Gary Gygax

Ernest Gary Gygax is one of the co-creators of Dungeons and Dragons.

Basic Information

Gary Gygax, who died on March 4, 2008, was a very active member of the roleplaying community. He was one of the co-creators of the Dungeons and Dragons roleplaying game (Dave Arneson was the other) and hosted roleplaying tournaments until a few months before his death. He is often credited as being the "father" of roleplaying games, by both hobbyists and historians alike.

Occasionally referred to as Jary Jyjax due to his authorship of the RPG Lejendary Journeys but the joke, like the game, is fairly niche.

Sources

Bibliography

1. Gary Gygax at Wikipedia

2. Gary Gygax at the Pen & Paper database

3. Posthumous article about Gary Gygax at Wired.com

Game and Story Use

• He's technically a part of every game in some way
  • He could be a muse to characters in some way?
  • Occasionally appears as an easter-egg in various RPG scenarios such as "a statue of a stocky, balding man with a beard and some kind of frames around his eyes, dress in clothing of an unfamiliar style. Something tells you that this statue is older than anything else in the dungeon".
  • A lot of the Lore characters in the Greyhawk campaign-setting have names which are anagrams of his name in some way (notably "the mad wizard" Zagig Yragerne) - this is because the setting is a commercialisation of the world he created for his own group and in which D&D was created and many of these characters are PCs or NPCs from their adventures.