Gary Gygax - Early Life and Inspiration

Early Life and Inspiration

Gary Gygax was born in Chicago within a few blocks of Wrigley Field on July 27, 1938. He was the son of Swiss immigrant and Chicago Symphony Orchestra violinist Ernst Gygax. 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.

During his childhood and teen years, he developed a love of games and an appreciation for fantasy and science fiction literature. When he was five, he played card games such as pinochle and then chess. At the age of ten, he and his friends played the sort of games that eventually came to be called "live action role-playing games" with one of them acting as a referee. His father introduced him to science fiction and fantasy through pulp novels. His interest in games, combined with an appreciation of history, eventually led Gygax to begin playing miniature war games in 1953 with his best friend Don Kaye. As teenagers Gygax and Kaye designed their own miniatures rules for toy soldiers with a large collection of 54 mm and 70 mm figures, and they used "ladyfingers" (small firecrackers) to simulate explosions.

Gygax dropped out of high school in his junior year and worked at odd jobs for a while, but he moved back to Chicago at age 19 to attend night classes in junior college. He also took anthropology classes at University of Chicago. The following year he married Mary Jo Powell. Their marriage would produce five children: Ernest ("Ernie"), Lucion ("Luke"), Heidi, Cindy, and Elise. Gygax continued his night-school classes and made the college Dean's List. At the urging of his professors, he applied to the University of Chicago and was admitted. However, because he was married, he decided to take a full-time job in insurance instead.

By December 1958, the game Gettysburg from the Avalon Hill company had particularly captured Gygax's attention. It was also from Avalon Hill that he ordered the first blank hexagon mapping sheets that were available, which he then employed to design his own games. Gygax became active in fandom and became involved in play-by-mail Diplomacy games, for which he designed his own variants. By 1966 he was active in the wargame hobby and was writing many magazine articles on the subject. Gygax learned about H. G. Wells' Little Wars book for play of military miniatures wargames and Fletcher Pratt's Naval Wargame book. Gygax later looked for innovative ways to generate random numbers, and he 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, he and his family moved back to Lake Geneva. Except for a few months he would spend in Clinton, Wisconsin, following his divorce, and his time in Hollywood while he was the head of TSR's entertainment division, Lake Geneva would be his home for the rest of his life.