons co-creators -- will be in attendance to discuss the philosophy behind the team's work, and to discuss the reasoning behind the enhancements in this new release.

"Third Edition Thursday" will also provide the venue for Gen Con attendees to take a sneak peek at other upcoming Dungeons & Dragons core rule book releases, including the Dungeon Master Guide, which will be released in September 2000, and the Monster Manual, which will be released in October 2000. All three manuals will be full-color hardback books with MSRPs of $19.95.

Originally released in 1974, Dungeons & Dragons has gone through continuous evolution and growth, receiving the first facelift to its rules and game mechanics (Second Edition) in 1989. Now with the third edition, Dungeons & Dragons is ready for the new millennium -- it has been redesigned to reflect more than 10 years' worth of evolution in game design advances, providing a definitive adventure role-playing experience for a new generation of game players.

The designers of the third edition -- Jonathan Tweet, Skip Williams and Monte Cook -- tapped into the creativity of Dungeons & Dragons fans by incorporating comments from more than a thousand new and veteran playtesters, resulting in a game redesigned partly by fans, for fans. The revamped version will offer flexibility to players, emphasizing consequences rather than limitations in character generation and development. New Dungeons & Dragons players will experience intuitive game play that rewards players for using their imaginations in creative ways to tell epic stories of fantasy adventure. Skilled players will note increases in spell potential, an integrated skill system, a standard resolution mechanic, the reintroduction of half-orcs, assassins and monks, and the removal of demi-human level limits.

For 26 years, Dungeons & Dragons products have been the benchmark for RPG excellence. These games appeal to the ever-increasing population of fans because the focus is not on competition, but on imagination and communal storytelling. The Dungeons & Dragons game continues to be played by millions of people worldwide and has led to the creation of the billion-dollar RPG industry. The game provides rules for interacting in a group-driven, storytelling experience in a fantasy world filled with magic, fierce dragons and brave knights.

Wizards of the Coast, a subsidiary of Hasbro Inc., is the worldwide market share leader in the trading card game and tabletop role-playing game categories. Wizards of the Coast is a leading developer and publisher of game-based entertainment products as well as the owner and operator of one of the nation's largest specialty game retail chains. The company holds an exclusive patent on the play mechanics of trading card games (TCGs) and produces the world's best-selling Magic: The Gathering and Pokemon TCGs. Wizards of the Coast is also one of the world's leading fantasy and science fiction book publishers and is a publisher of adventure games such as the classic Dungeons & Dragons games, family card and board games and electronic media products. Headquartered near Seattle, Washington, Wizards of the Coast has international offices in Antwerp, Paris, Milan, London and Beijing. For more information on Wizards of the Coast, visit the company's website and electronic retail store at www.wizards.com.

[Posted 7/26/2000]