Guidon Games (1970–1973) was a game manufacturer that produced board games and rules for wargaming with military miniatures. The company is notable for its association with Gary Gygax, and its decision not to publish Gygax's co-creation and subsequent bestselling game Dungeons & Dragons.
History
By the late 1960s the miniature wargaming hobby had grown large enough that there was a demand for rulebooks dedicated to a single historical period. Don Featherstone of the UK produced booklets for eight different periods in 1966.[1] A few years later the Wargames Research Group began producing rulesets with an emphasis on historical accuracy.[2]
In 1970, Don Lowry and his wife Julie opened Lowry Hobbies in Belleville, Illinois, a suburb of St. Louis. It started as a mail-order business selling military miniatures to wargamers and wargame modelers. However, after some success selling Fast Rules, a set of WWII tank combat rules designed by Leon Tucker, Mike Reese and Gary Gygax of the LGTSA, Lowry founded Guidon Games and conceived the Wargaming with Miniatures series for which he recruited rulebook authors from the ranks of the International Federation of Wargamers