Why Gary Gygax's Wife Was Convinced He Was Having An Affair

May 2024 · 2 minute read

Hit points, magic points, dungeons, turn-based combat, buying and selling goods, melee and ranged attackers, offensive and defensive spells, resting, treasure chests: all of these mechanics and more come straight from D&D. But unlike a game with strictly defined progress and outcomes, like Clue or Monopoly, these mechanics merely form the framework of Dungeons & Dragons. Within it, gamers can devise whatever world, narrative, characters, and goals they want, and play infinitely. Or as Gygax's grandson told Wired, "It's written in every man's heart — we want to feel like warriors. That's what Gramps let people do." 

Dungeons & Dragons itself was inspired by '60s and '70s wargaming communities, as Geek and Sundry tells us, and resulted from a collaboration between Gygax and friends Dave Arneson and Jeff Perren. Gygax and Perren designed the game Chainmail, which used miniatures and was meant to simulate medieval combat. Arneson, inspired by Chainmail, created Blackmoor, a Lord of the Rings-like game featuring a single hero in a fantasy setting. Gygax drove from his Lake Geneva, Wisconsin home to Arneson's place to check it out, and a mere two years later in 1974 published the first edition of Dungeons & Dragons. He couldn't find a publisher, and so he founded his own company, Tactical Studies Rules (TSR), to do so.

All of this took quite a bit of time, and was enough to make Gygax's wife Mary Jo suspicious of his faithfulness.

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