Claim: Dungeons & Dragons was designed by two guys.

TSR , Inc. was an American game publishing company and the publisher of Dungeons & Dragons -LRB- D&D -RRB- .   When Gary Gygax could not find a publisher for D&D , a new type of game he and Dave Arneson were co-developing , Gygax and Don Kaye founded Tactical Studies Rules in October , 1973 , to self-publish their products . However , needing immediate financing to bring their new game to market before several similar competing products were released , Gygax and Kaye brought in Brian Blume in December as an equal partner . When Kaye unexpectedly died in 1975 , the Tactical Studies Rules partnership restructured into TSR Hobbies , Inc. and accepted investment from Blume 's father Melvin . With the now popular D&D as its main product , TSR Hobbies became a major force in the games industry by the late 1970s . Melvin Blume eventually transferred his shares to his other son Kevin , making the two Blume brothers the largest shareholders in TSR Hobbies .   TSR Hobbies ran into financial difficulties in the spring of 1983 , prompting the company to split into four independent businesses , with game publishing and development continuing as TSR , Inc. -LRB- TSR -RRB- After losing their executive positions due to the company 's underperformance , the Blume brothers subsequently sold their shares to TSR Vice President Lorraine Williams , who in turn engineered Gygax 's ouster from the company in October 1985 . TSR saw prosperity under Williams , but by 1995 , had fallen behind their competitors in overall sales . TSR was left unable to cover its publishing costs due to a variety of factors , so facing insolvency , TSR was purchased in 1997 by Wizards of the Coast -LRB- WotC -RRB- . WotC initially retained use of the TSR name for their D&D products , but by 2000 , the TSR moniker was dropped , coinciding with the release of the 3rd edition of D&D .