84 Facts About Gary Gygax

Gary Gygax co-founded the company TSR with childhood friend Don Kaye in 1973.

Gary 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.

Gary Gygax designed the Lejendary Adventure gaming system, released in 1999.

Gary Gygax was born in Chicago, the son of Almina Emelie "Posey" Burdick and Swiss immigrant and former Chicago Symphony Orchestra violinist Ernst Gary Gygax.

Gary Gygax was named Ernest after his father, but was commonly known as Gary, the middle name given to him by his mother after the actor Gary Cooper.

Gary Gygax's father introduced him to science fiction and fantasy through pulp novels.

Gary Gygax was a mediocre student, and in 1956, a few months after his father died, he dropped out of high school in his junior year.

Gary Gygax joined the Marines, but after being diagnosed with walking pneumonia, he received a medical discharge and moved back home with his mother.

Gary Gygax was obsessed with the game, often playing marathon sessions once or more a week.

Gary Gygax was smitten with her and, after a short courtship, persuaded her to marry him, despite being only 19.

The couple moved to Chicago where Gary Gygax continued as a shipping clerk at Kemper Insurance.

Gary Gygax found a job for Mary Jo there, but the company laid her off when she became pregnant with their first child.

Gary Gygax took anthropology classes at the University of Chicago.

In 1962, Gary Gygax got a job as an insurance underwriter at Fireman's Fund Insurance Co.

Gary Gygax's family continued to grow, and after his third child was born, he decided to move his family back to Lake Geneva.

Gary Gygax learned about H G Wells's Little Wars book for play of military miniatures wargames and Fletcher Pratt's Naval Wargame book.

Gary Gygax later looked for innovative ways to generate random numbers, and used not only common six-sided dice, but dice of all five Platonic solid shapes, which he discovered in a school supply catalog.

In 1967, Gary Gygax co-founded the International Federation of Wargamers with Bill Speer and Scott Duncan.

In 1967, Gary Gygax organized a 20-person gaming meet in the basement of his home; this event was later called "Gen Con 0".

Together with Don Kaye, Mike Reese, and Leon Tucker, Gary Gygax created a military miniatures society called Lake Geneva Tactical Studies Association in 1970, with its first headquarters in Gary Gygax's basement.

In October 1970, Gary Gygax lost his job at the insurance company after almost nine years.

Gary Gygax began cobbling shoes in his basement, which provided him with a steady income and gave him more time for game development.

Early that same year, Gary Gygax published Chainmail, a miniatures wargame that simulated medieval-era tactical combat, which he had originally written with hobby-shop owner Jeff Perren.

Guidon Games hired Gary Gygax to produce a game series called "Wargaming with Miniatures", with the initial release for the series being a new edition of Chainmail.

Gary Gygax collaborated on Tractics with Mike Reese and Leon Tucker, his contribution being the change to a 20-sided spinner or a coffee can with 20 numbered poker chips to decide combat resolutions instead of the standard six-sided dice.

Gary Gygax saw potential in both games, and was especially excited by Arneson's role-playing game.

The final draft contained changes not vetted by Arneson, and Gary Gygax's vision differed on some rule details Arneson had preferred.

Gary Gygax asked Guidon Games to publish it, but the three-volume rule set in a labeled box was beyond the small publisher's scope.

Gary Gygax pitched the game to Avalon Hill, but it did not understand the concept of role-playing and turned down his offer.

Gary Gygax left Guidon Games in 1973 and in October, with Don Kaye as a partner, founded Tactical Studies Rules.

Gary Gygax worked on rules for more miniatures and tabletop battle games including Classic Warfare and Warriors of Mars.

Sales of the hand-assembled print run of 1,000 copies, put together in Gary Gygax's home, sold out in less than a year.

Gary Gygax had not made any specific provision in his will regarding his share of the company, simply leaving his entire estate to his wife Donna.

Gary Gygax owned 150 shares, Blume the other 100 shares, and both had the option to buy up to 700 shares at any time in the future.

Blume persuaded a reluctant Gary Gygax to allow his father, Melvin Blume, to buy Donna's shares, and those were converted to 200 shares in TSR Hobbies.

Gary Gygax provided assistance on the Gamma World science fantasy role-playing game in 1981 and co-authored the Gamma World adventure Legion of Gold.

Gary Gygax defended the game on a segment of 60 Minutes that aired in 1985.

Brian Blume persuaded Gary Gygax to allow Brian's brother Kevin to purchase Melvin Blume's shares.

Gary Gygax had started smoking marijuana when he lost his insurance job in 1970, and he started to use cocaine and had a number of extramarital affairs.

Gary Gygax' life continued to unravel on the West Coast, as he rented an immense mansion, increased his cocaine use, and spent time with several young starlets.

Gary Gygax was occupied with getting a movie off the ground in Hollywood, so he had to leave TSR in the hands of Kevin and Brian Blume to oversee its day-to-day operations.

Gary Gygax discovered that industry leader TSR was grossing $30 million, yet it was barely breaking even; it was in fact $1.5 million in debt and teetering on the edge of insolvency.

Gary Gygax brought his findings to the five other company directors.

Gary Gygax charged that the financial crisis was due to Kevin Blume's mismanagement: excess inventory, overstaffing, too many company cars, and some questionable projects such as dredging up a 19th-century shipwreck.

