Recent content by JamesWard

I met Gary Gygax at a book store. He told me he had a game where I could play Conan and fight Set. Just like that I was hooked. I went over to his house and rolled up a wizard character in D&D. For the first adventure we went to Kong Island. Gary wanted to play test that adventure. I was first...

You won't be surprised to know that the highly creative people at TSR often did amazing things in their game playing. I can distinctly remember having a fun lunch with Gary Gygax and he told me that he was very jealous of a few of the designer types at TSR because they ran their own home games...

Let me give you a little background. I became the Director of Creative Services at TSR. Upper management wanted me to have that title so when I tried to manage the editors and designers my words carried a bit of weight. I had edited, designed, and worked on many types of production projects at...

First, let me correct a mistake I made when I wrote that Zeb Cook thought up the 'Baatezu' & 'Tanar'ri' demon and devil new names. My friend Jim LaFountain quite rightly pointed out that he was the creator of those terms. Sorry Jim. My blunder transitions perfectly into this article. When I...

Let me start by saying that I believe Gary Gygax was a gaming genius. That genius included a lot of skills in crafting D&D designs. I have experienced literally hundreds of DM styles. Gary's style was head and shoulders better than the best of those. He was able to make the adventuring...

First, let me say, that every word of this is fact and I am not exaggerating one word of it. I have three wonderful sons that are grown and with families of their own. At the time of this deeply disturbing experience Theon, my youngest was 8 years old. We/TSR had offices in Lake Geneva...