Actors - Gary Gygax

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	Actors - Gary Gygax

Ernest Gary Gygax (born July 27 1938 in Chicago, Illinois, son of a Swiss immigrant father and an American mother ) is best known as the author of the well known fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), co-created with Dave Arneson and co-published with Don Kaye in 1974 under the company Tactical Studies Rules.

Biography

His gaming experiences began at the age of five and six with playing pinochle and chess as well as early developments of what is now considered to be live action role-playing together with Jim Rasch as referee/game master, John Rasch and Don Kaye as fellow participants. At about the same time Gary began educating himself in Sci-Fi novels with Ray Bradbury's The Veldt in Bluebook and Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Conqueror.

"I've been reading fantasy since 1950."

It was in 1953 that Gary Gygax first started playing miniature war games with Don Kaye.

The game Gettysburg from the Avalon Hill company captured Gygax's attention. It was from the same company that he placed an order for the first blank hexagon mapping sheets that were available. He was also looking for new ways to generate random numbers. Platonic Solids would be his new dice.

In 1966, the International Federation of Wargamers would be created by Gary Gygax and others.

In 1967, a 20-person gaming-get-together was organized by Gary Gygax at his home including the basement sand table. This was later called "Gen Con 0" as it led to the start of the annual Gen Con gaming convention the following year, which is now the world's largest and longest-running annual hobby-game gathering. Gen Con is also where Gary Gygax would meet Brian Blume and Dave Arneson. Brian Blume would later enter into TSR as partner with Don Kaye and Gary.

"I'm very fond of the Medieval period, the Dark Ages in particular. We started playing in the period because I had found appropriate miniatures. I started devising rules where what the plastic figure was wearing was what he had. If he had a shield and no armor, then he just has a shield. Shields and half-armor = half-armor rules; full-armor figure = full armor rules. I did rules for weapons as well."

Gygax and Kaye founded the publishing company Tactical Studies Rules (TSR) and published the first version of D&D in 1974. For the spell systems, Gygax would be inspired by Jack Vance, but also draw upon such renowned fantasy authors as Robert E. Howard, L. Sprague de Camp and Fritz Leiber. The hand assembled print run of 1000 copies would sell out in nine months.

Sync Magazine named Gary Gygax #1 on the list of "The 50 Biggest Nerds of All Time".

SFX Magazine listed him as #37 on the list of the "50 Greatest SF Pioneers".
Media Coverage
Gary Gygax appeared on a Futurama episode, "Anthology of Interest 1" (aired in 2000), during which he rolled dice to decide on what greeting to give when introduced to Fry ("It's a... *roll* ...pleasure to meet you."). Later, he gives his "mace +1" to Fry to fight off the robots of the future. The episode ends with Gary dungeon mastering a Dungeons & Dragons game with Fry, Al Gore
, Nichelle Nichols
, Steven Hawking, and Deep Blue. His appearance along side Al Gore on Futurama was something of an inside joke since Gore's wife, Tipper Gore, has been publicly critical of Dungeons & Dragons. The Gores' daughter writes for the show.

He had a cameo appearance in the April 13, 2004 strip of R. K. Milholland's on-line comic Something Positive. Gary is shown getting busted by the FBI for creating Dungeons & Dragons and causing "years and years of anti-social mayhem".

In an episode of Dexter's Laboratory (entitled D&DeeDee), Dexter attempts to play a super-powerful character named Gygax with a soul-stealing sword, but ends up with Hodo the Furry-Footed Burrower instead.

His name has twice been an answer in the board game Trivial Pursuit.

Mentioned in magazines and newspapers too abundant to list here.
Job Titles

1970-73 – Editor-in-Chief, Guidon Games (publisher of Wargaming rules and wargames)

1973-83 – Partner of TSR and then President of TSR Hobbies, Inc.

1983-85 – President, DUNGEONS & DRAGONS Entertainment Corporation

:::Co-Producer, DUNGEONS & DRAGONS Animated Television Show
1983-85 – Chairman of the Board of Directors and President (1985 only) of TSR, Inc.

1986-88 – Chairman of the Board of Directors, New Infinities Productions, Inc.

1988-94 – Creator/author under contract to Omega Helios Limited

1995-... – Creator/author under contract to Trigee Enterprises Corporation

1999-... – Partner, Hekaforge Productions

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