Frank Mentzer

Frank Mentzer
Frank Mentzer at the 2014 Lucca Comics & Games
Born	Jacob Franklin Mentzer III 1950 (age 66–67) Springfield, Pennsylvania
Pen name	Frank Mentzer
Occupation	Author, editor, game designer
Nationality	American
Citizenship	United States
Subject	Fantasy roleplaying games
Notable works	Dungeons & Dragons: Basic, Expert, Companion, Master & Immortal Boxed Sets
Spouse	Debbie

Jacob Franklin "Frank" Mentzer III (born in 1950), is an American fantasy author and game designer best known for his work on early materials for the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fantasy role-playing game. He was a performing folk musician from 1968 to 1975, and played one concert at the White House during the administration of Richard Nixon. He was an employee of TSR, Inc. from 1980–1986, spending part of that time as Creative Advisor to the Chairman of the Board, Gary Gygax. He also founded the Role-Playing Games Association (RPGA) during his time with TSR. He has been closely involved with the world's largest game auction at the Gen Con game convention since 1983, and is an expert on, and a major collector of, family boardgames and role-playing games. After Gygax was ousted from TSR at the end of 1985, Mentzer left TSR as well and helped him to start New Infinities Productions Inc. (NIPI). When this venture failed, Mentzer left the gaming industry, eventually becoming the manager of a bakery. In 2008, he closed down this business and, two years later, announced he was returning to the gaming industry as a founding partner of a new publishing company, Eldritch Enterprises.

Frank Mentzer was born in the Philadelphia suburb of Springfield, Pennsylvania, the older of two children; his sibling is Susanne Mentzer. While attending Springfield High School, he started to play folk music. He played his first paid folk music concert at the opening of the Visitors' Center for the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall in downtown Philadelphia at age sixteen. Immediately after Mentzer graduated from high school in 1968, his father, who worked for the National Park Service (NPS), moved the family to Maryland in order to work at . Mentzer enrolled at West Virginia Wesleyan College, but he was also interested in furthering his folk music career. With his father's advice on who in the NPS to contact, Mentzer was able to arrange to play concerts at various NPS sites. In 1972, he was hired by NPS to play a public concert in the White House gardens for inner-city children. At one point during the concert Pat Nixon, followed by national news crews, came to listen, and a clip of Mentzer singing "If I Had a Hammer" subsequently appeared on national newscasts that evening. Following college graduation, Mentzer enrolled at Northeastern University for further studies in mathematics and physics. However, he subsequently moved back to the Philadelphia area, and for a short time during the 1970s, he worked as the manager of a pinball arcade.