Don Kaye
| Don Kaye | |
|---|---|
| Born | June 27, 1938 |
| Died | January 31, 1975 (aged 36) |
| Occupation | game publisher |
| Nationality | United States |
| Genre | role-playing games |
Donald R. Kaye (June 27, 1938 – January 31, 1975) was the co-founder of Tactical Studies Rules (TSR), the game publishing company most famous for their Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) role-playing game. He and TSR co-founder Gary Gygax had been friends since childhood, sharing an interest in miniature war games. In 1972, Kaye created Murlynd, one of the first D&D characters, and play-tested him in Gygax's Castle Greyhawk campaign. Kaye and Gygax were convinced that D&D and similar games were an excellent business opportunity, and together they founded Tactical Studies Rules in 1973. However, only two years later, just as sales of D&D started to rise, Kaye unexpectedly died of a heart attack at age 36.
Don Kaye was born on June 27, 1938. He grew up in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, where at age 6, he became friends with Gygax, who had visited and later moved there from Chicago, Illinois in 1946. They began playing miniature war games in 1953. Gygax and Kaye designed their own miniatures rules for toy soldiers, with a large collection of 54 mm and 70 mm figures, and used "ladyfinger firecrackers" to simulate explosions. In 1965, Kaye, Gygax, Mike Reese, and Leon Tucker created a military miniatures society, Lake Geneva Tactical Studies Association (LGTSA), with its first headquarters in Gygax's basement, and later held meetings in Kaye's garage.
In the fall of 1972, Dave Arneson, a wargamer from nearby Minneapolis-St. Paul, demonstrated a new type of role-playing game to the LGTSA. Gygax then created a similar game set in the imaginary Castle Greyhawk, and invited his children, Ernie and Elise, "to create characters and adventure". The next evening, Kaye joined the game along with Gygax's friends Rob Kuntz and Terry Kuntz. Kaye created the character Murlynd, Rob Kuntz created Robilar and Terry Kuntz created Terik. Kaye observed with interest as a very enthusiastic group played the prototype Dungeons & Dragons game at Gen Con VI (1973), and suggested to Gygax that they form a company to publish the game themselves.
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