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Jrients/S. John Ross(game designer) | |
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 Gygax at Gen Con Indy 2007 | |
| Born | Ernest Gary Gygax July 27, 1938[1] Chicago, Illinois, United States |
| Died | March 4, 2008 (aged 69) Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, USA |
| Occupation | Writer, game designer |
| Nationality | United States |
| Period | 1971–2008 |
| Genre | Role-playing games, fantasy, wargames |
| Spouse | Mary Jo Powell (m. 1958) Gail Carpenter (August 15, 1987 – March 4, 2008) |
 Literature portal | |
Ernest Gary Gygax (/ˈɡaɪɡæks/ GY-gaks; July 27, 1938 – March 4, 2008)[3] was an American writer and game designer best known for co-creating the pioneering role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) with Dave Arneson. Gygax has been described as the father of D&D.[4]
In the 1960s, Gygax created an organization of wargaming clubs and founded the Gen Con gaming convention. In 1971, he helped develop Chainmail, a miniatures wargame based on medieval warfare. He co-founded the company Tactical Studies Rules (TSR, Inc.) with childhood friend Don Kaye in 1973. The following year, he and Dave Arneson created D&D, which expanded on Gygax's Chainmail and included elements of the fantasy stories he loved as a child. In the same year, he founded The Dragon, a magazine based around the new game. In 1977, Gygax began work on a more comprehensive version of the game, called Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Gygax 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 on how to run a particular gaming scenario. In 1983, he worked to license the D&D product line into the successful D&D cartoon series.
- ^ "United States Social Security Death Index," index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/J52H-DQQ : accessed 12 Feb 2013), Ernest G Gygax, 4 March 2008; citing U.S. Social Security Administration, Death Master File, database (Alexandria, Virginia: National Technical Information Service, ongoing).
- ^ Gygax, Gary (1985). "On the influence of J.R.R. Tolkien on the D&D and AD&D games". Dragon (95): 12–13.
A careful examination of the games will quickly reveal that the major influences are Robert E. Howard, L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt, Fritz Leiber, Poul Anderson, A. Merritt, and H.P. Lovecraft.
- ^ Mead, Lawrence; Malcomson, Ian (2003). "Dungeons & Dragons FAQ". Wizards of the Coast. Archived from the original on October 3, 2008. Retrieved October 3, 2008.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ Rausch, Allen (2004). "Gary Gygax Interview - Part I (page 1)". GameSpy. Archived from the original on October 4, 2008. Retrieved January 3, 2005.