Horticultural Hall | |
Location | 330 Broad St., Lake Geneva, Wisconsin |
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Coordinates | 42°35′39″N88°26′7″W / 42.59417°N 88.43528°W |
Area | less than one acre |
Architect | Spencer and Powers; Reinert, Malsch and Baumbach |
Architectural style | Bungalow/Craftsman |
NRHP reference No. | 99001220 [1] |
Added to NRHP | September 29, 1999 |
Horticultural Hall is a conference center in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, it was built in 1911 as a location for the professional gardeners working on nearby estates to meet and discuss their work.
In 1968, the Horticultural Hall served as the site of the first formal Gen Con, organized by Gary Gygax. [2] Gen Con was hosted there until it was moved to the University of Wisconsin–Parkside campus in Kenosha in 1978. [3]
The hall was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999. [1]
Ernest Gary Gygax was an American game designer and author best known for co-creating the pioneering tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) with Dave Arneson.
TSR, Inc. was an American game publishing company, best known as the original publisher of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D). Its earliest incarnation, Tactical Studies Rules, was founded in October 1973 by Gary Gygax and Don Kaye. Gygax had been unable to find a publisher for D&D, a new type of game he and Dave Arneson were co-developing, so founded the new company with Kaye to self-publish their products. Needing financing to bring their new game to market, Gygax and Kaye brought in Brian Blume in December as an equal partner. Dungeons & Dragons is generally considered the first tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG), and established the genre. When Kaye died suddenly in 1975, the Tactical Studies Rules partnership restructured into TSR Hobbies, Inc. and accepted investment from Blume's father Melvin. With the popular D&D as its main product, TSR Hobbies became a major force in the games industry by the late 1970s. Melvin Blume eventually transferred his shares to his other son Kevin, making the two Blume brothers the largest shareholders in TSR Hobbies.
David Lance Arneson was an American game designer best known for co-developing the first published role-playing game (RPG), Dungeons & Dragons, with Gary Gygax, in the early 1970s. Arneson's early work was fundamental to the role-playing game (RPG) genre, pioneering devices now considered to be archetypical, such as cooperative play to develop a storyline instead of individual competitive play to "win" and adventuring in dungeon, town, and wilderness settings as presented by a neutral judge who doubles as the voice and consciousness of all characters aside from the player characters.
Gen Con is the largest tabletop game convention in North America by both attendance and number of events. It features traditional pen-and-paper, board, and card games, including role-playing games, miniatures wargames, live action role-playing games, collectible card games, and strategy games. Gen Con also features computer games. Attendees engage in a variety of tournament and interactive game sessions. In 2019, Gen Con had nearly 70,000 unique attendees.
Chainmail is a medieval miniature wargame created by Gary Gygax and Jeff Perren. Gygax developed the core medieval system of the game by expanding on rules authored by his fellow Lake Geneva Tactical Studies Association (LGTSA) member Jeff Perren, a hobby-shop owner with whom he had become friendly. Guidon Games released the first edition of Chainmail in 1971.
Ralph Williams, almost always referred to as Skip Williams, is an American game designer. He is married to Penny Williams, who is also involved with the games industry. He was the co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition and the longtime author of the "Sage Advice" column for Dragon Magazine.
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Donald R. Kaye was the co-founder of Tactical Studies Rules (TSR), the game publishing company best known 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.
This is a list of the National Register of Historic Places listings in Walworth County, Wisconsin. It is intended to provide a comprehensive listing of entries in the National Register of Historic Places that are located in Walworth County, Wisconsin. The locations of National Register properties for which the latitude and longitude coordinates are included below may be seen in a map.
Timothy James Kask 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.
Brian John Blume was an American game designer and writer, principally known as a former business partner of Gary Gygax at TSR, Inc., original publishers of the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons.
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Gary Con is a gaming convention held in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin every year to celebrate the life and works of Gary Gygax. Gary Gygax is the co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons and commonly considered the father of role playing games. Gygax was raised in Lake Geneva and its where the company he founded, TSR, Inc. created and produced the Dungeons & Dragons game for 25 years.
Chester County History Center (CCHC), formerly the Chester County Historical Society, is a nonprofit historical society, founded in 1893, dedicated to collecting, preserving, and exhibiting the history of Chester County, Pennsylvania, and the surrounding area. The History Center is located at 225 North High Street in downtown West Chester.
King Hall was built in 1893 and 1896 on the campus of the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In 1985 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places and on the State Register of Historic Places in 1989.