Gary Gygax
Ernest Gary Gygax (✦July 27, 1938 - †March 4, 2008) (IPA: [?gaj.gµks]) was an American writer and game designer, best known for co-creating the pioneering role-playing game "Dungeons & Dragons" (D&D) with Dave Arneson in 1974, and co-founding the company Tactical Studies Rules (TSR, Inc.) with Don Kaye in 1973. After leaving TSR, Gygax continued to author role-playing game titles independently, including another gaming system called Lejendary Adventure. Gygax is generally acknowledged as one of the fathers of the tabletop role-playing game.
Biography
- Early life and inspiration
Gygax was the son of Swiss immigrant Ernst Gygax, and an American, Almina Emelie Burdick. His love of gaming began at the age of five, playing pinochle and chess as well as the imaginative games of any child, similar to live-action role-playing. He played with Jim Rasch as referee/game master and John Rasch and Don Kaye as fellow participants. It was during this timeframe that Gygax began exploring science fiction with Ray Bradbury's "The Veldt" in Bluebook and Robert E. Howard's "Conan the Conqueror".
In 1953 Gygax began playing miniature war games with Kaye. The game "Gettysburg" from the Avalon Hill company captured Gygax's attention. It was from Avalon Hill that he ordered the first blank hexagon mapping sheets that were available. He began looking for innovative ways to generate random numbers and used not only common dice (with six sides), but dice of all five platonic solid shapes.
A Personal Note from Robin
While living in Berkeley, Dave Zyskowski and I were on the team that helped develop and play-test an electronic board game version of D&D.
In 1998, Avalon Hill was hired by MicroProse to test the "Falcon 4 Flight Simulator".
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