Ernie Gygax Jr., Who Helped Shape Early D&D, Has Died

Ernie Gygax Jr.—son of Gary Gygax, and an early playtester of what would become Dungeons & Dragons—has passed away after battling health problems. The news was confirmed by Gygax Jr.’s brother, Luke, on Facebook. Gygax Jr. was perhaps best known for his own contributions to early Dungeons & Dragons as part of his role as a playtester for his father’s early iterations of what would become the biggest tabletop roleplaying game on the planet. Among several early mechanical contributions to D&D‘s systems, Gygax Jr. brought the character of Tenser to D&D‘s lore: his first player character, a Wizard (and an anagram of “Ernest”), Tenser would go on to a prominent part of the world of Greyhawk, a powerful archmage and frequent ally of Bigby and Mordenkainen. Several spells still in use in the latest iteration of D&D, like “Tenser’s Floating Disk” and “Tenser’s Transformation” were named after the character. Gygax was the first manager of the Dungeon Hobby Shop in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, and ... Read full article.