Gary Gygax

Ernest Gary Gygax ( ; July 27, 1938 – March 4, 2008) was an American game designer and author best known for co-creating the pioneering tabletop role-playing game ''Dungeons & Dragons'' (''D&D'') with Dave Arneson.

In the 1960s, Gygax created an organization of wargaming clubs and founded the Gen Con gaming convention. In 1971, he co-developed ''Chainmail'', a miniatures wargame based on medieval warfare with Jeff Perren. He co-founded the company Tactical Studies Rules (TSR, Inc.) with childhood friend Don Kaye in 1973. The next year, he and Dave Arneson created ''D&D'', which expanded on Gygax's ''Chainmail'' and included elements of the fantasy stories that he loved as a child. In 1976, he founded ''The Dragon'', a magazine based around the new game. In 1977, he began work on a more comprehensive version of the game called ''Advanced Dungeons & Dragons''. He designed numerous manuals for the game system, as well as several pre-packaged adventures called "modules" that gave a person running a ''D&D'' game (the "Dungeon Master") a rough script and ideas. In 1983, he worked to license the ''D&D'' product line into the successful ''D&D'' cartoon series.

Gygax left TSR in 1986 over conflicts with its new majority owner, but he continued to create role-playing game titles independently, beginning with the multi-genre ''Dangerous Journeys'' in 1992. He designed the ''Lejendary Adventure'' gaming system, released in 1999. In 2005, he was involved in the ''Castles & Crusades'' role-playing game, which was conceived as a hybrid between the third edition of ''D&D'' and the original version of the game.

Gygax was married twice and had six children. In 2004, he had two strokes and narrowly avoided a subsequent heart attack; he was then diagnosed with an abdominal aortic aneurysm and died in March 2008 at age 69. Following Gygax's funeral, many mourners adjourned to the nearby American Legion hall to play games. This impromptu game event has become known since as Gary Con 0, and since then gamers celebrate in Lake Geneva each March with a large role-playing game convention in Gygax's honor. Provided by Wikipedia