Brian Blume

Dungeons & Dragons and TSR Blume met Gary Gygax at the Gen Con game convention in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Gygax and his friend Don Kaye had recently formed Tactical Studies Rules in Lake Geneva in order to publish a new type of game that Gygax and Dave Arneson had developed, Dungeons & Dragons. Gygax and Kaye had each invested $1,000 into the venture but still did not have enough money to print the game. In December 1973, Blume offered to become an equal partner in the company for an investment of $2,000. Using Blume's money, the three partners printed a thousand copies of the new game and sold their first copy in January 1974. Blume and Gygax also co-authored the Warriors of Mars miniatures wargame adaptation. Before the end of 1974, the first printing of D&D had sold out, and demand for the game was skyrocketing.

Just as the young company was gearing up to meet demand, unexpected disaster struck. Don Kaye, although only 36, suddenly died of a heart attack. Kaye had not made any specific provision in his will regarding his one-third share of the company, so his share of TSR passed to his wife Donna. In July 1975, Gygax and Blume reorganized their company from a partnership to a corporation called TSR Hobbies, with Gygax as president. Gygax owned 150 shares, Blume owned the other 100 shares, and both had the option to buy up to 700 shares at any time in the future. But TSR Hobbies had nothing to publish — D&D was still owned by the three-way partnership of Tactical Studies Rules, and neither Gygax nor Blume had the money to buy out the share owned by Donna Kaye. Blume persuaded a reluctant Gygax to allow his father, Melvin Blume, to buy Donna's share, and that was converted to 200 shares in TSR Hobbies. In addition, Brian bought another 140 shares. The Blumes and Gygax formed the company's three-person board.

Shortly afterward, Blume received a blind mailing of the first issue of the monthly newsletter Owl and Weasel from Games Workshop, which had been recently formed by Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson. In return, Blume sent them a copy of Dungeons & Dragons. Livingstone and Jackson considered this game more imaginative than any contemporary UK games, so they worked out an exclusive three-year arrangement with Blume to sell D&D in the European market. and co-authored the Dungeons & Dragons supplement Eldritch Wizardry with Gygax in 1976, naming the character Vecna as an anagram of Jack Vance. Blume and Gygax also co-authored the Boot Hill role-playing game as a tribute to Don Kaye, who had been a fan of Westerns. In addition, he co-edited (with Tom Wham, Timothy Jones, and Mike Carr) the first edition of Gamma World. Blume also authored the Panzer Warfare miniatures wargame in 1975.

Power struggle within TSR Brian met Victoria Miller and married her in 1980. and the Blumes sent him to Hollywood to develop opportunities for TV and movie projects. so the Blumes added three outside directors from the American Management Association – a lawyer employed with a large firm in Milwaukee, a personnel officer who worked at a company in the Milwaukee area, and the owner of a company that manufactured medical equipment – to enlarge the Board of Directors to six people. None of the new directors were familiar the gaming industry, and they always voted with Brian and Kevin Blume.

With Gygax gone, the Blumes were free to move TSR Inc. into new directions. After TSR acquired SPI in March 1982, the Blumes declared that they had only "bought assets but not liabilities". Actually, SPI owed money to their printers, who would not release the plates used for printing the SPI games until TSR repaid the bills that SPI left. and Williams replaced Gygax as president and CEO.

Having sold all his company shares, Brian Blume stepped down from the board of directors and left TSR.

Later life Blume died on March 27, 2020, at the Lakeland Nursing Home in Elkhorn, Wisconsin from Lewy Body Dementia and Parkinson's disease.