LGGC Honored Attendees

Frank Mentzer | Tom Wham | Jim Ward | Stephen Chenault
Tim Kask | Ernie Gygax | Chris Clark

Frank Mentzer

Frank worked for TSR from 1980 to 1986. He got his start by pointing out an error in B2 Keep on the Borderlands. As retaliation, Gary Gygax forced him to start the RPGA and write many tournaments for it, and then to write the five boxed sets of the D&D game (Basic, Expert, Companion, Masters, Immortals). Since Frank was still standing after all that, Gary also sentenced him to finish Temple of Elemental Evil, which everyone bought but nobody actually played.

Frank left the game industry and went into real business. He is a Partner in (and General Manager of) The Baker's House, 'way up in northern Wisconsin, and meddles with a few other companies.

Unfortunately Frank continues to run his AD&D campaign that began in 1976, and has an awful lot of old-style material that may eventually be published and inflicted on the unsuspecting game world. He also shovels a lot of drivel at Dragonsfoot on a regular basis.

Tom Wham

Bio information forthcoming...

Jim Ward

James M. Ward was born, has lived a pleasantly long time, and has been happily married 37 years. He has an unusually charming wife, Janean and three equally charming sons, Breck, James, and Theon. Delightful grandchildren have come into his life: Keely, Miriam, Sophia, Preston, and Teagan. Working here and there, he’s managed to write the first science fiction RPG, METAMORPHOSIS ALPHA, several best selling CCGs including SPELLFIRE and DRAGON BALL Z, and a few novels including HALCYON BLITHE MIDSHIPWIZARD and HALCYON BLITHE DRAGONFRIGATE WIZARD. He likes to fence, the ‘sword’ type, not the ‘put up’ type. He spends a great deal of time looking for work. He reads science fiction and fantasy novels and occasionally something else when the cover looks interesting. Recently, he finished designing a board game called DRAGON LAIRDS that he is unusually proud of and wants everyone to purchase. If possible he’d like to end up as the Captain of the starship Enterprise, but that job keeps getting taken before he can get his resume in to the home office.

Tim Kask

Coming from a family of fiercely competitive game players (boardgames, card games, chess, checkers, tiddly-winks, horseshoes, darts, etc.), where his grandpa only agreed to teach him poker if they played for his lunch and milk money (“You can’t run a bluff if it might not hurt”), it was pre-ordained that he might end up “a gamer”.

Tim has been playing wargames since the Kennedy administration. As a precocious sixth-grader, he and a childhood friend stumbled across AH’s D-Day shortly after it came out in 1961, and the rest of his life was on the road to ruin and dissipation.

While serving in the Navy, he fixated on a new game that has been described by many of the old time gamers as one of the most difficult, detailed and demanding ever published; AH’s 1914. According to the guy that developed it for AH, he probably played it to conclusion twice as often as anyone at AH. After becoming “phone friends” with Gary Gygax through Chainmail in 1973, he became the first full-time employee of a new company called Tactical Studies Rules, later known to the world as TSR, in 1975.

He edited The Strategic Review for its final three or four issues, morphing it into The Dragon and a companion magazine of historical games and miniatures called Little Wars. He went on to edit Blackmoor and the other subsequent supplements, was developer for William the Conqueror, edited Classic Warfare and generally stuck his oar into whatever he could during the five years he was with TSR.

He moved to SW Ohio to put out another gaming magazine called Adventure Gaming; sadly, AG fell victim to Reagonomics in the early mid 80’s when not enough “trickled down” his way. Upon the demise of AG, Tim dropped out of the gaming industry altogether for a period of about 23 years. During that time, wild rumors circulated about his fate: he was a homeless alcoholic living in the back seat of an abandoned car; he had become a hit-man in South America for the DEA and NSA; he had been consumed by remorse concerning his many assassinations and joined a monastery in the North Woods and observed a Vow of Silence; he was living in the woods in a cabin in Arkansas or Missouri trapping and hunting; all of which were true.

To everyone’s surprise, he made a surprise “back from the dead” appearance at GenCon 2006. It seems that Frank Mentzer “discovered” him living in SW OH and brought him to GC to be a “celebrity auctioneer”. When discovered, it was learned that he has been married since 1970 to a remarkable lady he met in 9th grade Latin class (also the Kennedy Admin.). had two children, four grandchildren, two cats in the yard, and had redirected his gaming passions into TBS computer games while still wargaming with a small circle of friends, many of whom had a connection to Ral Partha. He was stunned and confounded when, upon being introduced at GenCon at the auction by Frank, who probably embellished a little bit, he got a prolonged ovation; presumably for still being alive and not living tin the woods.

He came to LGGC in 2007, again at Frank’s urging, and remembered how much fun you could have playing miniatures and arguing all day. He brought his “one of a kind” set of chariot miniatures and ran a Circus Maximus game that year, which he is repeating this year.

Stephen Chenault

Stephen was born into a world with a bewildering array of worthless "life choices" and meaningless "life options." As a youth, it was with great insight and eagerness he took to examining those options and pathways, promptly ridiculed them and dumped them into the wastebin that would become other’s lives. Stephen chose the path of brutal verbal assaults which, on occasion, lead to brutal physical rebuttals. Brittle teeth in hand, Stephen chose an academic path to lengthen what was about to become a shorter than average life span. He wasted years of his life pursuing a higher education in history before realizing that we all are, no matter what, doomed to repeat it.

Forsaking those noble causes rife in academia (such as bra burning, speech filtration, self-aggrandizement and longer summer breaks), Stephen foundered for mere moments before, in a dollar bill induced stupor, deciding to strike it rich by creating a company that sold games. He has since gone on to create such luminaries as the Codex of Erde and Troll Lord Game’s best selling adventure module, The Lion in Ropes. He is also well known for his curt phone conversations and one word emails.

Ernie Gygax

Bio information forthcoming...

Chris Clark

Chris Clark met Gary at the first convention he ever attended in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin at age 16. He started gaming in 1975. He got two degrees from the University of Illinois in 1984, and was a Customhouse Broker for 11 years before retiring to gaming. He is probably the most prolific game designer you have never heard of, and have more than 100 published credits to my name... and he is a long way from finished yet. He has enough game projects to keep himself busy for at least three years. He's not rich, but life is good, and working in the game's industry is always better than working at Sears. His only wish is that time would slow down a bit; but then, sleep is for the weak. :-)

Hekaforge stopped being a partnership and was purchased by Inner City as of January 1st of this year. The core rules license of Lejendary Adventure is now entirely Steve's(aka Troll Lord Games), and both Gary and Chris hope that's truly good news for all participants.

John Bobeck

Bio information forthcoming...

Bill Hoyer

Bio information forthcoming...

Jeff Perrin

Bio information forthcoming...