Remembering Don Kaye

It's been fun teasing everyone with photos of an old D&D set on our FaceBook page.  We'll make sure to reveal the original owner's name soon.

These little boxes take us back to the very beginnings of TSR when two men got together to form something called G&K enterprises.

When Dungeons & Dragons was eventually published, Gary Gygax and Don Kaye were the proprietors of their tiny game company that hardly anyone had ever heard of.  Of course, as we now know, things quickly began to change and the crazy idea would become a global sensation.  Tragically, Don never got to see the full result of his contribution to D&D. 

Few people know who Don Kaye was. Yet he was the main source of funding for this crazy new game.  In fact, all the early copies of D&D were being assembled and shipped out of Don's garage.  Not long after the release of D&D Don Kaye died of a heart attack.

Rob Kuntz told us how he heard of Don's passing over the phone from Ernie Gygax.  That he just could not believe it at first.

Don had been there from the very beginning as a partner with Gary in this crazy new endeavor.  Yet the loss of Don Kaye likely reached much farther into Gygax's life, as he and Don were best friends since childhood and attended high school together.

The legacy of D&D is a shared experience by many people and all of them did their part in helping to make it happen.  Don's legacy is that these little unassuming boxes began to appear in gaming rooms everywhere.

Very few photos exist of Don Kaye, we have none in our archive, yet his impact on gamer's lives everywhere is immeasurable.

Thank you Don.

(Photo by Ryan Swan - Copyright the Fellowship of the Thing, LTD.)