Charles S. Roberts

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Charles S. Roberts is a wargame designer. He is renowned as "The Father of Board Wargaming", having created the first modern wargame (a boardgame) in 1952, and the first wargaming company in 1954.

Roberts created the first board wargame, Tactics, in an apartment in Catonsville, Maryland in 1952. In 1954, out of a garage in Avalon, Maryland, he began selling it via mail-order as The Avalon Game Company, which later become Avalon Hill. His Tactics II (1958) improved on the basic game design of his earlier effort, and formed the genesis for the concept of the combat results table. In 1958 he published Gettysburg, considered to be the first board wargame based upon an actual historical battle, with subsequent versions in 1961 and 1964.

Hard hit by a recession, Roberts turned over Avalon Hill to one of his creditors, Eric Dott of Monarch Services, in December 1963. Subsequently, he found his way into the publishing market, eventually founding a small press, Barnard, Roberts, and Co.

Starting in 1974, Roberts' name was given to the Charles S. Roberts Awards, given for excellence in the historical wargaming hobby.

In 1999 Pyramid magazine named Charles S. Roberts as one of The Millennium's Most Influential Persons "at least in the realm of adventure gaming."^[1]