A 1973 Dungeons & Dragons manuscript, which may be the earliest existing version of D&D, is part of Game Time!, a new exhibit at the National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York.  The manuscript, called the Dalluhn Manuscript after a previous owner, was lent to the museum by game collector and author Jon Peterson (Playing at the World).   The museum acknowledges debate over whether the two hand-typed volumes were used for play testing D&D or were an early prototype for the first edition published the following year, but notes that it’s believed to have been written by Dave Arneson or Gary Gygax, or both.

Peterson says of the manuscript, "It captures the system at around the midpoint of development, with the core concepts of dungeon exploration and fantastic combat in place, but it lacks some features of the mature game and exhibits a few intriguing variations."

The exhibit covers the development of board-, card-, and role-playing games from 1840 to the present.  Highlights from the museum’s permanent collection include games such as The Mansion of Happiness (1843), The Checkered Game of Life (1860), The Game of the District Messenger Boy (1886), and Tutoom (1923).