Chainmail (game)

Chainmail is a medieval miniature wargame created by Gary Gygax and Jeff Perren, first released by Guidon Games in 1971 and later published by TSR from 1975 to 1985. Gygax built out the core medieval combat system from rules Perren had already written, and the two designers were friends through the Lake Geneva Tactical Studies Association wargaming group. The rules covered infantry, cavalry and siege combat for two to ten players in games that could run as long as six hours, emphasizing strategy and tactics over chance. A later fantasy supplement added heroes, wizards and creatures such as elves, orcs and dragons, drawing explicitly on the fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien, Robert E. Howard, Poul Anderson and Michael Moorcock. That supplement is widely credited as a direct forerunner of tabletop role-playing games, since Gygax used it as a starting point when he went on to co-create Dungeons & Dragons.