# Avalon Hill - House: Game company - Date: Founded 1952 - Canonical: https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/avalon-hill/ > The Baltimore company that turned the wargame into a consumer product with hex maps and cardboard counters, and whose board Outdoor Survival supplied the wilderness maps of the first Dungeons & Dragons. **Why it matters:** Avalon Hill created the hobby wargame from which roleplaying sprang: its hex grids, zones of control and General magazine built the community that Gygax and Arneson came from, and its games were written into the original D&D rules. ## Quick answers **What is Avalon Hill?** The Baltimore company that turned the wargame into a consumer product with hex maps and cardboard counters, and whose board Outdoor Survival supplied the wilderness maps of the first Dungeons & Dragons. **When was Avalon Hill founded?** Avalon Hill was founded in 1952 and is based in Baltimore, Maryland (historically); now Renton, Washington, as a Hasbro brand. **Who founded Avalon Hill?** Charles S. Roberts, who began as The Avalon Game Company in his home in Catonsville, Maryland. **What is Avalon Hill known for?** RuneQuest, Talisman and HeroQuest. **What happened to Avalon Hill?** Sold by Monarch Avalon to Hasbro in 1998 for $6 million; managed by Wizards of the Coast from 2004 and by Hasbro Gaming since 2021. ## History Charles S. Roberts, a Marylander from a family of B&O Railroad men, wanted a war game ordinary people could buy. In 1952 he founded The Avalon Game Company and, in 1954, began selling *Tactics* by mail from his home on a hill in the Avalon neighborhood of Catonsville, outside Baltimore. It had a printed map, cardboard pieces, rules and a box: the first mass-market board [Miniatures & Board Wargames](https://www.lanternhall.org/atlas/wargame/). A naming dispute and the hilltop house produced a new name, Avalon Hill, on incorporation in 1958, the year it released *Gettysburg*, the first board wargame based on a real historical battle. The company nearly died early. Debts piled up, a line of preschool games flopped, and at the end of 1963 Roberts planned to file for bankruptcy; instead his printers, Monarch Office Services and J. E. Smith, took over the firm. Under them Avalon Hill became the heart of a hobby. *Afrika Korps*, *Blitzkrieg*, *Midway*, *PanzerBlitz* and *Squad Leader* turned hex grids, zones of control and combat results tables into a shared language, and *The General*, launched in 1964, connected players across the country. It later published *Diplomacy*, *Civilization* and *1830*, the ancestor of the "18xx" railway games, and in 1972 the survival game *Outdoor Survival*. That quiet title became part of roleplaying history. The rules of [Dungeons & Dragons](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/original-dungeons-and-dragons/) (1974) told referees to use the *Outdoor Survival* board for wilderness adventures, alongside [Chainmail](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/chainmail/) for combat. [Gary Gygax](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/gary-gygax/) and [Dave Arneson](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/dave-arneson/) came out of the Avalon Hill-era wargaming community, and it is often said that Gygax offered D&D to Avalon Hill, which did not understand it. Accounts differ on how formal the offer was, but the result is not in doubt: Gygax published it himself through [TSR, Inc.](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/tsr/). Avalon Hill came to roleplaying later and less successfully, with *Powers and Perils* (1983), *Lords of Creation* (1984), the *James Bond 007* RPG through its Victory Games subsidiary, and a licensed third edition of [Chaosium](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/chaosium/)'s [RuneQuest](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/runequest/) (1984), which it manufactured and marketed while Chaosium designed. Its fantasy board games included *Magic Realm* (1979), *Titan* (1982) and *Dune* (1979). Computer games from its Microcomputer Games division began in 1980, but sold modestly. In the 1990s, with board game sales falling, owner Monarch Avalon put the company up for sale. Hasbro bought Avalon Hill on August 4, 1998, for $6 million, and laid off the entire staff. The name became a Hasbro brand, placed under [Wizards of the Coast](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/wizards-of-the-coast/) in 2004 and moved to Hasbro Gaming in 2021. Under Hasbro it has published *Betrayal at House on the Hill* (2004), a new *[HeroQuest](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/heroquest/)* launched through crowdfunding in 2020, and the fifth edition of *[Talisman](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/talisman/)* (2024), made under license from Games Workshop. ## Notable work *Tactics*, *Gettysburg*, *Afrika Korps*, *PanzerBlitz*, *Squad Leader*, *Diplomacy*, *Civilization*, *Magic Realm*, *Titan*, *Outdoor Survival*, *The General*, and, as a Hasbro brand, *Betrayal at House on the Hill* and the revived HeroQuest. ## Legacy Every roleplaying game has an Avalon Hill ancestor. The hobby wargame gave D&D its players, its conventions, its fanzines and its habit of reading rules closely, and an Avalon Hill board literally supplied the first D&D wilderness. The company's own ventures into roleplaying were modest, but without the community it built there would have been no audience for [TSR, Inc.](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/tsr/)'s strange new game. ## Facts - Charles S. Roberts sold his first game, Tactics (1954), by mail from his house on a hill in the Avalon neighborhood of Catonsville, Maryland. - Its Gettysburg (1958) was the first board wargame to simulate a real historical battle. - Avalon Hill introduced or popularized the hex grid, zones of control and unit stacking on printed boards. - Its magazine The General ran from 1964 to 1998. - Original D&D (1974) assumed buyers owned Avalon Hill's Outdoor Survival, whose board served for wilderness adventures. - Avalon Hill published RuneQuest's third edition (1984) under license from Chaosium. - Hasbro bought Avalon Hill on August 4, 1998, for $6 million and laid off its entire staff. ## Sources and further reading - [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avalon_Hill) - [Avalon Hill (official site)](https://avalonhill.com/) - [Wikipedia: The General (magazine)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_General_(magazine)) --- From The Lantern Hall (https://www.lanternhall.org/), a museum of fantasy literature and roleplaying games.