MADISON, Wis. (AP) – After Jeff Leason graduated from high school in 1978, his fellow school orchestra member Ernie Gygax approached him with an opportunity. “He said, ‘If you need a job, come work at my dad’s company,'” Leason recalled. “I had no idea what the heck it was.”
Gary Gygax, Ernie’s father, founded the company Tactical Studies Rules in Lake Geneva to produce Dungeons & Dragons, a role-playing game he created with his friend, Dave Arneson, a University of Minnesota student at the time. Leason had been playing the game since 1975, but that was before TSR existed as a game company.