Tim Kask
| Timothy J. Kask | |
|---|---|
| Born | Timothy James Kask January 14, 1949 Moline, Illinois, United States |
| Occupation | Game designer, editor |
| Nationality | United States |
| Genre | Role-playing games, fantasy, wargames |
Timothy James Kask (born January 14, 1949) is an American editor and writer in the role-playing game industry. Kask became interested in board games in his childhood, and later turned to miniatures wargames. While attending university after a stint in the US Navy, he was part of a group that playtested an early version of the new role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) for game co-designer Gary Gygax. Gygax hired him as the first employee of TSR, Inc. in 1975. After editing some of TSR’s early D&D publications, Kask became editor of The Strategic Review, which later became The Dragon, and then Dragon Magazine.
Kask left TSR in 1980 to start Manzakk Publishing. He left the games industry in 1983, and spent some time as a freelance editor and speechwriter before becoming a teacher. In 2010 he returned to the games industry as one of the co-founders of Eldritch Enterprises.
Tim Kask was born and raised in Moline, Illinois. At age 11, he became interested in Avalon Hill's board wargame D-Day, and played it frequently for three years. During a four-year stint with the US Navy (1967–1971) during the Vietnam war, he often played 1914, another Avalon Hill game. He married his wife Cheryl in 1970, and they have a daughter, and a son.
After leaving the Navy, Kask attended Southern Illinois University’s campus in Carbondale, Illinois. While there, he was introduced to miniature wargaming, including Chainmail. Kask phoned Chainmail author Gary Gygax with some questions about the game, and subsequently met Gygax at the 1974 Gen Con gaming convention in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. At the time, Gygax was co-developing the rules for a new type of role-playing game, and Kask and his friends became one of the first groups of playtesters of what would become Dungeons & Dragons.
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