Gary Gygax

Gary Gygax was an American game designer and author who co-created Dungeons & Dragons, helping establish the role-playing game genre.

Dave Arneson: An American game designer who co-created Dungeons & Dragons with Gary Gygax. Arneson’s Blackmoor campaign supplied ideas and procedures that Gygax developed into the game.
Dungeons & Dragons: A fantasy tabletop role-playing game in which players portray characters in adventures guided by a referee. Gygax’s best-known creation established many conventions of fantasy role-playing.
Chainmail: A medieval miniatures wargame by Gary Gygax and Jeff Perren, first published in 1971. Its fantasy supplement provided rules and creatures that fed directly into early Dungeons & Dragons.
Wargame: A game that models military conflict through rules, units, and strategic decisions. Wargaming supplied Gygax with the tactical rules tradition he transformed for fantasy adventures.
Tactical Studies Rules: The game publisher founded by Gary Gygax and Don Kaye, later known as TSR. TSR published Gygax’s games, while disputes over its ownership and direction shaped his career.
Don Kaye: A game designer and co-founder of the company that published the first Dungeons & Dragons rules. Kaye helped Gygax establish Tactical Studies Rules to publish Dungeons & Dragons.
Role-playing game: A game in which participants portray characters and make decisions within an imagined setting. Gygax helped establish tabletop role-playing as a distinct game form.
Miniature wargaming: A form of wargaming in which players move small figures across a model battlefield. Gygax adapted miniature battle conventions into a game centered on individual adventurers.
Dungeon master: The referee in Dungeons & Dragons who describes situations, adjudicates rules, and portrays nonplayer characters. Gygax helped define this role as the facilitator of a shared, open-ended adventure.
TSR, Inc. v. Mayfair Games: A 1991 legal dispute over Mayfair Games’ use of Dungeons & Dragons-related material. The case reflects the intellectual-property conflicts surrounding the franchise Gygax helped create.

Linked from 3 pages