<Tr> <Th> Spouse </Th> <Td> Mary Jo Powell (m . 1958) Gail Carpenter (August 15, 1987--his death) </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td_colspan="2"> Literature portal </Td> </Tr> <P> Ernest Gary Gygax (/ ˈɡaɪɡæks / GY - gaks) (July 27, 1938--March 4, 2008) was an American game designer and author best known for co-creating the pioneering role - playing game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) with Dave Arneson . </P> <P> 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 (TSR, Inc .) 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 (the "Dungeon Master") 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 . </P>

Who is the creator of dungeons and dragons