page_title: Gary Gygax
section_title: Awards and honors
hierarchical_section_title: Gary Gygax / Awards and honors
caption_attribution_description: A plaque dedicated to Gary Gygax at Gen Con Indy 2008 head in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA.
context_page_description: Ernest Gary Gygax was an American game designer and author best known for co-creating the pioneering role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons with Dave Arneson.
  In the 1960s, Gygax created an organization of wargaming clubs and founded the Gen Con gaming convention. In 1971, he helped develop Chainmail, a miniatures wargame based on medieval warfare. He co-founded the company Tactical Studies Rules with childhood friend Don Kaye in 1973. The following year, he and Arneson created D&D, which expanded on Gygax's Chainmail and included elements of the fantasy stories he loved as a child. In the same year, he founded The Dragon, a magazine based around the new game. In 1977, Gygax began work on a more comprehensive version of the game, called Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Gygax designed numerous manuals for the game system, as well as several pre-packaged adventures called "modules" that gave a person running a D&D game a rough script and ideas on how to run a particular gaming scenario. In 1983, he worked to license the D&D product line into the successful D&D cartoon series.
context_section_description: As the "father of role-playing games", Gygax received many awards, honors, and tributes related to gaming:
  He was inducted into the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design Origins Award Hall of Fame, also known as the Charles Roberts Awards Hall of Fame, in 1980.
  Sync magazine named Gygax number one on the list of "The 50 Biggest Nerds of All Time".
  SFX magazine listed him as number 37 on the list of the "50 Greatest SF Pioneers".
  In 1999, Pyramid magazine named Gygax as one of "The Millennium's Most Influential Persons" "in the realm of adventure gaming".
  Gygax was tied with J. R. R. Tolkien for number 18 on GameSpy's "30 Most Influential People in Gaming".
  Numerous names in D&D, such as Zagyg, Ring of Gaxx, and Gryrax, are anagrams or alterations of Gygax's name.
  A strain of bacteria was named in honor of Gygax, "Arthronema gygaxiana sp nov UTCC393".
  Stephen Colbert, an avid D&D gamer in his youth, dedicated the last part of the March 5, 2008, episode of The Colbert Report to Gygax.
  Gygax's voice appears as his 8-bit self on Code Monkeys.
  Gail Gygax, the widow of Gary Gygax, has been raising funds to construct a memorial in her late husband's honor by establishing the nonprofit Gygax Memorial Fund. As of January 2010, plans were to secure a location on the lakefront in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. As of March 28, 2011 the City Council of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, approved Gail Gygax's application for a site of memorial in Donian Park. The statue monument will include "a castle turret with a bust on top and possibly have a dragon wrapped around the turret".
  In 2014, with the approval of Gary's eldest son, Ernie, Epic Quest Publishing started a Kickstarter campaign to raise the initial funding for a museum dedicated to Gary featuring a gaming and event center and hall of fame for authors, artists, designers and game masters.
  Inducted into the Pop Culture Hall of Fame Class of 2019
caption: A plaque dedicated to Gary Gygax at Gen Con 2008 reading:  The first DM,
   He taught us to roll the dice.
   He opened the door to new worlds.
   His work shaped our industry.
   He brought us Gen Con,
   For this we thank him.
   
   In fond memory of Gary Gygax
   and in celebration of his spirit and accomplishments.
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