Gary Gygax bought the Blumes' shares and replaced Gygax as president and CEO in October 1985, stating that Gygax would make no further creative contributions to TSR.

Gary Gygax took TSR to court in a bid to block the Blumes' sale of their shares to Williams, but he lost.

Immediately after leaving TSR, Gary Gygax was approached by a wargaming acquaintance, Forrest Baker, who had done some consulting work for TSR in 1983 and 1984.

Tired of company management, Gary Gygax was simply looking for a way to market more of his Gord the Rogue novels, but Baker had a vision for a new gaming company.

Gary Gygax promised that he would handle the business end while Gygax would handle the creative projects.

Gary Gygax decided this was a good opportunity, and in October 1986, New Infinities Productions, Inc was announced publicly.

Against his will, Gary Gygax was back in charge again; he immediately looked for a quick product to get NIPI off the ground.

Gary Gygax had been able to keep the rights to Gord the Rogue as part of the severance agreement he made with TSR, so he made a new licensing agreement with TSR for the Greyhawk setting and began writing new novels starting with Sea of Death ; novel sales were brisk, and Gygax's Gord the Rogue novels kept New Infinities operating.

Gary Gygax brought in Don Turnbull from Games Workshop to manage the company, then worked with Mohan and Mentzer on a science fiction-themed RPG, Cyborg Commando, which was published in 1987.

Biographer Michael Witwer believes Alex's birth forced Gary Gygax to reconsider the equation of work, gaming and family that, until this time, had been dominated by work and gaming.

Gary Gygax was a realist, and knew what good fatherhood would demand, especially at his age.

Gary Gygax wrote two more Gord the Rogue novels, City of Hawks, and Come Endless Darkness.

Gary Gygax announced in 1988 in a company newsletter that he and Rob Kuntz, his co-Dungeon Master during the early days of the Greyhawk campaign, were working as a team again.

Gary Gygax wanted to create a horror setting for the new RPG called Unhallowed.

Gary Gygax began working on the RPG and the setting with the help of games designer Mike McCulley.

Gary Gygax believed that the legal action was without merit and fueled by Lorraine Williams' personal enmity, but NEC and JVC both withdrew from the project, killing the Mythus computer game.

In 1995, Gary Gygax began work on a new computer role-playing game called Lejendary Adventures.

Gary Gygax introduced some investors to the publication setup that Clark was using, and although the investors were not willing to fund publication of Legendary Adventures, Clark and Gary Gygax were able to start the partnership Hekaforge Productions.

Gary Gygax was thus able to return to publish Lejendary Adventures in 1999.

Gary Gygax continued to work on Lejendary Adventures which he believed was his best work.

Stephen Chenault and Davis Chenault of Troll Lord Games announced on June 11,2001, that Gary Gygax would be writing supplements for their company.

Gary Gygax wrote the first four books before taking an advisory role on the series, but the series logo continued to carry his name.

Troll Lord published some adventures as a result of their partnership with Gary Gygax, including The Hermit which was meant to be an adventure for d20 as well as Lejendary Adventures.

Gary Gygax had given an encyclopedic 72,000-word manuscript to Christopher Clark of Hekaforge by 2002 which detailed the setting for the Lejendary Earth, which Clark expanded and split into five books.

Gygax had originally intended to release this through New Infinities Productions, but GDW published it in 1992 as an adventure for Mythus; Gary Gygax's Necropolis was published a year later.

All of this would be too much to fit into the proposed six volumes, so Gary Gygax decided that he would compress the castle dungeons into 13 levels, the size of his original Castle Greyhawk in 1973, by amalgamating the best of what could be gleaned from binders and boxes of old notes.

Gary Gygax still had his old maps of the original city, but all of his previously published work on it was owned by WotC, so he would have to create most of it from scratch while still maintaining the "look and feel" of his original.

Gary Gygax continued to put Castle Zagyg together on his own, but this came to a complete halt when he had a serious stroke in April 2004 and then another one a few weeks later.

Gary Gygax returned to his keyboard after a seven-month convalescence, his output reduced from 14-hour work days to only one or two hours per day.

That same year, Gary Gygax was diagnosed with a potentially deadly abdominal aortic aneurysm.

Gary Gygax came to believe that he would likely die on the operating table, and he refused to consider surgery, although he realized that a rupture of the aneurysm would be fatal.

The next two volumes were supposed to detail the dungeons beneath Castle Zagyg, but Gary Gygax died in March 2008 before they could be written.

Gary Gygax divorced Mary Jo in 1983 and married Gail Carpenter, one of his former accountants, on August 15,1987.

Gary Gygax was an avid hunter and target shooter from an early age with both bow and gun.

Gary Gygax collected guns and owned a variety of rifles, shotguns, and handguns at various times.

Gary Gygax was a keen supporter of the Chicago Bears.

Gary Gygax described himself as a "biological determinist" and believed gaming in general to be a male pursuit, stating in 2004 that "it isn't that females can't play games well, it is just that it isn't a compelling activity to them as is the case for males".

Years later, Gary Gygax Con is so well-attended a dozen Lake Geneva hotels must be utilized in order to serve the demand.

In 2008 Gail Gygax, the widow of Gary Gygax, began the process to establish a memorial to her late husband in Lake Geneva.

In 2000, Gary Gygax voiced his cartoon self for the Futurama episode "Anthology of Interest I", that included the voices of Al Gore, Stephen Hawking, and Nichelle Nichols.