The founding members consisted of Frank Chadwick, Rich Banner, Marc Miller, and Loren Wiseman.

GDW acquired the Conflict Games Company from John Hill in the early 1970s.

GDW published a new product approximately every twenty-two days for over twenty years.

In an effort to bridge the gap between role players, board wargamers and miniature wargamers, the company published RPGs with fantastic settings alongside games with realistic themes including rulesets for 15mm and 20mm miniatures set during the American Civil War, World War I, World War II, and the modern era; and boardgames involving these eras such as the Air Superiority series and Harpoon.

Challenge was a role-playing game magazine that replaced Journal of the Travellers Aid Society.