List of game designers

A game designer is a person who invents games at the conceptual level. Most game designers are "unsung"; for example, no one knows who invented Chess or Hearts.
However, many public figures in game design, include commercial game developers and game-inventing mathematicians.
Some game designers include:

Role-playing game designers

Dave Arneson - Co-designer of Dungeons & Dragons, an early influential role-playing game
Frank Chadwick - Co-founder of Game Designers' Workshop and designer of over 50 war and role-playing games, including Twilight 2000 and the Assault series
Troy Christensen - Designer of Phantasm Adventures, a 1980s role-playing game published in Japanese and English
John Horton Conway
Monte Cook
Jim Dunnigan - Founder of SPI Games and designer of over 100 wargames, including the PanzerBlitz/Panzer Leader system
James Ernest - president and lead game designer for Cheapass Games
Richard Garfield - collectible card game and board game designer
Andrew Greenberg
Ed Greenwood
Gary Gygax - Co-designer of Dungeons & Dragons, an early influential role-playing game
Larry Harris
Stieg Hedlund - Started in pen-and-paper games before moving on to electronic games
Steve Jackson (UK)
Jeff Kinney
Albert Lamorisse
Andrew Looney
Marc Miller Co-founder of GDW and designer / writer of Traveller and several board games
Mark Rein-Hagen
Mike Selinker
C.A. Suleiman
Jonathan Tweet
Michael J. Varhola
Mark H. Walker
Jordan Weisman
Tom Wham
Skip Williams

Word game designers

Erik Agard
Will Shortz, puzzle designer for the New York Times crossword

Board game designers