After Jeff Leason graduated from high school in 1978, his fellow school orchestra member Ernie Gygax approached him with an opportunity.

"He said, 'If you need a job, come work at my dad's company,' " Leason recalled. "I had no idea what the heck it was."

Gary Gygax, Ernie's father, founded the company Tactical Studies Rules in southeast Wisconsin's Lake Geneva to produce Dungeons & Dragons, a role-playing game he created with his friend Dave Arneson, then a University of Minnesota student. Leason had been playing the game since 1975.

Now, more than 40 years later, Leason is returning to TSR to work as the curator of the Dungeon Hobby Shop Museum. Its grand opening was held last month at 723 Williams St. in Lake Geneva, the former site of TSR headquarters.

That location was the first office Gygax and the company's vice president bought after creating Dungeons & Dragons and establishing the company. It's also the location of the former Dungeon Hobby Shop, which sold TSR products, polyhedral dice, some historic games, paints and metal figures.

Leason said the museum features items from TSR's early days, and he's curating a full collection of all the products sold in the Dungeon Hobby Shop between the mid-1970s and early 1980s.

"We're missing just a couple of pieces right now," he said, noting that the coronavirus pandemic caused prices on old products and game adventures to skyrocket.

Dungeons & Dragons is played by a party led by a dungeon master, who serves as the game's storyteller. They walk the characters through different adventures. Oftentimes, campaigns can last years. Leason has had a campaign going since 1976.

"It's not a game of me against you," Leason said. "It's for group companionship and group thinking and solving problems. And usually, for the most part, good fighting evil."

Leason said the best part about Dungeons & Dragons is the camaraderie, noting he has friends he met at conventions 40 years ago. The group is "tightly knit," he said.

That sort of closeness harks back to Leason's early years at TSR, which he called "wonderful." The smaller company fostered creation of deep friendships.

"There were games going on all the time."