All About Us
How Tom Wham Games Got Started
Tom Wham has been designing games since his childhood – some have been published by various companies, many have not. Sometime in 2017 Tom and long-time friend, Dave Conant, came up with the bright idea to attempt to self-publish some of those many games sitting on Tom’s shelves. Although not a professional Graphic Designer, Dave did have the ability to do all the production work in order to print and start selling games. Thus they started a partnership – an informal one at first, then more officially with the formation of Tom Wham Games, LLC.
Though the partnership was a good idea, it was still a struggle. On-demand printing made it possible to print just a few copies, but the price per game was high. The idea of a kick-starter seemed appealing, but neither Tom or Dave knew anything about how to run a successful campaign. Finally, they both felt it was time to do something – the compromise was to utilize the crowd-funding feature of the on-demand printer in order to offer folks a chance to buy a game at a lower price than if printed in lower quantities, and also to allow Tom and Dave to get additional inventory to sell in person and on this site.
Tom Wham
Tom Wham has been a game designer since age 7 when he got his first Monopoly set and immediately began modifying the rules. At first, sister Nina, and later, his friends and the rest of his family were the only victims of this activity, which for a very long time, went un-rewarded. While at Southern Illinois University (SIU) in the early 60’s his career was daunted by rejection letters from game companies. Later, married and back from the Navy, he did the next best thing. In 1972 he got a job in the shipping/layout/anything else department at Guidon Games (Campaign Magazine) with Don Lowry. There he co-authored a set of Civil War Naval Miniature rules (Ironclad). Sadly, this did not last very long.
A bad case of divorce struck in 1974, and by 1976 he was out in Denver, Colorado. Then, thru strange circumstance, May 1977 he found himself in Lake Geneva at the door of TSR as employee number thirteen. After running the Dungeon Hobby Shop for a summer, he was bumped upstairs (literally) to the art department where he worked with Dave Sutherland and Dave Trampier on the original Monster Manual and was later assigned various editing and development tasks. It wasn’t long before he made a deal with Tim Kask, editor of The Dragon Magazine, to do a game called Snit Smashing and include it inside the magazine. This was soon followed by the obvious sequel: Snit’s Revenge, and led to several more games printed in The Dragon Magazine, including The Awful Green Things From Outer Space.
After leaving TSR, Wham wandered about aimlessly till he landed a job for many years as the computer guy at the Lake Geneva Public Library. On the writing front he collaborated on several books with Rose Estes, and did his own novelette in Christopher Stasheff’s The Exotic Enchanter. He has subsequently published more games, including Kings & Things (with Rob Kuntz) with West End Games and Games Workshop. The game later was published in German by Pegasus Spiele. Through TSR he did Mertwig’s Maze and The Great Khan Game (with Richard Hamblen). He also did a lot of basic design work on a total failure… the Sim City Card Game, and the much more accepted Iron Dragon, both from Mayfair Games.
More recent efforts include Planet Busters Troll Lord Games, and Dragon Lairds (with James M. Ward) from Margaret Weis Productions and a self-published expansion to Dragon Lairds.
For many years, instead of submitting finished games to game companies, Tom attempted to self-publish some games (Moose Quest, Whamgammon, and Battling Space Ships to name a few). The challenging part is they were all hand-made prototypes and they took a LOT of time and effort to create. Eventually Tom did publish a few more games with Z-Man Games (a reprint of Kings & Things and Feudality) before joining Dave and forming Tom Wham Games.
Dave Conant
Dave had the good fortune of growing up in Lake Geneva at just the right time to be one of those geeky high school kids hanging out at the Dungeon Hobby Shop when D&D was first created. Since he didn’t go to college, getting a job at TSR in 1979 was a no-brainer (working from 79-83) where he quickly settled in on managing GEN CON (the Kenosha years), GEN CON South/East, and all the mini-conventions with his good friend Skip Williams. After falling victim in one of the waves of TSR layoffs, he still ran the GEN CON Auction all through the 80s and eventually returned to TSR a second time in the early 90s to manage their Pre-Press Department until the company moved to Seattle. Choosing not to follow, he finished his career working outside the gaming industry and retired in 2017. Dave is busier than ever in his “retirement.” He has the honor of helping to run another great convention, Gary Con and has formed a business partnership with life-long friend, Tom Wham (Tom Wham Games). The two are publishing as many of the games Tom has on his shelves (of which there are many) for others to enjoy.
Dave seldom plays D&D anymore, but was blessed to be a regular player in the campaigns of two great DMs in the 70s and 80s—Skip Williams and Frank Mentzer. Playing that game with those masterful DMs as well as the other players in those early years will always recall wonderful memories for Dave. These days, he is fortunate to play online board games with a couple lifelong friends every week as well as attend an occasional convention. Whenever the opportunity arises to sit at the table, however, any Tom Wham game is high on his list to play.
Dave has a wonderful wife (Sue) of over 40 years who he loves dearly and who indulges him with the many hours spent working on both Gary Con and Tom Wham Games.