Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone initially produced a newsletter called Owl and Weasel, which ran for twenty-five issues from February 1975 before it evolved into White Dwarf.

During the early 1980s the magazine focused mainly on the "big three" role-playing games of the time: Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest and Traveller.

In addition to this a generation of writers passed through its offices and onto other RPG projects in the next decade, such as Phil Masters and Marcus L. Rowland.

The magazine included mini-game scenarios, capable of completion in a single night's play, rather than the long games typical of the off-the-shelf campaigns.

During this period the magazine included many features such as the satirical comic strip Thrud the Barbarian and Dave Langford's "Critical Mass" book review column, as well as a comical advertising series "The Androx Diaries", and always had cameos and full scenarios for a broad selection of the most popular games of the time, as well as a more rough and informal editorial style.

In the mid-late 1980s, however, there was a repositioning from being a general periodical covering all aspects and publishers within the hobby niche to a focus almost exclusively on Games Workshop's own products and publications.

As of the October 2012 issue, White Dwarf was redesigned with a new nine-member production staff with Matthew Hutson, Kris Shield and Andrew Kenrick continuing from the previous version, and six new members, including Jes Bickham as the new editor.

The weekly version of White Dwarf lasted for 131 issues and in September 2016 the magazine returned to its monthly format, also subsuming Warhammer Visions.