Gygax spent his early childhood in Chicago, but in 1946 ( after he was involved in a brawl with a large group of boys ), his father decided to move the family to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, where Gary's mother's family had settled in the early 19th century.

The Dragon debuted in June 1976, and Gygax commented on its success years later: " When I decided that The Strategic Review was not the right vehicle, hired Tim Kask as a magazine editor for Tactical Studies Rules, and named the new publication he was to produce The Dragon, I thought we would eventually have a great periodical to serve gaming enthusiasts worldwide ... At no time did I ever contemplate so great a success or so long a lifespan.

Following yet more work, in 1978 Gygax agreed to publish his world and decided to redevelop Oerth from scratch.

Gygax decided to concentrate his first efforts on the continent of Oerik and asked TSR's printing house about the maximum size of paper they could handle ; the answer was 34 " x 22 " ( 86 cm x 56 cm ).

After fiddling with this structure for some time, Gygax decided ( as described in the same article in Dragon # 73 ) to change the structure from a tetrahedron to a cube in which four of the six faces were the " Inner Planes " described in the Players Handbook: Earth, Fire, Air, Water, and the Negative and Positive Material Planes.

Gygax had originally devised Lejendary Adventure as a role-playing video game using a simple and rules-light system based on skill-bundles, but subsequently decided to develop the game as a printed fantasy RPG.

In 1967, Gygax organized a 20-person gaming meet in the basement of his home ; this event would go on to be called " Gen Con 0 ".

Gygax realized that novels set in Greyhawk could have a similar benefit for his campaign world and wrote Saga of Old City, the first in a series of novels that would be published under the banner Greyhawk Adventures.

However, in 2003, Gygax announced that he was working with Rob Kuntz to publish the original castle and city in six volumes, although the project would use the rules for Castles and Crusades rather than Dungeons & Dragons.

Recreating the city was also a challenge ; although Gygax still had his old maps of the original city, all of his previously published work on the city was owned by WotC, so he would have to create most of the city from scratch while maintaining the look and feel of his original.

Gygax hired Don Turnbull to head up the operation, which would expand into continental Europe during the 1980s.

Cook was proud of the work he did on the new Dungeon Master's Guide, especially after Gary Gygax gave his comments to the team as feedback on the book: " He said that the material in the new DMG would help him become a better DM ... That was really cool – and satisfying in a ' completion of the circle ' sort of way.

Gary Gygax, the developer of the World of Greyhawk campaign setting, realized that novels set in Greyhawk could have a similar benefit for his recently published World of Greyhawk boxed set, so he wrote Saga of Old City, the first in a series of novels that would be published under the banner Greyhawk Adventures.

Gygax, who believed D & D would always only appeal to a male demographic, wrote the novels for that readership.

Gary Gygax thought it would be a good idea to introduce science fiction / science fantasy concepts to D & D players through the use of a tournament scenario at the 1976 Origins II gaming convention in Baltimore, Maryland.

He constantly needed his own opinions on fandom considered right, and would stalk and argue with anyone who was either famous, or went against him ( including Steve Jackson and Gary Gygax ).

The game was originally announced as Dangerous Dimensions but was changed to Dangerous Journeys in response to a threat of a lawsuit from TSR, Inc., the publishers of Dungeons and Dragons, and the company Gygax had co-founded, over objections that the DD abbreviation would be too similar to " D & D.

In the early 1970s, when Gary Gygax was using the dungeons beneath Castle Greyhawk to playtest the game that would become known as Dungeons & Dragons, he did not include any references to any organized religion.

Gygax even suggested the name " Robilar ", after a minor character in The Gnome Cache, a novella Gygax was writing that eventually would be serialized in the first few issues of The Dragon starting in June 1976.

Pooling their resources, Gygax had the Eight construct a stronghold in the middle of an evil land so they would not have to travel far to find adventure.

According to Gygax, TSR's stewardship turned Greyhawk into something very different from what he had envisioned.

Role-playing campaign settings like Greyhawk by Gary Gygax, Dragonlance by Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis and Forgotten Realms by Ed Greenwood are a common basis for many fantasy books and many other authors continue to contribute to the settings.

The gelatinous cube is an invention of Gary Gygax, and first appeared in the Monster Manual ( 1977 ), rather than being lifted from outside sources and adapted to a roleplaying setting, as were many mythological monsters like the minotaur and dryad.

The owlbear is among the earliest monsters in Dungeons & Dragons and like the bulette and the rust monster, was inspired by a Hong Kong-made plastic toy purchased by Gary Gygax for use as miniature in a Chainmail game.

In 2005, Gygax was involved in the Castles & Crusades role-playing game, which was conceived as a hybrid between D & D's third edition and the original version of the game conceived by Gygax.

" Gygax wrote the supplements Greyhawk, Eldritch Wizardry, and Swords & Spells for the original D & D game.

In the time since Gygax had left TSR, no original Greyhawk material had been published, and many letter writers had requested ideas for new adventures.

Although TSR and WotC had each in turn owned the official rights to the World of Greyhawk since the first folio edition was published in 1980, the two people most responsible for its early development, Gary Gygax and Rob Kuntz, still had most of their original notes regarding the fifty levels of dungeons under Castle Greyhawk.

Since WotC still owned the rights to the name Greyhawk, Gygax changed the name of the castle to Castle Zagyg — the reverse homophone of his own name originally ascribed to the mad architect of his original thirteen level dungeon.

By the time Gygax and Kuntz had stopped working on the original home campaign, the castle dungeons had encompassed fifty levels of maze-like passages and thousands of rooms and traps.

However in the original world of Greyhawk campaign setting created by Gary Gygax, Drow rank structure was based much more on personal experience level and proven personal abilities rather than on gender.

In the original configuration of the partnership, Kaye served as President, Blume as Vice-President and Gygax as Editor.

Mithril metal is also frequently mentioned in many of the original 1st edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons game books and adventure modules written by Gary Gygax and published by TSR.

The original Dungeon Masters Guide ( sic ) was written by Gary Gygax, and published by TSR in 1979 as a 232-page hardcover with a cover by David C. Sutherland III.

The original edition was written by Gary Gygax and edited by Mike Carr, who also wrote the foreword.

Gygax developed the adventure from an idea by Alan Lucien, one of his original AD & D playtesters, " and I admit to chuckling evilly as I did so.

In the original Monster Manual ( 1977 ) by Gary Gygax, the only elementals that appeared were those of fire, air, water, and earth.

Dangerous Journeys is a roleplaying game created by Gary Gygax, the co-creator of the original Dungeons & Dragons system.

The original Oriental Adventures ( ISBN 0-88038-099-3 ) was written by Gary Gygax, David " Zeb " Cook, and François Marcela-Froideval, and published in 1985 by TSR, Inc. as a 144-page hardcover for use with the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons ( AD & D ) 1st edition rules.

Lizard men first officially appeared as part of the original D & D game in the 1975 Greyhawk supplement booklet authored by Gary Gygax and Robert Kuntz.

The mimic made its first appearance in the original Monster Manual ( 1977 ), by Gary Gygax.

It was the original intention of Gary Gygax, Ed Greenwood, and others that the various Tiamat incarnations were aspects of a single entity that happened to be active on more than one plane of existence, despite the apparent differences between the mythological Tiamat and her various campaign setting incarnations.

The otyugh was introduced in the first edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons game's original Monster Manual sourcebook, created by Gary Gygax.

Instead of a group of eight companions belonging to Gygax who sallied forth from an impregnable bastion to fight evil, the Circle became eight wizards led by Mordenkainen ( although he was not part of Gygax's original Circle himself ).