David Kenzer was a lawyer who started the game company Kenzer & Company with his friends Brian Jelke and Steve Johansson, and their first project was The Kingdom of Kalamar (1994), a fantasy setting without a game system.
"[1]: 309 Kenzer began a casual relationship with Alderac Entertainment Group after releasing The Kingdom of Kalamar, as that young company was then publishing Shadis magazine with Jolly Blackburn as editor.
[1]: 309 Kenzer & Company began publishing the Knights of the Dinner Table comic books by Blackburn, and beginning with issue #5 (February 1997) it became the work of the "KoDT Development Team" made up of Blackburn, Kenzer, Jelke and Johansson.
[1]: 310 Kenzer acquired the license to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons from Wizards of the Coast that allowed the company to release HackMaster (2001) as a satire of AD&D.
[1]: 311 Kenzer was not willing to sign the Game System License that Wizards offered when they released 4th edition D&D in 2008, and he instead published a 501-page PDF for Kingdoms of Kalamar (2008) and did not reach out to Wizards for authorization.