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The International Federation of Wargaming (IFW) was a wargaming club operated from 1967 to early 1970s.
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The International Federation of Wargaming (IFW) was a wargaming club operated from 1967 to early 1970s.
Founded by Bill Speer, Gary Gygax, and Scott Duncan in 1967, [1] it emerged as a successor to an earlier club called the United States Continental Army Command, founded by Speer. [2] It was founded as a society of gamers with a strong interest specifically in board wargaming and also in the promotion of the publication of wargames. [3] : 6 The IFW distinguished itself as a more mature club than its rivals in the early American wargaming hobby.
Its membership included gamers in local wargaming clubs such as the Lake Geneva Tactical Studies Association and the Midwest Military Simulation Association. IFW members participated in various "societies" within the IFW for special interests, such as the Castle & Crusade Society, which promoted medieval wargaming, and the Armored Operations Society, which emphasized World War II wargaming.
The IFW ceased functioning around 1973.
The IFW held its first annual convention in Malvern, Pennsylvania in July 1967, though it was only a year later when Gary Gygax hosted the annual convention on behalf of the IFW in his home town of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, that the Lake Geneva Wargames Convention (Gen Con) was born. [4]
By publishing a magazine (called The Spartan in 1968 and later called International Wargamer) and sponsoring the early Gen Cons, the IFW helped wargamers share ideas and meet wargamers from different parts of the country.
Ernest Gary Gygax was an American game designer and author best known for co-creating the pioneering role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) with Dave Arneson.
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 development of the genre, developing the concept of the RPG using devices now considered to be archetypical, such as adventuring in "dungeons" and using a neutral judge who doubles as the voice and consciousness of all characters aside from the player characters to develop the storyline.
Miniature wargaming is a form of wargaming in which military units are represented by miniature physical models on a model battlefield. The use of physical models to represent military units is in contrast to other tabletop wargames that use abstract pieces such as counters or blocks, or computer wargames which use virtual models. The primary benefit of using models is aesthetics, though in certain wargames the size and shape of the models can have practical consequences on how the match plays out. Miniature wargaming is generally a recreational form of wargaming because issues concerning scale can compromise realism, making it unsuitable for most serious military applications.
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 Perren, a hobby-shop owner with whom he had become friendly. Guidon Games released the first edition of Chainmail in 1971 as its first miniature wargame and one of its three debut products.
John Edwin Scruby was a manufacturer of military miniatures whose efforts led to a rebirth of the miniature wargaming hobby in the late 1950s.
Guidon Games produced board games and rulebooks for wargaming with miniatures, and in doing so influenced Tactical Studies Rules, the publisher of Dungeons & Dragons. The Guidon Games publishing imprint was the property of Lowrys Hobbies, a mail-order business owned by Don and Julie Lowry. About a dozen titles were released under the imprint from 1971 to 1973.
Don't Give Up the Ship is a set of rules for conducting Napoleonic era naval wargames. The game was published by Guidon Games in 1972 and republished by TSR, Inc. in 1975. The game was developed as a collaboration between Dave Arneson, Gary Gygax, and Mike Carr. It was the first collaboration between Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax, the co-authors of Dungeons & Dragons. Mike Carr edited the rules and researched the historical single ship actions that are included as game scenarios.
Mike Carr is a writer and game designer.
Siege of Bodenburg is a wargame developed in 1967 by Henry Bodenstedt. It is one of the earliest sets of rules for conducting battles with medieval miniatures.
The Castle & Crusade Society was a chapter of the International Federation of Wargaming dedicated to medieval miniature wargaming.
Don Lowry is a wargamer, businessman, illustrator, and game designer who is best known as the publisher of Chainmail and the editor of Panzerfaust Magazine.
Robert J. Kuntz is a game designer and author of role-playing game publications. He is best known for his contributions to various Dungeons & Dragons-related materials.
Lenard Lakofka was an American writer of material for the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons. Although never a formal employee of TSR, the company that published Dungeons & Dragons, Lakofka was an influential voice in the development of the game. He was one of the playtesters of the game as it was being developed, an editor of early manuscripts, wrote a widely-read monthly D&D magazine column and two official D&D adventures, and had his home campaign setting of the Lendore Isles incorporated into Gary Gygax's World of Greyhawk Fantasy Game Setting.
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.
Owl and Weasel was a newsletter for board gamers, role-playing gamers and wargamers, published in London, England, by Games Workshop. A total of 25 issues were published from February 1975 until April 1977; it was edited by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone. It was superseded by White Dwarf.
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.
David R. Megarry is a game designer most notable for the board game Dungeon!.
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.
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